I’m not sure if anyone else feels this way, but there’s just something about playing an even game with someone much stronger than you that tends to bring out the best moves in you. And although I did not know this at the time, my game with Tilwen is what I needed to regain my composure and leave behind the reckless go I had been playing.

After the game was over, Tilwen gave a fantastic review that really opened my eyes regarding vital concepts that I never quite grasped:

#1. Attack from far away.

#2. Contact moves are for defense.

This may be common sense for many of you, but I assure you that the simplicity of the concepts never occurred to me throughout my study of go. Perhaps it was simply the reinforcement I needed after much studying, but his explanations of these concepts really helped to solidify the concepts. For those who still find these concepts difficult to grasp, just read it over a few time for familiarity and I assure you that I will write an article on these to better clarify them for you.

Many thanks again to Tilwen for his help and advice!

So over the past week, my rank on KGS actually went up to 6k and I managed to defend it properly against a 5k. Good news right? I’m back at 7k now. (-.-) How does that happen you might wonder? Losing four straight games in a row. That’s how. Haha.

You know those times where no matter what you do (whether it’s fate or you just sabotaging yourself), you keep on losing? That’s me right now. Haha. I’ve gone through four straight losses and it’s been pretty pitiful.

I lost my first match to in a relatively normal way. Not on tilt quite yet, and then I decide to challenge him to a rematch. And then I get excited when I think that his group is killable, and end up losing my entire corner early on in the game. There goes my second loss.

From that point on though, it was like I was on a pure vengeful pursuit to win against him. I played him once again, and decisively won a number of key battles, and then I lose on time.

As if that weren’t bad enough, I then go off and challenge another 6k. This match is going great, because he’s in a killing mood too but I’m managing to outread him for most of the game… and then I failed to realize one of my sequences put a big group in atari and then everything died…

ARGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

I’ve played my fair share of ranked games lately, and one thing that I have noticed about myself: I do not like 10 minute ranked games. Although I’ve always considered myself more of less a fast player, I realized that I actually like (and need) to have a decent amount of time to think through what I’m doing. In today’s kifu, I found myself hitting byoyomi pretty quickly and then playing the later portion of the middle game and endgame in sudden death. And in my experience, that is the time where any mistakes made will usually turn the game around. I was scrambling to try and find the best moves without accidentally killing myself. Enjoy watching as I squirm and have only my instinct to help me make the correct moves.

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

When I first walked into the tournament room, I remember staring longingly at the trophies lined up at the front of the room thinking, “Wouldn’t that be awesome if I could bring one of those home one day?” Never in my wildest delusions did I think that it would happen that very day. Nevertheless, there I was, with a 4-0 record and standing with the rest of the winners of the NOVA Pumpkin Classic 2012.

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

THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN!!!

Both players: 3-0, and I was facing my worst nightmare: another 4 stone handicap game.

In terms of competitive play, this is probably the most intense of all scenarios. Both you and your opponent are aware that only one will emerge victorious, so there is a huge pressure to fight with everything you have till the very end because neither will yield in this kind of game. And as someone who has never been in this situation before, it was an overwhelming feeling that made me shake with anticipation.

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Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #6

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

I looked down at the empty board before me and waited for the third round to start. In all honesty, I was still shaken up from the second round despite the pep talk I gave myself at lunch. Part of me was worried that I would play another crazy game that would be disgraceful. Life has a funny way of jostling you out of your mood sometimes, and little did I know, but I was about to be given the spark I needed to get out of my funk.

Anderson and his friend had just checked the pairings list and were making their way into the room. I was still sitting at the table closest to the list, so as Anderson’s friend made his way to his table, he noticed that I was sitting there. He paused by our table for a moment, looked at me momentarily, then turned to my opponent and said, “You be careful! This guy is a wild player!”

I was a bit stunned and embarrassed for a second as I recalled the miserable game I had just played… but then a burning blaze took hold of me and I thought…

“Crazy player huh? I’ll show you how wrong you are about that!”

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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…”

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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…

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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…

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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!