I think I've offended the god of Go; maybe I should make some kind of offering or sacrifice. After my frustration yesterday, I decided to play in the Die Hard tournament, which is a 4 round tournament for those who don't have other things to do on the day off, in hopes of getting some good games. Instead I got a series of progressively less interesting games, until I was so bored I wanted to cry.
My Congress roommate Kfir made the first game at least a little enjoyable by catching me in a joseki mistake and nearly killing my corner, but I counterattacked and killed him instead. Then to make the second round game interesting, I played 5-5, tengen, and 5-5 in succession. We both played abysmally, but I caught my opponent in an endgame error and won by 8.5 points. The third game was the worst by far, however. After a fairly normal opening, I began attacking a dragon and building territory around it with no risk to myself. My opponent used up all his allotted 45 minutes without really playing moves that were worth thinking hard about, so I used only 11 minutes and spent most of the time waiting for him to make a decent move or resign. By the end, his dragon was 25 stones long and still had no eyes! The only reason I didn't bother trying harder to kill it was because I already had enough points to win. Then to cap off my crappy day, my fourth round opponent didn't show (he'd gone 0-2 and then forfeited the third round too) so I didn't even get to play. I wanted to go 4-0, but not like that. Like I said earlier, I think I've pissed off some higher power. Oh well. I'm sure my fourth US Open opponent will be a tough challenge, since it's likely they'll be 3-0 as well. Looking forward to it!
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