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

In all my naivety, it never occurred to me that I might end up giving my opponent handicap stones. After all, the majority of the time spent playing online were either even games or against stronger opponents who would give me handicap stones, not the other way around!! To make matters worse, I had spent so much time studying how Black should deal with handicap games that I wasn’t quite sure what to do as White. And as if that wasn’t enough, my familiarity with handicap games extended as far as 3 stones. Now that I was facing an opponent with 4 stones, I couldn’t help but feel the blood begin to drain from my face as I stared down the menacing board.

“All four corners are gone… I don’t even have one corner of influence to work with… I have no idea what I’m going to do…”

Read More

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…

Read More

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

In my entire go playing experience, I have only participated in two tournaments: the UMBC Go Tournament (2010) and the New Jersey Open (2011). In both instances, I ended up participating because of friends who encouraged me to do so. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure my lack of confidence would’ve prevented me from doing so. When I recall both tournaments, I remember not doing so well at either. My record was 0-3 at the UMBC Go Tournament and (with confirmation from Nate) 3-2 for the New Jersey Open. (For those thinking that 3-2 isn’t so bad, I recognize that; but I assure you that I don’t recall the greatest feeling about my victories. Can’t say why, but that’s what I can recall.) I’m sad I didn’t blog more about those experiences, so I’m hoping to make up for that with this tournament.

This is a six part series that will be released once per day (excluding weekends). So as the hors d’oeuvre to next week’s entree of daily posts, let the story begin…

Read More

Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #5

Although I’m normally a huge fan of technology and its ability to improve our lives, this is definitely one of those times where I warrant caution in its usage.

Unlike a book, tsumego software allows you to try out moves that you think will work without actually reading it out. Let’s not forget, you are doing tsumego to improve your reading ability. If you’re not actually reading it out, how much improvement do you really expect to see? In addition, as if it wasn’t bad enough that you aren’t actually reading it out, you end up reinforcing a terrible habit on two levels:

#1. Mental Reinforcement - Your brain isn’t actually reading it out. Instead, it’s more of a “let’s play here and see how the computer responds.” So your brain is getting lazier since you know that the software will show you what’s wrong anyways. Thus, I would argue that it deteriorates your reading ability.

#2. Physical Reinforcement - Whether you realize it or not, each time you carelessly place a stone on the board, you are creating the muscle memory of the bad move. In other words, you are not only mentally saying, “Yes. I think this should work,” but your body is also saying, “I concur with my brain and will act in conjunction with this idea.”

There will be players who will then argue that it would be impossible to play go because everyone makes bad moves like this at one point or another. While that point may seem valid, the reason that it doesn’t apply to this scenario is that there is a crucial difference between making a bad move in an actual game and making a bad move in a tsumego problem:

There is little to no psychological attachment to solving tsumego incorrectly. It might be a little frustrating at times; but its impact on players is like a drop of water compared to the vast ocean that players feel when faced with the traumatic moment of realizing that their poor move cost them a group or the game.

As a result, players end up learning from their bad moves in their games; but generally fail to do so when making bad moves while solving tsumego.

HOWEVER….

This does not mean that tsumego software should be banned and never see daylight again. In fact, it would be a travesty if anyone were to take that away as my thesis for this post. Like anything else in life, it has to be used correctly for it to be beneficial to the user.

The following tips will help ensure that you are getting the most out of your tsumego software:

1. Read out every variation to the best of your ability before you place a single stone.

2. If you end up choosing the wrong move…

   • Figure out and understand why it doesn’t work.
   • Reset the problem to the beginning.
   • Read it out again without any stones on the board to reinforce the why it doesn’t work.
   • Once you can see the entire sequence, play it through once more before moving on.

3. Spend more time solving easy to intermediate problems.

Remember, being able to carry tsumego with us wherever we go these days is a luxury that we should all appreciate. Just remember that you use it properly and I assure you that you will thank yourself as your continue down the endless path to becoming one stone stronger.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

As I promised last week, today is the grand opening of the new redesign for BenGoZen! It’s time to change your bookmarks, because BenGoZen now has its own domain name and is hosted on a completely new platform!

www.bengozen.com

For those who haven’t visited in a while, here are some of the new features that will be accessible to you on the new design!

• Easy Email & RSS Subscription!
• Embedded Eidogo Kifu so you can view the game right in the post!
• Updated content layout for easier reading experience and better searching!
• Translator tool in case you want to read my blog in another language!
• Easy contact form so you can send me emails at any time!

And in case there is any confusion, there will no longer be any updates here on the Blogger platform. All comments have also been disabled to prevent any confusion as well, so make sure to come on over to the new site! I assure you that it is worth it.

With that in mind, hope to see you over at the new site!

Also, for those of us that are being bombarded by Hurricane Sandy, I hope you are doing alright and have the good fortune of having electricity and internet so that you can be reading this. Take care!

As much as I hate to do this, BenGoZen will be on hiatus for the rest of the month to prepare for a brand new blog redesign. I am currently working really hard to not only implement a brand new look and feel for the blog, but I’m also completely revising and improving the information architecture and content quality to make the entire experience more enjoyable and worthy of your time!

To get you excited for some of the new changes coming in a week, here are some things you can expect to see!

1. Subscribe via email and RSS with ease!
2. Eidogo Player back in full functionality so that you no longer have to leave the blog to see my games!
3. Easy translator widget that will allow you to view my content in many languages! (Although I won’t be able to verify fully the accuracy of the translation, the content will now be available to more people!)
4. New integrated comment system that will allow you to login from various social media avenues.

Looking forward to seeing you on the grand opening - Halloween, October 31st, 2012!

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.

Read More

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.

Read More

Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #4

Tactic #1: The Wedge

Here is a scenario that occurs quite frequently in games.

White just played the one point jump. Black to play.

Read More

Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #3

Of all the go topics in the entire universe, this is by far the single most popular one. After all, getting one stone strong is the eternal pursuit of every go player. There are a plethora of articles out there on how to do so, but my goal is to provide the fastest route for you to progress as a go player (to SDK at the bare minimum).

Read More