Round 5

Today my opponent was Jonathan Gohde 7 kyu who was 3-1 so far like myself. However, he had won an earlier game against Tevis Tsai 7 kyu, so I knew I was in for a real challenge. Of all the games I played, I probably learned some of the most valuable lessons from this one. I don’t think I ever had a game where I’ve been punished so sharply for leaving bad aji on the board. I ended up resigning and Jonathan got a very well deserved win.

Again we went to the lounge area where we quickly reviewed the opening. Again we differed on some points which were later greatly clarified by Stephanie Yin during the review.

I definitely enjoyed this game and for some reason this loss didn’t sting as much as the earlier one. I could sense there were some very deep but simple problems with my Go understanding and this game felt like a beacon of light. For that I am grateful! Jonathan and I agreed to jointly review the game with Stephanie Yin at 1pm.

Ien’s game was still going on so I walked over to observe the final moments. He was playing white against a 16 kyu and it was clear that he had a very solid lead. Ien soon won and we headed for another quick lunch at Beijing Cafe.

Lunch

As usual we chatted about our games over lunch. Ien was now 3-2 as a 15 kyu which is pretty darn good! Unfortunately he had to leave the congress a day early so after lunch he jumped into a car for the Amtrak station. I headed back a couple of minutes late for the Stephanie Yin review.

Pro Review & Afternoon

When I walked up Jonathan was already seated waiting for a chance to review. Fortunately the gentleman that was currently about to start their review wanted to wait for his opponent so Jonathan and I got to go first. I’d emailed Jonathan the record so he walked Stephanie through the moves. Stephanie thought my opening was perfectly fine as I suspected. The critical mistakes in my game were move 19 which Stephanie suggested should have been a knight’s jump to H8. The peep at move 21 at D9 was a bad idea since it just made white stronger for no reason at all. I answered white 30 incorrectly, playing C5 instead of B9 would have elimited a lot of the bad aji in that corner. Playing C15 for move 37 instead of C13 (which was sente!) also left some really bad aji for the left black group. Both of these situations were punished in the endgame and I had no chance.

It was a humbling and enlightening loss. As I sat down I remembered to ask her how her Pair Go game went. Turns out she and Ryan Li won the first and lost the second one. I asked about the stone on the 1-1 point. Even though Stephanie and Ryan are both 1p they were pitted again two strong 7 dans with a two stone handicap and 0.5 komi (reverse komi). This was a bit much so their opponents offered to skip their first move. Even after a very fierce game Stephanie and Ryan lost by a couple of points.

I watched a couple more reviews before heading to the lounge area where I found Nate Eagle going over his game (he lost) with his opponent Shawn Legocki. I observed for a little bit before heading to Guo Juan’s lecture, Typical Mistakes 5 kyu to 3 dan. Guo Juan was a great presenter and her online teaching software seems very well considered. I stayed for about half the presentation and headed back to the lounge area. Nathan and I agreed to meetup around 6:30pm for dinner and I headed back to the AirBnB to get a couple hours of blog writing in.

Dinner

Nate Eagle, Shawn Legocki and I took a thirty minute walk down Commonwealth Avenue to the Korean spot I heard about - Myung Dong. The walk was really pleasant thanks to the mild temperature and the company. When we arrived we ordered kalbi BBQ, bimbimbap, haemul pajun, doenjang chigae and soju. All of it was pretty delicious and I was happy that everyone enjoyed my choices. Over dinner we traded stories and learned a little more about each other. As Nathan’s teacher Yuan Zhou says, Go is about friendship too. Certainly for me I can see now that I will be extremely pleased to see all of these faces again at the next Go congress.

After a very long and conversation filled dinner we started heading back to the congress since it getting close to 10 o’clock.

Evening League

Nathan and Shawn both took off to rest up but I briefly poked in to watch Feng Yun and Chris Garlock’s commentary about the US Open Masters game between Zhang Hanchen 7D and Andy Liu 1P. It appeared at first that Liu had a very, very solid win but Liu ended up losing due to a fairly simple mistake. I suppose it happens even to the best of us!

I didn’t see anyone I knew around probably because it was Friday and it was a bit late so I headed home to work on my blog and rest. The last round is tomorrow and I hope to leave the congress with a 4-2 record.