Played my second annual tournament last weekend, again as a 4-kyu EGF and again with three wins to two losses.
I feel, I'm pretty stable with this rank and maybe - just maybe - on good terms towards 3-kyu. Unfortunately for me I managed to lose one won and one favourable game. One in the endgame with at least 20 points ahead and the other one in the middlegame because I misread (didn't read at all and Honte seemed slow as usual ^^) a cut.
My first game was against a fellow 4-kyu and after a pretty standard opening - double Komoku and a Shimari for me, double Hoshi and a Kakari for him -, I approached his top Hoshi whereon he pincered me so that I took the corner.
He chose to block south, which suprised me a bit since this is Gote in most cases. He proceeded with an unusual sequence, not defending his cutting point between his pincer and his resulting wall and he even ended in Gote.
Of course, I immeadiately split his side, he approached from his bottom Hoshi and I jumped out (with
this in mind).
He peeped, I connected and he pincered from his top wall.
So far I was quite satisfied: My running group was in no danger, his pincer from the top didn't make any use of the wall and I still had cutting Aji.
I made rudimentary shape with my splitting group, inviting him to play near his bottom Hoshi only to play an attachment the next move. He chose to keep his corner.
The following sequence wasn't exactly what I had planned: He forced me to take solid territory on the third and fourth line but he got a thick wall in exchange. I began to worry about my splitting group and had to make a choice between further solidifying territory or making shape with my splitting group.
I chose the latter but he managed to get a Ponnuki in Gote facing the center because he could exploit cutting points due to my Tenuki.
I, then, cut his position on the top, which he hadn't defended and we fought a bit. His wall ended up completely useless, barely making two eyes and his pincer stone got sealed in, which gave me nice influence.
I - admittedly - foolishly tried to convert this influence in territory by making a framework. Surprisingly he didn't interfere but jumped into my Shimari corner, I didn't interfere either and further extended my framework.
We almost ended up playing endgame at this point, he solidified my framework to make a similiar one on the right but as I played the endgame attachement on the second line he chose to cut me off, eating this one stone but letting me in his framework. He then walled me off again but gave me four of his stones plus a couple of points.
After this I thought I was savely ahead since he had not much territory besides his one corner and a bigger group on the right.
He digged again in my Shimari corner but as I tried to stop him, he played a little greedy leaving cutting points behind, which resulted in a shortage of liberties. I managed to cut his top group (the pincer stone) in two parts and captured two stones in Sente.
The game was pretty much finished by then so I played out the remaining endgame. On one point he didn't answer a crawl on the first line but played near my former splitting group. I tried to figure out why only to see that he cut this group some ten moves before which I hadn't realized and that it was dead now. I had to resign.
The second game was also against a 4-kyu. I was White and he played an unusual opening which soon lead to some fighting. It climaxed in the bottom right where I pincered his corner appraoch. He surprisingly played the Keima to dig in the corner, so I walled him in.
I then played a corner approach to his bottom left corner ([over]extending from my now strengthend pincer stone), which was unreasonable since I had an open skirt at the bottom. He pincerd this approach and I jumped out.
This is where things got complicated.
Since I had some cutting Aji in my wall in the bottom right, the game progressed with each side having two running groups. After some center-hopping I found a sequence with which I could connect my two groups in Sente (so I thought). It looked thin but I couldn't find (I didn't
really search) a way to cut.
So I took a big point elsewhere - knowing I had twice as much territory now as my opponent - and my opponent cut me, exploiting my open skirt to make a Monkey-Jump-connection.
I suddenly had two rather dead than alive groups on the board whereas he had two almost connected and safe groups.
But since these two were running groups, they had also their share of bad Aji.
Long story short, I was able to save the bigger group (with two points) and exchanged the other group for his left side and a part of his corner.
I sensed the game was close in the middlegame, since he hadn't really gotten anything out of the attack I felt there was still a win to achieve. Later I found a Ko in his bottom left corner, which was too big to fight for him so I even could save my cut off stones from before.
I feld ahead in the endgame. Then I missed a snapback (four stones), then I missed a shortage of liberties (around ten stones). Then I had lost =D
The last game on the first day was against a friend (7-kyu). She already beat me in a friendly match between the rounds and I really didn't feel confident at all.
This time I never had a favourable game. I played in the wrong directions. I played endgame in the middlegame (which she of course ignored to take bigger points). I missed cutting sequences again. And I played small and Gote endgame.
With her last move she unnecessarily defended a cutting point in her own territory. I won by 0.5 points.
I blamed it all on getting up at 4:45am to catch the train to the tournament ^^
On the next day, I played against a 4-kyu again and started really bad in the opening.
I wanted to prevent the Kobayashi so I directly approached his Komoku after he approached my Hoshi. It ended in Gote for me. He got a wall and played the proper extension along the top.
Seriously, Kobayashi would have been easier to deal with...
I played a reduction, again very badly (played near thickness) but he didn't even tried to attack my weak shape. Instead he defended his left side, which made it a bit overconcentrated. I again played the Hoshi attachment whereon he played a strange sequence. His corner and side got heavily reduced and I had Sente to fix my shape. Later he gave me Sente again so I could finally resolve the situation at the top right Hoshi, where I still hadn't answered his appraoching move.
He continued to play slow moves in my opinion, so I could take big points with Sente. Endgame was quite good for me, too.
I won by 9.5 points.
The last game was against a 3-kyu. He played very timid in the opening giving me a huge left side and then tried to make a Moyo on the top. I invaded (actually I wanted to reduce but after hearing some comments, my reducation was more of an invasion ^^) and he naturally cut me off. He then didn't read deep enough after I played an attachment to a stone blocking me.
He stopped reading as he saw that he could cut me but he missed a resulting forcing sequence which lead to me getting a strong shape inside his framework. His last resort was some Aji I misread and therefore didn't defend against. It got pretty intense because I saw a huge capturing race but couldn't see ahead enough who of us would win it.
However there was no way for me to back off so I went all-in but he connected his stones instead of starting the capturing race (after the game we analyzed the position and I would have won the race quite easily), so I did the same.
Or so I thought: I again missed a cutting sequence, which lead to a Ko. Surprisingly he didn't fight it. After the game he said he didn't find big enough Ko threats but there were plenty. So I could close the Ko after he played a move which didn't threat anything. Since his cutting group completely died by connecting the Ko and because he had several cuts on the outside to cover, he resigned.
So, next time: More sleep before tournaments and if I feel I'm ahead, I should play more Honte moves! =D
(And, self-explanatory, I should read more and more precise.)