Biggest Tournament Blunders?
One of the things I like about online tournaments, especially organised by clubs or bodies like the QGS or the New Zealand Go Society, is that you play against people you never would otherwise.
I was watching such a game today. The New Zealand Digital Tournament is on currently (and I’m participating!), and a friend of mine (a 40+ year old living in Brisbane) had their match against a 10 year old from New Zealand. The 10 year old (who I’ll call Felix, and was playing White) had my friend (who I’ll call Horatio, playing Black) dead to rights – he was up by about 40 points, and Horatio had no realistic way to claw his way back. So he’s just playing those usual clean-up moves you make at the end, when he forces a ko to make a small group live in the corner, and… Felix self-ataris a middling-to-large group. Worse, this resurrects two of Horatio’s groups, which kills a truly massive group of Felix’s. All in all, it was a 300 point blunder, according to KaTrain.
The players had a discussion, and it was decided that the mistake would be undone (which Horatio granted, even though he didn’t have to, because he’s a mensch like that), so unfortunately the official OGS kifu doesn’t preserve it. For reference, the sequence, starting at Move 292, was:
- Black N1
- White O2
- Black Q7
Now, I’m not saying this is the biggest blunder in a tournament ever. I’m sure it’s not. But it’s easily the biggest I’ve ever witnessed or heard of, in terms of points lost.
I vaguely remember there was a tournament game a few months ago, where one player made a mistake, generally referred to as a “real life misclick”. But I can’t remember who it was.
Can you think of any larger mistakes, either in a tournament or just in casual play?