Wandering Go Club / Old Posts

By Scott Jankowski

February 21st, 2010

Well, yesterday was was the 2010 Chinese Spring Festival 3rd Annual Go/ Weiqi Tournament in Westerville. Brian, Jeff and myself drove down there early in the morning for a nice day of competition and an interesting display of Chinese culture (Jeff and I were really excited about the food in particular!).

We were the first to arrive on-scene and did some 'before game' studying to pass the time. We were soon joined by our friends (*cough* rivals *cough*) from the Cleveland Go Club and soon after by the rest of the participants. I thought that the pairings were quite good and the opponents challenging. This being Jeff's first tournament, we decided to have him enter as 14 kyu. Brian entered as 1 dan and myself as 2 dan. After the first round, we broke for lunch (Jeff and I were the first of the players to get to the food!) and we had a chance to sit down for a while and get to know some of the players that we hadn't met before (then it was back to the line for seconds!).

When the day was done, we had curbed our appetites for Go and for Chinese food (as much as is ever possible) and ended the day with Brian and I taking 2 wins an 2 losses each, and Jeff with 1 win and 3 losses. It's always sad to leave a tournament. You can't help but feel the urge to play "Just one more game..." even if you're exhausted (which we were!), and the edge that you get from competition starts to wind down. Everyone who has ever played in a tournament knows how the games you played that day stick in your mind, sometimes with regret and sometimes with pride. Either way, you can't wait until next time!

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