KGS Tournament

I have been playing in the May KGS tournamentI have been wanting to play in those tournaments before, but never actually got myself together enough to sign up in time and play. This time is different!

This tournament stretches over five days, and there are four rounds per day, six hours apart. So there will be a total of twenty games to be played, but you can request byes for 15 of them. This means that you have to play a minimum of five games over those days, which isn't too bad.

For me, the games are at 3am, 9am, 3p, and 9pm local time. I tend to be on the go server at 9pm and 3am anyway, so those rounds are easy to make. The day time ones can be harder, because of real life getting in the way, but so far I have been able to make them. Played seven games so far, which means 42 hours of a tournament game every six hours. Funny how 42 always pops up everywhere.

Out of those seven games, I have won 4 so far, so pretty average. I have played my share of good games, and my share of less than good games. My last game was cool where my opponent gave me ¾ of the board in the first fourteen moves, so nice of him. One of my reviewers is that this is where the game was won.

Yes, it does look kind of overwhelmingly black now.

Another fun game was my first one. I had misread a fight, and things got kind of iffy, and I lost a string of 8 stones. It still had three liberties though which I thought I might be able to use. So while I was playing, I looked and found this great tesuji, which basically sprang the string of stones back to life, killing sixteen stones of W in the process. This swung the game from 30 or so behind, to an endresult of +13.5. I love making up tesuji! I did read and re-read and triple-read this one though, just to be sure it really would work. And then I read it some more :-)

We'll see how long I can keep up the pace of a tournament game every 6 hours. So far so good though, and I should be able to play at least the next three too.

Oh, current results for the tournament puts me at 11th place out of 108. Not that it really matters, but I still like that I am not that far from the top. My sum of opponents scores (SOS) is the second highest for now though. I first thought that was because I got nice, tough opponents, but then my common math sense kicked in and I realized that it was because I played more games than most :-) Amazing how other people sometimes have to sleep!

The End Game

I have been studying some end game, trying to figure out how big moves are, working on keeping sente, finding nice tesuji to grab a few more points. Sometimes things go ok, sometimes I just am not paying enough attention, playing the first sente move that I see. Or the first move I think is sente, but turns out to be gote anyway. It is nice to have yet another area where I have room for improvement.

Today, I tried to keep sente during the end game, ignoring small moves to play some bigger or equal-sized sente move instead. Doing really well, until I think that yes, I can ignore this pushing into my group. It's only one point, right?

I am sure you can guess where this is leading. Yes, it was a bit more than one point. It exposed a connection weakness in my group (which would have been totally fine if I had replied to his pushing move) and he could put 4 stones in atari, which I couldn't save. This was about 10 points. Instead of just taking this minimal damage, I decided to make a second wrong move, and lose another 16 points... Two totally avoidable mistakes. It's amazing how often I get this learning experience. I am starting to wonder whether it will actually lead to real learning some day.

All this happened while I was in byo yomi, so I can try to use that as an excuse. But frankly, it's a lame excuse and I can't say that I believe in it. It was purely a matter of focus and attention. It was game losing too, I was ahead till it happened. Such are the ways of the double digit kyus :-)

Yesterday, my Korean Problem Academy books arrived, all the way from Korea! So exciting! I recognized a bunch of the problems from on line, but there are more than 700 problems in each book as opposed to only 200 on line. I worked through the first 100 pages of volume 1 already, so that must have been about 400 problems. I can see already that those books are going to be very helpful.

Also working on Getting Strong at Tesuji. I gave myself a challenge to try to do as many as I could in a day. I managed to get the first 150 done. Not bad, they are not that easy. And I had my normal 3,511 interruptions by life. Excellent reading practice. Maybe some day I will be able to read deeper than just one move :-p

I'd Rather Die...

... than live this way.

One of my many weaknesses has been to make weak groups, and then spend an unfortunate amount of time and a huge number of stones to defend them. Not only that, but the struggle for life, even if successful, gives my opponent a huge advantage all around me. Not a good situation.

Some one pointed out to me that I seemed to enjoy the challenge of making them live, because it reminds me of my life/death problems. She might not be too far off the mark. There is something satisfying about snatching a group from the gaping jaws of death, who cares whether the opponent gets way more out of it than I did. I did live!

Slowly, it is beginning to dawn on me, that this might not be the right attitude. Not the right playing style. That same person has been urging me to run before live, to not let myself being enclosed. But despite my best intention, I still ended up being enclosed way too often, only to find myself in yet another fiery life/ death struggle.

Things had to change. I had had enough of shameful life, enough of helping my opponent build huge moyos, enough of spending half of my game figuring out how to rescue those 42 stones which had been 'almost alive' for too long.

Last night, I made a resolution to not let myself being enclosed anymore, and if by some unfortunate event it happens anyway, to just give up on my stones. Usually it's only a few of them when it happens, my real problems start when I add more and more stones to those enclosed stones and end up at a huge disadvantage.

Yes, I might lose too many groups for a while when I am trying to figure this out. Yes, I might lose a bunch of games till I master this. Yes, I might have been able to save this group if only... But I am going to be strong and not live shamefully anymore. I'd rather die than live that way.

I'd better get real good at running. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. I played one game like this last night, gave up two groups, but was able to reach out from the outside towards them, and revive them. I didn't even want to save them, it just happened. I was trying to get some profit from their aji. So that might not have been the best game to teach me that losing groups isn't the end of the world. I am sure that most of the time I will not be able to resurrect my dead stones though. It will be interesting to see how this will work out. Fun experiment.

Tournament!

Today, I went to the Vermont AGA Spring Tournament. It was perfect!

The drive up there took longer than anticipated, so I did stress a bit about arriving too late. Luckily things did work out, I was late, but the organizer knew I was coming, and had saved a spot for me. He set it up so I could play him for my first game.

I decided to enter as an 11k, which turned out to be just right. He was 2k, so I got nine handicap stones. I played a nice, solid game, he was muttering something about me playing too strong for an 11k. I proved him wrong when I managed to play a brilliant sel-atari in yose though... 25 points worth of self atari! At least it was sente :-p Thanks to that, I ended up winning by only ten or so.

Second game was against an 8k, where I got three handicap stones. The game went well, till I neglected one of the basics, the one where you keep your weak group connected or alive... So I ended up with a nice, big, but very dead group. I thrashed around for a bit, made my opponent think, did a series of very nice tesuji's. But in the end, I was just one tiny liberty short... So I resigned. Was a fun game anyway, with all the fighting. And my opponent turned out to be a KGS player, who I had played before! When he realized who I was, he immediately asked me about the hedgehog song... Such a small world :-)

Third game I had to give eight handicap against a 19k. Quite overwhelming. The board was just so majorly dominated by all those black stones. She played nicely, and solidly, and didn't let me get away with much. I still played a decent game, and in the end lost by 8. I was happy about the way I had played that one, even although I lost the game.

I did realize that I must have been about 19k when I started playing again last December. So I have improved quite a bit if I can give eight handicap now, against the level I was only four months ago. That felt good.

Last game I gave three handicap against a 14k. My last official AGA rank was 14k (in January), so I was curious to see how that one would turn out. I started out behind (obviously :-) He built nice big territories, I built smaller territories. I started reducing his territories, he allowed me to. I poked and prodded, and slowly his territories got smaller, while mine got bigger. Not only that, but I ended up with about half the center. As in a nice big open space in the center, not one of those mostly-dame centers. Pushed him around in the end game, and ended up with a 33 points win. Another game where I was happy about playing against my own old rank, and seeing that I must have improved a bit.

All together, there was a nice variety of opponents, and I think I played pretty decently. Two wins an two losses make me an official 11k AGA now.

Good things I did

• Paid attention to my endgame, kept sente during most of it and managed to score quite a lot of points that way
• Didn't just reply to opponents move, but evaluated it and thought about whether I needed to reply or could tenuki
• Counted a few times during every game, and ended up pretty close to the final score
• Tried to keep sente as much as possible. Not perfectly yet, but at least I was aware of the issue, and was looking to get and keep sente
• Didn't let the stronger players get away with much overplay
• Did more creating than i did destroying.

Bad things I did

• The 25 points self-atari has to be put on the top of this list. Still can't believe I did that! OK, I can believe it, it just annoys me, yet at the same time amuses me. Great learning opportunity!
• Didn't pay enough attention to connections, which lost me the second game
• Totally misread a life/death situation in that second game. I need to do more tsumego!

So overall, there are more good things than bad things. I had a wonderful day, met wonderful people, and played pretty decent games. And I am officially an 11k AGA now!

The only bad thing of the day is that I got lost on the way home. Three full hours on Vermont 'scenic roads'. In the dark, in the rain, in the fog. Oh joy!

Life is Good!

Things seem to be falling into place. At least some of the time :-) Once in a while I even make a good move.

I won the Wings Across Calm Water Go Club April League!!! It was a shared first place. It's just a fun and friendly self paired league, but still happy about winning. Maybe there is hope after all :-)

Also managed to win a game against a much stronger player, one who usually wipes the floor me. Most likely a fluke, but I'll work on making it happen again.

And third good thing, I am going to a real life go tournament! Tomorrow, in Vermont, which is pretty close to where I live. Just need to figure out which rank I will enter at. I played our local AGA 5k at 5 stones for the first time this week, and beat him twice. Easily. But my KGS ranking still is only 15k, but I have not been playing many rated games. Mostly free so I can experiment. Oh well, I'll decide tomorrow.

Of course, I still lose tons of games too, but every one of those has presented a bunch of nice learning opportunities. Sometimes a bit painful learning opportunities, but I can only blame myself for getting into those messes :-) I am just having so much fun playing, that losing doesn't seem to matter. Enjoying the game does matter, and I sure do that every single time I play.

Goproblems.com

I have always had problems with the Goproblems.com website. The stones won't display for me, and it is just very annoying. It seems like such a wonderful resource, and I can't use it!

I know you can download them, but that didn't work as easy as I had hoped either. So I decided to look into trying to solve this issue. I found some pointers to java problems with the site using windows XP, so I went to the web site and downloaded the very latest version of java. Spent some time installing it today, and lo and behold, suddenly the stones were visible if I changed the stone size at the start of a problem. Not optimal, but better than nothing.

Was extremely happy, till suddenly all the stones disappeared again! How annoying. Tried all kinds of different things, and I am now at the point where it sometimes works, and sometimes it doesn't. Well, I guess it's better than it not working at all. I just wish what makes it work or fail, so I could recreate the right circumstances. It is a very useful collection of problems, I think it will help me a lot.

Down to 14 minutes at the Korean Problem Academy level 1. Still made four mistakes though. So at least I reached my time goal, now I just need to reach my perfection goal. And then, on to level 2 of course. I did 60 level 2 problems today, it will be a while before I can do those as fast as level 1. Will be a good challenge.

Got two new go books in the mail today. One about the Chinese opening, which I desperately need. I so totally hate playing against chinese, often do disrupt it while it is still building. But I recognize that that isn't the right way to deal with it, I should be able to play against it, or to play it myself. This book will help me.

The other book is called 'Direction of Play' and just from reading the intro, I could tell already that it is going to be very useful.

Creation versus Destruction

Yesterday, I played a good game against our local 5k and got promoted to only 5 handicap against him. Was feeling good about that, till I started playing my nightly KGS games. First two were just fun and friendly games, but my play totally sucked. I had a lot of kid interruptions, but I don't think they were the whole picture. For the third game, the kids had gone to bed anyway, so can't blame them for that loss :-)

Lost three out of three. Not good, so I started thinking about them. Some analysis made me realize what had happened. A few days ago, I played a few games where my opponent built a nice big moyo, and I would either invade incorrectly, or be too late to invade. So I vowed that wouldn't happen again. From now I would make sure my opponent was not going to make huge moyos.

So I played to disrupt the opponents development, but paid almost no attention to my own positions. Which got worse and worse. I would jump in at the wrong time, wrong place, wrong tesuji. Reduce the wrong way. Everything wrong! I felt so annoyed with myself.

But it did teach me to not just go for destruction. Creation is ok too, even if the opponent is creating things. So today, I changed my playing style. I did my own thing, and let him do his own thing. I got behind (he was better at creating things),but in both games, he made some mistakes I could use. And lo and behold, I managed to win both of those games! Even although he had a whole side both times. Amazing how well that worked. And he was a stronger player too!

Now I have to find the balance between creation and destruction. I think my last two games were not enough of reducing moves and such, but I still came out ahead.

Down to 16 minutes at the Korean Problem Academy level 1. Still made six mistakes. But I am getting closer!

Go Geocaching!

After seeing the The Ancient Game of Go cache, hidden by Anton Ninno of the Syracuse Go Club, I decided that I would love to hide a local go cache too. It took me a while, but with some help from Anton, I got it all together.

As a little side note, for people who have no idea what the heck geocaching is, it basically means using a GPS to find caches hidden all over the world. We got our GPS last August, and have been hooked ever since. More information can be found at Geocaching.com.

On Sunday, I took my ammo box and the baby, and hiked up on one of our local mountains. It was a lovely day. Saw lots of chickadees and other birds, heard the distant sounds of frogs in a pond, and I enjoyed the solitude. I have to admit that I did do a bunch of joseki in my head while hiking, but that's only appropriate for a go cache, right?

Found the perfect hiding spot, took coordinates, and went home to list The Ancient Game of Go II. The box has the usual trading items, and I also put in 9x9 boards copied on card stock, which can be used to create a $2.41 simple go set. There are flyers about go, with the rules of the game, and an explanation of capture go, to get people started. It also contains links to the AGA and some go web sites.

Looking forward to having people find this cache, and maybe get them interested in playing go.

Last night, I played a guest on KGS, who seemed a bit stronger than I was. In the middle game, he started making mistakes though, and even although I still was behind, things were getting closer. It must have worried him, because he disappeared. Annoying, but I had a good game up till that happened. I guess it's a risk of playing guests. But I also have had very good experiences playing them, so I'll just shrug and find some one else to play :-)

Today, it took me 24 minutes to get through the first 200 problems of the Korean Problem Academy. So there is some progress, but I still make way too many mistakes. Good exercise!

Playing fast or slow?

I have been trying to play a bit slower lately, actually sometimes thinking BEFORE putting down a stone. I tended to just put down a likely stone, without really evaluating all the options. It's good for my reading, because I read out more sequences now than when I was just plunking down random stones. But I have found myself over-thinking things too much sometimes, spending lots of time to make a very sucky move. Oh well :-)

One thing I am starting to realize, is how the choice of joseki influences the rest of the board. I knew that was true, but never really 'saw' it while playing. I still have a hard time seeing it while playing, but at least I am starting to recognize it in hindsight. Geez, did I really have to use that fancey and fun joseki, which then utterly destroyed the influence of one of my other stones? Couldn't I just have used the simple version of the joseki, which would have been fine?

Some games I am playing ok, other games, I get too caught up in local fights, and ignore the whole board situation. And there have been too many games, where I lost the game within the first 10 moves, looking back at it. Lots of room for improvement :-)

Still doing problems, working my way through Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol 3. It is not going as fast as I would want it to go, guess I am not patient enough. Some one gave me a nice problem challenge yesterday, about the Korean Problem Academy. He said I should be able to do level 1 (200 easy problems) within 15 minutes. Without mistakes too. I looked back at my notes, and the last time I did level one, it took me 26 minutes, and definitely was not spotless. I was curious to see how I would do now.

Found out that not only had I become slower at them, but I also made more mistakes. I think trying to do them fast made me first click, then think. And I don't think that's what this is all about. This is a perfect exercise for me. I ended up taking 30 minutes, and made way too many mistakes. I guess I am going to work on this every day now till I do get it perfect :-)

Reading

I seem to have made a jump in reading ability. Not sure how it happened, but suddenly, I am able to see things that I wasn't able to see before. While doing life and death problems, I now actually read more of the sequence before jumping in with the 'likely move'. This has increased my problem level in the Many Faces of Go considerably. Of course, it has slowed down the tempo in which I can do my daily problems, but I think that is a good thing in this case.

The scary thing is that I find myself playing sequences out in my head when there isn't even a go board near. I go to bed thinking about go, and I wake up to myself going over a bunch of joseki in my head, getting really annoyed with myself when I can't picture a certain move perfectly or am forgetting a certain continuation. I play sequences while driving my van. I consider the merits of good and bad shape while loading the dishwasher. Yes, I think I can consider myself officially obsessed now :-p

Of course, I still have tons of room for improvement, and of course I still do way too many moves where I realize one micro second later that this was a big mistake. But it still is nice to feel some progress happening.

By the way, thanks to Tristen's advice, I stopped holding go stones in my hand while playing. Yes, it does make a difference, it helps me to prevent some of those 'I wasn't thinking' moves. Not all of them, but obliterating even a few of them does help my game.

Progress?

My ranking finally seems to reflect my progress. I was so tired of being an eternal 16k, that I played a bot with less than proper handicap, and won, so that finally made me jump to 15k. Of course, I immediately went on to lose my three next games as a 15k, but hey, at least I learned a lot.

My DGS ranking went to 13k for a day or so, but now is up to a more reasonable 15k. I still feel that I am getting stronger anyway, reading is starting to get easier. I know much faster when I have gotten myself into trouble :-p

I find myself replaying sequences and joseki while driving my car. It has, at least once, resulted in me arriving at a different destination than where I was supposed to go. I think I am officially obsessed :-)

Some games, the stones seem to have a flow of their own, and they just magically move to the right places. Of course, in other games, they manage to move to just the wrong places. But at least I do have some games where I can feel the flow happening :-)

Took a break from contact fights, but I have had quite a few opportunities in my games where I could have used the info. So will go back to it, maybe tonight or tomorrow. I like the way Bruce Wilcox gives very mathematical rules for all those contact fight opportunities. I know it will help me a lot in my play.

The Curse of the Empty Triangle

Yes, I have been guilty of making them, I am sure that is why I am still stuck at 16k. I have been reading books about good and bad shapes, so it's not like I have an excuse for still making them. But sometimes my old bad habits surface and I plunk down a stone without even thinking about it. One second later, I realize that I have just made yet another empty triangle. Worse is when it's not only an empty triangle, but if there was a perfectly good other reply which would have been just as effective and better shape.

Just started on 'Lessons in the fundamentals of go' and 'Lectures on go techniques' Very interesting books, and they have made me think a lot more about my moves and what is good and what is bad. Not that I have any much more clue than I had before reading those books, but it is fun to try to apply the knowledge I gain from those books.

I am down to 17k on the Dragon server, but my rank graph on KGS is getting closer to 15k. Maybe, just maybe, some day soon, I will hit the 15k and be able to stay there longer than one or two days I did last time. On the one hand, I feel like my rating doesn't matter, I just should enjoy playing and studying. Which I am doing for sure. On the other hand, I would like to become shodan at some point, so rank does matter a bit.

Oh well, back to studying and playing :-) Without empty triangles :-p

Tenuki!

Have to remind myself about the importance of tenuki. The last few games, I have found myself caught up in local battles too many times, not looking at the whole board situation. I really should get that Tenuki Tattoo!

The last few days, I have been winning a few games, but still losing too many too. And often, I can trace back my losses to not taking tenuki at the appropriate times.

Have been really focused on life/ death problems again, doing at least 50 a day, often more. It is helping, I have been able to use it in a few games lately. Still tons of room for improvement, but I feel the glimmer of some understanding beckoning at me.

I spend a lot of time reviewing my games, which is very helpful. And just for fun, I loaded a game from three months ago, and was amazed about how many mistakes I made back then. Even more than I am doing now. Or maybe just more obvious ones. Looking forward to three months from now, when I can pull up games from today and shudder when I see the glaring errors jumping up at me :-)

Chugging Along

My ranking isn't reflecting it yet, but I finally have the feeling that I am getting stronger. Sometime I even can come up with a good move during my games instead of in my reviews. It is a nice feeling to feel progress happening, even if it isn't much yet.

I finished Sector Fights, just started working on Contact Fights. I am learning a lot by studying those. I think I'll go through them once, and then study them all over again a few weeks from now. There is so much valuable information in them. It's amazing how he can come up with useful heuristics for a wide variety of situations.

I slacked off on problems again, getting back into the habit now. Did 250 today, but that's unusual. I am up to over 2,000 totally though, which feels good. I mostly use The Many Faces of Go problems and the Korean Problem Academy at gobase.org. Very helpful!

Lately, I have been playing the San-Ren-Sei opening a lot. I am taking nachtrabe's advice and playing this for a while before I will start experimenting with something else. I want to be able to play this opening well, and then I will use different openings. So I guess I am still experimenting, but staying with one choice a lot longer than I was before. Maybe that will help improving my games too.

Direction of Play

Direction of play is a big issue for me right now. Thinking back to the walls game, that could have been avoided, if only I had paid better attention to my direction of play. Last night was a losing night, and my losses could all be attributed to direction of play (OK, maybe also a few hundred other reasons, but this was a big one :-)

My current strengths seem to be

1. Chasing an opponent's group into one of my weak group, which then has to scramble for life.
2. Chasing an opponents group so that it builds a nice wall for her, a useful wall at that.
3. Building my own wall, which is built such that it is useless from the start, or I manage to render it useless by direction of play mistakes.
4. Not noticing very elementary ataris, which is plainly embarrassing.
5. Forgetting about playing big points in the opening as opposed to fighting small fights.

A few nights ago, some one said that at our level every move is a mistake, and I feel more and more that he was totally right. At that point I was still thinking that maybe only most of my moves were, but looking at my last few nights of play, I am not so sure anymore. I seem to be awfully talented at making mistakes. Oh well.

It would be really boring if there wasn't any room for improvement, so I'll just muddle through till I finally can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And fervently hope it's not an oncoming train :-)

I am having fun anyway. I really enjoy all the games I am playing, even when I lose. I am studying 'Attack and Defense' right now, and am having a lot of 'aha!' moments. I feel that some day, I might actually get better at it all. But obviously not today yet :-) I just finished 'In The Beginning' which was very helpful, it was a good supplement to the Sector Fights program. I haven't been doing as much life and death problems lately, I should get back into the habit of doing those daily. So much to learn, so little time!

The Joy of Walls

Studying Sector Fights by Bruce Wilcox has made me more aware of the whole walls issue, how to use them, how to spoil them, when to build them, when not to build them. This is just a glimmer of awareness, there definitely is no mastery of the concept yet, but at least I am more aware of the whole issue. And of course, I have been experimenting with them, sometimes with good results, sometimes with bad.

Yesterday, I played another 16k at KGS, and during the first game, I managed to not make too many mistakes, so I got ahead and he resigned. We decided to go for another game, and this time I managed to let him build two super walls, one at the top west side, one at the bottom west side, facing each other, but far away enough that they basically gave him a super big chunk of the board. I realized that it was happening, but not consciously enough to actually do anything about it. Still not sure what I should have done, I have to go back to the game and try some variations. But I do know for sure that this was a disaster scenario.

I attempted an invasion because it was so big, but it was too little, and too late... I did manage to pull of a corner invasion at a corner where I shouldn't have lived. Still, those walls just were my downfall. I really should pay better attention to those walls, I am sure my opponent was thanking me for helping him win the game!

Studying, Studying...

I have steadily been working my way through Bruce Wilcox's Sector Lines program. I am learning so much, Hee presents the whole sector line / moyo / wall issue in a very mathematical way, and that fits very well with the way my mind works. All those things about direction of play which I didn't even know about. Lots of tips on what to focus on in the opening. Which weak groups to attack, and how to attack them. How to reduce or invade a moyo. Yes, I am very much enjoying myself working through it and hopefully will actually be able to use it in my games.

Since studying is so much fun, I ordered a bunch of new go books today. 'In the Beginning' which I have read 15 years or so ago, and which still should be somewhere in my house, but I have given up on finding it. I figure the best way to find it, is to buy a new copy. Two books from the Mastering the Basics Series. ' Volume One: 501 Opening Problems', and ' Volume Three: Making Good Shape'. I know I skipped volume two, mostly because it has life and death problems and I feel that I have more than enough to work with at the current time. Between The Many Faces of Go, DieorLive, and the Korean Problem Academy, and my Life and Death book, I feel that I don't want to spend more money on more life/death problems for now. And I get lots of real life practice in having my groups die on me, that should count for something too, right? LOL

I also got 'Attack and Defense', I have heard a lot of good things about that one. Let's hope it will help me to not only play aggressively, but actually win a fight once in a while :-)

Then I got some of the 'Get Strong' books, I remember 'Get Strong at the opening', don't remember which other one I decided on. I am so looking forward to receiving this shipment and starting to assimilate all this information.

Still playing on KGS and DGS, still at 16k on both. Well, have not finished any games on DGS yet, so that's not very surprising. But on KGS, I seem to be stuck around 16k, but then I haven't been focusing on getting higher. I am mostly playing for enjoyment (ok, also to win, but that's second :-). Sometimes I win, often I loose, but I always learn a lot. Have been spending a lot of time reviewing games, and trying to figure out WHEN I got that group cut off and doomed it. And what I could have done to prevent such happenings.

I still try to do fifty problems every day, although I have to admit that the Sector Lines have gotten in the way some days. Still, I do get 50 problems in most of the days, so that should count for something.

Tenuki!

This is going to be my new go motto. Tenuki, tenuki, tenuki. Went to bed mumbling it, dreamt about it, got up and thought about it, tried to explain it to some one, and just kept thinking it. Tenuki, tenuki, tenuki!

Still playing at least one human opponent per day, and not playing much against the computer anymore. Have been learning a lot by studying the go dojo about sector fights, and have only worked through the first part. Amazing all the things I always kind of felt, but never could verbalize. To see them put into action and into rules.

Yesterday, I lost one game by 1.5, and another game by a lot. That game was a teaching game, against a 13k, and he showed me very clearly about tenuki. How I kept replying to his moves, even if they were small, instead of playing bigger points, or forcing moves that would have worked much better.

Tenuki, tenuki, tenuki! Maybe I should tattoo it somewhere on my body...

Sector Lines

A whole new world opens to me! Last week, I had heard the term sector lines mentioned in passing, but I wasn't sure what they were and what to do with them. Then last night, another player did not only mention them, but even explained them! What a neat concept!

Today I did checked sensei.net and found out about Bruce Wilcox and his software programs. Now I am the proud owner of his sector fights program and working my way through it. Of course, I still lost my game, by 1.5 even. Well, at least I almost won :-)

Slow, slow, slow....

Progress has been slow lately. Or maybe I should rephrase this. I have the feeling that I have learned a lot and am getting better, but it isn't reflected in my ranking or my games yet. Sounds weird, I know, but I am hoping that it is just an integration period and that eventually it will make me stronger.

I finally signed up at gobase.org and started on the Korean Problem Academy. It's a nice change of pace from the Many Faces of Go and the DieOrLive problems.

I try to play at least one game against a human every day. But somehow my play just isn't there yet, I usually find myself ending up with not much territory. I have the feeling that I should play less aggressively, and more territory focused. But a bit of aggression is good too, guess I really need to find my own balance.

During my last game, I experimented with the double hane. Was able to use it twice, rejected it at another opportunity. I was happy with the outcome, even although I lost the game. It is fun to experiment with new moves and shapes. Another new shape I learned was the table shape, I have to admit that I never even heard of it till some one pointed it out to me.

I have beat The Many Faces of Go on level 8 now, only 2 more levels to go. It is a nice program for a fast game of go, when I know I will have a lot of interruptions.