Korean Ambassador's Cup 2010, Helsinki

Hey folks,

sorry for updating pictures so slowly on the last post...
Anyways the past week went with mostly playing Star Craft 2... I mean OOPS Go! Well to be honest after my trip to germany I started losing all hope of becoming a strong player. Insane Hwang and everyone else just kicked the crap out of me :(.

 (Insane Hwang 7 dan vs. the human punching bag from finland, source: eurogotv)



So this weekend 4.-5. of December there was the 2nd most important Go-tournament of the year, I'd say, the Korean Ambassadors Cup. This tournament has been held for just few years so far, so the tournament is quite new. Recently the Korean embassy has been sponsoring this tournament with soft drinks and nice trophies. The winner of this tournament gets a free-trip as the representative of Finland in Korean Prime-minister's Cup in South-Korea, all flights and hotels included. Other finalist get's 200€ and the 3rd place get's 100€

I've been actually having really bad luck in this tournament ever since it started. The 1st year (2007?) I wanted to take part, I was kicked out of the tournament for being late... My cellphone had died and I thought if I make it 15 minutes before the round it's no problem, The tournament organicer/referee was a monster and didn't want to let me play, on top of that I was told to "shut the fuck up". :'( (I was 16 years old then, and was late because I was talking to my mom about her alcohol problem...)

In 2008 I was in korea and could not take part. And last year (2009) my result was a complete disaster, I lost against 1d's and 3d's etc and decided not to come the next day :(.

This year I was trying not to stress too much about it. As mentioned previously, I had decided to not take Go so seriously anymore since I don't have enough skill as a go-player. For the whole tournament I was trying just not to lose so much. Well, I woke up about 2 hours before the tournament started, but accidentally fell right back to sleep after turning off my alarm clock!!! I woke up 1 hour later from my nap and realized I was late. I had a "holy-crap"-reaction, I quickly put some clothes on and ran 1 km, to a bus stop with more connections. I didn't have time to shower :/, but my last shower was in the previous afternoon, so it wasn't really that bad. I made some calls from the metro and got registered through a friend.

The first round I played against Arto Meijin, who is known as the drunken Go-master of Koivukylä. He plays with 1dan rank and often drinks a lot. If you happen to meet him, offer him a game and bet a free drink on the game. He always accepts! He is the master of smooth talk and he is cool. When asked if he would choose a hot girls tits or Christian Pop's Go-rating points (which are ~2700), he chose Pop's Gors! What a man!!!
 

(here is a picture of Arto. He's usually not available for a game at this stage anymore)



Oops, I got side tracked. Anyways, I beat him, but it wasn't too easy, but by the endgame It was over

My second game was against Lauri Paatero a nice 4d chap from my Go-club. I've beaten him many times, but he was in pretty good shape this time. He managed to get a favourable opening and I was fighting for the whole middle game agressively to get something. Lauri had done some insane trick and lived inside my huuuge corner territory with 1st line connections and eyes. luckily I managed to change the surrounding positions and killed that group as the consequence of multiattacking 2 groups simultaniously.

My 3rd game was against Matti siivola 5d. He is an old fox and has played Go for more than 30 years, I think. The opening was favourable for me, but then I started overplaying a bit. After I was behind I did some insane tricks and just killed 2 bunches of his stones. I thought I had completely won that game and didn't even bother to concentrate that well anymore. I thought if I just answer all his endgame moves, I will win... After we counted the score He had 0,5 points more than me...damnit!!! I got tricked :/

4th Game was against Janne Määttä, a young 4 dan player from Oulu. He is a bit older than me I think, so he must be around ~20+yo. The game was pretty peaceful, but it was an intense psychological war all the way to the points counting. When we counted the score, I was relieved that I won by 1,5 points as white!!!

 (Janne Määttä, left)


This was the end of saturday, I qualified to the 8 players cup with 3-1 wins... damn that 1 loss...
After the day I was just wondering how I am going to lose at the cup stage and then I won't get any prizes :/, though  I tried to make myself remember that I didn't have any goals for this tournament in the first place. Tien 6 dan is just so much stronger than me and he has a completely different thinking for Go, while I'm still struggleling with 4d and 5d players... I was guessing that I probably won't be having any success at this tournament either, so I was hoping for an easy pairing on sunday.

On sunday I was up early and arrived at the scene just on time. On my way there I was wondering about being so weak and hoping for an easy pairing, "damn, why do I think like this..."" I've lost already before I even play..." "It's up to me if I get a good result and not the pairing!!!"

Recently I've been wondering about my style, which seems to have been a big mystery even for me. In this tournament I wanted to play my own style and have as great games as I had in EGC 2009 in Groeningen, the legendary games of awesomeness (even Catalin Taranu 5p remembered that 1 year-old game of mine against Dinerstein.). My natural style is somewhat Moyo-magistic with lots of creativeness in attacking.

 ( Me playing Go)



Sunday 5th round I was playing against my friend Tuomas Hella, he is a really nice guy, about 21 years old, 4dan. Suprisingly, I managed to unleash my style ! :) The game turned out to be a really exciting one. By middle game my positions just looked so good that I just looked at the whole Go-board amazed and satisfied, "Wau, this is Go". However after getting into byo-yomi we both started making mistakes, I did kind of more mistakes because I was leading comfortably. I managed to lose my lead with the help of bad management. In the end Tuomas had a spot to just make an endgame reduction and win the game, but he didn't take it and I won by 1,5 points again, phew.

 (Tuomas Hella 4dan and his cat)



Next game (round 6) was against probably the strongest player in the tournament, Antti Törmänen 6 dan. His insight and dedication for Go is somewhat amazing. He analyses the positions and moves on the go-board extremely well and in detail!, while I for example play more by feeling. His strong insight in Go provides him with a stable playing level, while I often play crappy and good mixed (Antti told me after my 7th round game that Jeffchang egf 6dan, thinks that I play like a Chinese street-fighter) :))).

 (Antti Törmänen, 6dan at egc 2010, his blog: http://gooften.net/ )



Anyways In this game I got black and already on the 6th move, Ten played a strange move. "Can you play like that?", I blurbed out of my mouth. In my oppinion, it wasn't that good. I created a fusion-chinese with a 5-4,3-5-shimari, it was set to be Assu magistico special opening :). I was pretty afraid for the whole game. I'm not too secure as a person, especially after taking that much beating in germany the weeks before :P. So I was just trying to play careful, but somehow I still managed to unleash my natural style for the 2nd and last time in this tournament!
The opening seemed really balanced after a while, I was a bit worried because white played so fast-paced opening, rushing for territory and strong positions. I invaded his bottom side and then. The sequence he played just basically dropped my jaw. I got a nice ponnuki and with that I had created a HUUUGEEEEEE moyo!!! At this point I felt the Assu-drenalins kick in and Bang! it was time to Gear UP!!!!
Somekind of fighting occured in the surroundings of my moyo, but I managed to deal it really well.

In the endgame with the help of my 4 completely dead stones, I managed  to spot a flash of an insane sequence. In a blink of an eye Antti was faced with a strange atari inside his territory. "This is the kind of move that wins airplane tickets to Korea", said someone on the game-broadcast at kgs. The result was a big dent in whites territory.

In the end we counted the score. Black won by 7,5 points. Against everyone's expectasions I won! YUHUUU :). Indeed a suprise for me as well^^.
The Final game was against Matti Siivola 5 dan, who had gotten a slightly easier pairing and thus reached the finals. I had a horrible opening against him, For the first time in my life I felt like, I just wanna jump out of the window. My play in the opening was so bad at the completely wrong place, pls, just not in the finals!!! However after a while I started concentrating normally and our level difference kicked in. By the end many expectators gathered to watch how I won by 52,5 points.

Soon there was a prize giving ceremony and the Korean ambassador gave out the trophies for the 3 best players. I was the star of that tournament... it was so nice... I've never really won anything in my entire Go-career... *Happy!~* =)

 (from left to right: Matti 5 dan, me 5 dan, Antti 6 dan, Vesa Laatikainen 5 dan)




Just when I thought that my hundreds of hours of study in the last months had gone to waste something like this happens. o.0. I felt so dumb after Germany, not improving at all. Now that I look at it my gors have gone from 2400->2460 in 6 months. So there has been some improvement. I played 2 games I can be proud of. I hope I can play this well in the future as well.

Can someone explain to me? I don't understand anything about anything? I'm such an idiot :)

Good night~

Ready for the challenge

taken from my 2 weeks old diary post...

I got up this morning at 10:13 o'clock and switched off my alarm-clock. I went back to sleep. I woke up again at 10:49, noticing that I'm late from my guitar-class. Luckily I was able to provide some extra time for a shower. After showering and finding some clean clothes was the time for breakfast. I had a hot coco and a banana. As the banana started disappearing into my stomach, I could feel the sweat and a little bit chilly pieces of banana getting chopped moving to my cheeks. I felt a bit like a squirrel. I looked outside thinking about squirrels and saw the bus I was supposed to get on passing our house.

On the way to guitar class I met one of my random pick-up girls. We had a short chat before our roads departed. She said she was just starting high-school so she was just 15!!! o.0 I can't belive myself (and she so didn't look like it I swear, andandand)... talking to random 15yo girls in the bus. FUUU ><



Ready for the challenge

During the EGC 2010 the top-european players had a meeting. The Eurogotv-head Harry made an announcement that he would be creating EuroGoPro-League, where 12 top europeans get a professional status for 1 year. There were also many young players attending the meeting. All the participants were at least 5d egf, I think (appart from harry, the future CEO of EuroGoPro). Tenbabo, my rival (name modified) was sitting next to me and all the people seemed really interested in the topic. The mood was some what tense but filled with some jokes such as, Catalin 5p: Burzo, looks like you have to start studying again (*laughter*) xD.

It seemed like the top-players had been waiting for something like this for long, since making a living with Go is pretty much impossible in europe. Howerver, the understanding and level of these Go-masters cannot be reached easily even with hundreds of hours of stydy. Every session with a stronger player is an enlighting experience. Very few people think these top-players should earn some money with Go and the truth pretty much is that you get better salary flipping burgers (unless you are Michael Jackson) than with teaching Go. Nevertheless teaching Go for me is only 50% job and 50% fun and that's why I accept lower price for my lessons than most 5d+ players.

With the EuroGoPro stuff every player would have their own sponsor and these Pro's would get ~800€/month. That's actually enough to make a living out of it! In addition your trips would be paid for EuroGoPro-tournaments.
I'm so glad I didn't go last spring... I would've missed all the nice things life still has to offer me.



The dream to be a EuroPro seems very distant, I evaluated that egf-players with 2610 go-rating points would enter in EuroPro system. However, I expect the level to increase a little with the competition to fill those 12 spots. During the next 10 months the Gor limit might increase to +2630-2650.

One of the most difficult parts in life is after high-school, since you are finally free from school, but you should perhaps for the first time in your life choose the path which you want to follow.

I won't be relying my only card on Go as a profession. It has been my dream for many years to become a businessman, like my dad (though, not as crappy one),whom I respect very much. This school year there is going to be so many things to do. I need good grades from school and from march I have to start studying for business school exams which will be in June. It's said to be very difficult to get into that university...

My wildest dream is to make it to that business university & EuroGoPro at the same time! I'm not sure if it's even possible, but what would our lives be without Goals and Dreams?

To be honest I'm not sure if I can get even into one of my 2 options. I might even fail both. but I'm willing to work towards my dream.

And I'm taking up this Challenge

Results EGC 2010

Dear readers

The EGC is over for this year. The EGC 2010 in tampere was probably one of the most memorable congresses for many people. Incase you don't already know Ilya Shiksin 7d and Artem Kachanovskyj 6d got the 1st and 2nd places, which is pretty amazing for european Go since they are leading the new generation of european top-players.
17-year-old Ali Jabarin was the strongest 5 dan and ended up in 10th place beating a Korean 7dan and Ondrej Silt 6dan.

Artem's chance for winning the whole tournament slipped by his hands as he lost from a winning position to Kim Jung-hyeop 7d by 0,5 points. I estimated that Artem lost a couple of thousand euros there :), nevertheless he smiled a little bit at the prize giving ceremony.
Ilya Shiksin's last game against Dinerstein was very long and there was a rumour going on that Dinerstein had said the night before that he would lose on purpose to Ilya, incase Artem lost. There is actually a high chance that this rumour is true.. russians...

My tournament didn't go well, but I had a great time at EGC 2010 tampere. I made some new friends and got to know better some people. I had some achievements at EGC though,

• EGC Team-tournament 1st place (Gimbap Power!)
• EGC Bonus tournament 1st place (I heard I got more applause than the EGC winner)
• Winning Cornel Burzo in rapid :)



To End this post I'd like to tell a funny story about my good friend "Pikku-Jussi" 7dan (4th place), who told me that he quite often sleeps during his games.
He was living at our playboy mansion and slept usually ~2-6 hours per day and even gave his own bed to our random guests (some of these guests showed no appreciation whatsoever and left the place messy) and slept on the sofa o.0. Once he slept outside because he didn't have the keys to our appartment ><.



On our way back to Helsinki on sunday evening (We cleaned up EGC -place whole sunday) our train was badly late. We were killing time in the bar of the train station and we noticed there was a karaoke!!! Oh boy we had such a great time in korean karaokes, so ofcourse I wanted to challenge Little-Yoshi (pikku-jussi) to sing together with me. The variety of songs in the karaoke was very low and crappy, but finally we decided to sing Celine Dion - My Hear Will Go On :D
Our performance was already somewhat legendary with the two of us. Then all of a sudden Ilya Shiksin 7dan appeared out of nowhere and sang the rest of the song with all his heart. I ofcourse laughed my ass off. After our song some girls showed thumbs up for us :)
We managed to get our whole performance on video. Unfortunately Little-Yoshi threatened to kill me if I leaked the video to the internet and he even gave me some painful demonstrations of what he would do to me x).
I guess I will publish the video here later =)

Thx everyone for the great congress!!!

EGC 2010, after 1st week.

Hey there

4th round went pretty good against a japanese 6 dan , altough I lost. Anyways I was not that dissapointed because it was just because of a really simple misread of 5 moves (we tenukied a group of mine for a while. Defending would have been a big endgame anyways). I would have won that game otherwice.

The next day I played against R.Jasiek 5 dan and won him fair and square. I managed to trick him in his own joseki :). My opening was not too good in that game, but because of Jasiek's playing style, he covered all my weaknesses pretty nicely. He seemed to have some kind of strange preferences on the table we were playing at. He hid the result sheet under the board and told me to put any objects not related to the game away from the table o.0

Main tournament after 1 week: 5p-,4d+,5d+,6d-,5d+ (3/5)

Rapid tournament after 1 week: 5d+,5d-,4d+

We also had a football tournament on wednesday and our finnish team got the 5th-6th place. The playing conditions were very bad, but it seems others enjoyed it. Afterwards we went to a 106 years old sauna and it was AWESOME!!!


The 1st week of the congress has passed as follows:

30% Go
30% sleeping
10% eating
30% partying and other activities

Since during the days it's really hot I didn't wear enough warm clothes and it got a bit colder the last few days, so I managed to get sick and had to skip weekend tournament :(. (All that whisky and partying the previous night, might have been a reason why I got so sick).

This morning I woke up in a different place than I usually do. I was feeling so terrible, my head and neck hurted, I could barely breath and my head felt really jammed.

After getting kicked out I headed to the grocery store to buy camomile tea and the ingredients for hot chocolate. After I arrived at our crib, I chatted a bit with my Hyong, Pempu. He gave me some pretty good advices and even paid my shoppings from our common funds.

I recall watching a pro-game with my room-mates for a while and then went to sleep. I woke up in the evening and started studying last year's EGC -book. I almost had a disaster because I was heating up milk and I was listening to music out loud so ofcourse I didnt hear anything before all hell broke loose. I managed to destroy all the evidence luckily :).

It sucks being sick, but I guess it's a good idea to rest, because it would suck to be sick the last week of the congress. I have to ease down on partying too much and concentrate more on improving my Go.