This day started off much like the last. A styrofoam bowl of Cheerios plus banana and weak coffee before the short walk to the Sadler Center. My overall record so far was 1-1, so it was not at all clear how the rest of my games would go.

Again I sat down at my assigned table with a cup of coffee, awaited my opponent, and admired the wooden ceiling. While getting to Williamsburg was a bit of trouble, it was hard to complain about the tournament room. My opponent arrived and this time it was Justine, a 6 kyu from the West Coast. It was still a few minutes before 9:00 AM so we chatted a bit about Go. This was not only her first Go Congress, but her first tournament ever. She played at a fairly active club back at home and she was not the only player in attendance. Like myself, she had come late to the tournament, so this was her first proper day. I clarified the Ing game clocks and the AGA rules around passing stones at the end of the game.

This game was relatively straightforward after some light, early complications. Due to a few slow plays, I was able to get a comfortable territorial lead and she didn’t try anything aggressive to take back control of the game. As this was Justine’s first tournament game, I suspected a few of the cautious moves could be attributed to that. She pincered at move 10 and then probably blocked on the wrong side after I jumped in. The knight’s move at 16 was bit strange since J3 was oddly placed and white did not have a stone on or around C10.

The lobby staircase

At move 20 I decided to attach, though I wondered if that was too early (later Yilun Yang 7P confirmed). We both handled my complication a bit clumsily as was clear by the result. After black 49, I thought I was closing in on a clear territorial lead. At move 53 I could no longer resist the urge to exploit the weakness at H4. After black 95, I thought I had the win and the endgame proceeded simply after that. Due to the a lack of complications, I managed my time a bit better than yesterday, though I still ended up in byo-yomi.

When we counted I had a solid lead. We thanked each other for the game and I decided to grab lunch. Ien was playing a rated self pair game against another AYDer, so I went on a short walk to Aromas Cafe. This took me through the pleasant William & Mary campus and I had a relaxed lunch on my own before heading back for a review with Yilun Yang at 3:00 PM.

I got back a bit early and spotted Justine and I invited her to the review but she was headed off. I headed downstairs to the Game Room where the reviews were taking place.

Yilun Yang 7P is one of my favorite authors and lecturers on Go. I continue to return to his slim distilled books of wisdom time and time again. I also really loved his reviews at the Congress in 2016. He adds an element of humor to his reviews which brings a much needed lightness to a win or loss. He pointed out a good number of my bad moves and my misreads. At the end of the review he looked at my badge and said he thought I was stronger than 6 kyu and hoped that I would be a dan one day. That felt pretty good.

Reviewing with In-seong

Back upstairs, I found Ien and several AYDers from the Boston Go scene including Shawn Moore 6K, Dan Schmidt 4K, Shawn Ligocki 1K, and Becci Torrey 2D. We took the short walk to Greenleaf, a bar with decent fare. We had a long relaxed lunch where we discussed our backgrounds and our love of Go. One of the interesting tidbits that arose was that Dan Schmidt worked on Guitar Hero and Rockband as a software developer.

After dinner we returned and relaxed. In-seong did his evening review and the AYD crew started to steadily grow around In-seong. I talked briefly with fellow student and opponent Yoko Ohashi 6 kyu. She learned Go when she was 50 and has been attending US Go congress for years! Then while standing around, Lee Ann Bowie the president of the Seattle Go Center introduced herself since I had misunderstood how to use my lanyard, which she clarified, and we had a long chat about Seattle and Go. She also had encountered Go decades ago. As articulated by others, I agreed that one of the things that make Go Congress so special - that over the board people separated by many years can speak as peers. There was in fact a tournament in which players must be separated by at least 40 years.

After the review, In-seong wanted to head to the pub for a big hangout with AYDers, the Korean pros, and other folks from the Congress. We picked Greenleaf since they had decent snacks and cheap pitchers. We stayed late into the night. Myself and others got to have a nice long chat with In-seong about his Go background and his life in Europe. As the conversation carried on and the spirits brightened, it felt more like family than an unlikely meeting of people known to each other only by their truncated KGS handles.

The following day was the off day, so most folks planned on taking it easy since they had three more Open games to look forward to. For myself, I was already registered for the 4 round Diehard tournament starting at 9 AM the following morning. These games were only 30 minutes main time with 5 periods of 30 second byo-yomi. While 2-1 was headed in the right direction I wasn’t sure what tomorrow would bring.