"Go" Session

I played four games of Go with my friend Rik tonight. Lately, our games have been characterized by jostling for position, pushing, shoving and elbowing. This is not my usual style of play. I generally try to isolate one of his groups, make it heavy and weak, then exploit the attack elsewhere, making territory along the way. Rik has been more conscious of his shape lately, and his stones have been difficult to kill. As well, we have both shown willingness to settle across most of the board, each believing we have an edge in potential or real territory that can be sustained throughout the game. Tonight, we each won two games. One was a heartbreaker for me - I missed an obvious tesuji. I knew it was there, but I tried to play away from it, then neglected to go back to it with a gote move to settle. Rik simply made the move to kill two stones, forcing me to backtrack and make my groups safe - enough to squeak out a win. We are too close for either of us to be able to afford an error like that. This was my punishment for over-confidence. I thought I had this one in the bag.