On Sunday, July 21st, I was able to finally join my friends at Yuan Zhou‘s Monthly Workshop! Though I was originally unable to go, I’m glad that I was able to make it out!

The day began as always with a tsumego on the demonstration board.

Though I had the correct answer at one point, I talked myself out of it by misreading the order of moves. As a result, I unfortunately can’t proudly say I solved it with confidence. Haha. But in terms of what I gained from that experience, I need much more work on my life and death skills. I’m decent with some of the instinctual moves, but I need to be better in terms of being absolutely sure of my answer.

After my friend Gurujeet answered the question correctly, we moved on to reviewing a professional game between Lee Sedol [9P] and Lian Xiao [4P]. It was an exciting game that really helped to open my eyes. Some of the major things I learned from the flow and tenacity of the players include:

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It was a beautiful Saturday morning when I pulled up to the Maryland Open in Catonsville, Maryland. Though I was a little nervous for what was waiting for me at this tournament, I was excited at the prospect of seeing friends and having a day filled with go.

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On April 2nd, 2013, I had the honor of being able to attend a professional go event that featured Narumi Osawa (4p) and was hosted by the Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C. It was a free event that consisted of a short talk designed for beginners, a simultaneous game against Narumi, and a lecture/review on one of the games.

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Introduction — Day 1 — Day 2 — Day 3 — Day 4 — Day 5 — Conclusion

With the North American Go Convention over, I must admit that I miss the excitement of knowing I was going to be spending the evening or day immersed in go and hanging out with great company. Nonetheless, let us recap what’s happened over the last five days:

1. Attended two professional lectures.
2. Played 6 simultaneous games with professionals.
3. Managed to actually win one of my simul games.
   Below is a close-up of all the autographs on the fan and the related games that I played.

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Introduction — Day 1 — Day 2 — Day 3 — Day 4 — Day 5 — Conclusion

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.

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Introduction – Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 – Conclusion

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.

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Introduction — Day 1 — Day 2 — Day 3 — Day 4 — Day 5 — Conclusion

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.

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.

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Introduction — Day 1 — Day 2 — Day 3 — Day 4 — Day 5 — Conclusion

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?!?!?!”

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Introduction — Day 1 — Day 2 — Day 3 — Day 4 — Day 5 — Conclusion

The day got off to a rather dreary start as I spent about an hour in rainy traffic trying to make my way down to the event. After grabbing a quick bite to eat, I found myself standing outside the building wondering how to get in. There was construction going on and with all the doors locked down I was running around trying to figure out how to get in for about 10 minutes. Thankfully someone was kind enough to let me in on their way out.

As I rode the elevator up to the 9th floor, I was a little anxious as I expected a bit of a crowd since I was running late. Although I think the real concern for me was missing the opportunity to play a teaching/game with the professionals. When I arrived however, there were only around six to eight people in the waiting area. For those who aren’t aware, the North American Go Convention (NAGC) is a two part convention that started out in New Jersey and made its way down to DC. With the traffic and crummy weather, the bus was unfortunately running late and thus everything was pushed back. So all my rushing to get there on time was for naught. xD On the upside, it gave me a chance to settle down and catch my breath.

While sitting in the waiting area, I couldn’t help but overhear as people were talking about their strengths and how long they’d been studying. There were a few Korean players and a couple Chinese players. The two younger players (around my age) had apparently started studying when they were around 5 years old and were 7 dan and 4 dan respectively. You can only imagine how I felt when I realized that I was the only kyu player in the room. Haha.

As if things couldn’t get worse, one of the moms asked me later on how strong I was. After all the conversation in the room about how the children were dans and had started studying go since they were young, I think she just naturally expected me to say I was X dan. When I responded that I was 6 kyu, she gave me a quizzical look as if she had never heard of the rank. In fact, someone even asked, “So wait, is 6 kyu higher than 1 kyu?”

“Dear lord,” I thought, “They don’t even recognize the kyu levels.” hangs head in shame

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Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending another one of Yuan Zhou‘s Monthly Workshops!

We started off with a life and death problem that is called “hunting the 6 stone bird.” Apparently it’s a very old problem that has been around for a long time, for those wondering what the shape looks like. For those who would like to try it out for themselves, here it is below:

Afterwards, I got to hear a very captivating review for one of Lee Changho 9p Vs. Park Junghwan 9p games in the most recent Ing Cup World Go Championship. It was one that was full of full of suspense, excitement, and a capturing battle on epic proportions that made Park Junghwan the decisive victor.

As I listened to Yuan Zhou review the game, there were a few things that really struck me:

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