03 Mar 2010 2 Comments

Student OZA Day 2 Update

The second day of Student OZA, and the competition has officially launched! And what a day it has been! I really should sleep in half an hour, and thus will have to keep this brief. However, here’s how things happened!

Round 1:

1st Round [2nd March 2010]
Winner	Record	Result	Loser	Record
Yucheng Lai [Chinese Taipei]	1-0	1-137 Black won by resign	Garcia Emil [Mexico]	0-1
Takunori Yamamoto [Japan]	1-0	1-157 Black won by resign	Mile Gu [New Zealand]	0-1
Sunah Lee [Korea]	1-0	1-260 White won by 5.5	Hongbing Lin [Chinese Taipei]	0-1
Zhuo Wang [China]	1-0	1-210 White won by resign	Zxang Xiang [Singapore]	0-1
XiaoLong Meng [China]	1-0	1-152 White won by resign	Artem Kachanovsky [Ukraine]	0-1
Yohei Taniguchi [Japan]	1-0	1-157 Black won by resign	Gabrirl Benmergui [Argentina]	0-1
Yutae Seo [Korea]	1-0	1-146 White won by resign	Nuttakrit Taechaamnuayvit [Thailand]	0-1
Reiko Sekine [Japan]	1-0	1-238 White won by 34.5	Anna Prokov [Czech Republic]	0-1

The first round had no surprising underdog stories. Artem, the top European here, and 7d on KGS, was no match for Meng XiaoLong. Xialong apparently kept a steady lead through fuseki, and punished Artem severely when he tried to turns things around with a unreasonable fight.

Zhang Xiang’s game vs the Chinise female representative Zhuo Wang, the female rep from China, actually started off pretty well for him. Unfortunately, Zhuo Wang proved a much superior fighter, and once mid game started, several of Zhang’s groups somehow died, inducing resignation.

The only two reps of the ‘Big 4′ that fought were the female reps of Korea and Taipei. The game looked complex, but Sunah Lee of Korea gained an advantage when her opponent misread a ladder in byoumi, ending with a 5.5 point loss.

As for me? My game with the Student OZA of Japan turned out to be much closer than I expected. The game, I attach as SGF file below.

I took the game as white, and used my standard tactic of attaching first, followed by a 3-4. This, in my experience, is one of the best ways of preventing the opponent from applying his own fuseki. Up to 37. the game was considered to be fairly even for both, with a exchange that give white 3 corners, and black the potential for large territory on the left side of the board.

White 44: I was a little too eager to hold onto the bottom right corner, and wanted sente to seal the top right. The exchange was slight unfavorable for me. White 44 should tenuki and play at B18 immediately, leaving the corner open to attack.
White 46: White should play at B-18 instead, if black attempts to swallow the two stones in the corner, white can sacrifice them and break into blacks moyo on the left. The resulting sequence solidified the Moyo, giving black a slight advantage.
White 66: Q-18 would be better.
White 70: The first seriously bad move, should be at Q-15. The resulting clamp was painful for white, and costs around about 10 pts in territory.
Black 71: Exploits my mistake :(
Black 77: Black was a little too eager to break into whites moyo, the follow sequence made by me on whites Corner was painful for Takunori. Black now about 5 pts ahead.
White 98: Should play at G-8, exchanging with E-8.
Black 99: Tangen Syndrom. If he played 1 below the tangen, at K-9, there would be no invasion. And the game would be over.
White 114: After my successful invasion,  Black is still ahead slightly in points, but not enough to be confident of win.
White 116: Thinking I was a little behind, I made a move at 116 rather than the proper defense at P4. The resulting aji would be ignored by most low dans, but vs a 6 dan, it spelt my doom! Losing move.
Black 129: Punished my overplay. Despite appearances, it is actually impossible to cleanly kill this stone.
Black 141: Black lives in my corner, stealing 20 points. White is now about 25 points behind, and with end game approaching, no opportunities for come back. The game was over.

Probably the most rewarding thing was that Takunori Yamamoto though I played at the level of a 6 dan from Japan :).

Round 2:

2nd Round [2nd March 2010]
Winner	Record	Result	Loser	Record
XiaoLong Meng [China]	2-0	1-274 White won by 2.5	Yucheng Lai [Chinese Taipei]	1-1
Takunori Yamamoto [Japan]	2-0	1-165 Black won by resign	Zhuo Wang [China]	1-1
Yohei Taniguchi [Japan]	2-0	1-155 Black won by resign	Sunah Lee [Korea]	1-1
Yutae Seo [Korea]	2-0	1-96 White won by resign	Reiko Sekine [Japan]	1-1
Hongbing Lin [Chinese Taipei]	1-1	1-110 White won by resign	Mile Gu [New Zealand]	0-2
Nuttakrit Taechaamnuayvit [Thailand]	1-1	1-176 White won by resign	Zxang Xiang [Singapore]	0-2
Gabrirl Benmergui [Argentina]	1-1	1-210 White won by 9.5	Garcia Emil [Mexico]	0-2
Artem Kachanovsky [Ukraine]	1-1	1-114 White won by resign	Anna Prokov [Czech Republic]	0-2

Round 2 sees the Big 4 playing themselves, since they exclusively took all the winning spots in the first round. The rest of us had to compete for scraps! XiaoLong of China, defeats Yucheng Lai of Taipei to continue his streak. The game was intense, and lasted 30 minutes after the rest had finished. In the end, it was probably the first game in competition that didn’t warrant an early resignation from one of the players. My opponent from first round, defeats the female rep from China, though more by luck than skill… Zhuo Wang misread during yose, leading to the death of one of her groups.

The worst experience prize, however, would have to go to Zhang Xiang, who turned a winning game into a loss by not seeing an Atari. Zhang Xiang is now the only 6 dan with no wins.  His opponent, Nuttakrit, 4 Dan of Thailand now marches ahead. Meanwhile, Artem is back on his home turf of European opponents, and gets a well expected win.

Me? Somehow I ended up against the only member of the ‘Big 4′ who had a loss in the first round, Hongbing Lin of Taiwain. She certainly felt as strong as my first opponent. During the early mid-game, I made a mental lapse and played a stone in a place where I did not intend to (I deep read two options, concluding one is okay, while the other is bad. I ended up playing bad one :( ). Needless to say, Hongbing pounced on the error, and my moyo became two groups separated by a living group from my opponent. Needless to say, that’s not good. With about 20 points behind in territory, I was forced to make an highly risky attempt at killing Hongbing corner attachment. The battle became intense, and for some reason, I can’t out read a 6 dan on byoumi when she still had 20 minutes on her clock :). I lost track of battle, and found myself in in a semaei where I was 1 liberty behind.

Unfortunately, running out of time to put up the SGF file. Will do so later!

Round 3:

Round 3 begins tomorrow, with following match-ups:

3rd Round [3rd March 2010]
Player	Record	Result	Player	Record
XiaoLong Meng [China]	2-0	- -	Yohei Taniguchi [Japan]	2-0
Yutae Seo [Korea]	2-0	- -	Takunori Yamamoto [Japan]	2-0
Zhuo Wang [China]	1-1	- -	Sunah Lee [Korea]	1-1
Yucheng Lai [Chinese Taipei]	1-1	- -	Nuttakrit Taechaamnuayvit [Thailand]	1-1
Hongbing Lin [Chinese Taipei]	1-1	- -	Reiko Sekine [Japan]	1-1
Artem Kachanovsky [Ukraine]	1-1	- -	Gabrirl Benmergui [Argentina]	1-1
Zxang Xiang [Singapore]	0-2	- -	Mile Gu [New Zealand]	0-2
Anna Prokov [Czech Republic]	0-2	- -	Garcia Emil [Mexico]	0-2

With Teipei eliminated from 1st place, it is now essentially Japan vs everyone else. It’ll be interesting to see how my opponent from Round 1 fairs against the strongest rep from Korea. Meanwhile, I had the misfortune of again bumping into the strongest player possible with no wins, this time Zhang Xiang, the 6 dan from Singapore who lost his last game only due to misreading an atari. Having played Zhang Xiang in competition before, where I managed 181 as Black playing my almost best, I can tell for sure that this will be a very tough match.

Its a little unfortunate, given that I managed to defeat Garcia Emil and Nuttakrit Taechaamnuayvit in friendly games! Oh well, playing against stronger players is always good!

by Mile Gu in Analysis, Tournaments Tags: Student OZA