Last weekend I traveled to Barcelona to participate in the Spanish Female Go Championship.
We arrived at Barcelona on Friday evening and were invited to a splendid barbeque at my host’s house. Julio, Cesar and Miguel were already waiting for us and pretty hungry! They shouted at us from the terrace, urging us to go inside. So we hurried and after a quick “Hola! Que tal todo?” we started eating. Excellent meat and even better company 
After dinner we played a game of Intrigue, which Cesar won after successfully negotiating with the rest of the players, and we went to sleep almost at 4 am! Not bad, specially considering how little sleep I got during last week 
On Saturday we woke up late (well, at least some of us did ^^) and went directly to the tournament area to have lunch. We chose a Japanese restaurant where we met other participants already having some sushi and noodles. Delicious soba, though a bit expensive for my taste, since the portions were rather small. Maybe I’m just getting very used to the awesome Japanese restaurants in Soho (London) 
This year, in parallel to the female championship, there was the so called “Partners tournament”, just for male players, with handicap -1 and 4 rounds. The girls tournament was originally planned for 4 rounds, but we decided to rush a bit and play 5 rounds, since we were 5 participants. In contrast, the parallel tournament had 11 players.
So, it was 2 rounds on Saturday and 3 on Sunday for the girls. I played against bye the first round, so not a lot of exciment here .
Second round against Ari, I won by resignation. She tried a very deep invasion which I was lucky to kill and I managed to keep the advantage, so she resigned.
Sunday, third round against Zuriñe (what a warmup!). A huge semiai crossing the board from one side to the other. In the end one of my many groups surrounding the attacked group was heavily damaged, and I though I didn’t have enough liberties, so I resigned. I was scolded by other players and told to never resign in this way again. At least if you don’t have time to read it (byoyomi already) play it! Sorry guys, I’ll try harder next time!
Fourth round against Sonia. I ended up playing San-ren-sei, which I rarely do, and it was a calm game, trying to count all the time and making my territory bigger than hers. Won by 10.5 points.
Last game against Isa. She always plays very fast and I was dragged by her speed. Anyway, my brains were completely burned by then and I played several kos which made my life miserable, I didn’t kill a group that should have been killed in order to win the game and I resigned.
I ended up in third position and won a Korean tsumego book donated by Lluis Oh. Thank you Lluis!
All in all, a very pleasant tournament, meeting people I don’t usually get the chance to see and playing Go! Thank you and congratulations to Julio for organizing it!! I’m looking forward to next year’s.
PD: I’ll probably post my games later on, in order to motivate me rather than impressing anyone that comes across them xDD.
