After the the slightly disappointing first day, I was hoping to get better results on the second one. My initial plan to abandon the last few games and make a BBQ at the lake in case I lost the first three games in a row got crushed by winning the second game, therefore making a decent win-loss ratio possible. So I was determinded to win the remaining two games in order to get a 3-2 result.
Round 4: Thomas Koller (1k), again a player I knew from the Go Club Zürich. In fact the pairing programs try to avoid getting pair-ups with two people from the same club. However, even though I mainly play at the Go Club Zürich, I’m still a member of the Go Club Winterthur, so I always end up playing the guys from Zürich -_-
Anyway, the game was really enjoyable. For the first time in the tournament I managed to play a decent opening and secure a lead straight from the beginning. However I slacked off in the middlegame, allowing my opponent to secure a large center moyo. By separating 4 of his groups in the center and killing 2 of them, the game got relatively close again. The endgame was well played by Thomas and I didn’t get to secure too many spots. I won by 1.5 points.
Round 5: This is where things started to get really ugly. At this time I was at 2-2, so this game would determine whether my wins or losses would prevail. I was a little shocked when I found out my opponent was Brian Kleiner (3d). It’s a bad habit, but I kind of get intimidated by people that outrank me by over 2 ranks. Again I tried to make a decent opening. However I was too hasty and greedy, which led to a fight that spread all over the board, or rather a dragon of mine being chased, trying to get a second eye. If it lived, the gme was mine. If not, I was screwed. Sink or swim. Basically I was completely in the my opponents sphere of influence and tried out every cutting point and every ko in order to somehow enable the dragon to live. After having lost 2 semeais and 2 large groups, there was no way I could have as far as even thought about winning anymore. Eventually I resigned.
Despite only having won 2 games, the tournament was great fun and the location was well chosen. I didn’t attend the prize-ceremony as I had business to do, but to my great pleasure Stefan Lange (4d) had won the tournament, followed by Lorenz Trippel (1d), Josef Renner (2d) and Sébastien Koch (2d). Unfortunately I only managed to come in 12th. I’ll make sure to post the table with the final results as soon as it has been uploaded to swissgo.
Croatian Go player residing and playing in Switzerland. Currently around 1d.
Playing in Go Club Zürich and sometimes Go Club Winterthur. 
All results are available here: http://www.zuerigo.org/results/zur2009.html
About the fact you mentionned before the tournament: you were not sure to play in the tournament, since you were not sure about your strength. I think one should never be afraid of participating in a tournament. It is true that you did a 2 – 3 win-loss, which is supposed to be a negative result, however I think that is not important at all.
Like some professionnal player said once: “I am 5 dan pro player now, who cares about how much wins or losses I had when I was 5 kyu? Don’t be afraid to play, you can only learn by playing.”
I also understand the “fear” of playing against someone stronger (or better-ranked). I have played against Sebastien Koch 3 dan in a tournament and I was only 5k. I knew from the beginning I would lose, and I was totally crushed. I couldn’t play at all. I was so nervous to play him that I couldn’t think properly.
A few rounds later, I met his brother, Laurent Koch who was 1 dan. I actually won this game, which made me think that it was not impossible to get a good result against better-ranked players.
My point is, next time I will have to play Sébastien Koch, I won’t get as nervous as I was in our first encounter. I respect his strength, but he better should get prepared to respect mine, otherwise he might only follow his brother’s mistake.
There are many “strong” players in Switzerland, whom I might be afraid to play against in a tournament. But I actually learn a lot from such games. And the fear can only disappear if you meet these people several times, and slowly realize that it is possible to beat them.
So, of course, participate to all tournaments you can, if you want to get stronger. This is the only way, even if it might be painful to sometimes have 2-3 or 1-4 result.
Djaian
@ Djaian: Firstly, thx for the comment, it’s appreciated. I already know the quote you citet and try to remind myself of it before every game. However it doesn’t always help.
For me it’s not really “fear” that corrupts my game. Probably “incertitude and doubt” are more suited to describe my dilemma during these kind of games. Additionally I tend to focus on the things I don’t know instead of the things I do know, which doesn’t help either. I’m still looking for a way to get rid of this nuisance ^^