My Go Career

This started in 1991 when I was introduced to the game in a bar in Kiel by Caspar Nijhuis. He thought up my name, 'BadShape', an apt name particularly in my first few years as a go player, people often remarked on the ugliness of the patterns of stones that developed in my games. I don't make time to play much these days, but I am rated as 1-Dan UK.

Here are my most recent tournament games (lightly commented). Download all the below (64k) in one go, or browse through them individually.

The most recent tournament I played was in Amsterdam in the year 2000.

o 2000 Amsterdam Open, Game 1 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Hennie Groot Lipman [1 Dan].
o 2000 Amsterdam Open, Game 2 - Eric Couris [1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 2000 Amsterdam Open, Game 3 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Hans Mulder [1 Kyu].
o 2000 Amsterdam Open, Game 4 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Maarten Schlemper [1 Kyu].
o 2000 Amsterdam Open, Game 5 - Hannes Knuth [1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 2000 Amsterdam Open, Game 6 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Hans Boekhuijsen [1 Dan].

Bracknell 2000:

o 2000 Bracknell, Game 1 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v someone [1 Dan?].
o 2000 Bracknell, Game 2 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Geoff Kaniuk [1 Dan].
o 2000 Bracknell, Game 3 - Gerry Mills [1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].

London 1997 - I won 4/8, less than the previous year, although I had entered with the same grade:(. In all these games I found myself getting very tired towards to these games, and so my standard of play consistently declines. Time pressure is another factor.

o 1997/8-London Open, Game 1 - Daniela Trinks [1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 1997/8-London Open, Game 2 - Niklas Mellin [1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 1997/8-London Open, Game 3 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Olaf Lorenz [1 Dan].
o 1997/8-London Open, Game 4 - Paul Margetts [1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 1997/8-London Open, Game 5 - Luc Vannier [1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 1997/8-London Open, Game 6 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Jana Hricova [2 Dan].
o 1997/8-London Open, Game 7 - Jan-Fee Poll [2 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 1997/8-London Open, Game 8 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Martin Smith [1 Dan].

Coventry 1997 - I won 2/3, losing the second game on time.

o 1997-Coventry Open, Game 1 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Alan Thornton [2 Dan].
o 1997-Coventry Open, Game 2 - Colin Adams[1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 1997-Coventry Open, Game 3 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Chris Dawson [1 Dan].

London 1996/7 - I won 5/8. I played (4,4) points to open with, since I know these josekis best. (The one (3,3) point I played was by a mistake!) Almost all of the games contain terrible blunders by both players. I began to realise how little I know about this game...

o 1996/7-London Open, Game 1 - Bernd Sokolowsky [1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 1996/7-London Open, Game 2 - Alan Thornton [2 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 1996/7-London Open, Game 3 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v Harold Kroll [2 Dan].
o 1996/7-London Open, Game 4 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v M. Kato [2 Dan].
o 1996/7-London Open, Game 5 - Robin Upton [1 Dan] v J. Hawdon [2 Dan].
o 1996/7-London Open, Game 6 - H. Blumel [1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 1996/7-London Open, Game 7 - Francis Roads [4 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].
o 1996/7-London Open, Game 8 - Eric Couris [1 Dan] v Robin Upton [1 Dan].

Coventry 1996 - I played as 1 kyu, and won 3/3. On the strength of this I was promoted to 1 Dan by BGA grading committee. They only saw the results, not how badly I played...

o 1996 Coventry Open, Game 1 - Eddie Smithers [1dan] v Robin Upton [1kyu].
o 1996 Coventry Open, Game 2 - Robin Upton [1kyu] v Simon Rudd [1dan].
o 1996 Coventry Open, Game 3 - Robin Upton [1kyu] v Gerry Mills [1dan].

London 1995/6 - I tried a strategy of combining (3,3) with (10,10), which was criticised by many Dan players. I think it is fair to say that I seemed to come off pretty badly from the fuseki, but this may not mean that it was my very first few moves which caused this. After all, my fuseki and joseki skills are not good.

o 1995/6-London Open, Game 1 - Martin Smith [2kyu] v Robin Upton [1kyu].
o 1995/6-London Open, Game 2 - Robin Upton [1kyu] v John Dawson [1 Dan].
o 1995/6-London Open, Game 3 - Paul Smith [1Dan] v Robin Upton [1kyu].
o 1995/6-London Open, Game 4 - Robin Upton [1kyu] v Paul Hankin [1Dan].
o 1995/6-London Open, Game 5 - Phil Achard [1Dan] v Robin Upton [1kyu].
o 1995/6-London Open, Game 6 - Robin Upton [1kyu] v J. Keller [2kyu].
o 1995/6-London Open, Game 7 - Robin Upton [1kyu] v Wiet Bouma [1kyu].
o 1995/6-London Open, Game 8 - Niel Ghani [1kyu] v Robin Upton [1kyu].

Bracknell 1995 - I knew few josekis, so my opening (BadShape fuseki) emphasized simplicity. I liked to play (3,3) as well as (10,10). I once saw an IGS game where a dan player played this, and someone kibitzed 'Good balance or contradictory strategy?' but no one seemed to know.

o 1995 Bracknell, Game 1 - Robin Upton [2kyu] v J. Chin [2kyu].
o 1995 Bracknell, Game 2 - Robin Upton [2kyu] v Baron Allday [2kyu].
o 1995 Bracknell, Game 3 - Vincent West [1 kyu] v Robin Upton [2kyu].

Coventry 1995 - I was unused to playing so quickly, and got into very bad time trouble.

o 1995 Coventry Open, Game 2 - Robin Upton [2kyu] v Martin Harvey [2kyu].
o 1995 Coventry Open, Game 3 - Gary Quinn [3kyu] v Robin Upton [2kyu].
o 1995 Coventry Open, Game 4 - Johnathan Rees [3kyu] v Robin Upton [2kyu].
o 1995 Coventry Open, Game 5 - Dave Killen [3kyu] v Robin Upton [2kyu].

London 1994/5 - I tried a parrallel (3,3) & (4,4) fuseki:

o 1994/5-London Open, Game 3 - Robin Upton [4kyu] v Edward Blockley [2kyu].
o 1994/5-London Open, Game 4 - Robin Upton [4kyu] v Hildegard Puttkammer[1dan].
o 1994/5-London Open, Game 6 - Ulli T. [3kyu] v Robin Upton [4kyu].
o 1994/5-London Open, Game 7 - Sue Paterson [2kyu] v Robin Upton [4kyu].
o 1994/5-London Open, Game 8 - Anna Cross [1kyu] v Robin Upton [4kyu].

Back to my home page   |   Back to my go page
If you have any suggestions or have found any mistakes, please drop me an email.