The Killing Game

Recently, I have rediscovered the killing game (or sometimes called The Shape Game) where one color has stones all around the board on the first line (skipping the corners) and the other color tries to live in the center. It's not easy to kill, but it's even harder to live. With perfect play, life shouldn't be possible. I haven't reached perfect playing level yet.

I remember playing this game way, way back in the Netherlands. I don't remember having so much fun with it though.

I played it with a dan friend, did pretty well the first night. Second night he had remembered his killing skills and I did not do as well (as in I couldn't live and I couldn't kill in either of the two rounds we played). Played it with another strong player, and missed an obvious living move. How shameful. He missed it too for 18 moves, when he came to his senses before I did. Will have to do 50 tesuji problems tomorrow, to repent :-p

This game is great for developing sense of shape, and thinking about sente and gote in attacking. It will make me better at killing, reading, complicated fights, harrassing weak groups, and at making sabaki. Some one commented 'Good grief, I shouldn't have brought it up. Now you'll just get strong faster. Just what we need - a Nanny who's even better at killing' ... It also helps with learning how to use walls for fighting. What a great exercise.

Not only is it useful, but it is very enjoyable too. Skipping the whole fuseki and yose part of the game, it's just fight, fight, fight, fight. My kind of game. I will be playing this a lot till I get better at it.

I decided to join the KGS November Iron Man Tournament. I participated in April and it was a lot of fun. This tournament runs five days and there are games every six hours, so a total of 20 rounds. You have to play in at least five rounds, can get byes for the other rounds if you want. I managed to play in 19 games last time, don't think I can do as well this time. Too many daytime commitments. I'll just play as many as I can.

There are two divisions, a handicap division and an open division (all even games). I entered in open, because I don't have a solidly or accurately ranked account at the moment. It seems too much work to get one, I don't care about rank on KGS anyway. I will turn the rank on my NannyOgg account back on once I have reached 1d there, and that will be a bit. Till then, I'll just have fun with my R accounts when I feel like it, and not worry about rank. Better to concentrate on playing, studying, and getting stronger. An advantage of the open division is that I will play a wider variety of players. Looking forward to this tournament!