One Colour Go Revisited

Yesterday, we did study session at go, studying yose, and watching one of the online lectures. When it was time to play, we decided to try one colour go again.

Board looked really funny, this is how we ended up in the first game, when my opponent wanted to start a new and fresh game.



The lower corner is his hoshi, I approach (keima), and he chooses attach-and-extend joseki. He misses the last joseki move, so I push and cut. Hard to play fights like that in one colour, but good exercise.

Simplicity

The more I play, the more I am realizing that go is all about simplicity. You don't need fancy moves or brilliant tesujis, you don't need to kill everything in sight. If you play good and simple moves, and always take similar or bigger sized moves than your opponent, everything will work out just fine.

Of course, there is the problem of finding that simple and good move. It always seems to be totally obvious in hindsight. But I manage to find lots of bad moves during my games. I manage to make fatal mistakes and have my shape totally collapse on me.

But I can feel and see where simplicity is the answer. One reason I stopped playing jabberwocks, was that I felt I also should be able to play 'basic' go. It is easy to confuse opponent by playing mokuhazushi which he might not be familiar with. It still is my favorite opening, and I will go back to it for sure, but for the moment really working on improving my basic and simple go.

It's amazing how hard it can be to find the simplest move.

Go Club

A few weeks ago, we moved our go club day from Wednesday to Thursday, so that some VT go players would be able to make it too. This has worked out very well, we have had very good turnout. Yesterday, we had ten players and six non-players, not bad. I was late, so I only got to play one game, but it was a very enjoyable and good game. I killed something, it almost came back to life, but managed to kill it again. Fun game.

When I started playing at this go club (December 2004, when I rediscovered go), there were only two members. I boosted the membership by 50 % For the longest time it was just the three of us. Nice to have so many more people now. The japanese lady showed up again, she is 76yo and last week she came to club for the very first time. Her father used to play go, and she said it helped him a lot to keep his mind sharp. When she discovered our club in the local newspaper (we are in the calendar section), she decided she would love to learn to play too.

Still studying wangwi games, I haven't spent enough time on the third one yet. My husband is traveling this week, so things here are a bit crazier than normal, not to mention that we are rescuing the basement from eight years of neglect.

40th Wangwi

Last night, the final game in the 40th Korean Wangwi tournament was played. Lee Changho had been holding this title for ten years straight now, and defended it for the eleventh year. It is a best out of five tournament, but Lee only needed three games to defeat challenger Lee Yeongkyu.

I have been studying the first two games over the last weeks, will have to spend some time with the third game.

Today, we had a power outage. Too bad. I had to go outdoors with my goban and study wangwi games, as opposed to cleaning my basement ^^

Link to wangwi final games: Game 1; Game 2; Game 3.

I Love Go!

Just wanted to share that ^^ The more I play, the more I love this game. The way it is totally simple and utterly complex at the exact same time. The way games and players can have a very distinct character. The way the stones flow on the board, like water making its way down a mountain towards the sea. Meandering on the way, but getting bigger and stronger all the time.

Yesterday, attended a good shygost lecture, had a minue lesson, and played a fun game against a friend. Quote of the day for the shygost lecture 'When I have a weak group, I chant to myself "I will not go away till this group is settled". Even if I want to take big points somewhere else, do whatever I want, I keep telling myself to settle that group first.' Sounds so simple, right. More proof of simplicity in my minue lesson, somehow things get a lot clearer when he puts stones down on the board, opposed to my clumsy kyu stones.

So much to study, so little time ^^

Overplay

Indeed, that pincer was overplay. The best punishment is the triangled move, and this is one of the expected ways the game can develop now.



The exact situation came up the European Goe Women Championship last year. Thanks to arnoud for the link. In this game minue describes the pincer move as "G3 move is like putting her stone into white's tiger mouth" Of course, in my game, the tiger suicided herself when this happened, but in the linked game the tiger punished appropriately. Interesting stuff.

Joseki Ponderings

Last week at club, I played this game, I am W.



I felt move 17 for B, the pincer was overplayish, but I sure did a very good job of making it a wonderful move. I have been thinking back to this position and trying to figure out what I could have done differently.

I could have chosen a different joseki variant, A and B were the ones which came to mind.



The counter pincer at B isn't joseki, but feels somehow more right on this board.

Or maybe I should have approached differently.



Will have to ponder this more, I know the result I got in my game was horrible. Although I have to admit that that was not only the joseki choice, but also the fact that I cut when I shouldn't have cut yet.

So much to study, so little time ^^

Problems Insight

It's amazing how some problems totally stump me, for a long long time. Even if I know this can't be too hard of a problem, but somehow I still am not finding the answer.

I have found the solution often is to let it be for a few hours, go do something else. Other problems, or even something non-go related.

I come back to the problem, and suddenly the solution is there. Totally obvious too. The human mind works in fascinating ways.

Off to go club!

UVGC Tourney

Last week, we had a tourney at our local go club. It was tiny, but lots of fun. We had 12 players, ranging from 4d to 20k. It was the very first tournament ever for three of our club members. They all did well, I hope this will motivate them to come to the Boston tournament in 1.5 weeks.

I didn't do so well, managed to lose all four of my games. Impressive huh? It actually wasn't that bad, I had two good even games which I lost on komi. The other two games were giving high handi, and I always have a hard time doing that. Guess I now know what to work on. I didn't even keep track of my handi games, but here are the links to my first game and second game.

The funny thing is that one of my 'day before tourney' stresses usually is 'What if I lose all four of my games????' Now I did, and I lived, got that out of the way. Less things to stress about ^^.

Been doing tons of problems and more problems. My reading still sucks ^^ I guess I'll have to keep pushing till it doesn't anymore.