Made it to The Top

 

Happiness is making it to the top class of the ASR League! This month I am a proud Alpha ASRer.

 

Of course, I might not be able to play enough games and will bounce right back to Beta, but for now I am enjoying the view from 'the top'. It is nice to get to play a variety of strong opponents and have good games to review and learn from.

 

At the moment I am still in demotion zone, so I'd better get my act together and play, play, play.

 

Wonderful Workshop

Last weekend I spent at a go workshop. It was a great experience.

 

We had lectures, tons of go, good friends, and a great location.

 

The Woodlands is an old boarding house and has lots of character. Many rooms, interesting passage ways, cool architecture, creaking wood, peeling paint, but an abundance of welccomeness.

 

We spent most of our time playing or reviewing, but there always is time for a daily walk around the pond or in the woods. It is a good balance between mind exercise and body exercise.

 

There were quite a lot of dan players which made me remember how I went here years ago, the runt of the litter, weaker than ANY of the kyu players around, and I would look up to the group of dan players and soooooooo long to be at the top of Mount Olympus with the dan gods. I knew that once I was there, the heavens would open with bright light, and every go secret would be revealed.

 

This time there I was. A dan player. But Mt Olympus from here looked more like a mole hill. Not a big one either. And the bright light and the go secrets? They are not quite here yet.

 

Maybe when I become a stronger dan player all those things will happen! ^^

 

I had some good games though, learned some interesting new things and feel all ready for a summer of study and getting stronger. Well, in between life that is.

 

The good news is that it looks like my ASR standing has not been hurt by this weekend away from home and I still am green and hopefully will promote to Alpha this time. Maybe that is where the real gods are!

 

One of the lessons of the workshop. 'Don't just play all sente! Often it is bad sente.' She even mentioned that FIFTY percent of all sente we played were bad sente. And she wasn't talking about the kyu group either, she definitely looked at the dans just as pointedly. Good reminder to preserve the aji instead of getting rid of it right away.

 

Now it is back to the normal life of children, dishes and bees nest in the dryer vent.

 

There will be another go workshop like this at Columbus Day though, so looking forward to that one already.

 

ASR League Progress

This month has been a good month for my Advanced Study Room League playing. It still isn't easy to find games, but I managed to play enough to get myself in the 'green' , meaning that as for now I would be set to promote to the Alpha class.

 

Of course, the reality is that I am barely green and might very well stay in Beta, but hey , that is progress overe last time I made it to Beta and demoted right away the next month.

My biggest issue still is finding time to play and I bet that's only going to get worse once summer hits. But then , who wants to be indoors playing go when you can be outdoors hiking and geocaching anyway?

Back to Beta!

I did it! Got myself back to Beta class in the ASR League. Now I just need to try to get enough games to either stay put or maybe even promote to Alpha. It is nice to dream ^^

 

On the studying front, I am busy trying to understand capturing races. It wouldn't be so bad if they all were simple, count liberties and be done ones, but they always seem to have kos, approach moves, false eyes, weak eyes and all kinds of other complicating factors. It is fun but frustrating.

End of the Month ASR Games

 

After demoting last month, I was luckier this month and managed to get in a bunch of games during the last weeks. I still think the hardest issue in ASR is getting a game. There have been many instances when I put up a game and no one takes it for hours. It is a great way to get go problems in while waiting or to do the dishes though ^^

 

The good news is that for now I am in the 'green' (promoting zone) and there is only a few hours left, so most likely I'll be back in Beta next month. Woohoo!

 

Of course, then the real work will start to try to make it to the top group Alpha instead of bouncing right back to Gamma.

Mind Game

I was playing a game and created an L+1 group in the corner with two hanes. Yes, I know that is supposed to be dead but I so desperately wanted sente and I decided that most likely my opponent wouldn't know how to kill it anyway. I bet you can predict where this is going, can't you?

 

Well, I was right, he didn't know how to kill. BUT! In the game I totally messed up my reply to his wrong move. My mind was fatalistic 'Well, this is the punishment for that tenuki and I will die anyway so why try too hard?'. The next day I self reviewed the game and my mind noticed 'Oh! That is sooooooooooooo basic, of course that doesn't kill and why didn't I see that during the game???!'

I guess the big question is, how can I make my mind behave a bit more reasonable during my games?

Demoted!

I did it!
Got myself from a Beta group in the ASR league demoted to a Gamma group. It is not always easy to get games when I had time and I had a lot less time than I did in February. Oh well.

 

I plan to be in Beta again next month. I like how the league motivates me to play more, even if that didn't quite work out this month.

Today is a snow day, all the kids at home but I still managed to get in my first ASR loss of the month ^^.

Don't Run With Scissors

Haha, so much for my go playing. Much life is happening, much of it is good, but somehow it takes up a lot of time! I have been trying to get ASR games in the little bit of time I have left, but have not been very successful in meeting up with others in my group. I'd better get some more games in or I will go right back to gamma next month. Oh well.

Because I can't get ASR games I have been playing relaxed and reasonably fast games on wbaduk. Which would be wonderful if I didn't manage to keep getting killed in positions where I thought I would be fine.

Interesting playing style they have, tons of cutting and fighting. When I try to do it right back at them, I either get killed or I lose an arm or a leg or even more often, an eye.

If anything I am even more convinced of the value of studying capturing races more seriously. The easy ones are , well, easy but the more complicated ones mostly give me a head ache and a desire to take up chess.

Go for Broke

Yesterday we drove through the Green Mountains of Vermont to the 'Go for Broke' tournament in Middlebury. It is a small tournament, but always an excellent atmosphere.

 

My first game I had to give 4 handicap stones to a 4k. Hmmmm. At the end of middle game I still was too much behind so decided on a shobute invasion in his 'too big and maybe too open' territory. It was a bloody and complicated fight and in the end we got into a complicated capturing race. I won by luck. Did I mention I am in the process of studying capturing races more thoroughly?

 

Second game was an even game in which all kinds of stuff went wrong early on and featured yet another capturing race. There was blood all over the place but in the end I won by a small margin. Just for the record. I HATE the ING talking clocks but they are more bearable if you put them in Chinese since it's easier to tune out a language I don't understand.

 

The last game was another even game against another player who had gone 2-0 so far. Ugly stuff happened and at the end of the middle game I was too far behind and no aji to explore so I resigned.

End result: 2-1 which was enough to get my into second place and a beautiful Japanese print poster. Thanks to Pete Schumer for organizing an always fun tourney.

 

It was a good tournament and I am looking forward to sitting down and reviewing my games. Not today though, today is cleaning day in which I try to uncover my kitchen table. Fancy that. There must be a table somewhere under that stack of dishes!

Unexpected Move

I am really enjoying my more frequent playing and I get lots of opportunities to learn new things. Too bad I hadn't read Go Game's Guru article 5 Tips for Dealing with Unexpected Moves yet when I played this game. My opponent surprised me by playing A in reply to my pincer.

 

Even although I did stay calm (tip 1) I did not particularly respect my opponent ('This must be a mistake or a misclick or just no clue what he is doing'). I didn't really take my time to figure out his plan or read out everything. I just started playing in reply and hoping for the best. At first it seemed to be ok.

 

Until it wasn't ok anymore. Oops. This was a very bad not good result at all.

 

By now I have done some preliminary research and Kogo's says that this indeed is an existing move (who wouldave thunk!?) 'A special strategy, if White has something like the High Chinese Fuseki on the lower side..'

I also found the move in some pro games but haven't really figured out yet what to do next time. I guess it should be on my 'moves to study' list.

The game can be found here.

Promoted!

In January I have been playing in the ASR league which is divided up in different layers: Super, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. Every month the league promotes the top 4 players in a class and demotes the lowest 8 players.

 

I started out in Delta and first thought I would just play the minimum number of games to stay in my group (which is four games) and get enough points not to get demoted. Of course in the end my natural competitive instinct kicked in and I decided to try for promotion after all.

 

A few days before the end of the month I looked for a few more games and managed to get myself in the top 4 players.

 

This month I am a proud member of one of the Gamma groups. I bet promotion from this one is going to be harder though so we'll see what happens.

 

The Most Stupid Misread EVER!

Today I played an ASR game on KGS and read the ladder which would catch my stone. I read it perfectly. No, does not hit his stone. I am fine.

He played it anyway.

Hmmmm, how can he misread such a simple ladder? Checked again. No he MUST be wrong. It is soooooo not hitting his stone. I play a few more ladder moves.

 

Well one of us MUST be wrong. It can't be me, can it? This is such a simple ladder. No of course it must be him.

I read it again.

No, it is not hitting his stone. It is hitting the edge of the board instead. Duh!!!! I am DOOMED!!!

The joys of misreading a 29k ladder ^^

Against All Odds: Playing Go!

Still lots of life going on but surprisingly enough I actually have managed to fit go in way more than I did last year. I have been playing in the Advanced Study Room League although I need more games to promote to a higher group and the month is almost over.

 

I had been playing on wbaduk but got discouraged when there was a lot going on and somehow I lost all my games (go always reflects my state of mind.) Today I finally played there again and WON a game though so maybe there is hope. It can't have to do anything with the fact that I meditated earlier today, right?

 

I managed to play the Boston tournament a few weeks ago which was awesome to be able to devote a whole day to go.

 

This is a good start of the year. I hope it will continue like this!