Especially for Snip

Showing that my priorities lay with studying go, not with folding clean laundry.
Showing that the baskets full of clean laundry actually HELP my studying by making a perfect surface to put up my goban.



And showing what happens if I step out of the room for five minutes.



I forgot to take a picture five minutes later when goban, toddler, go stones and laundry all ended up on the floor...

Persistence and Determination

Those words have been playing in my head a lot lately. I have been thinking about how to get stronger at go and how to keep on studying and improving.

Let's trackback to when I was a little girl. My father worked as a manager, and his company always seemed to be very big into using motivational quotes. Once in a while, he would bring some home and give a lecture on it to us kids, which was in a way always interesting.

One of those times, he brought home a stenciled paper about persistence and determination.



Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.



Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

(Calvin Coolidge)



He sat me down and we talked about it. He explained to me the meaning of the word omnipotent. He told me the story of how he started out repairing type writers at a small company and somehow made his way up, during the days of the first computers, to a management position at IBM. He gave me a lot of examples where persistence and determination were very important.

For some reason, this has been a quote which has guided my life since then. I recently realized that the same is true in go. Yes, you can have talent, but you still need hard work and a sense of direction. There have been go players who were said not to have much talent, but persistence and determination made them into top players anyway.

It is interesting how something I learned as a little girl is still making a major impact on me. It is what keeps me doing go problems day after day. It is what makes me take a deep breath and review a game seriously, even if I feel like never looking at it again because of the stupid mistakes. It is what makes me sit down to seriously study a joseki, after I screw it up yet again.

My father has passed away, but his teachings still influence me. To show my persistence and determination, I'd better go and study some games now, instead of just blogging about it ^^

L Groups Revisited

Have been studying L groups and variations again. (L+1, L+2, hanes, etc) Learned some new things and re-learned some things I had known before, but which I still sometimes messed up.



This one still is my favorite shape, the resulting double ko is uber cool.

Interesting Question and Answers Series

A friend forwarded those questions and answers to me, very interesting. It's a serie on pandanet, in which female professions answer questions about go. Some examples:

• Hello, Ms. Kobayashi. When there’s a game that you absolutely want to win, you tense up. My question is: what do top professionals, including yourself, do to calm yourselves. If there’s any special technique, please tell me.
  
  
• I’ve been playing go for 50 years. My level at present on PandaNet is 3-dan, but I find myself unable to improve. I have ups and downs and about once every month I find myself losing ten games in a row, so I get demoted. Please tell me what one should do at times like this.
  
  
• I’ve been playing on PandaNet recently, and I’m really convinced that go is an artistic mind sport. The creative and intuitive side of go is what creates your go style and your individuality as a player. I’m convinced that go is an art.
  I’ve heard that you are knowledgeable about pottery. Do you believe that it has something in common with the artistic side of go? Please tell me if pottery has been a plus for you in your go playing.
  
  
• I’m a beginner who became a subscriber to PandaNet three months ago. Since it’s so easy to play on the Net, I sometimes play more than ten games a day, but if I play too much, my go gets careless and sloppy. Do you think it’s important to play a lot of games to get better? Which is the shortcut for a beginner: to play only games in which you really concentrate hard or to play as many games as you can? I would be grateful for your opinion.
  
  
• Hello, Ms. Nakajima. On weekdays I play on PandaNet, at weekends I go to go clubs, and on Sunday I watch the NHK games. I really enjoy go, but as I grow older my memory gets worse, and I feel that my go has declined. I’m worried that if things go on like this I won’t be able to play go anymore. Do you have any advice for older players like myself as to what to do on a daily basis? I would be grateful for any help you can give me.
  
  
• Hello. At present I play as a 1-kyu. My games are rarely counted – usually either my opponent or I resign. I myself realize that I have a tendency to make overplays, but I can’t do anything about this when I’m actually playing. I really want to play long games. Do you have any advice for me?
  
  
• When my opponent plays a good move during a game, I get upset and go to pieces. I want to change this bad habit, but am having no success. How can one cope with this kind of situation?
  
  
• I am 63 years old. I play as a 5-dan at go clubs. When I joined PandaNet, I hoped that I would get a little stronger, but it’s just not turning out that way. When I review my games later, I find I’m playing really poor moves. If I noticed during the game, I’d be a stone stronger. Is there any way to ensure that one plays one’s best? And is there any way to cut out one’s outright blunders?

Good questions and answers, giving food for thought. There is lots more, here is the top page. Enjoy!

Go Club

Today, we had study session, just sharing some pictures. I was late, so didn't participate as much in the studying. But I played one game and later, we played rengo. Rengo is always interesting, it was a very active game.

This is the building in which we have our regular go club meetings:



Studying joseki:



Rengo:





Our kibbitzers:



After club, illustrating why it always takes us at least half an hour to actually leave the building.

2006 in Numbers

Just like last year, I used the kgs stats page for this. It is not totally correct though, since it doesn't include teaching games. This means that about forty of my minue games must be missing and any other teaching games I played. But at least it gives some idea of how many games I played and how I did. Also, it doesn't seem to make a distinction between 19x19 and other sizes. But still interesting to see the statistics.

Player 'nannyogg'. All games.

From 2006-01-01 to 2006-12-31 (365 days).

Number of games played: 285
Number of unfinished games: 0
Number of forfeited games: 0

Number of wins: 95
Number of losses: 190
Average number of games per day: 0.78
Win ratio: 33.33 %

Number of games played as white: 122 (win ratio: 43.44 %)
Number of games played as black: 163 (win ratio: 25.77 %)

Number of different opponents: 84

Random remarks:

1. I played less games than I expected, even if you take into account the inaccuracies in this counting. Last year, I played 650, this year is about half of that.
   
2. Looks like average is less than a game per day, which means that they must be more serious than when I played more of them, right?
   
3. Most frequently played people in non-teaching games: shygost, Stormer, KittyKat (= my daughter Kate ^^), FlameBlade, and wutu.
   
4. Less different opponents than last year, showing I play friends more often than 'strangers'. I have made a lot of go friends on KGS. I guess I still play more strangers on my mess-up accounts. Not that I have played them often after I gave up insane blitz.
   
5. Funny thing is that last year, I thought I should play more (when I played almost two games every day. This year, I think my game frequency is just fine. My games have gotten more focused.
   

Haengma, tesuji, and studying pro games have been most helpful to me in my studying this year. They have helped me gain a bunch of stones. Haengma Tutorial for Beginners by Minue is a great introduction page. I recommend you read through it, even if you are not a beginner.

Time to start studying for the day, maybe I should have kept statistics of studying time. Seems too much work to keep track of it, though.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2007 to all my blog readers. May sente be with you, and may your year be filled with many magnificent tesujis. May all your cuts work, and may all your joseki be well-chosen.



I don't make resolutions for the new year, but of course, one of my ongoing goals is to get stronger. So I'll just continue to study and play my games.