Last weekend I went to North Wales to visit my friend (and English former teacher) Vaughan, and we took part in the Welsh Go Open. Luckily we had sunny weather during the sightseeing days, and quite bad weather during the tournament ones. I noticed the quite big difference between the temperature in Wales (around 15ºC) and in Barcelona (27ºC), but it was not really bad.
After visiting some castles and enjoying the green mountains and the sea, he drove to Barmouth, a coastal city. The tournament venue was in a hotel in front of the sea, where hypothetically we were going to enjoy the sea… and we did according to the British Go Association report: I wonder if they know the real enjoyment of the beach; there were only heavy wind and rain. Anyway the tournament, indoors, was really interesting.
I won 3 of 5 games. I’m feeling confident with my game, and this made my moves more serious. I entered as 3 kyu, and in the 1st round I beat another 3 kyu. 2nd round started immediately after the 1st, and I beat another 3 kyu. Then we went to the room, dying of hunger, to eat something. Later we arrived a bit late to the 3rd round, and I didn’t see my opponent level, just the table number. I was near to beat him, and later I verified he was 3 dan! Despite the result I was really happy. On Sunday we had the last 2 rounds, where I forced a 1 kyu to resign, and I failed with another 1 kyu. Vaughan meanwhile won 4 of 5 games, failing just in the last round. A really good tournament for both of us.