Archive: undefined/2013

Minor Training Adjustment

Upon trying to continue my study of Lee Sedol’s book, I have realized that it will be impossible for me to properly study it. While it is easy to simply replay the moves, I realized that simply going through the motions was not doing me any good. I want to try and absorb as much of his explanations as much as possible, and frankly with my schedule I simply don’t have the time to do so unless I let everything else in my life go to a complete mess. =D So I’ll be shelving the book for this month, but no worries, that is all the training adjustments that will happen for this month. Onward I go!

Archive: undefined/2012

Watching Dan Games

So I currently have the pleasure and exciting opportunity to be participating in an all week training for Adobe CQ5.5, but that means that there is very little time for playing go. =(

In order to satiate my go craving for the day, I’ve actually started watching dan level games and trying to predict where I would go and understanding why they play the way they do. Granted, I know that I do not have the reading ability that they possess and thus will not be able to understand things entirely; but I think that it has been a fun exercise for me to improve my ability to analyze the whole board position when I have more time to play.

Meanwhile, a big shout out to my friend Scotist who had a fantastic winning streak yesterday! Great job man!

Five Days Feels Like Forever...

It’s been five days since I last played a game of go, but it has felt like an eternity. Haha. I found myself logging onto KGS multiple times a day to look at game records of my friends or watch other games just to prevent myself from getting entangled in a game. It doesn’t quite measure up to playing, but it helped to satisfy the urge to just play. I’m looking forward to my game with Nate tomorrow, but I’ll probably be avoiding ranked games for a little.

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Archive: undefined/2010

Weekend Overview

So this weekend has been pretty good so far. I’ve been trying to study Go as often as possible. I’ve diverted my attention slightly to two more theory books: Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go along with Basic Techniques of Go. No worries though, I’m still doing lots of problems!

I also visited the Congress of Gamers in Rockville yesterday. John and Todd both had a table for Go. Two new players showed up in the time I was there (for approximately an hour or so). So I’m glad we managed to attract some attention. I also got to play a game against Todd who is roughly 4 kyu? We played a 9 stone handicap game and I managed to win by 8.5 points with 0.5 komi. And apparently I could have killed a group that I thought was already alive, so I could have won by more.

Time to get back to work. The fruits of my training may have begun to yield, but the journey is far from over.

Blogging Goals

So in lieu of trying to gain more credibility as a Go expert and blogger, I’ll be trying to implement the following goals for increasing blogging content:

  1. 5 posts a week concerning my personal progress as a player.
  2. 2 Go book reviews per month.
  3. 1 Go equipment review per week.
  4. 1 Go Guide per week.
  5. 1 Weekly and Monthly Overview on my progress as well.

Let’s see how this goes for the month of October.

A Forced Break

So like most people, my world is not solely my own and is constantly impacted by the people around me. This has forced me to take a break from playing full games of Go online, but on the upside I’ve been trying to take what Justin advised me to do to heart.

After reflecting on it for some time, I realized that most of my frustrations come from the fact that my visualization and ability to read ahead is undisciplined and ill-trained at the moment. Like Justin said, no amount of theories will be able to correct for that. Agreed. I will be working hard to finish up any remaining books that I started so that there aren’t a bunch of half-read books on my bookshelf, but afterwards I’ll be sure to dive headfirst into all the problem books I own.

Journal Log #4

So I’m back online! With two online games under my belt today, I’m feeling pretty good.

  1. I played against a human AkiraWeiqi (22 kyu). It was a good battle. We both made some careless errors, but man it is different playing against a handicap. I’m so used to taking handicaps/even games that seeing stones on the board was like WHOA! I won by a slight margin, but I’ll have to have someone review it to see if he might have been able to close the gap.

  2. Second game was against the LiberyBot (14 kyu), and that I thought I played relatively well. I lost by 5.5 moku, but I think it was largely due to a huge reading error in one of my larger groups which then resulted in its death. Sigh…. need more practice.
    Okay. So… in terms of my study regimen…. here’s what we’ll be looking at.

  • Life and Death Problem
  • Reading about Go Strategy
  • General Go Problems
  • Play one serious game
  • Replay at least part of a pro game

Let’s see where that takes me. Onwards!

It's About to Go Crazy

Starting tomorrow, my life shall be a whirlwind: graduate school is starting, job hunting will become intensified, and my Go training will persevere! In conjunction with what my life will be, the posts from this point on will most likely not follow any chronological order. If I find any time to finish and polish any reviews, they will be flying up on the go. I’ll also be starting up weekly and monthly progress reports so that you can see how I’m doing as a player as well. So look out world cause here we go!