Life In 19x19

I had been looking forward to playing Victor Chow 7d since I heard South Africa was joining the PGETC as he's a very strong amateur known for his fighting style who has beaten several pros. My plan was to play a thick solid game and try to avoid severe attacks; fortunately I was black. He started with a 3-3 point and a tight one space extension when I approached, and then in a Kobayashi-esque opening jumped out rather than making a side group with the hanging connection (s7) so I peeped and attacked and he made shape in the centre whilst I got to develop on both sides. Just as I thought I could relax a bit and he wasn't going to fight he made a severe approach that scared my right side group, so I attached and crosscut to make strength and give up the corner territory. I was rather relieved when he obediently answered my s14 cut tesuji (learnt from a pro game) and I didn't have to prove it in a fight (s15 leads to q18 and t18 tesuji) which I could misread and screw up and although it was gote got a nice solid shape with the p12 net.

k6 continued my solid plan, helping defend the h3 weakness (unlike usual Kobayashi I can't dodge into lower left 3-3 so f3 is hard to sacrifice) and prepare an attack on the centre. He invaded anyway and lived (I carefully read I won semeai after the g5 cut by one liberty) but then he played a slow reverse sente move at l2 so got to approach his corner.

m8 was a pleasing attack on his centre group (following up from k6 power) and I was planning to continue at n10 (as he didn't take a liberty with bamboo answer) but had a changed of heart and played h17. He immediately reinforced the centre and I was downcast at missing such a key power point but in compensation got to attack at the top. Around move 119 I had counted and was surprised and pleased to see that I seemed to be quite a bit ahead even without the c7 invasion (which was a bit dangerous against a 7d with the e12 and g5 aji) so tried to solidify by hassling the middle group some more. j11 was a crucial mistake from white though (m11 better) and I cut off some centre stones. However p19 was probably a bad idea: I had missed s9 (7d tesuji finally arrived! in byo yomi by now I figured I couldn't answer at r9 as r10 was a huge ko) and he ended up living with points and taking mine: p19 at s12 would have made points and forced him to connect on dame at p19 and also lessen s9's severity.

After losing a bunch of points there I then lost a load more in the centre with e12 cut, he got b10 double sente, and then captured some more stones with a nice throw-in ko, the 7d endgame had arrived! He also found a nice sequence at o3, and then n8 was 0 points in gote due to my needing a defensive move inside later, whereas n15 was 2 points in gote. With that final mistake I thought I had managed to snatch defeat from the jaw of victory, but actually I had miscounted and had luckily hung on to a half point win!