Friday, December 09, 2005

Five Stones To Go!

The official AGA ratings are in. I managed to get myself to -5.06752 with a sigma of 0.8 so looks like I can call myself 5k now. Which I knew, but it's still nice to be official. Only five more stones to go, and then the fun can start.

I really wanted to be 5k anyway, because I wanted to enter in the official AGA shodan challenge again. Yes, again I say, since I entered in January this year, when I was around 16-18k and thought I could easily reach shodan by August... I was wrong :)

The closer I got to August, the more I realized what an impossible task I had set myself, at least impossible for me. I did get myself to 7k, which wasn't bad, but nowhere close to shodan. I can either see that as a failure, because I didn't reach shodan, or just be happy about having improved nine stones in seven months.

I decided to enter the shodan challenge again, and this time actually make it. This year, the AGA did split up the challenge though. The Challenge now has five Divisions: the 20-kyu Challenge, for beginners; the 10-kyu Challenge for 11-20k players; the 5-kyu Challenge for 6-10k players, the Shodan Challenge for 5-1k players and the 5d Challenge for 1-4d players. Since I was only 7k, this meant I would be trying to reach 5k by next August. Didn't seem like enough of a challenge to me. So I desperately tried to get to 5k before the sign up deadline. I did. I signed up November 30th (deadline was Dec 1st) and proved my 5k rank this weekend during the tournament.

Now the big question is "Will I be able to make shodan by next August?". I'd like to be confident about it, but who knows? Only one way to find out.

2 comments:

thrashor said...

As a recently confirmed CGA 5 kyu, I'll race you to shodan. I can be the Sai/Hikaru to your Akira ;)

Seriously though, maybe we can review each other's games and play ocassionally on KGS? What do you say? I would love to make shodan in time for the Canadian Go Open whihc will be held in my home town on the 2006 Labor Day weekend.

Anonymous said...

So you know...

Jing and I was talking about your progress, and we have to say that your progress were strong, grew more than 1 stone per month.

Also, I believe one thing...the real strength is being able to persist and keep growing. Strength isn't all about playing, but rather, how you grow, and without a doubt, you will become a very strong player.

It's just amazing how we have grown over the time.

It has been almost a year since I first met you, when you were 18k. Progress is an amazing process.

Onward to shodan, K.

-Flame