My first victory since my return!

Today I played a game versus jandred [14k] on KGS. Playing E19 with my 209th stone to save my upper-left stones was an important thing I missed, however. With this victory, I am now 13 Kyu on KGS!

Without further adieu, here it is:

The game that makes me want to quit Go

Well today I played a game against waldemar [14k]. He was a nice opponent. After yesterday's game against an 11 Kyu, I figured that I was at least stronger than 14 Kyu. I played the game well, and was winning by quite a large margin. Around the Eightieth moves though, I was simply not paying attention, and playing on auto-pilot. I don't know what I was thinking, and after seeing what happened by move One-Fifty, I was more angry than I have ever been while playing Go. I literally felt nauseous. It was all I could do not to smash my mouse. I've never been so angry at a game before. It was scary. I never want to play Go again. Well...at least that's how I felt during the game. I was so absolutely overcome with rage. I don't know what prevented me from simply thinking it through and stopping Black from marching right in and stealing roughly fifty points from me. I know how to, and knew how to, but didn't do it. It was like I said, "Here...I know how to stop you, but I won't. Take whatever you want from me. You want to win? Okay, here, have it. I won't stop you."

It was extremely frustrating. Of course, I will play Go again.

Here's the game:

First game after my break

Today I played my first game after my vacation. I hadn't read or played Go for about a week. It was against wolfmann [11k] on KGS, and I lost. It was a great game, and in review I found a mistake that, had I not made it, cost me ten points. If not for this mistake, I would have only lost by half a point!

Here is the game:

Go club at my school? Improvement!

Well, the trip was excellent. I had a great weekend and created some new, great bonds with some of the students at my school. I also was also surprised that out of the eighty or so students that went, I found four that knew the manga/anime Hikaru No Go. Everyone one of them were interested in learning to play the game of Go, but had never had the chance. If there are four out of less than a hundred, surely there are many more amongst the close-to-two-thousand students at the school I teach at. I think that trying to start a Go club there would probably turn out to be quite a success!

Since my last game last Thursday, I haven't had the time to play yet again on KGS. In addition, I didn't really get much time at all to read during the trip. Basically, I've had close to a week with no Go. I'll have time this weekend to play, and we'll see how the short break affects my strength.

On another note, apparently the people I have defeated on KGS in the past have gotten better. According to KGS, they have improved enough to have had an effect on my KGS ranking. I am now 13 Kyu, and halfway to 12 Kyu! It was nice to not play for a few days, and then see my ranking go up a point.

Stay tuned for more reports and games!

Last game before heading out of town

I am a high school teacher, and this weekend I will be heading up to Prescott, Arizona with my school. We will be back Monday, and so I've packed a couple good tsumego books up along with my two new novels that revolve around the game of Go (First Kyu and The Go Master). I won't be able to play at all, and so I got one last game in tonight before I head off to bed.

I was Black against ME2 [14k] on KGS. It was a satisfying game, but not simply because I was victorious. It was satisfying mainly in that I felt like I was able to be successfully aggressive...something I have not yet been able to do in a game against an even-ranked player. I am normally defending what I have and holding out until the end. In this game, I experimented and pushed as much as I could find room for. An early R11 was imperative I half-felt, and was later told in review with Flameblade [2-3d] from Go Discussions. However, it worked out in this game.

Here it is:










Have a good weekend!

The negatives of studying.

I have been studying quite a bit lately. School has started up again, and being a High School teacher takes up quite a bit of time. However, I've been able to be reading my Graded Go Problems for Beginners (Volume 2) book in spare time, and in the evenings I've been reading the tactics chapters from The Second Book of Go. I haven't been playing as much as I was over the break, but have been studying more. I have more ten to fifteen minute sections of time, as opposed to the hour or two chunks of time over the Holiday break. To sum up, I've been reading a lot more, and playing a bit less.

Well, today I played a couple of games. The first was against Kurissu [13k]. While I consider myself just a "weak" 14 Kyu player, I didn't expect to lose so badly. It was by about sixty or so moku, which I felt was quite a large margin. I felt I was playing decently until near the end. It's funny how when I feel like I am just ahead, I end up winning by a large amount, but when I feel like it is close, I lose. It sort of goes back to the recent post about the sides and corners versus the center. In this game, I didn't ignore the corners and sides, but did focus on connecting through the center. The result? One huge chain of stones cutting the boards into quarters, surrounding almost no territory, while my opponent had the corners and sides.

Here is the game:










After this game, my sensei Terri had a few minutes to do a quick review. We discovered that I made a number of mistakes while my stones were in atari. I tended to ignore the ataris and try cuts which were simply mistakes. It seems the studying of all these tsumego have made me look for tesuji where there were none. It's a sort of growing pains area in my development. I am looking everywhere for these tesuji because of all the studying. Once it all sinks in, Terri feels I will settle down and then see new strength. In the meantime, I may experience a slight decrease in strength as I re-learn certain things.

After the loss to Kurissu, I then played a game against grimm [17k]. Grimm had to leave early due to exams. I felt that I played horribly again, and while the KGS score estimator says I am ahead by a good margin, I am not satisfied with my play in the game. I don't feel like I should be struggling as much as I was during the game. I was having a very hard time finding good plays. On top of everything else, I hit the "pass" button just before we adjourned the game, so Grimm will begin with an extra play when we resume (assuming we meet up again).

Here is that game, so far:










I am going up to Prescott, Arizona this weekend (for three days) for a school camping trip, and will not have access to play Go. However, I will be reading a lot. I have The Master of Go and First Kyu to read, as well as my tsumego books. So...more reading and less playing! It will be interesting to see how it affects my play in both the short, and long-terms.

Stay tuned!

Studying habits.

This past week or so, I've been playing a game a day on KGS, and reading Davis' Life and Death while starting to read The Second Book of Go. I'm finding that it's not really gelling with me though. The Life and Death book seems to [I]teach [/I] life and death more than allowing you to practice it. I've read about a quarter of it, and it's above my level at this point. The Second Book of Go's first couple of chapters are not that great, and then the third is an EXTREMELY superficial look at joseki.

"If this happens, use this, if this happens, use this, if stones are here, do this, if they are here, do this, if they are here, do this..." and so on. It is presented in such as way so as to be non-memorable to me.

So...what I'm thinking is skipping ahead to the chapters on invading/attacking/defending. This is what seems most helpful to me at my mid-kyu level.

What I will do is continue to try and play at least one game a day, while reading the later chapters in the book, and studying my Graded Go Problems for Beginners when I'm not sitting down at home. We'll see if this change in my studying habits helps with what seems to be a stagnation in my improvement.

Maybe this is all just a backlash from my very fast improvement. I just really got serious about Go a month ago, and rose to 14 Kyu within a couple of weeks. Maybe I've just hit my skill level, and now I need to work harder to improve it. Time will tell.

I found a new way to lose. Play for the corners and the sides.

Well, today has been quite frustrating. I found a new way to lose, and that is to play for the corners and the sides. You heard correctly. In each of the following two games, against lower-ranked players, I take corners and sides, and even take some of their corners. The result is a loss for me after the opponent takes the middle. What's going on? I guess I'll just play my first stone on tengen from now on. I'm being facetious, by the way.

Here are the two games.

Seki

Today, I encountered my first seki in-game. It was vs. gannon [15k] on KGS, and I won after White resigned. It was a bit confusing as we wrapped around each other in the upper middle-right, and it ended with dual life. After a large error, followed by some smaller ones leading to Blacks' consolidation of territory, White resigned. My rank is now back to 14 Kyu.

Here is the game.

First handicap game as White.

Today, I played my first handicap game as White. It was pretty difficult. It was against Xinyu [17k], and Black had two stones. I would have won if not for missing the fact that a group in the lower left was not alive, but unsettled still. It was doubly frustrating because I am reading a couple books on Life and Death right now!

In any case, it was educational, and I learned a few things. The most important, of course, is to make sure a group is settled. It seems that at my level, this is the hardest hurdle to overcome. I feel as if I play tenuki, I will be told in analysis, "You should have stayed local and finished settling the fight," and if I play locally, I will be told, "Here you should have played tenuki." It is a difficult thing to balance, but hopefully I will pick up on it soon.

I've been busier now that school has started, but hope to meet up with Terri sometime soon to play or look over a game. Yesterday, I defeated a 15k by a slim margin, after having made a giant mistake.

Here is my first handicap game, from today.

Update on my rank.

Well, I am currently rated 15k on KGS. I felt that this had to be a bit inflated, as I really just started playing Go less than a month ago. However, after defeating a 10k player with only four handicap stones, I wondered. Today, I played a game against Harmo543 [15k], and won by quite a few points. After this game, I am pretty sure that I must really be 14-15k. I know it is only two games, but I also played Wes yesterday from The Phoenix Go Club, and he is 4k. I had nine-stones, and only lost by about twenty moku. If I remember correctly, that would make my strength about 15k. I can't remember where I read it, but I believe that each stone is worth about ten moku, and each point of strength is one stone. Four Kyu, plus nine handicap stones equals thirteen. Add two more points (lost by twenty or so moku), and you have fifteen.

Here is the game against Harmo543.

The Phoenix Go Club

Today, Holly and I went out to the Phoenix Go Club's Saturday meeting. With my schedule, I will be able to go every other Saturday, which I am excited about. There were a few members there: Bill, Richard [5k], Kyle [10k], Michael, and Wes [4k]. Those are their American Go Association rankings. All the people were very nice. I played a nine-stone game with Richard, and lost roughly eighty to six moku. I then played a nine-stone game with Wes, and lost about sixty to twenty-five moku. Holly watched my first game, and then played a teaching game with Kyle with a nine-stone handicap. We both had a lot of fun, and are excited about going back!

One important thing that West taught me was the way to prioritize my thinking. He said, and I am paraphrasing, "Before each move, think: one, do I have weak stones, if so, make them stronger; two, does my opponent have weak stones, if so, attack them; three, if there are no weak areas, then secure more territory." This was a great piece of advice, as I often have a hard time wondering what is most important.

Great teaching game, and Holly's progression.

Yesterday, I played a 4-stone handicap game against a new friend TheBeast[10k] on KGS. He just happened to get a game I submitted to The Go Teaching Ladder, and reviewed it. We both sort of knew of each other from Go Discussions, and so we met up on KGS to play a few days ago. He's a good teacher, and yesterday's game was very fun, even more so due to the fact that I won! Granted, it was Shido-Go, but it was great fun, and I had no expectation of coming closet to winning. It was a real confidence booster, and if TheBeast let me win, it was a great idea because it has greatly boosted my confidence. He even commented that when he reviewed my game from just last week, he thought it was very bad (he capitalized all the letters in "bad"), but that now he was shocked at how much progress I made. TheBeast said he felt I would be SDK (single-digit kyu) soon. I don't know about that, but it's a nice thought. The game is here. Just click the SGF button next to the TheBeast game. There is a great fight on the right hand side that had us both sweating. We both thought it was a great fight.













In addition, Holly and I are continuing to play. While I have reached 15k, she has kept up with me by still being able to beat me half the time with seven handicap stones. That means, I believe, that she is about 22-24 Kyu. Yay Holly!

Very strange game.

Today, I played an interesting game against CJA [13k]. He was extremely aggressive right off the bat, but I defeated him. I wasn't sure if his rating was artificially inflated, and so I looked at his record, and while he had some wins against 19-22 Kyu players, he also had some against a variety of 9-12 Kyu players. You can see the game by following this link and clicking the SGF button next to the CJA game.

Possible lead content in Yunzi stones...

Please read the January 2, 2008 post on Chiyodad's Go blog. It is very important if you have Yunzi stones in your home, especially if you have small children around (as I do). According to this post, some Yunzi stones have roughly two-hundred the legal lead allowed in products in the United States.

Among other things, progress in the New Year, and some sad news.

Well, I've been busy. Over the last few days, I've been playing and reading a lot. I've also met a very nice woman by the name of Terri on Go Discussions. She is a retired teacher that devotes most of her time to learning Go. She has a Pro-level teacher, and has been kind enough to spend time with me reviewing some of my games on KGS over the last couple of days. Everything together has helped quite a bit.

One important thing Terri (Buzzsaw on KGS) has taught me is how to count which side is the largest. The largest side must be played on first. Why play for the smaller area before the largest? Simply by counting the points between the single corner stones (once played) and taking the lines to the edge into consideration, it is easy to tell which side is the largest.

My KGS rating has climbed up all the way to 17 Kyu already. It was 18 Kyu when I went to sleep last night, but apparently the people I had defeated before gained a large enough amount of strength to affect my rating as well! It was a nice New Year's treat to wake up to.

Some sad news for the Go world arrived today. In Korea, the world's Go capital, there is apparently a decrease in popularity going on. This post by a Korean Pro gives a lot more details. Up until the 1990s, I hear that Japan was the capital of the Go world. Japan experienced a similar decrease in Go popularity in the 1990s, and Korea took Japan's place. If this happens to Korea, what country will become the world's center for Go, or Baduk, as it is called in Korea.

Hopefully, in this New Year, I can reach the single-digits in the Kyu ratings. Happy New Year!