Introduction — Round 1 — Round 2 — Round 3 — Round 4 — Conclusion

My opponent made his first move: upper left star.

I stared at the board as I recalled memories of playing with my friend Nate: the various approaches I tried before, the numerous times he gave me advice as to how he tries to play as white, and how I should try to play as black. I wasn’t sure what was in store for me, because this was not going to be a fun casual Monday night game. This was a game that neither of us wanted to lose. After all, I’m sure that neither of us wanted to start the tournament off with a loss. Nonetheless, only one of us would come out a victor…

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As a game progresses over time, it is very easy to lose track of the connections between your groups. After all, if you’re intently staring at the board for a long time, it’s not so far fetched to start seeing groups being connected when in fact they aren’t. In fact, if you take a quick look at the kifu snapshot above, it would seem that the top black group is doing alright. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

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For those who have never tried it before, playing an even game against a player that is reportedly two stones stronger than you can be a scary feeling. On one hand, you think “This can’t be too bad.” Yet, on the other hand, the board looks quite naked as you stare at the empty board while knowing that you should have two handicap stones sitting on the board. As someone who’s been through a couple experiences recently, it is quite the daunting feeling…

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Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #2

For many players, one of the major obstacles to playing go is time. After all, an average game can take anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes depending on the level of thinking that goes into each game. So in order to accommodate the faster players and those without much time, the format known as blitz go was born.

For new players who’ve never played blitz go, the general idea is that you have less than a minute to make each move. If you fail to make your move within the allotted time, you lose by default on time.

While there are different perspectives on blitz go, you should seriously consider the following points as to whether or you should be playing blitz go:

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Today’s shidougo lesson comes from a person that I’ve come to befriend and look up to: frozensoul. If you’d like to help support his efforts in helping out players trying to get stronger, please visit his site for more information!

I guess you could call this my first “shidougo” victory… but I wouldn’t classify this as that due to the fact that frozensoul was actually trying to create a tie. So in reality, congratulations are in order for frozensoul for being only one point away from creating a tie!

Overall, I was really happy with my performance in this game. It honestly has nothing to do with the victory and more on the fact that I played almost every move with confidence. And for those who would remind me that frozensoul wasn’t actually trying to play anything crazy, the confidence I’m speaking of is more of a “I read it out to the best of my ability and I’ll give each move everything I got.”

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Today, I am writing about a more solemn topic that I know most people would shy away from posting on. However, I believe that this post touches on something that almost every go player will encounter along their journey: the desire to win. It is a difficult topic for me to write at the moment since the disappointing kifu is fresh off the board, but by doing so I hope to capture a vulnerability that we all feel at one point or another.

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Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #1

Welcome to the start of my Weekly Go Wednesday (WGW) series! This purpose of this series is to add some excitement to the middle of the week, so that before you know it, it’ll be the weekend again! If you have any requests or would like to be a guest writer on this series, be sure to let me know!

Unlike the games I’ve posted so far, today’s opponent has a bit of history that deserves to be recorded down for the ages to come. For those who want to check out the game commentary beforehand, go ahead and scroll down to the bottom before settling down with a hot beverage for a tale of a chance encounter that has been a big impact in my life ever since.

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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….

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Prior to this game, I was on a decent winning streak… so I was feeling pretty good. Feeling good enough to think I could outplay a 5d? Apparently so….

Now granted, this was a teaching game; but I assure you that I did nothing less than try to outplay him and hope to catch him off guard. For those who are still new and wondering why this is incredibly stupid, the difference between a 5d and 9k is at the bare minimum 8 stones. So… yeah…

It’s been so long since I played against an opponent so vastly stronger than me that I forgot what it was like to play just to simply survive. That’s right: just survive. Instead, I tried to take big points and was under the false assurance that my groups were alive and that I was giving frozensoul a good game.

That being said. There are too many mistakes to be mentioned and the prized moments are practically nonexistent. If you would like to see what 9k mistakes look like and how they get properly demolished, please see the kifu below!

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That’s right. I have achieved my first “Under 100 Moves Resignation.” I know that there is a high likelihood that I might have one in the past for some stupid reason, but this is the first time I felt like I truly earned it.

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