US Go Congress Day 7 / 2026 Jul 31
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Round 5 opponent was Scott Guevin 5K. The opening was mostly fine but
I made a small error of judgment which lead to a fairly good opening
for black - white needed to do some tough fighting to stay in the
game.  I didn't back down and invaded - my timing and location was
perfect according to AI for the position. In this position my opponent
decided to hane when they needed to go back fully capture the two
stones cut off on the inside.  Having seen this position before and
thought black's move to be slightly unreasonable, I decided to
move the two black stones that were cut off.

I turned against the 3 corner stones creating significant pressure. I
had considered jumping out, but AI analysis believes this to be a
biggish loss probably because the turn creates a trove of sente moves
against the corner and jumping out doesn't. The option to escape
also doesn't go away with the turn.

Following the turn we both read to the best of our ability. My
opponent probably played a bit too quickly on instinct and was unable
to find the severe moves in this situation. I ended up destroying
black's territory, connecting to the white stones in the right corner,
cutting off a large stick of black stones, surrounding black's
invasion into the right corner, and finishing off the battle in sente.

The game was more or less decided after this giant fight. We played
out the rest of the game. Even though I only had a few minutes on my
clock the decisions were far simpler to make because I had pretty
strong positions everywhere. White tried to make some complications on
the upper right side of the board, but I played calmly without backing
down unless I needed to. This part is important - I felt no desire to
passively answer anything even with my lead.

Finally, near the endgame my opponent made a reading error and the
result was crystal clear. But we played out the dame and scored the
board - black was up by nearly twenty on the board.

After lunch, Logan and I went to Ryan Li's lecture on Go Seigen. This
one was particularly cool because it focused on a game that involved
quite a brilliant sacrifice of four stones that Go Seigen used over
and over again to keep control.. A masterpiece game without question.

I was starting to get sick of the nearby dinner options so I ventured
forth alone to La Campania, a nearby Neapolitan spot. Wow! I took my
time and savored my meal as well as the The Dispossessed by Ursula
K. Le Guin. The book continues to be a slow burn, but I am completely
hooked.

After dinner I went back to hang out in the main tournament room where
they were streaming live commentary with Michael Redmond 9P on the top
boards.

We sat around chatting Go, talking about life, and shared some of the
more interesting positions from our Open games.

The week went by fast. One more game!