Happy new years everyone! 2013 has come and gone and 2014 is now upon us! And though I’m one that comes from the philosophy of living each day to the fullest and not waiting till the beginning of the year to start change, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to do a little new years resolution for the blog!

New Year Resolution #1. Change the hosting service that I am using.

For all those who have experienced times when the blog have gone down, I sincerely apologize for the fact that my hosting site has been absolutely terrible. I am growing tired of their frequent outages and will definitely be looking for a change in hosting service. You cannot believe how many times I tried to login to write posts or prepare material only to find that my server was down. Bleh. So if you have any recommendations, please be sure to pass them on.

New Year Resolution #2. Write at least one post every week.

As some of you are aware, there have been a number of times where I try to take on way more than I can (healthily) handle. As a result, I’ve burnt out and gone through more down points than I’d care to admit. So instead of trying to accomplish a goal that might lend itself to another crash and burnout, I’m hoping to simply stick to being disciplined and working consistently rather than short bursts.

New Year Resolution #3. Give the blog a brand new design.

This one is definitely a bit ambitious; but since it’s the beginning of the year, I think that this is something that will be more feasible as time goes on. Although I have tried my best to make the experience of my blog as user friendly and pleasant as possible, I know that it falls short in a number of areas and can use a big overhaul. So if there’s going to be one resolution that is going to be a grand overture, might as well let it be this one. =D

And though I could probably go on, I think that the key to making 2014 successful is to have broader goals that feed into the grand vision. The smaller goals (i.e., do 100 tsumego problems a day) are ones that will come and go as I progress through 2014, so we’ll get to those as they come. So with that, here’s to our first step in 2014. Onwards!

Friday Go Forward: Week 44

In the past week, a lot has happened and it has forced me to reconsider a lot of things that are going on in my life. As much as I regret to say this, it seems that I will need to cut back even further from go and blogging than I thought. So though I thought I would at least be able to keep up with my Friday Go Forwards, I regret to say that this will be going on hiatus as well.

I have a few more reviews that I need to wrap up, but it seems that the blog may be going into hibernation mode sometime this month. I’ll be sure to write more about it when the comes, so until then, I’ll do my best to finish up what I have left.

Friday Go Forward: Week 43

Overview

As a one man team, it was only a matter of time before I was unable to keep up with the content I’ve been wanting to create. So though it pains me to do so, Monday Go Meditations and Weekly Go Wednesdays will be going on a break for a while until I can find a way to bring it back into my crazy schedule. I will still be keeping up with this weekly progress report, but otherwise you can expect to see a more traditional blogging style appear over the next month.

And for those wondering about my reviews, those are ongoing as well and I will be posting them as I finish them, so no worries there! For those who celebrate Thanksgiving, hope you had a great one and I’ll talk to you next week!

Games

• KGS - 0 games
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• Nova - 3 ongoing games

Reading Material

• Worked on Changing One’s Conceptions: Awaji’s Aphorisms.

Friday Go Forward: Week 42

Overview

Can’t seem to make up my mind about how I’m writing this summaries, but perhaps this is due to my own confusion lately. There hasn’t been too much going on this week, but I have become aware of a few weaknesses of mine that are definitely holding me back and I’ll have to address them over time. Meanwhile, I will try to simply survive the onslaught that is work and the rest of my life. Hope your week went better than mine!

Games

• KGS - 2 games
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• Nova - 3 ongoing games

Reading Material

• Worked on Changing One’s Conceptions: Awaji’s Aphorisms.
• Started working on Breakthrough Attacking Power.

Videos

• Baduk TV English: Attacking Vitamins: Lesson 2
• Baduk TV English: Attacking Vitamins: Lesson 3

Friday Go Forward: Week 41

Overview

Note: It seems my life will forever be consistently crazy and busy, so instead of talking about all the time I don’t have, I will be approaching these overviews from more of a goal and progress type theme for now until I can come up with something better.

This week’s goal was to really started chipping away at the pile of equipment reviews that I need to do. I’m happy to report that I’ve finished two (Go Bento Box and Folding Go Board), but there are still quite a few to go and so that work will definitely resume into next week. In regards to my progress of studying however, though that as taken a back seat for a little while, I was able to fit in a couple lessons with my sensei frozensoul. There are quite a few things he remarked on that have got me thinking, but more on that when I have processed it a bit better.

For next week, I’m hoping to wrap up on all of my equipment reviews so that I can can resume work on my book reviews. In addition, I will be going on a mini-go retreat at a friend’s house this weekend, so I will also be looking to put out a detailed post recounting the games and good times that is sure to come. So be on the lookout for those! See you next week!

Games

• KGS - 2 games
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• Nova - 5 ongoing games

Reading Material

• Worked on Changing One’s Conceptions: Awaji’s Aphorisms.

Friday Go Forward: Week 40

Overview

Quite a bit has happened over the past week. First off, my training menu is completely thrown off now. Due to other pursuits in my life (i.e., design, boxing, etc.), it seems I lost track of time and could not be consistent about my study. In addition, I am also pretty swamped with trying to get my reviews for my GoGameGuru items up and online asap. So I’ve definitely lost a little bit momentum this week, but hopefully I’ll be able to regain my footing soon and resume my research into the ideal training menu. Anyhow, lots of work to do. See you next week!

Games

• KGS - 3 game
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• Nova - 4 games

Reading Material

• Worked on Getting Strong at Endgame.
• Worked on Changing One’s Conceptions: Awaji’s Aphorisms.
• Finished Master Play: The Fighting Styles of Kato Masao & Seo Bong Soo.
• Started working on Getting Strong at Attacking.

Friday Go Forward: Week 39

Overview

Since last week, I’ve been cutting down significantly on turn based games. I found that playing too many at once was really interfering with my ability to play better moves and not to mention takes up more time. And with everything else in my life kicking into gear, my training regimen got completely screwed up so I won’t be reporting on it this week. However, I’ve also come up with a new way to track how I’ve been spending my time on go and will be updating my training menu next week once I’ve gotten a better hang of it.

Another relatively big decision on my part was to finally return to playing live games on KGS. It has been too long and I’ve decided that trying to wait to play a game with the time settings I desired was only hurting me in the long run. So you can definitely look forward to seeing more games being populated in my list of kifu on KGS in the future.

Finally, there’s been a launch for an online go magazine called Formation Magazine. It seems to be a new effort to provide an in-depth online magazine for the world to peruse and read. Though there are some design issues that I have with it, it seems like it could turn into something really valuable for the go community in the long run. So be sure to check it out and see what you think!

Games

• KGS - 1 game
• DGS - 2 ongoing games
• Nova - 5 games

Reading Material

• Finished Otake’s Secrets of Strategy.
• Worked on Jump Level Up 5.
• Worked on Getting Strong at Endgame.
• Started working on Master Play: The Fighting Styles of Kato Masao & Seo Bong Soo.
• Started working on Changing One’s Conceptions: Awaji’s Aphorisms.
• Started and finished Basic Techniques of Go.

Video Lessons

• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 26
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 27
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 28
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 29
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 30
• Level Up to 3 Kyu - Lesson 1

Friday Go Forward: Week 38

Overview

Overall, this week has been a continuation of me just trying to figure out what kind of studying works best in the time I have. Though I am far from releasing a user guide of sorts, the one advice that I am sure will not change is this: Start small. Whether it’s only 5 minutes every day to sit down and do a couple tsumego or go over ten moves of a pro game, it will add up over time. That much I can promise you. =)

And by the way, the BadukTV English from GoGamGuru continues to impress me with how little I know even though I’m technically 3-4 kyu KGS. Even though I’m more than halfway through the “Becoming 5 Kyu” series, I am just flabbergated

Games

• KGS - 3 games
• DGS - 3 ongoing games
• Nova - 10+ games

Training Menu

• 20 minutes of Reading Training (i.e., Life & Death, Tesuji, etc.)
• 20 minutes of Go Theory Study (i.e., Joseki, Direction of Play, etc.)
• 20 minutes of Experience Training (i.e., Play or review a game)

Reading Material

• Worked on Otake’s Secrets of Strategy.
• Worked on Jump Level Up 5.
• Started working on Dictionary of Basic Joseki 1.

Video Lessons

• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 19
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 20
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 21
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 22
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 23
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 24
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 25

Friday Go Forward: Week 37

Overview

After attempting to try and play one real time game every day (and then every other day), the realities finally set in and I decided that the only work around to not going long periods of not playing go was to ramp up my activity on Nova.gs. As much as correspondence games do not hold quite the same value as real time games (since your thoughts are often disjointed and your ideas are constantly changing which means you might not like the plan you came up with 2 days ago), I have found them to be a convenient and effective way to ensure that I’m not rusty when it comes time to play a game in real time. Otherwise, things have been pretty solid and I’m continuing onwards with my training regimen. Till next week!

Games

• KGS - 0 games
• DGS - 3 ongoing games
• Nova - 8+ games

Training Menu

• 20 minutes of Reading Training (i.e., Life & Death, Tesuji, etc.)
• 20 minutes of Go Theory Study (i.e., Joseki, Direction of Play, etc.)
• 20 minutes of Experience Training (i.e., Play or review a game)

Reading Material

• Finished Jump Level Up 4.
• Started and finished Scent of Victory.
• Started working on Otake’s Secrets of Strategy.
• Started working on Jump Level Up 5.
• Worked on The 1971 Honinbo Tournament.

Video Lessons

• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 12
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 13
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 14
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 15
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 16
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 17
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 18
• Attacking Vitamins: Lesson 1

Friday Go Forward: Week 36

Overview

This week has been a continuation of trying to really dig deep when it comes to being consistent about maximizing my quality of training in a set amount of time. There has been a couple of days where I ended up slacking off, but I feel like it’s been good progress and that it should get better over time. I will admit that I do miss playing live games, but I know that it has been unrealistic of me to do so since it really consumes a lot of time whenever I do. So as of late, I have decided to increase my activity on Nova.gs* in order to ensure that I don’t get rusty. I hope that more of you will join me over there so that we can play more games!

*And just in case anyone is wondering, Nova.gs allows you to play both live games in real time along with correspondence games. It’s pretty sweet!

Games

• KGS - 1 game
• DGS - 3 ongoing games
• Nova - 6 games (3 finished : 3 ongoing)

Training Menu

• 20 minutes of Reading Training (i.e., Life & Death, Tesuji, etc.)
• 20 minutes of Go Theory Study (i.e., Joseki, Direction of Play, etc.)
• 20 minutes of Experience Training (i.e., Play or review a game)

Reading Material

• Finished Jump Level Up 3.
• Finished_ __Perceiving the Direction of Play_.
• Started and finished Master Play: The Style of Lee Changho.
• Started working on Jump Level Up 4.
• Started working on The 1971 Honinbo Tournament.

Video Lessons

• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 6
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 7
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 8
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 9
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 10
• Becoming a 5 Kyu - Lesson 11