Norman Richards

When I started playing Go again a few years back, there was one particular player I played against in China that I had as my target.  I jokingly called him my Touya, in the sense that he was a stronger player I was striving to improve to beat.  At the time, there was at least a 2 stone gap between our levels.  Although I've made 3 or 4 trips to China since then, I was never able to find a time to play him again to test how far I have come.  

That changed last week, when I found myself in China for a few days longer than I planned to be.  It was unfortunate, but it did give me time to get in two games with this player.  Since he had so handily beat me before, I took black in an even game.  He may have been surprised when I didn't take the same two stone handicap as before, but if he was then his Chinese sense of politeness held him back from suggesting a handicap. 

I won the game handily.  I was ahead out of the opening and ended up cutting a big group, capturing enough stones to force a resignation.  We played a second game.  I politely took black again.  I did make one very careless mistake which left a group of mine vulnerable to attack, but even though my opponent profited greatly in the attack, I still was ahead by a large enough margin that he was forced to resign early.  

Now that I've achieved my task at hand, it's time to chase another Touya.  This time, I'm going to aim for a local player who is a few stones above me.  When I first started playing again, I lost to him at 4 stones.  Recently I've beat him at two stones, so I'm not far away.  However, this player is also serious about improving, so chasing him will be a bit harder.  It'll be fun.