Problems Revisited

Notable quotes from my last miserable Weekly Slaughter Game:

NoSide [7k]: minue, give her 10 millions reading problem this week :)
minue622 [7d]: noside made poor misreading, i would have to assign 100 millions reading problems to him in this week if he were my pupil
FlameBlade [-]: in fact
FlameBlade [-]: I think both of players here should be condemned to hell of eternal reading problems
FlameBlade [-]: if I had my way
FlameBlade [-]: and this shouldn't work.
Barrauss [-]: But that's just because you're spiteful.

Summary: My reading sucks.
Solution? Problems, problems, and more problems.

I increased my number of daily problems, mostly working on tesuji, some life/death, and some haengma. I have gotten back to the Many Faces of Go problems, because it's easy to do a lot of them in a row and have the level self-adjust. I also dug up some of my chinese problem books, including a great tesuji collection with tons of simple capturing races. Yesterday, I took that book to our local science museum, so I could do about 80 problems, while the kids were entertaining themselves with the exhibitions. Last but not least, I have been doing some of my uligo problem collections, like the l-group one. So much to study, so little time!

NoSide [7k]: nanny... you know how much i love you?
NannyOgg [-]: you haven't mentioned it lately ^^
NoSide [7k]: but i've to say that you're crazy to let this happen
NannyOgg [-]: I never have claimed to be sane
NoSide [7k]: and we're going to miss you...
NoSide [7k]: all this coming week where you'll be gone, doing your 1 billion reading problems
NannyOgg [-]: ...

Annoyed

... with myself, I have been messing up more games than usual. Some days it feels like I'll never be able to play go. Yeah, yeah, I know, welcome to the club ^^.

I have been at this point before, it seems to happen when I am experimenting too much. I am learning so many new things, and use them totally inappropriately, just for the fun of it. You know the classical 'When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.'

I also still have focus problems, not only when the kids are awake. At least then I can blame them and they definitely make me lose seven stones at least. But with all on line play, it is so easy to websurf in one window, chat in another, catch up on email, and oh yeah, I was playing a game of go too... Bad habit. Should get over it. I do a lot better at over the board games.

On the upside, usually when every game seems to go wrong, it isn't long before things fall into place and I emerge at the other side of frustration, a tiny bit stronger. So I should just stop whining, do more tesuji problems and get rid of the multitasking habit. Sounds easy, right?

Beware the Taisha!

Today, someone hit me with the taisha, so I was all excited about playing it. But strangely enough, instead of the wedge, he played this move:



I thought this was totally wrong, but wasn't sure what the right move was. I played E15 and got a good result locally as far as I could tell.



Later, when I reviewed the game, I was curious whether kogo mentioned this move. And indeed it did! It says: 'A *' is joseki, If Black regrets what he has done so far and fears the consequence of the many variations of the taisha after 'A', he compromises on 'B'.(A being the normal wedge, B the move my opponent played. In kogo, the variation ends at this position



Compared to that, I think my result was ok. I just regretted that I didn't make the R11 extension from this. Interesting.

New Go Blog

Two of the MGA players are going to spend two months on China to go to go school there. They are keeping a blog of their experiences. Sounds wonderful, I am secretly hoping I can do something similar when my kids are somewhat older. At this point in time, I don't think my husband would appreciate being stuck at home with the kids for two months ^^ Oh well, luckily I can get a lot of good go studying done right at my own home with the help of the internet and my local go club. But still...

Studying haengma today. It's very interesting, minue has been teaching me a lot of it. Now I just need to internalize all this haengma, and I'll be a tiny bit stronger ^^

FlameBlade

Yesterday, FlameBlade came to visit us at the Upper Valley Go Club. I have known him for ages on line on KGS, but had never met him in person yet. It was a treat to finally play him on a real board.

He played quite a lot of games at our go club meeting at Borders, two of which were against me. For both of those games, he wiped me off the board.

After the meeting, Flame and his wife came to spend the night at my house. I invited him for another game after most of the kids were upstairs, so that I could actually focus on the game. I played mini chinese, and it was a pretty balanced game. In review I saw a few chances I missed, but I was not unhappy with my game. I ended up with one more point on the board, but of course, komi made the score into W+5.5. What fun!

This morning, they had to leave, so no time for another game. On the other hand, it would have been a game with lots of interruptions, so better not to bother at all.

Moyo Madness

Last night, we played game six of our Weekly Slaughter Series. It was my turn to be black, and I couldn't resist playing jabberwocks just for the heck of it. So I ended up with a decent moyo, only to have it broken and reduced by horrible reading mistakes. Sigh ^^

At least I had fun :D But edison won, and now is leading 4-2. Feh!

Notable quotes:
shygost [-]: an exciting game!

FlameBlade [-]: I'll say it
FlameBlade [-]: Nanny is insane :)

FlameBlade [-]: oh crap
FlameBlade [-]: Nanny collapse
FlameBlade [-]: game pretty much over now
Battousai [-]: passive unorthodox opening, collapse was simply a matter of time

Nikkentobi [?]: hopefully there won't be "misread ladder part deux"
NannyOgg [-]: i was considering calling this Moyo Madness ^^
Nikkentobi [?]: what moyo? :)
NannyOgg [-]: indeed

And I lost a $5 bet too :p Time to do even more problems, my reading sucked. I'd better play sanely next time. Hmmmm, I think I have said that before ^^ On the other hand: Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting. (John Russell)

The Return of Edison

He is back! With a vengeance too. We had to stop our weekly slaughter for a bit, because he was sick, but this week we finally got to play again. Such fun. Such insanity. We seem to bring out the worst in each other, somehow my games against him always are messy. I like to think that that is all his fault ^^.

He won! He is leading by (edison-nanny)3-2 now, I had been hoping for 2-3. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to win the next two games. I haven't had much time yet to sit and review this game, I have been into a go problems hyperfocusing mood. Still should take time to review this and a few other games, and contemplate my bad moves.

So much to study, so little time

Fun!

Friday night, we took the four hours trip to the workshop location, and what else would you do in the car but talk about go and play. J played blind go, while I played against him on a magnetic board. Don't worry, neither of us was driving. I made a bad joseki mistake, and then did not play aggressively enough when he invaded my moyo. I ended up resigning, he was way ahead by then.

At the workshop location, I found myself a 1k and a 2d to play, much fun. We also had a lecture on mini chinese, very interesting.

Saturday was a play and review game. I played two 4k's , won one, lost one, and made tons of mistakes in both games. It's amazing how I have mastered the skill of making bad moves. At night I played some friendly games.

Sunday, I played against 9H and tried to play correctly instead of my usual bullying and overplay.My teacher's handicap advice is

1. Play fast, but play correct moves. Don't make moves which you know are bad in the hope your opponent will reply incorrectly. You will not learn anything if you play that way.
2. Don't make your opponent strong, don't resolve anything.
3. Don't make low moves, try to control the center.

Let's just say that I still have a lot to learn before I can play handicap games like that.

Sunday was also the day when I got myself suckered into this 'easy hike' which ended up being six hours over a mountain ridge. Amazing views, but too much of the trail was vertical. Did I mention I was wearing flipflops? I soon took them off and just hiked barefoot most of the way. Was nice to get some physical exercise to balance all the sitting on my butt and eating good food though.

Sunday night we played Survivor Go. We got divided into two teams, and played team against team (like rengo but with more players) If your move was bad, you got kicked out. I got kicked out on my second move.

Monday arrived too fast and brought us a simul. My teacher and Jean Michel took turns making moves against the sixteen of us. Pretty wild. I took 5H, but they easily wiped me off the board anyway. It must be so hard to play simul with two people playing, can't follow through on your own plans. Simul kibbitz included remarks like 'The hunted becomes the hunter' and 'What once was a moyo is now desperately trying to make two eyes.'

Too bad that it was time to go home, but we did get another game of go in in the car (again, blind go for j, normal for me)

Study Advice

Every day:

1. Tsumego. Do five of them. If you don't have enough time, do just one of them. This is supposed to be easy tsumego, if it takes more than five minutes for a problem, it is too hard.
2. Play. After playing, review your game and find the turning point in the game. Where did you start to lose? What could you have done differently?
3. Study pro games. Look at the first 50 moves. Find good moves and interesting moves. If you have more time, write down the good moves.
4. Amateur games. If you have even more time, look at amateur games and find mistakes.