I will be playing the third and deciding game of the (2015!) British Championship this Sunday 14th against Andrew Kay 5d. Start time will probably be around 10 am GMT and broadcast on KGS in the British room. The match is currently tied 1-1, my win in the previous game bringing to an end Andrew Kay's 8 game unbeaten run in title match games. See viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12506 for previous games.

I expect you already have the record for the latest finish there, but maybe you could try to push the boat out a bit more and go back to the 5 game title match.
Will anyone be assigned to comment on the game?

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North Lecale

After losing the first game in such a disappointing manner, and given my difficulties finding time to schedule games what with buying a house, getting married and applying for visas, I suggested changing it to best of 1 but we agreed to reduce to best of 3 so it's not going back to 5 this championship. I'm not aware of a commentator.

I won! Here's the game.

What happened? Did he resign after move 2?

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

No.

It is just a variation (most likely a missclick while recording). One has to change the variation in the variations tree to see the whole game.

congratulations for the victory. It effectively finished after the first corner fight. Don't understand why W26 did not play at P19 - it would be OK to just capture that three stones as white had G17 waiting there, and R11 was a small extension so giving up the corner not so bad.

Thanks!

No game against Andrew Kay is effectively finished until you count at the end. Just look at the first game of this title match, I was something like 25 points ahead after the first corner fight there (and would have been even more if I played move 41 k5 at m7 first so he couldn't get a squeeze on the outside viewtopic.php?p=196323#p196323) and yet managed to lose. I tried to keep the 2nd two games calmer and avoid his provocations.

I too expected p19, my plan was to extend at m16 in sente and then jump out to m12 rather than play the m17/18 ataris and try to make him fill in to make 2 eyes. I almost forgot to play s19 atari which would have been a disaster. How good is that result for me at move 35? As I have weakish groups both sides I didn't think I was leading particularly much, no more than 5. However once he jumped to o11 rather than attacking at r9 or q/r6 I felt much more comfortable as I got both of the miais.

I wasn't particularly happy with my result in the bottom right corner as he took all the territory, my wall was a bit clumsy and the p6 cutting point was bad aji, but it kept my stones connected and weakned his sprawling corner group. m4 was related to that unease, but maybe I should have directly played m12 myself. In the review Andrew preferred k5 jump as g3 extension, which is probably better and shows m4 wasn't so severe as he can settled that side and q2 isn't so appealing for me as the corner ko is too hard, and n3 retains a lot of aji. Maybe I don't play the ko though and just get s7 in sente which would be nice.

Probably d4 should be c3 if I don't want to give him the corner ko, and drive him out and aim for some profit given that would be 3 weak groups. I wasn't happy with the timing of my j6 peep, I thought about it instead of d2 but the corner was more urgent then, maybe before e11 would be good. As it was he did well to sacrifice the 3 stones on a small scale and settled the corner with good profit, but if I defended at f3 I was concerned the h5 peep or h6 cut could become effective for him without me getting j6 first.

Andrew agreed his p13 was slow and my m10 was good so he should have played thereabouts instead. Some kibitzers thought his s9 was good but I expected simple r12 q11 sente to make good shape and he agreed it was better than the game in which I resisted well. It was a shame I didn't get to play o10 but I wanted to play j15 anyway so we both agreed I had to answer there and patiently look for slim pickings against his group. He thought I could ignore o10 push and try to kill the whole thing but that didn't even cross my mind as I was trying to play a calmer style and seems unnecessarily risky (and we couldn't find a convincing attack).

I also saw many kibitzers thought white would win after he got both b12 and b4, but I didnt' mind him getting b4 as it meant e8 lost power so my k12 tesuji worked better. He had misread that and thought the ladder worked for him, and then m15 l18 was a blunder which made me hopeful of victory, and e8 sealed it. The kibitzers thought I could connect with h9 for move 205 but I read a problem inside with j3 and as I was ahead I decided to defend safely (though immediately realised f4 was a more profitable defence), in the review we checked and I was correct and h9 would have lost the game (and had I defended at f4 then white couldn't even connect the 3 stones against the h10 atari or the liberties means the corner dies). Playing that ko on the left side was obviously not sensible in case I had misread, but I wouldn't be me without a byo yomi scare .

I think you are quite OK at 35. Yes your both sides are not that strong. But at least you have bases and eye space. White gets just a weak group with no point.

You gave up too many points in the bottom right corner. I guess maybe your less optimistic judgement earlier affected your later judgement. B37 doesn't look right. I would play R6 instead. If white immediately invades at R9, you then P10. As I suggested, your groups have bases - there's no reason to fear complex fights.

I don't like your J4 and G3 - they weakened the other group and M6 later was of little value. I would play Q2 instead of J4 - you save a move outside, capture the two stones already and keep your right to start a ko. Even if you do not intend to use the ko (just R3 and connect), you reduce white's corner to less than 8 points (from 17 in the real game, assuming white gets Q3 which is more likely) and you have almost 10 points locally. That means Q2 is about 19 points plus saving your M6 move, pretty big! Then if white plays F3 you simply D5 to secure your corner and you can still invade H3 later. If white extends to G3 only, you play F3 to strengthen your corner and make K5 duplicate.

More comments:

- Yes I prefer C3 to D4. Keep as many points in the corner as you can and chase him out. As you correctly suggested: white has other weak groups.

- M17? I won't play such submissive move in 100 years. Maybe K16 instead? Of course this requires some reading. But my judgement is that if white wants to fight, he might be able to capture O18 stones but inevitably his G17 stone gets hurt. So nothing to fear about the fight.

- Yes J6 was bad timing. Should chase his stones out so that you can attack multiple weak groups

- Then what is T17? We need to think of points all the time. That ko is only valued at 11.5 points plus some additional values securing the whole group outside. But white needs two moves to get these benefits. Elsewhere on the board there are many valuable points, such as E1 which is nearly 10 points locally and threatening the corner.

- And S13? Time to stop attacking and get points? S13 is 10 points in gote. O10 is about the same value but thicker. You can give up the 4 stones, and you get sente to play another big move such as B14 or E1 or J9.

My endgame analysis from 141 onwards. White's overplay at 156 lost the game, I think. But already at 141 he could have made a choice for thickness.

Knotwilg, in your variation in which you said I could safely play h9 you made a mistake. White will not j5 immediately but j3 j2 and k1 throw in to squeeze out an extra black liberty, and only then play j5 atari and then f4 atari whilst maintaining 2 liberties for his stones.

I like this idea. For some reason I didn't consider it, yet I did consider tenuki the previous move to play the thick o10 (but didn't because j15 is such an obviously good point and the k12 tesuji remained). And I don't think white can not capture the 4 stones or else my saving them will be sente against his now weaker group, though I suppose he could answer on the outside with something like k10 etc which also extends a lifeline to the lower left corner so e1 might not be sente.

I will give an audio lecture on these games on Sunday 13th March at 7pm in the British Room on KGS.

Btw anyone got recommendations for a good free screen and audio capture program (trial version that can't do a 2 hour lecture no good)? On Windows XP. Or 7. Or does someone watching want to record it?

Reminder: I will give an audio lecture on these British Championship games at 7pm GMT today (that's 3 hours from the time of this post) in the British room on KGS.

Here's a video recording of the lecture.

http://youtu.be/ZAoSBbPyG5U

In the last lecture I only managed to cover the first 2 games; I will give a lecture on the 3rd game this Sunday 10th April, 7pm BST (GMT+1) in the British room on KGS.