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:
