Congress!

Hi People :)

My apologies for the long absence. As many of you know, or at least those who read my sensei's page, I recently finished my job at Hopkins. During that time I moved to Pittsburgh and started attending the Pittsburgh Go Club, but neglected to update as I should! I will try to give you the digest version of that and some memories from Go Congress!

Pittsburgh is a nice town where my parents live. My parents agreed to feed me in exchange for me helping paint their house. Since all I really wanted was a vacation this deal was perfect. Of course that also involved taking care of their spoiled toy poodle, but for the most part I have time to look for "the" job instead of "a" job, study some go, and practice piano.

One of the first things I did was go to the Pittsburgh Go Association (http://www.pittsburghgo.com/). There I met the very nice people running the club (notably Ethan and Kim) and a majority of mostly new players. I found it strange, because for the first time I was the strongest person in attendance. Hopkins had several strong dan players and so did the Baltimore, NoVa, and Greater Washington go clubs.

I love the spirit of small clubs! Hopkins was a very small club to start, and would fluctuate in size. Since the semester started, so has the Pittsburgh club, and now there are many strong players in attendance. I am not entirely sure who is the strongest (probably the 12 year old chinese boy :)), but its fantastic to see the stronger players teaching, socializing, and being members of this growing club.

By some small fortune, a friend was able to arrange a cottage and a reasonable price for me to go to Go Congress. So literally two days before congress, I registered and drove down!

Congress was a fantastic experience. By far and large go players tend to be very nice and kind individuals. There is a lot I could discuss, but I will choose my favorite memories to impart.

The first one is probably the most nostalgic. My friend Dave and I met when we were very little boys (around 8 I think). We have kept in contact digitally for years and years, but we didn't see each other at all. My mental picture of him was of a 16 year old, incredibly skinny, very bright and goofy kid.

Dave and I started playing go at roughly the same time and have been playing mostly weekly games for 2 years. We have progressed at roughly the same rate, but we both have different strengths and weaknesses. It was awesome to meet him and his friends in person.

He is now taller than me, chubbier, with slightly less hair on top of his head, and slightly more hair elsewhere, and a notably different, more confident personality. All of which is quite charming, and hopefully he will not kill me for saying so :) Its nice to see that a person who was always kind, smart, and fun to talk to is still kind smart and fun to talk to! Re-meeting and old friend was definitely a great way to start congress!

My second congress memory was quite surprising. At Hopkins we would always tease people for playing very territorially calling them "an old japanese man". We do so as if it were a bad thing, and that no young hip person would ever play in such a boring way. Then at congress, I played several old japanese men and I am better for it!

My first experience was playing against an old japanese man who was a japanese 2D. Japanese ranks are a bit softer than american ranks, so the pairing seemed to be about right. He didn't speak a lick of english, but he was very polite, very warm, and we played a very good game.

I like to attack. This old man, however, played incredibly solidly and there was absolutely no opportunity to attack him. I hate to over extend a little bit to get an advantage. He continued to play solidly, however, and although I had an advantage it never increased, our game went into yose, and I held on for dear life. His yose was clearly quite strong. At one point, however, he played a move that seemed gote. I ignored, and he destroyed me.

His style wasn't so much slow and territorial as it was honte. He always played the move which made his shape strong and waited for an opportunity to tear me apart. Afterwards he gave me the fan which is pictured above. Its Nakeyama's famous problem, which happens to be a heart. It was so incredibly generous and I had nothing to give him but my respect.

As this post is now quite long, I will wrap it up. Congress was awesome. I went to many great lectures, had reviews from professionals, and even had some luck playing them at 6 stones (although I'm sure they crush me had they wanted). I will be going next year :)

Next I'll post on something I learned, look forward to it!

Mixed Results

Starting a new account was going well till I went for vacation. I won many games in a row and made 7k, and then promptly lost many games in a row and dropped to 9k. I don't care about rank too much, but I find 9k kinda embarrassing. I feel like my good game is so much stronger than that, but my bad game is pretty horrifically bad.

The lost games are all a result of going home for Easter vacation. Home makes me several stones weaker. My father plays go and he asks questions while I'm playing. Its not conducive to winning games. Plus the standing over my shoulder drives me nuts. He can sit down and watch, but to have someone hovering is maddening. So I lost some games, which is good, keeps me humble :)

I have managed to have a few interesting games. This one against romanwahoo was probably the most fun. I "invented" a joseki, which went much better than it should have. Then once again it exploded into a gigantic fight with an incredible result. Sorta edge of your seat :)

Currently I'm still suffering from "excessive fanciness." I'm obsessed with complicated fights and trying to tenuki during sente moments. My goal with waykay right now is to try to play more solid games. Unfortunately, my yose is still weak, so I'm going to lose a lot of games. Solid play makes the end game more and more important. I can't keep relying on huge kills anymore (even if its a ton of fun).

Lastly, the life and death practice is going well. I'm working my through "Get Strong at Life and Death." Its going very well except on monday-wednesday. I have commitments on each of those nights so I don't get any book work in. Still in the mornings I've been playing goproblems.com which is somewhat helpful.

There was no weekly game against Dave this week (he was on call). I'll try to post some commented games this weekend though.

Weekly game against Dave

The weekly game against Dave appeared to be a comedy of errors. My opening was horrific, but some tesujitsu and a mistake in direction had this game explode in a gigantic kill. Its not for the weak of heart, but its definitely amusing:

http://kgs.kiseido.com/games/2006/4/11/lcninja-Raine.sgf

After I get a review from geo, I'll update with comments.

Playing seriously for a change

Yesterday I decided to start a "public" serious account. Normally when I play a serious game I either want it to be free or I play on a name nobody knows. Too often when I'm playing a game lots of people start to watch. This was making me nervous. I think I need to just get over it, so I have started waykay.

So far he is still unranked. I played 5 games and won 5 games. I'll keep playing daily serious games until he gets a rank.

By the way, "waykay" comes for a mixture of cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations of go (圍棋) . It just so happens that waykay rhymes in english, so I liked it...

John Groesch Memorial

There were 11 people on the first day of the tournament and 7 people on the second. It essentially was me sitting and playing high handi games. The only highlight was demolishing a high dan player at 9 stones (I mean seriously, 9 stones?), and gaining some respect from a 2 kyu. The tournament itself was won by Eric Lui who went undefeated despite having to give crazy high handicaps to good players.

Anyways, the whole thing would have been a loss, but the studying I did before it was valuable I think. So at least for the next tournament I'll be a bit stronger.

Tsumego as a result of joseki

Tomorrow is the John Groesch Memorial Go Tournament. I'm entering as 6 kyu, which is my official AGA rank. In theory I should be stronger than 6 kyu, but I really want to perform well. I have had trouble at tournaments with emotions and fatigue. Unfortunately, this had led to bad results in the past. I sorta feel that people are now expecting me to do poorly, so I owe it to myself to play a really awesome tournament.

In preparation for the tournament I've been doing a chapter from "Get Strong at Life and Death" about life and death that happens as a result of Joseki. All the problems I've done so far (the first 30 or so) have all been invasion of the 4x4 point. A good chunk of them are invasions of the large shimari, but some are the small shimari and the 4x4 point alone.

I came across something that I found interesting:









This joseki occurs very frequently as a result of white playing a 3x3 invasion of the large shimari. What I found interesting is you frequently see people playing either A or B at move 13, but which is better? Well the answer seems to depends on which side you value thickness. If white A, than black C is sente, and if white B than black D is sente.

Admittedly, this is pretty subtle, but this situation happens all the time. Regardless, black must play 14 next or the aji would be horrific.

First post!

More later :)