Journal

Play Against a Troll and Win! Achievement Complete!

ANNOUNCEMENT: All the games will now come with full commentary in order to minimize the complication of having to flip back and forth between the blog post and the game. I will do my best to diligently put down any variations I saw and why I played the moves that I did. So please be sure to visit the link and then let me know your thoughts! Enjoy!

This was a pretty scary game for me. I know I’ve been playing stronger opponents in the ASR League in even matches, but for some reason playing a ranked game against a 3k gave me the jitters. And I didn’t go looking for this game, this guy challenged me. Looking back on it, I’m pretty sure he was trying to play against weaker players so he could feel all big and mighty. Too bad he came out the loser….

This is definitely a game that I’m certainly proud to call my own. In addition, I had never really experienced playing against a troll until this game. If you want a glimpse as to what I’m talking about, you can see it in the kifu (more profanity and name calling occurs afterwards, but you’ll get the gist of it based on what I left in the record).

I think this is a game that any players below 10k might find useful. So please check it out and hopefully you’ll learn something new from my game!

As a final note, for players who have never encountered trolls before and have no idea how to deal with them properly, here is some advice from my personal experience today

1. Do not stoop to their level - In other words, don’t curse. Don’t insult. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Otherwise you can forget about reporting them to an admin and gaining any sympathy.

2. Report it to an admin - This is particularly recommended when your opponent has either escaped and/or is threatening to drag the game on till the end of time by using byoyomi forever…. And if you’re wondering how to find an admin on KGS, they have a star symbol next to their username.

3. Vent about it with a friend, and then move on - Thankfully I had frozensoul there at the time, who saw the debacle go down when it happened, and he helped me through it and thus I’ve come out unscathed. But seriously, once you’ve vented, don’t let the troll impact your joy and happiness in playing go. Completely not worth it.

That being said, I hope you guys will enjoy the commentary and the new format. Till next time!

In case anyone is wondering, it seems that the new updated template for Blogger seems to override the code for embedding Eidogo into the blog posts, so that’s the reason I’ve had to resort to linking out onto Eidogo. Sorry for the inconvenience!