Greg Lefler Memorial Tournament, Pt. 2
The tournament was played in four rounds. I was only able to attend the first two because of family commitments, which was fine because it allowed me to “get my feet wet.”
At 9:30 am, I presented my AGA card and paid my fee, and then we had bagels and coffee while the pairings were set up. Finally, the pairings list was posted for the first round. The pairings list gives you your name and rank, your opponent’s and a table number. If you are playing your first tournament game, you guess your rank and give it the Director, just like you would online. The Tournament Director was the Empty Sky Go Club President; He had played me before and seen my record against the lower kyus, so we put me in as 21k.
My first tournament game was against another player who had estimated his rank, too. But he had signed up as a 30k. To my horror and astonishment, I was to play White and give him nine stones.
To track time, digital Ing timers are placed by each board. Obviously neither of us had any clue how to work the thing. After about five minutes of messing with it, we finally called over a rep who helped us. (FYI: BT is Basic Time, not Byo-Yomi Time). We still messed up the clock because of the handicap and had to reverse it.
As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, my opponent wasn’t 30k, he was probably about 26k. I fought hard but I just couldn’t overcome the 9-stone handicap and lost by resignation.
As we went back over the game, the timer for Black set off a warning, loudly announcing to the whole tournament “BLACK HAS FIVE MINUTES REMAINING!” That got a few laughs. We found the volume control after that. It could’ve been worse; we could’ve had it set to yell in Chinese.
I met up with a few friends from club to find out their results, and then we got ready for the second round.
At 9:30 am, I presented my AGA card and paid my fee, and then we had bagels and coffee while the pairings were set up. Finally, the pairings list was posted for the first round. The pairings list gives you your name and rank, your opponent’s and a table number. If you are playing your first tournament game, you guess your rank and give it the Director, just like you would online. The Tournament Director was the Empty Sky Go Club President; He had played me before and seen my record against the lower kyus, so we put me in as 21k.
My first tournament game was against another player who had estimated his rank, too. But he had signed up as a 30k. To my horror and astonishment, I was to play White and give him nine stones.
To track time, digital Ing timers are placed by each board. Obviously neither of us had any clue how to work the thing. After about five minutes of messing with it, we finally called over a rep who helped us. (FYI: BT is Basic Time, not Byo-Yomi Time). We still messed up the clock because of the handicap and had to reverse it.
As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, my opponent wasn’t 30k, he was probably about 26k. I fought hard but I just couldn’t overcome the 9-stone handicap and lost by resignation.
As we went back over the game, the timer for Black set off a warning, loudly announcing to the whole tournament “BLACK HAS FIVE MINUTES REMAINING!” That got a few laughs. We found the volume control after that. It could’ve been worse; we could’ve had it set to yell in Chinese.
I met up with a few friends from club to find out their results, and then we got ready for the second round.
posted by Woodard at 1:30 PM
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