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My route to the final might look straightforward in the standings but there were definitely some losing and very uncomfortable positions along the way, which required some “generosity” from my opponents to keep me in them. Note the games against Iain Barrass and David Beck for some particularly worrying examples.
All that aside, I did make it to the final to face Imre yet again. With the higher score in the swiss I had to make the all important choice of colour in the final. I do try to mix this up historically to keep Imre guessing, but this time he correctly predicted I would choose white, so his preperation was not in vain. However, he ruined all my pre-tournament prep on his second move with E3.
Moving on it’s a fairly standard opening. Interesting point that makes these openings horrible to remember as white though. After 10. G4 for white, black has four different ways to play the bottom (we’ll assume white always plays D3 in between):
D7D3E7
D7D3F7
C7D3E7
C7D3F7
All these lines are perfectly valid and result in very similar but slightly different positions, and create huge stress for white if they forget which continuation goes after which.
I prefer white 16. F7 to B4 lately because it results in a high chance of you getting to play the really fun and cool 28. G7 later on. With black’s G3 to get back on the diagonal being immediately countered by H5, and white ending up with a very interesting and versatile region in the bottom right, that black really, really doesn’t want to play into, giving me some sense of control about when and how that gets resolved.
Anyway, we’re pretty much out of book now. Black obviously wants access to C6 so plays the natural 31. E2. I decide I don’t want him to play that so play a natural C6. This is the final point in the game that black was ahead (admittedly only +2 per Sensei) and made a small mistake with 33. F2. This is forgivable though given it’s the second best move and the best move C2 just looks ridiculous. I doubt either of us gave any serious consideration to that being played.
Next few moves are correct and very intuitive. Yes, that includes B7 which although an x square is effectively forced. But now white has an actual choice to make. I don’t like 38. F1 as giving black the other x square (G2) scares me, so I’m committed to playing out the bottom right now. H7H8 has the advantage of white not having to play into G8 immediately (blocked off to black).. but there isn’t anywhere else I want to play after. Starting with G8 feels better to me, primarily because I really want to keep the H6 disc white so black can’t play to C1 later, which would really open up their options on the top.
It’s worth noting that while black did respond immediately with 39. H8, allowing me to take the H7 wedge, this was actually a terrible mistake for black, going from a -4 position to -14. The only way to keep the game close here was to play A5 and leave the bottom right unresolved for now. Black did play A5 the move after anyway, but by this point it’s too late. It’s not immediately straightforward to see why this is the case, but if you play the same line as was played in the actual game for example, but without H8H7, so 39. A5, then F1G2G1. You’ll notice H1 is now much stronger as black has the option to take the whole right edge with H7 and build a much larger block of stable discs in the top half of the board. So in conclusion, don’t play out an optional region unless you have a compelling reason to do so. You might live to regret it.
Anyway, after the actual line of 39. H8H7A5F1G2G1 there really isn’t any hope for black. White has a huge chunk of stable discs guaranteed on the right half of the board, and access to a8 to build more discs on the left side. Definitely not a bad game from Imre, with H8 really being the only ‘bad’ move played.
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