Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the Rocky Mountain Winter Go Tournament in Boulder, Colorado. The tournament was organised by David Weiss, and had 56 participants, one of the largest turnouts in an open tournament in Colorado. I went registered to play as an AGA 11 kyu, while my friend Cecilm[21k] registered as 10 kyu. We were both part of bracket D, which ranged from around 10 kyu to 14 kyu. There were five brackets total, ranging from 7 dan to ~18 kyu.

My first game started a little late due to my opponent being 10 or so minutes late, so it allowed me to calm down a bit, watching others start their games and hearing the clicks of the stones on the goban. Once I actually started, I was playing against a 14 kyu and was to give three stones handicap. The opponent was a child (three of my four games were against children, oddly enough), but she was very nice and courteous (as were all the other children, I must add.) I started out the day with a confident streak, since in the game I truly had sente for most of the game. She followed my lead practically everywhere on the board, so I had the power to tenuki whenever I wanted, taking most/all of the big points. This also allowed me to become comfortable with the clock settings (45 absolute plus 5 30-second overtime periods).  Once the game was over, the point spread was fairly large so we didn't even bother counting (all that counts is whether you win or lose), so I got my first tournament win.

My second game was against an 11 kyu, so we played an even game, with me as black. This game, I failed in three major areas: botched fuseki, missed a large atari, and managed to let a dead corner live. I had the capability of winning if I had followed even *one* of these points, but missing all three was relatively embarassing. I lost this game by around 20-30 points.



Bad Wolvie!
With this game behind me, Cecil and I both went to lunch. Both of us were 1-1 at this point, and we talked about what happened in our first two games. After eating some chinese food, going over my botched fuseki, and playing through the beginning of a Shusaku game for fun, it was on to round three!

My third round was also an even game, but against a fairly small child that delighted in playing around with his bowl. I honestly don't remember too much about this game, except that at some point I ran out of black stones, so we did a prisoner exchange so I could finish yose and filling in dame. I won this game by a fair amount, and the child's father helped his child with the counting. He was incredibly fast at arranging the stones and counting territory.. it was awesome to see how skilled he was.

My fourth game started out fairly early, as my opponent was rather anxious to start his game. Cecil had lost to this opponent for his first game of the tournament, so he told me watch out and good luck. This opponent was also 14 kyu, so I gave three stones, but it sure felt like he was a bit stronger. For this game, I really had to pull out my RAWR (thx Agilis), and attacked a lot of his weak structures and did a couple of clever moves to catch his stones and gain more territory. The only bad thing that I did in this game was underestimate the importance of a ko, which allowed a dead group that he had to live. Regardless, I won my fourth and final match.

At the end of the tournament, we had four people in our division that had 3-1 records, which were myself, Cecil, and my second and fourth opponents. We couldn't figure out who got first or second by absolute record, and we couldn't do it by who won against each other, since everyone that played had won against at least one of the winners and lost to one as well. It came down to how the *other* opponents that we had played did (basically, who played the strongest opponents), and so my fourth opponent won first, and my second opponent won second. I didn't win anything in that case, but I still learned tons, had a wonderful time, and enjoyed the company of some of the most incredible, humble, and courteous people that I've ever met. It was truly a wonderful event, and I thank everyone who I had the pleasure of meeting, and David Weiss for organizing the tournament.