Nuttakrit (Krit) Taechaamnuayvit and Alexander Eerbeek played one of the longest games in round four of the Korea Prime Minister Cup. As soon as it was over, Ranka asked both of them to describe what happened.

Krit: I thought I had a very good game, but then I made a terrible mistake and a corner that I had already killed came back to life. The situation was now very difficult for me, but at the end I was lucky. Alexander made an even worse mistake and a big group died, so I won.

Alexander: Well, first of all he got a big moyo. I’m very bad at reducing moyos in general, so I made a deep invasion and got some weak groups, right in the beginning of the game. He attacked me and I managed to live. Then he attacked another group, and another group, and I managed to live with all of them. At a certain point I made a ko in a corner and managed to win the ko fight, and then I was winning the game, but because of time pressure at the end I couldn’t read out a life-and-death situation, and a group died. So that was it. I’m good at screwing up games, but it was exciting: first he was winning, and then I was winning, and then he won. As for Krit’s playing strength, it’s hard to say after just one game, but perhaps he’s a little stronger than me.

Postscript: Krit went on to beat Czechia’s Ondrej Silt in the next round and ultimately finished ninth. His only losses were to Korea’s Park Jaegeun and Japan’s Emura Kikou. Alexander lost the battle for tenth place to the Ukraine’s Dmytro Bogatskyy in the last round and finished seventeenth, best among the players with three wins.