Massachussets Go Association Tournament

Last Sunday we drove down to Boston to play in the MGA tournament.

 

I won 2 games and lost 2 games which means it was a perfect tournament, right? The funny thing is that I was confident about my even games but not so confident about giving handicap. Which was not reflected in my results.

 

• First game against 1d: I lost;
  
• Second game against a 2d: I lost;
  
• Third game against a 2k, giving 2 handicap stones: I won;
  
• Fourth game against a 3k, 3H: I won (close game though);
  

Hmmmm, I guess I am getting better at giving handicap. Or I just got lucky ^^

Happy New Year!

May your year be filled with love, happiness, good friends and sente.

 

I finally joined the Advanced Study Room League. It is an interesting system and I am looking forward to getting some good games in.

The League divides group of players into Layers

The league is made out of multiple layers; Super, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. The superclass floats above the league and is only available for 6d+ (link). The regular league works with the pyramid system. The pyramid means that for every layer you move down you double in size of classes. So Alpha splits into 2 Beta classes, Beta splits into 4 Gamma classes etc. Layer sizes might vary according to the number of entrants we have that month.

The layers are subdivided into Classes

A class consists of 14 players. The lowest layer in the league can have 20 players. This is done because often new players sign up but don’t play a lot. This way we can give new players the chance to still enjoy the league.

Every month we promote the top 3 players in a class and demote the lowest 6 players. The top 6 places in the league are always safe from demotion.

What I like most about the League is their focus on teaching and learning:

With a spread of ability in the majority of the classes, that there will always be stronger players to play that can be learned from, and weaker players that can be taught. At the end of each game, it is hoped that the stronger player will take the time to review the game for the weaker player. If the players are of even strength, much can be learned by reviewing the game together.

Every month is a new league and there are still many slots open for January. If you are interested log on to KGS, join the Advanced Study Room and sign up. It is for all level players so don't worry about being too weak, these games will help you get stronger.

The Rollercoaster of Online Games

This morning no cats were around so I knew I could play a nice, focused game. Not sure who I was kidding but that was the mindset I had in the beginning.

I log on, find an opponent, and get black in our nigiri. We cruise along for a while. I make mistakes, he makes mistakes, life is fun. He makes his biggest mistake still and I manage to kill his group.

 

How regrettable for him. I relax into a 'I won the game' state of mind and stop paying attention to pesky details like white playing move A.

 

No reason to actually look at my opponent's moves, right, since I won the game already. I ignore his move and atari two of his stones at B.

 

He must have been very happy to bring his group back to life, I know I was laughing about the silliness of it all. So much for winning a won game. So much for certain victory. So much for 'black cannot lose now'. Gottalove reality checks.

My revenge came a few moves later when he did the exact same thing I did. I played A and he replied at B, giving me the game back. How generous of him.

I can't help but think that there is a life lesson in here somewhere, if only I could find it...

 

The whole sgf can be found here.

Now What?

Today I played Chinese opening and black and at move 10 white surprised me. While I was thinking about the right reply, white resigned so I didn't get to try out anything.

 

What do you think would be best move for black now?

Lesson Learned

Today I learned that I should NOT have my cat around when I play go. See, this cute fluffy cat. Looks like a little angel, doesn't she?

 

This morning I played an online game.
She started walking all over my keyboard.
I pushed her off.
She came back.
I pushed her off.
She came back again.
I glared at her.
She purred and made herself comfortable.
I pushed her off.
She managed to make a MOVE in my go game for me on her way off. YIKES! Not a very good move either. Heck, it was a really bad move.
To add insult to injury, she spilled my tea all over me.

Lesson learned: She is not allowed in the room anymore when I play go. At least not today. Tomorrow I might feel sorry for her again when she is lonely and start the whole thing over.

I won the game anyway, but only barely so. No thanks to her!

Hooray! Gogrinder on the Move.

For years I have been using the gogrinder application on my computer to study go problems and basic corner shapes. I have found it an extremely useful application, so I was thrilled to find out that gogrinder now has been released for the iphone / ipod touch.

 

It works easily and intuitively and I have enjoyed using it. It comes with two problem collections, but it is very easy to add your own problem collections via an application called ggbundler. This can be found on the iphone gogrinder web site. I timed myself and it took me less than 10 minutes to find out how to upload my own problem collections, download the application, and start using it. I now can study whatever problems I want on my ipod touch.

 

The program has less options than the computer version, but I didn't find that to be a big issue. I would like to be able to order my problems in whatever order I like (like on the computer) but I can live with the iphone order. What I like better on the iphone is that I can ask for a hint and it will show me the next move, while on the computer I have to go back to the start of the problem to do so.

 

It is sometimes hard to hit the right stone location on the iphone, even with the cool magnifying glass, but that is more an ipod issue than a gogrinder issue. It hasn't interfered with my go studies.

 

For a mere $2.99 you can take all your go problems with you in the bus, in waiting rooms, during boring meetings, anywhere and increase the size of your go muscles. I am very happy with it.

L Plus 2

I have been playing on wbaduk, and have had some interesting life and death situations. Maybe more death situations than I would like to admit but that is another story. For now want to share this L+2 group followup.

In this game I was white and had a beautiful L+2 group, totally surrounded by black, but as we all know, healthy and alive.

We were in endgame and I had played one hane to the outside and felt comfortable leaving my group for perceived bigger moves.

 

He hane-ed from the other side, which I read as not sente, since if he extended I could just atari and connect and I would still be alive.

 

I played tenuki and he extended his hane stone. I was all prepared, atari-ed, expecting him to connect. Only he didn't! I can't believe he didn't just play the move I wanted him to play! Instead he counter atari-ed at A.

 

After I took, he played kosumi and we ended up in a seki (side note: even although I didn't add black stones to the left of the group, there were a lot, so couldn't really do anything there to increase liberties on that P1 stone. )

 

Hmmm, interesting. I looked at it later and could find no way to not end in seki but instead live with points. I clearly didn't read deeply enough when I decided to ignore his initial hane, since the seki made that move a lot bigger than it was otherwise. And here I thought I knew 'everything' about L+2 groups...

Tea

 

 

Boston Tournament

Yesterday I played in the quarterly MGA tournament.

Game 1: I played black against 1d, started an avalanche and a mess and won.
Game 2: I played black against another shodan, started a mess and lost.
Game 3: Gave 4H to a 4k, despaired, made a shobute mess and won.
Game 4: I gave 9H to a ddk, played steadily and won.

 

End result: three wins, one loss, fifth place.

The Woodlands: Porch and Simul

Apart from the abundance of go at The Woodlands, there is The Porch. Early morning, when you wake up, you wander to the porch to drink tea with other early birds. People will be playing go and it is the best place to eat pancakes with maple syrup.

 

Afternoon tea is much better on the porch than it is inside the building, especially with wonderful loose leaf tea.

 

On Monday she gave a simul against all of us. You know, one of these games where you put down your handicap stones, start fighting, have this beautiful moyo. That moyo which 20 moves later is struggling to make two eyes, or at least one and a half so it might be able to win the capturing race... Or maybe you just found yourself a perfect place to resign.

 

She won all her games. Such power!

 

Back from The Woodlands

This was yet another excellent workshop. I finally downloaded my pictures and hope to share many of them soon, after I do the 281 items on my 'Thing to do: Urgent!' list. Here is a quick preview.

 

We played games got them reviewed. Somehow her stones always move way more gracefully than our stones do.

 

When you spend a lot of time sitting and thinking, it is important to get some exercise and fresh air. Every day after lunch we would take a walk. This is our Saturday hike around the pond.

 

I bet we played at least a stone stronger after this walk to nourish our soul.

 

Playing

Slowly getting back into playing, although life still somewhat interferes. Yesterday I was able to play two games on Cyberoro and lost both of them. Ouch. I like to blame my mindset of my lack of calmness or the cat, but in reality it was just me messing up.

 

Today was better. I studied on KGS with a friend for a while and then opened cyberoro for a game. I was calmer and more focused than yesterday and got less annoyed by 'unreasonable plays' of my opponent. This game I won.

Looking forward to another sendol lesson tomorrow and a whole weekend filled with go at the Woodlands in upstate New York.

Life is Good

This morning I had my first lesson with sendol after many months of too much life and not enough chocolate. It feels good to be studying more seriously again.

 

He reviewed two of my games which is great timing since I will go to go club this afternoon. I can share some of the lesson with my friends there.

Overplay? III

In my game white gave up one of his stones, but in review it turned out that white was just fine as long as he resists with W4.

 

Whatever black plays now, white is fine and white H4 actually was close enough to be helpful. Who would've thunk!?

Overplay? II : Whole Board Position

Thanks all for the feedback. Here is the whole board position. I did 'punish' by playing b3, he answered b4, and I cut at e4. Little did I know. You are right David, the hane is playable in this position which was news to both of us. I will post more tomorrow.

 

Welcome back David and I am looking forward to visiting Go Game Guru.

Overplay?

My second game of the summer supplied an interesting situation. Look at the following diagram. White 7 usually is an overplay so I was all ready to punish it.

 

But there is this extra white stone. Does that change White 7 from an overplay into a good move? Or does it not?

 

During the game I looked at it and said 'Nah, that stone is too far away, I will just punish.' Was that the right decision? Let me know what y'all think.

Back to Baduk and Studying

This summer vacation has been totally insane, no time for baduk at all. I spent 48 % of my time driving my children around town, 29 % of my time from preventing my house to become too much of a disaster zone and 31 % of my time feeding the hungry hordes, which leaves me not much time for baduk.

I decided to give up on sleeping, freeing up 2 % of my time for baduk studies, yay!

 

For the last two weeks I have been studying life and death, haengma and even a recent pro game. Not only that but I managed to visit go club and hope to get there again this week. And I am looking forward to September when the children will be back into school and I will be able to PLAY!