TurkuGP2011 and enjoying the summer

Hey guys,

It's been a while again since the last post, but good is something worth waiting for, right?
These days I've been playing mostly Go. It does sound a bit boring in a way, but every game of go tells a different story. I was having some trouble playing good last month. However after my last tournament I'm feeling like I'm getting in really good flow again.



I attended TurkuGP-go tournament last weekend. Turku is a town located in the east coast of finland. We arrived on friday and some fellow go-players already got pretty drunk then. I wasn't really affected by our happy reunion until early morning apart from being slightly tired. The excitement of the upcoming go-tournament kept my concentration good. I had not been in a go tournament for more than 6 months and the games must've been my first live games in weeks =). On saturday round 1 I played against Kalle Timperi 3dan. I made 1 small mistake in the opening but my opponent didn't realize it so I fixed it back on the next move. After this my opponent missed a moyo point which was HUGE. After Opening was somewhat settled I attacked his group and to my suprise he wanted to play some Ko to help his group. After I won the ko he had a big bunch of stones in an ugly shape. During the lunch break I had some kungPo chicken which turned out to be just "ok". I ate some if it there and took the rest in a take-away box.

Next round was already more challenging. I was up against Antti Holappa 4dan. This game was kind of complicated and I made few small mistakes in the opening. Entering the middle game I felt like I was losing with no way to win the game. Then my opponent played a pretty passive move at a critical point and I got some more attacking momentum. On top of this I had used up all my time, I was sort of in byoyomi. My opponent still had 30 minutes left and deviced a sneaky plan. His tactique was to play fast so I would have less thinking time as well, which is usually not a bad idea. I had felt sleepy the first half of the game, but I really woke up in the byoyomi. I spotted insane tesujis in extreme time pressure. And by the time I was trying to kill the 4th group in trouble It finally payed off and my opponent resigned. I guess this game was my awakening for this tournament. I learned that I should feel a little bit nervious through out my games. That way my brain can process variations faster, just like in byoyomi. 3rd round game was against a 2dan. After saturday's games we went to eat to a splendid Indian restaurant. The food was so tasty!!! The owner of the restaurant thought I was 14yo geezuz!!! >.< Ofcourse I was too embarrassed to say that I'm 20...Saturday evening everyone was so tired from partying the last night that everyone went to sleep early.

A peculiar situation arouse in Pempu's game against a 2 dan. Pempu (my 4dan big bro) was losing the game badly and he didn't have any ko-threats apart from 1. Usually pempu plays false ko-threats so his opponents know not to take his ko-threats that seriously. However this time Pempu's plan was genious.As a ko-threat white(pempu) threatened to cut black's group off. Does this really work for white? -Black to play and die.

Sunday morning I felt tired inspite of sleeping 8,5 hours. My 4th round game was against Finland's WAGC representative Mikko Siukola 4dan. The game was intense and interesting. Mikko playing black seemed to get a more favourable opening. After we got into middle game mr.Siukola had a bad idea, which was to cut off my stones. As a result I closed his weak group in and secured my win with the huge wall and some territory I took in the process. 5th Round game against Jesse Savo 4dan was over fast since Jesse got caught in a  sneaky ladder and was forced to resign on move 65.

As a result I won the tournament with a 5/5 result. I got some prize moneys as well ^-^. Finally I'm starting to win some tournaments. It feels good. I haven't really won many tournaments during my go-career so I'm excited :). My rival Antti Törmänen 6dan was accepted as an insei in Japan from september2011-may2012. So It seems to be a good chance to take some 1st places from finnish tournaments while he is away.

Right after the tournament there was a monsoon in Turku :), however we got to the train station safely and headed back to Helsinki. From this tournament I studied all my games in detail by myself and with my secret teacher Mr.X who is a korean professional. Feel free to guess who it is~ I felt like I improved my game significantly and I've been having a winning streak on kgs! I Have a good feeling about the upcoming EGC in Bordeaux, France.

After the last post there were many people applying for the free lessons and the prizes go to Suvi,Boris,Juho,Mo and Pupukani. You can schedule the free lesson through e-mail.

If you like my blog show it to your friends as well. See you!

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.