Friday Go Forward: Week 52

Overview

Can you believe that this post represents a full year of my Friday Go Forward posts? As I glance through some of my earlier ones, I have to say that it’s interesting to see how the series has changed over time. At one point its as incredibly detailed as to what I was doing, and then got general, and then back to a bit more specific again. I do think that I would like to eventually return to a very detailed weekly update, but I’ve yet to figure out a way to do that in a sustainable fashion, so hopefully you’ll bear with me until then. =)

Overall though, this week has been a good week in terms of building up sustainable change and habits. As some of you might have noticed, there was a post for each day this week! The cool part about that is that it didn’t take too much effort on my part to push out the content. If anything, it was more about simply being disciplined and just taking some time out of my day (that I might have used for some other unproductive activity) to write what’s on my mind. The Weekly Go Wednesday article could probably have used some polishing, but hopefully I’ll have that ironed out as time goes on.

In terms of the game itself, I am still working on a more disciplined life and death training along with trying to play more games. They still cause me some anxiety before I play, but I’m hoping that it goes away after some time.

Finally, best of luck to my friend Nate, Yuki, and anyone else who will be attending the New Jersey Open Go Tournament at Princeton! I’m looking forward to hearing about your games and how the tournament goes. Wish I could be there!

Training Regimen

• Step #1: Do 10 go problems a day. (Estimated time: 5-10 minutes)

Games

• KGS - 3 games
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• OGS - 6 ongoing games

Books

• Worked on Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Volume One: 300 Life-and-Death Problems.
• Worked on Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics by Robert Jasiek.

The Dirt Cheap Go Set

Description: “Are you looking for an affordable Go set? Look no further. The Dirt Cheap Go Set is a complete, full size Go game set at an unbeatable price! Each set includes one foldable 19x19 plastic Go board, 180 Go stones of each color (black and white) and two plastic Go bowls. Because the board can be folded and sealed tightly inside one of the bowls (with the stones) this set is also compact and portable.” - GoGameGuru

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Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #32

One of the things I’ve been dealing with lately is the narrow sightedness at seeing the fruits of my efforts as soon as possible. And as time has gone on, I felt more and more like my ability to play go deteriorated as each move became more rushed and every failure to gain easily recognizable profit (i.e., a large dead group in your moyo) only resulted in dismay and frustration with the game.

To be honest, I think a lot of this has to do with the culture that we are living in today. Everything is now now now! And in the case of most entertainment, such as video games, the results of what you do can usually be seen within a few minutes or even seconds. For example, in League of Legends, the moment you engage an opponent, there will be a clear outcome of whether your play was a good or bad one (i.e., you kill your opponent, your opponent harasses you more than you anticipated and you have lower health, you overextend and get ganked by the enemy jungler, etc.). However, with go, it’s the complete reverse.

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Though I’ve never explicitly stated this, one of my goals with this blog is to bring the most exciting and interesting stories about go that I think anyone with even only the slightest interest in go would enjoy while documenting my own journey. I try not to replicate the amazing work done by GoGameGuru and others who document the details of the professional world and serve as a better source for those intricacies of the go world.

So in light of that, I am really excited to introduce the very first guest post on this blog! For those who don’t know, there’s an active forum on go called Life in 19x19, and I came across a magnificent post on a tour of the shop of Mr. Kuroki (who owns the Kuroki Goishi Ten shop which sells high quality equipment). It reminded me of ChiyoDad’s post on yunzi manufacturing, so I immediately contacted the author and requested his permission to repost his post here on the blog in order to further spread word of his awesome trip. And since you’re reading this, it shouldn’t surprise you to hear that I got permission! So without further delay, hope you enjoy Erythen’s virtual tour through Mr. Kuroki’s shop!

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Friday Go Forward: Week 51

Overview

This week has been a little lax in terms of playing actual games, but I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my goals and have really started to slowly come to terms with matching my drive to get better at go with some of my other goals in life. So in other words, instead of the brilliant flash of energy and vigor that I used to put out (which was then followed by an equally tragic burnout), it feels as if the energy is brewing in a slower but much more sustainable way this time. Not sure how this translates into tasks and such yet, but only time will tell.

Training Regimen

• Step #1: Do 10 go problems a day. (Estimated time: 5-10 minutes)

  • Note: I’ve been trying to do 10 problems a day from the Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Volume 1, but I have to admit that it’s been more of a skimming style where I try for a little bit and then look at the solution to see if my instincts were correct. This has not been terribly beneficial for my reading skills as a whole, and I have plans to approach this differently once I’m done with the book.

Games

• KGS - 0 games
• DGS - 1 ongoing game || 1 finished game
• OGS - 6 ongoing games || 7 finished games

Books

• Worked on Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Volume One: 300 Life-and-Death Problems.
• Worked on Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics by Robert Jasiek.

Fighting Fundamentals

Description: When it comes to fighting, many players are often confused with the principles behind fighting. In this book, Jasiek tries to answer all the essential questions about fighting. This book covers a wide array of material that is more suited for the very studious players.

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Friday Go Forward: Week 50

Overview

It’s been great getting to slowly have go pick up in my life again. Starting with the go workshop I volunteered at the mall last weekend, it’s been a little tumultuous since I’m dealing with old habits that have plagued me for quite some time; however, I’m glad to be back into it and trying to work through it. Just taking it one move at a time…

Training Regimen

• Step #1: Do 10 go problems a day. (Estimated time: 5-10 minutes)

Games

• KGS - 0 games
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• OGS - 5 ongoing games + 3 finished games

Books

• Worked on Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Volume One: 300 Life-and-Death Problems.
• Worked on Life and Death Problems 1 - Basics by Robert Jasiek.

Weekly Go Wednesday: Issue #31

For those who didn’t know, Gu Li and Lee Sedol had their first epic match of their ten match series jubango. And though many of you might have watched the game or checked out the game record later on, I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of weaker players like myself were left in bewilderment most of the time. After all, even though it was really exciting, it’s hard to learn from a game where so much is going on at once!

So I came up with the idea to team up with my sensei, frozensoul, and do a review together in order to provide a step-by-step review of every move in the game. Now granted, I’m sure that many strong dan players might refute some of my comments or argue that there is so much more to what I reviewed, but my goal is simply this: To provide a game record that would allow kyu players to easily follow the game and understand some of the most significant moments of the game. As a result, it should be no surprise that complicated variations and advanced theoretical discussions are intentionally avoided and left to other people who are much more qualified to speak to those things than I am (i.e., World Go Online and GoGameGuru). The following is the result of our efforts:

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