By: GoDave89 on Oct. 3, 2019, 8:14 a.m.

Round 3. From the outside in, this must have already looked like the tournament deciding game. My opponent had already beaten my second round opponent in the first game as well as one of the 3dans (as mentioned, in a really quick game due to a huge blunder in the opening).

My opponent was well rested and the favorite - at least on paper. But I had three advantages on my side: 1) I played black and thus got to play my slightly unusual opening to throw him off. 2) I had just beaten another 4d, so I came in with the confidence that I not only have the skills, but was also in good shape. 3) The opponent was well known to me, since he used to live in my town. So I knew about his weaknesses, while he hadnt played me in a while and didnt know how much I had improved. When I first played him a few years ago, he gave me 4 handicap. I slowly managed to lower that handicap to 2. Last year, when after a longer break he returned to play at our local club, I claimed I had gotten stronger, but he refused to lower the handicap. Then, just a few weeks later, I got to play him in an equal game anyway. It was the same tournament as this one and I had just gotten a 4:0 score (my first and only other time I ever lost less than 2 games in a tournament) and as a reward got to play him in round 5. I lost, but already then I had managed to keep the game equal until the second half of the game.

So after this little bit of history, maybe you can understand that there was some extra motivation to win this game. Forget what that meant for the tournament (I really tried), it was all about this one game.

I started with me 3-3 + dragon enclosure opening - and immediately got an advantage: A psychological and a time advatage, as my opponent stopped, a bit confused, for 4 minutes (!) to think about how to handle my opening. It does not seem like a lot, but when you are used to being the one down in time, it sure feels like it ;). The game developed rather equally with slight advantages for me (according to lz) after the bottom left joseki and the ensuing fight. But after I had messed up the top right, the advantage was on my opponents side. I knew I had fallen behind, so once again I tried to catch up by being greedy. That gave away the control in the center fights to my opponent though. At this point I did not feel good about the state of the game. I got up often during this game, since my opponent also always took a long time to think. So at that moment I really tried to find a way to cut off his left side two stones. After thinking for quite some time, I could not find anything, so I played a sente exchange to strengthen my weak group, expecting a certain defense and already looking for other ways to find a comeback. But he did not defend the way I thought he would. I checked again and now my tesuji all of a sudden worked! My opponent told me after the game, that he had seen my tesuji, but for some reason only had read one variation that worked for him. There was a countertesuji, but my opponent didnt find it. Nevertheless, he could have still lived locally and stay in the better position. However, for some reason he misread a rather simple tsumego and the status of the group became a ko! Soon after I ignored a non-local ko threat of his, thinking I could handle that new fight. Now I felt good about the position, but I also knew that there was still a lot of possible game left. At this point I did not have all that much time left and after a few careless mistakes the game became really complicated. I ended up almost dying on the right side and was really low on (byo-yomi-) time, but a final mistake by my opponent allowed me to capture his cutting stones and he gave up - at that point I only had 6 seconds left for 3 more stones, but the fight was over.

Here is the game: [goban sgf=https://openstudyroom.org/forum/attachment/173/][/goban]

I was really exhausted, but also felt exuberant joy. This was already a real milestone for me and I probably will remember this game for weeks - and the tesuji that set up my win for a lot longer :-) I had now beaten three out of the last four 4dans I had faced in tournaments and felt like I was finally getting the results I knew I potentally could, but was not quite able to show in the past.

But now, the pressure really was on. I had already beaten the two favorites to win the whole tournament. Suddently, I became a favorite to win it all! The next day, I would have to face the only other player who had a 3:0 result up to this point! How will I handle that additional pressure? Stay tuned! ;-)