Wednesday games, part 9: Go

This time we played Go. Well, thanks to computer clock trouble, I was an hour late. Olli and Ilari played Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation before I came. But then it was all Go!

Ilari had played a little before, Olli had played about once a long time ago. I played couple of games of the capture game with them to get them grasp the basics, but soon we moved on to proper 9x9 games. I felt like a real master, playing two games simultaneously... I played five games against Ilari and six games against Olli. Olli won four times and Ilari won thrice and tied once. This might look bad for me, but then again: they had handicaps (Olli had +4, +3, +3, +2, +2, +2, Ilari had +4, +3, +2, +1, +1) and I gave plenty of advice. Both the annoying kind ("By the way, that was a really bad move" after a move is played) and the better kind ("You really should play that here instead of there because..." before my next move).

Olli managed to win four games, but lost twice with heavy difference, which basically meant I slaughtered most of his stones. He definitely knows the basics, but creating live groups is still a bit of a problem. I think Ilari was a bit stronger player. However, when they played against each other, Olli won. But it was close - Ilari made one mistake, which cost him the game.

After that Olli left and I played two more games with Ilari. First we played a game on 13x13 board. With a handicap of four stones, Ilari managed to win me by 16 points. I didn't manage to form much territory, but I did capture 11 stones from him! He made several small but lethal mistakes. However, he learned a bit from them and played the same situations better in the next game.

We played the last game on a proper 19x19 board. I gave Ilari four stones again, but this time I won the game by 43 points. I think I played some parts of the game rather well, creating live groups from nothing three times - sometimes in very restricted space, as well. It was an entertaining game and I hope Ilari learned something from it.