Ninth game at EGC

It's friday and only two games left to play in the EGC. Today I played a Korean lady of 7 kyu. She didn't speak any English so we nodded and I placed my first black stone on the board.

She played her first four stones on the same side of the board, while I spread them out to occupy a larger territory. Her fifth stone she approched my lower right corner and there she must have played wrong because I closed her in directly.

I left my corner with some aji and secured some territory in the upper right. Directly she attached to my 4-4 stone and I played a hane. In the sequence that follows I build a wall that is building a large moyo.

She then turns to invade my lower side and I jump in to her lower left corner at san-san. She block from the wrong side and I get a good result and her D6 stone is too close to her D4 group, making an inefficient shape.

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]TM[5400]OT[3x30 byo-yomi]
GN[EGC Main Tournament Round 9]PW[Korean lady]PB[Boywing]WR[7k]BR[4k]DT[2011-08-05]EV[EGC 2011]RO[Round 9]PC[Bordeaux, France]WT[Korea]BT[Sweden]RE[B+5.50]
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My H7 move is not so good. It should be better at K10. My F9 is even worse and makes a counter attack at H9 possible. The E10 move I regretted the second after I put it on the board. So I just pretended it didn't exist and I tried something else. The problem is that I removed some aji in the upper right.

Whites M3 made me some worries but I decided to defend my moyo and played N4. I was later told that this was a very good move. My opponent didn't answer so I got the possibility to capture the M3 stone.

A couple of moves later white attacked my upper group with G15. The best response to live is E18, but I wanted to be able to jump out in whites middle area so I played H15. That gave me some problems when I played wrong a couple of times and I barely survived thanks to my opponent to make as many mistakes as me.

By now I felt I was ahead and didn't want any bad surprises so I played inside my own territory at R11. Then came L9 and I felt like crying. I read out as far as I could and there are so many cutting points and it was hard to find any way to play a sequence where I can keep all my stones. So I played a sequence to give away three stones and am able to close off my territory. Then again I didn't expect the next move at O13. Well now it should really be closed.

We played all the way through endgame and to fill all the dames to count the points. I won by 5.5 points. Yay! So now I have three wins totally and all of them in the second week. Tomorrow I will meet a French 6 kyu. I think he both lost and won against 4k and 5k so he should be at my strength. It will be a challenge!

Girlwing won today against her Japanese 6 dan opponent. Tomorrow she will play another 6 dan who has played well this tournament. Let's hope for the best and that Girlwing wins her seventh victory.

Go players solving weiqi problems together under a tree.

Morino Setsuo 9P is reviewing the game between Alexandr Dinershteyn 7D and Catalin Taranu 7D.

Players looking at the results of today and the new pairing of tomorrow.

To farewell drink is served tonight.

Players enjoying the farewell drink.

Work party - Midnight bath

Some of us took a bath in the pool. I didn't because I forgot my bathing suit. :P

Work party - Mosquitos

The sun is down but the mosquitos are still up with us. This stuff is helping some but not much... Some more beer and we will not notice... Raj raj!

Work party - Raj raj

A couple of beers... and everything becomes much more fun! :D

Work summer party

Once a year in the beginning of the summer my customers boss is inviting us all to his home. There he and his wife are treating us with food and drinks. Good customer!

Guitar hero

Hugs in the kitchen

BBQ on the balcony

Beer in the sun.

Chinese New Year

Happy New Chinese Year! Now it is the year of the tiger. This is something that is celebrated by all Chinese people. Much like we westerners are celebrating our new year at the 31st of December.

This year, like last year, we celebrated it together with the employees of Huawei. This year Girlwing was the hostess together with a college.

We started with eating a lot of tasty Chinese food and drinking Swedish beer. A couple of the Chinese employees had some fine BaiJiu with them from China and I was treated with some. Quite tasty but also strong with 43% alcohol.

When everybody were done eating it was time for some performances and snacks. This is to my understanding very common on occasions like this. Many of the employees were involved in some way with singing, dancing and fun games. Many of the employees children made performances as well. One thing that struck me is that this would never work in a Swedish company's party. We are too shy and would need a lot of beer and wine to have fun together, not to mention spontaneous singing in front of a crowd . Not a single person at this party got drunk. Another difference is that in a Swedish party there would possibly be some social dancing and that is probably very rare in any Chinese party and there were of course no social dancing at this party.

Most of the celebration was made in Chinese and much of Girlwings role as a hostess was to translate what was said to Swedish. As to be expected most of the Swedish guests left quite early after the food. Probably because they didn't feel like a part of the group when they couldn't understand everything. That is a bit sad but it can be understandable.

The whole celebration is anyway for the Chinese people, who are kind of stranded here in Sweden, so far away from their families at home. It is for them like it would be for us to be all alone over Christmas in China, but a hundred times worse. Family and friends are very important for them, so it is very valuable to be able to do this together with the colleagues and friends they have here so far away from home.

Work Xmas party

The day after Huaweis Xmas party, it was time for an Xmas party at my work. For as long as I have worked there I have never heard of such a party. So I went there to hang out with some of my colleagues.

It started around 17:00 but we came there after 17:30 and by then the whole corridor was packed with people eating, drinking and talking. It was a nice way to mingle with hundreds of known and unknown. Most of them were unknown to me, but if we had this a little more frequently then soon it would be a totally different thing. I believe this is good for the atmosphere at a workplace so I would like to see this maybe twice a year.

We were offered some small plate with different pieces of food. Not much at all so I wish they had some bread to fill the belly with. But there was candy here and there so I ate quite a lot of chocolate. With the food we had the option of beer, wine or water. I think I had at least five glasses of wine so I got a bit drunk, but at a party like this most people need to get a bit drunk to create the friendly atmosphere to get people to talk to each others.

During the evening a choir walked down the corridor and stopped here and there to sing some Xmas songs. They were quite good. Better than me at least... :P

The party was supposed to end at 19:00 and by that time they started to clear off all the food and drinks. Many of us were not ready to go home yet so we stayed and talked to after 20:00. By then most people were gone and my friends went downtown to keep the party going in some bar. I went home to Girlwing to help her prepare for our guests from England that will come in the weekend.

I think it was fun and it was good to see people I work with in a relaxed situation. I really home we will do the same for next Xmas.

HuaWei X-mas Party

A couple of days ago I got an invitation to Huawei´s X-mas party at the Chinese Embassy in Sweden. As I was told the dress code was "Business Casual". I thought about this for a while and came up with the idea that for some people this will mean to wear a full suite with tie, because this is what is expected of them in their office. For others this will mean a nice sweater with a shirt under it. The only suite I have is about ten years old and only worn during friends weddings. So I was not so keen of wearing a suit, but a nice sweater and a shirt is something I can wear to dress up. I quite often wear this at work but I felt it was needed to buy something new.

So I went to the store and asked for help to match up something good for me. I am not afraid of something colorful so I got a nice red sweater and a blue/gray shirt to have under it. With this I wore a pair of beautiful black trousers and pair of shiny black shoes. I was so handsome.


The party started at 16:00 with mingle and simple Chinese performance. I could not leave work that early but I got on the subway at about 16:30. On the way I took this picture of the invitation card.
Notice that the R.S.V.P is 18th Nov and I got the invitation late on the 8th Dec. No big deal... Just check out the invitation... I think it is fun that I was invited at all.

About 17:15 I arrived at the embassy with some other of Huawei´s customers and one of the employees that I know. That felt good so I knew that I was going in the right direction. In the entrance of the gates to Chinese territory inside the embassy there were some security guards and employees of Huawei. I knew one of them since before so there was no problem for me to enter. I didn't even have to show my invitation card, but I showed it anyway just for the fun of it. He just waved to me and smiled and I walked in to the Chinese land.

Soon I entered the main building and welcoming me was my sweet Girlwing who for the moment worked with greeting all the guests. I was directed to hang of my clothes in the employee area. Then I walked around among the guests and looking to see if there was anyone I ever met before during my life as a Remedy ARS Consultant. I didn't see any familiar faces from that time. I was hoping too much. Most of the people were purchase managers, CEOs and similar people responsible for decisions about purchasing telecommunication equipment. Not much close to the people that is responsible for IT support and IT process tools. Another thing that struck me that everybody were wearing a dark suite, with a discrete tie. Hmmm.. I am not wearing a suite.... I am wearing a nice read sweater. I was standing out very clear from the crowd. Oh shit... Actually I didn't care that much about this... but instead I was feeling sorry for all the people being so stiff, boring and imagine less. I was expecting some people to wear suite but I didn't expect everybody to wear that. What does "Business Casual" mean really?

Girlwing introduced me to some customers she met through her work and I talked to some of her colleagues. I also watched when some calligraphy artists were writing some of the customers names with Chinese characters. There was also a person there making Chinese tea in the proper way for the customers to taste.

So far the party looked like a western party with some Chinese details. So now it was time to continue in a Chinese way. That means that everybody should do something together. Usually that involves everybody listening to speeches or watching performances. So everybody goes in to a room filled with chairs, just like in a theater, in front of a stage. First we watched a short tourist advertisement movie about Beijing. It was interesting for me with many beautiful scenes. This movie was probably the embassy's idea.

Then there was some performances. Here I think they did a mistake of NOT informing the audience that they didn't bring the best performers they could find in China. Instead they had asked some young Chinese students who for the moment are studying in universities here in Sweden. In Asia it is impolite to say "No" so off course they participate if their country asks them to perform for the Swedish customers.

In China it is very common that the parents pay a lot of money and energy to get their kids educated. It is also very common that the kids get some extra education to play some instrument, dancing, calligraphy or playing weiqi. So many student are skilled in those arts. So we got the opportunity to enjoy some traditional instruments by these student. They were very skilled but it was obvious that they were not professionals. In the dancing acts there was one girl that was very good while the others didn't really match up to her skill. There were also two singing acts and here came the second mistake in my opinion. They sang in English. Hey, we Swedes are quite good in English and we know how these songs are supposed to be sung. But it was cute... I only wish that they had sung in Chinese. In that way we would have no idea if they made any mistakes, and it would be more in theme with the traditional Chinese instruments that were played in other acts.

The funnies thing with the whole act were the two presenters that talked between the acts. Especially the girl. She had no idea of her lines and she had to look in the note hidden in her hand all the time. At one moment when the male presenter asked her "Do you like to see movies" and she looked at the note and hesitated for two seconds and then said "Of course". Was that so hard to remember? ;)

Anyway I enjoyed the show and I understood quite soon what the deal was, but I was afraid that many in the audience didn't get it and thought that it was bad. It was obvious that the students didn't get so much time to practice before the show so I hope they were pleased with what they delivered. All credits too you all!

The performance took a while and now we was starving. As soon is was over everybody had to leave the room so they could remove all the chairs and make the room ready for the food. It was an Asian buffet. So tasty! It almost felt as I was back in China. Someone said it was the embassy's chef who had made all the food. If he did... Good chef! And it was a lot of food. After everybody had eaten about two thirds of the food was still left. I was so hungry and focused on the food so I forgot to take any picture of it. :P

After everybody was filled with Chinese food it was time to round things off with a great show of fireworks. This was the most amazing fireworks show I ever witnessed this close. The whole show took about 30 minutes or something like that. The last five minutes there were some really big pieces. The ground shook of the explosion when the rockets left the ground. The alarms of several of the embassy's cars went of "wee wee wee wee". Several seconds of nothing... and then the most amazing colors and lights lit up the sky. Again and again and again. I am still amazed... 8)

When the show was over and we walked out from the embassy, the police came and checked out what was happening. Probably someone had called them about explosions over at the embassies. I am not surprised... :)

Get drunk at Halloween?

When talking about drinking too much we can think about the Halloween parties that are just around the corner. So take care of yourself and drink no more than you need to feel good and being happy. Do not do like these pumpkins!