17th International Amateur Pair Go Championship

From go.org.nz

At the Hotel Edmund in Tokyo over the weekend of the 18th to the 19th of November, 2006, Edwin and I participated in what turned out to be a very enjoyable pair go tournament. We won three out of the five games we played, finishing exactly halfway down the results table, 16th out of 32, behind only Korea, China, Chinese Taipei, USA and multiple Japanese teams.

Pair go is difficult because it's frustrating and your team mate never plays where you want them to. To be fair though, Edwin turned out to be a good partner in crime. I was lucky enough to be paired with a 9 dan professional during the friendship game, meaning that no doubt it was my partner who felt all the frustration. He certainly did play some very impressive moves.

In our first game we defeated Chile quite easily, in a game we dominated from start to finish. In our second game we lost to a Japanese team by resignation. Our opponents in that game turned out to be pretty good, in the end far too strong for us. We lost our third game to Vietnam, which was annoying because we expected to win. Our fourth game saw us beat South Africa, despite Edwin playing a move I absolutely hated. The fifth and last game we played was also our closest. We beat Netherlands by 2 and a half points in a game which we were losing throughout until the endgame, when Edwin played a very clever move, which gained us about 10 points.

I was pleased with our final placing, especially considering last time we went, we came 21st.

Written by Yucong Phease

playing against Chile

Paired with a 9 dan professional

External links

• Official report (from European Go Federation)
• Results and photos