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!

Summer holidays! new training plan? and free lessons for you

Dear readers,

Thanks for commenting on my blog!!! My original plan was to make more posts at the same time and then spread some news about some updates, but it took a while before the second post.
Anyways I was pretty busy again with 4 university entrance exams and I finally graduated from high-school!

Now I'm on my summerholidays and I don't have a slightest idea what am I going to be doing since I was a bit too lazy to find a job... +I was kinda busy until now :)
I will be going to EGC2011 in Bordeaux, that's for sure. Though I'm not that sure how I will live there since at the moment the balance on my bank account is close to 0€. I bought the plane tickets and have a free accomodation with friends. I hope everything goes well.

Now I have nearly 3 months of summerholidays before I start at university (if I get in that is), So I was thinking that since I don't have a job I could finally start training Go again!!! I've been playing actively on kgs the last 7 weeks and I noticed another major flaw in my game - Reading.... Probably that problem I mentioned in the last post has something to do with my reading skills. It seems like my mind is very fond of patterns, which I imitate with more or less with good results, but they are not enough to beat all 6-8d players on kgs. My strenght in this game is definetly my strategical planning and understanding quite well  the theory behind this game, but when it comes to more intense fighting and middle game flow, I lack very much. I think this is what is stopping me from rising to 6dan -7dan level in europe (I'm 5d now). It's a huge cap, but nevertheless fixable with loads of practice and motivation. Last autumn I was trying hard to reach 6dan level, but I gave up; It was too difficult. Now I'm ready to try again; 6dan, here I come!!!

As for last posts comments, thank you for commenting I will be trying my best to answer them.

How do you replay professional games?
-I usually replay only the first 100 moves of any professional game, since the game is usually more or less decided by then. After I've replayed a game once I replay it again from my memory. You might need to lay down the game more times before you can memorize the game, but don't give up! It's very rewarding once you master it.

Could you sometimes write posts about your time in S.Korea?
- Sure thing. I could try to make one general post about Baduk in korea and then another one of my experiences. Thanks for the idea!

Another thing is about the promotional campaign of this blog =)
Special offer: Free teaching lesson with me for all who share my blog in their facebook!!!
Send an e-mail to me and prove ur sharement. In addition there is a counter at the bottom of the page for shares on facebook. The special offer is for the first 5 people!!! So be fast :)

Keep commenting for questions new ideas. Perhaps best comments could even be rewarded!

Stay tuned! See you!!!