Finally, some pictures from the tournament in Oulu

This post is long overdue, but I finally managed to get the pictures sort of edited and actually uploaded them to my picasa albums. It took me a while since I took well over hundred pictures while visiting Oulu. Not all of them are related to go, but I suppose a little bit of culture never hurt anyone. :)


I would've posted more of them from my G1 phone, but the blogger client I had installed didn't support uploading more than one picture at a time. (I just got an update installed which is supposed to do just that, but it came a bit too late.)

When I arrived to Oulu I met an old friend of mine, Ari whom had gracefully opted in to provide me a place to stay on my visit, for which I am very thankful for him since I'd probably never had money to attend the tournament otherwise. We went straight to Oulun lyseo, the high-school where the event was held, and I got very surprised when the organizers immediately recognized who I was.
(I was, after all one of the only one they didn't really know. ^^ My name was on the participant list anyway.)

In the beginning I felt a bit orphaned, being the only stranger in a place where everyone else knew eachother. The event at first looked a bit loosely organized, but as the tournament opening ceremony began, I got a chance to hide behind the camera so I began to feel a little less obscure. And here's where the picture cavalcade begins.

From Oulun kesä 2010 - Go-tournament

The welcome speech was interesting, to say the least. "The purpose of this tournament is to have fun, and if you are not having fun, come and tell us. We will make you have fun." Then they told us the tournament was also a bit experimental, since they wanted to test out the Fischer timing system. I was a bit oblivious to what it really meant, but figured I would find out in my first games.



Then, after the starting ceremonies were over, both the main and handicap tournaments started, and I got to play my first game, which I lost, but my opponent, Erkki Mattila 13k told me afterwards that as he was a 9k in KGS, he couldn't quite believe I was "only 14k" on KGS for the hard time I gave him in the game. I was quite pleased.



Between rounds I had some time to walk around town. I met Ari's girlfriend Anna, and while she and Ari went shopping, I took a haircut. We still had time to visit a café and the sea-side market square.





When I got back for the second round I learned I had a free round and didn't have other games for the day, so I took some pictures of the on-going second round of the main tournament.


The bearded fellow was a German 2dan Jan Rueten-Budde, who later that day gave me a teaching game at the sauna. A game I won because he insisted on giving me hints and tips on how to play on each occurring situation. Here he was playing a game against Janne Kössö 4d.


Antti Törmänen 6d vs. Ilkka Mattila 2d


You could really feel the concentrated atmosphere here.






The girl on the right, Hannele Ahlroos 2k playing against Matti Väätäjä 5k, was my opposing player when we played in the sandbag tournament later in the day. Sadly I forgot to take any pictures from those games. They were fun. It was a 9x9 board on the ground where we threw black and white "stones" from two meters away. Mostly out of luck, I lost that one too. But it was a tough match. ^^


The guy in blue shirt here is Erkki, the one I played against in the first round. Here he's playing against Miikka Salmi 10k.


Elina Pieniniemi 10k vs. Ville Väätäjä 9k


Lilli Hiltunen 13k vs. Katariina Keränen 15k








The Second day



On Saturday it was my turn to play again. I walked 6 km to get there, but I tend to think things like that are just good workout for the games.


The gobans were ready and waiting.


My second game (yeah that's me right there) in the tournament was against Katariina Keränen 15k. It was an interesting match. I mean.. This girl was fast. As soon as I hit the clock her stone was already there. So the game started off with a sort of a blitz but it soon slowed down as we entered the mid game. There, in the mid game I misread a situation where I could have killed the whole middle group of hers. Lucky for her I started chasing her stones the wrong way, thus throwing away my big chance. Well, I didn't know about it until the end when we got shown where I could have turned the game to my advantage. Well, she won the match, but she too said she was surprised about my low rank. Maybe I should play those ranked games on KGS more often after all.


More games.

For the rest of the weekend I don't have pictures of any games, but on Sunday in between matches, I went for a photoshoot with my friend Ari and here's what I found.


The town hall, now pictured from the front.


Water fountains in the Oulu river.


Nice postcard scenery too. :)

Then we headed back to the tournament prize ceremony.


Miikka Salmi 10k was given the first prize in the handicap tournament with 5 wins and 1 loss.


Antti Törmänen 6d was the outstanding winner of the main tournament with only 1 loss.


In the end of the prize ceremony, they announced the graduating ranks amongst the players. And we all applauded wildly for everyone.

It wasn't a total loss for me although I did lose all my games in this tournament. For being a fearless and resilient newcomer in the tournament, I was presented with a prize too. I was given a fan. "The first, not the only fan, and certainly not the last fan."
I was kinda dumbfounded... All I could say was "thanks, thanks". ^^

After the games had passed

I went to shoot some more photos with Ari.


Click on the picture and check out all the other pics I took.

One more picture before I go to sleep, it's 4:50 in the morning, so I'll probably sleep the whole day.

From Oulun kesä 2010 - Go-tournament

Beautiful, isn't it?

Good night! And Let's meet again soon! ^^ /gg