Archive: undefined/2013

North American Go Convention - Day 5

IntroductionDay 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5Conclusion

For my final day at the NAGC, I woke up a little later since I was pretty tired from the past four days. After all, on top of all the go and staying out late, I had been working as well. So when I found out that the first round was starting at 8:30am, I decided to forgo competing all together and just get there later for the pro events.

When I arrived, it was approximately 9:15am. As I looked at the schedule for the day, I noticed that the pro events were once again scheduled during the second half of each round. In addition, there were no breaks in between the rounds. If you wanted lunch or dinner, you had better hope your match ends early. So in short, trying to compete, have your meals, and attend pro events would nearly kill you.

Since the first pro event was starting at 10;00am, I went ahead and walked upstairs to see how the tournament was progressing. You can imagine my surprise when I arrived at the playing room to find that they needed another player since someone didn’t show up. Since there was still some time before the match and I felt bad that someone was missing an opponent, I decided to go ahead and play to help out. Since there was only 30 minutes before the pro event though, I tried to play as quickly as I could with the most aggressive method possible so that the game could possibly end early.

Read More

North American Go Convention - Day 4

IntroductionDay 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5Conclusion

For Day 4, I had the honor of having my mom come and join me for the day! She just learned the rules recently and I was excited when she told me that she wanted to come to an all day go convention!! Woot!!

When we arrived at the convention, I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of people at the registration room. As we settled down, I heard an announcement that everyone needed to check in if they wanted to compete. At the time, I was rather split as to what to do. On one hand, I wasn’t sure what the schedule for the professional events (i.e. lectures, simul games, reviews) was. In addition, I wasn’t sure I was okay with the idea of my mom sitting around for hours on end watching me play games when she was still so new to the game.

Once registration was finished, I thought it would be a good idea to show my mom what competitive go looks like. Upon our arrival upstairs, we found them posting up the pairings for the first round. For some reason, I had a feeling that I might have been included even though I did not check in. Sure enough, I found my name after a quick glance at the list.

Read More

North American Go Convention - Day 3

IntroductionDay 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5Conclusion

Shortly before leaving the convention on Day 2, I had mentioned to Myung and James that if they were free and didn’t have plans, I would be happy to take them out to dinner since they didn’t know the area very well. They told me that they would let me know how their schedule was the next day, so you can imagine how excited I was when I received a phone call letting me know that they would like to get dinner with me! Since they were in the Annandale area, I suggested that we meet at the Bonchon to get dinner.

As per usual, the traffic to Virginia was not cooperating with me as I attempted to make my way to them. When I finally reached my destination, I arrived to find Myung and James outside with a local Korean go player. I was a bit bewildered at first as to why they were outside, but then I realized that the Bonchon was closed!!! Bleh. Definitely not what I anticipated. So we adapted and headed off to the Fairfax location.

Credit to HauteLiving.com

If you’ve never had it before, it’s just heavenly…. Just thinking about it is making me hungry….

Before I knew it, we were munching and chatting the night away. Time passed us by rather quickly because before we knew it it was 7:00pm and we needed to rush back to the convention. Fortunately we weren’t too far away, but I did feel bad that I didn’t do a better job keeping track of the time. Since we were running a behind though, we went ahead and dropped Myung off before heading off to do a coffee run.

Once we got back and arrived at the building, we ran into a local go player who had stopped by for the convention but was leaving since there were only dans upstairs. When James hit the button to go to the 9th floor and nothing happened, you can imagine my face as I could only laugh as I realized that we would have to take the stairs once again. On the upside, having James helped to make the climb pass by much quicker.

Read More

North American Go Convention - Day 2

IntroductionDay 1Day 2Day 3Day 4Day 5Conclusion

Although the weather was much nicer this time around, it seems the fates were conspiring against me as I spent a good twenty minutes stuck in traffic due to an accident. Fortunately for me, I had left early enough that the delay was not going to make me incredibly late. On top of that, based on my experience yesterday, I didn’t have good reason to believe that arriving late would cause me to miss anything nor should I have worried that a huge crowd of people would suddenly appear on a Thursday night. Nonetheless, I still couldn’t help but feel anxious that I would arrive to find that the teaching/simultaneous games had started or were full.

By the time I parked my car, it was about 3 minutes prior to 7pm. I rushed into the building fully expecting to grab the first elevator and make it there just on time. Lo and behold, what do I see when I walk in the lobby? The elevators are being maintained. In case you’re not getting the full effect of what I felt, remember that the convention is on the 9th floor. (-.-)

Next thing I know, I’m bolting up 9 flights (although more like 18 since they were two flights per level) of stairs in a rush to get there on time. And when I finally make it up to the 9th floor, I am crestfallen as I look around and fail to see anyone around. The room that was setup for go lecture was full of employees holding a meeting, and the room where the we played our simul game yesterday was completely covered up.

“CRAP. Did I miss the memo about it getting cancelled or the address moving?!?!?!”

Read More