Saarto Is Back On Track

Yesterday, we had another club evening at Jaro's building's club room.

This time we had more players with us. I'm so glad Ville's skills are improving. He's still a 1 kyu. But we have taken to playing even games. I won them both yesterday. But it is usually the case that he establishes a clear lead in the fuseki (early game). It becomes my job to catch up by the late middle game.

Ville is a slow and deliberate player who takes his time to analyse each position tactically and strategically. He told me he had watched a lot of instructional YouTube videos during the hiatus of our club. Ville has a very good grasp of the opening for that reason because the opening is something you can learn from books or videos.

I'm a fighter who has tons of hands-on experience. I was once told by a more senior player that my biggest strength is large-scale tactics. What that means is that while I might not have much patience for painstakingly working out how to squeeze a half-point advantage in the small endgame or something like that, I have a pretty good idea how a fight will develop in the near term. I'm not particularly good at tsumegos (= life and death problems), either. But I tend to be at my best in open-ended situations where there are no clear cut answers.

Probably some time around mid-May onward we'll be meeting by the lake. Frankly speaking, there are few things better than a game of go among friends out in the lakeside park surrounded by stunning views and a can of beer at hand at sunset at 11 pm when it's still 29 C.

Here's the kind of views you can expect: