The last day of the Open. I arrived at the Sadler Center with a large coffee in hand and checked the pairings. Rematch, Tevis Tsai! I’m sure he hoped to exact a friendly revenge for his loss yesterday. Again, Tevis had black, and, again, he took star points. Same as yesterday, I took star points and he approached. I protected the corner and then approached his lone upper left stone.

Tevis then made a tight pincer, which I felt wasn’t working so well with the lower half of the board. I happily took the corner. He then protected the lower right corner, and I used a standard invasion, though I’m not clear about its effectiveness with black K4 on the board.

I played lightly, and I attached on top of K4 willing to give up the two white stones on the left. We got into an early struggle but I was able to make at least one eye and move out. Black 43 seemed risky to me given the condition of the black stones in lower right. I spent a lot of time looking for a way to kill, unsuccessfully, but I at least got outside strength as compensation and I decided to invest in that with a center move at white 62.

Black invaded which seemed logical, and I played a shoulder hit to emphasize the center-facing influence I had built. White needed to make a base so I got the upper right area very naturally. At black 77, Tevis switched strategies and returned to building his framework. Black 79 closed the last invasion point but I was convinced white had a better position and turned at move 80. After increasing white’s influence, I returned to attack the right black group with white 100. While I wasn’t sure of a win, I was starting to feel good about this game. Black struggled and couldn’t find a way to make life.

When Black resigned, I still had almost 20 minutes on my clock. Finally, I played game where I had spent time on parts of the game that deserved it.

6-2! I was happy with this result and decided to take the remainder of the day off from playing rated games.

Mingjiu Jiang 7P

I went downstairs and joined up with the Shawn Moore and David Rolsky and we went to a nice spot down the street from Greenleaf. Shawn Ligocki and Becci Torrey made an appearance later, but David and I split off to catch the Mingjiu Jiang 7P lecture on sabaki in the early fuseki.

The lecture was meant for players 5 kyu or stronger, but I found that the content was not beyond me. It helped that I had studied the Chinese Opening a bit in AYD. It’s my standard opening, and I used it in many games at Congress. Mingjiu did a great job explaining the meaning behind the standard moves and the variations.

Atsushi Katsura 5P

After the lecture, I headed back to get my Open game reviewed. Atsushi Katsura 5P was giving kyu level reviews in the Game Room starting at 3:00 PM. I arrived a bit late so there was already a pretty long line of folks in front of me. Satoru Inoue 1D was translating. I had learned of Satoru through Ben Hong’s fantastic blog. He did a great job, and I hoped I would be able to get a review in. Unfortunately, the reviews went a bit long, but as usual I found that watching the other reviews was incredibly informative. Atsushi Katsura’s comments and insights were applicable beyond specific games.

Afterwards, I joined up with the Boston AYDers and headed to a nice sandwhich shop. During the lunch conversation, Osaka Go Camp came up which both Becci Torrey and Shawn Ligocki had attended. A 3-week affair led by Meada Ryo, it sounded like an amazing way to immerse yourself into Go in Japan. In-seong also does Go camps, but they are briefer events in Europe. Still, a 3-day camp in the United States would be pretty amazing and the Boston AYDers had mentioned it to In-seong, and he said he would consider it. Fingers crossed.

Back at the Sadler Center, I relaxed and observed some games. The Pair Go Tournament would be starting at 7:00 PM, and I thought I might watch it a bit. Dan Schmidt 4K wanted to play a casual no-komi game, and I obliged. We both played some questionable moves, but Dan was leading territorially. However, towards the end of the middle game Dan overplayed, and I was able to swing a twenty point gain and finished with a 7 point lead. It was a lot of fun, and probably a good reminder to be a bit more patient in the beginning and avoid complications.

It was my last evening, so I grabbed Nate Eagle for some drinks at Greenleaf. We ended up talking late into the night about Go, life, and pretty much everything else. Nate was doing an incredible job co-running Congress this year with Diego, and they deserve praise for their efforts and attention to detail. It was getting late, and while US Go Congress 2018 was at an end for myself, Nate still had two more days to oversee. With misty eyes we hugged, and I headed back to my hotel.