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.

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For those who have never tried it before, playing an even game against a player that is reportedly two stones stronger than you can be a scary feeling. On one hand, you think “This can’t be too bad.” Yet, on the other hand, the board looks quite naked as you stare at the empty board while knowing that you should have two handicap stones sitting on the board. As someone who’s been through a couple experiences recently, it is quite the daunting feeling…

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Today’s shidougo lesson comes from a person that I’ve come to befriend and look up to: frozensoul. If you’d like to help support his efforts in helping out players trying to get stronger, please visit his site for more information!

I guess you could call this my first “shidougo” victory… but I wouldn’t classify this as that due to the fact that frozensoul was actually trying to create a tie. So in reality, congratulations are in order for frozensoul for being only one point away from creating a tie!

Overall, I was really happy with my performance in this game. It honestly has nothing to do with the victory and more on the fact that I played almost every move with confidence. And for those who would remind me that frozensoul wasn’t actually trying to play anything crazy, the confidence I’m speaking of is more of a “I read it out to the best of my ability and I’ll give each move everything I got.”

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I have to admit that the responses that I received yesterday from my post have certainly made me reconsider my position from yesterday’s post, but ultimately I think it is more of a paradigm shift than necessarily regretting my decision to resign.

For those of you who have never seen this video, please take 20 seconds and watch this unbelievable and tragic event happen to a professional 9-dan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt1FvPxmmfE

Can you imagine? Playing a professional game on live television as a professional 9-dan and then putting yourself in self-atari? Although you have to admit, the man handled himself quite well and his reaction was quite priceless.

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Today, I am writing about a more solemn topic that I know most people would shy away from posting on. However, I believe that this post touches on something that almost every go player will encounter along their journey: the desire to win. It is a difficult topic for me to write at the moment since the disappointing kifu is fresh off the board, but by doing so I hope to capture a vulnerability that we all feel at one point or another.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: All the games will now come with full commentary in order to minimize the complication of having to flip back and forth between the blog post and the game. I will do my best to diligently put down any variations I saw and why I played the moves that I did. So please be sure to visit the link and then let me know your thoughts! Enjoy!

This was a pretty scary game for me. I know I’ve been playing stronger opponents in the ASR League in even matches, but for some reason playing a ranked game against a 3k gave me the jitters. And I didn’t go looking for this game, this guy challenged me. Looking back on it, I’m pretty sure he was trying to play against weaker players so he could feel all big and mighty. Too bad he came out the loser….

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Prior to this game, I was on a decent winning streak… so I was feeling pretty good. Feeling good enough to think I could outplay a 5d? Apparently so….

Now granted, this was a teaching game; but I assure you that I did nothing less than try to outplay him and hope to catch him off guard. For those who are still new and wondering why this is incredibly stupid, the difference between a 5d and 9k is at the bare minimum 8 stones. So… yeah…

It’s been so long since I played against an opponent so vastly stronger than me that I forgot what it was like to play just to simply survive. That’s right: just survive. Instead, I tried to take big points and was under the false assurance that my groups were alive and that I was giving frozensoul a good game.

That being said. There are too many mistakes to be mentioned and the prized moments are practically nonexistent. If you would like to see what 9k mistakes look like and how they get properly demolished, please see the kifu below!

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That’s right. I have achieved my first “Under 100 Moves Resignation.” I know that there is a high likelihood that I might have one in the past for some stupid reason, but this is the first time I felt like I truly earned it.

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In light of the new blog redesign and format, I will also be including a new section in every game that I post: My Opponent, Mistakes and (if relevant) Prized Moments. [OUTDATED]

Overall

This has got to be the most intensive game that I’ve played in quite awhile. For those who haven’t been following, I joined the ASR League and have been playing a lot of even games with people who are much stronger than I. As a result, I’ve been on an incredible losing streak and have had a hard time regaining my composure.

Today’s game is probably one of the best games that I’ve played in quite awhile. It’s not the fact that I won, but the fact that a majority of my moves were well thought out and expose weaknesses that I would’ve never been able to exploit before. Not to mention that the ability to all of a sudden see the value of each move as I fought multiple ko battles was incredible.

It’s as Toshiro Kageyama said in Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, the ability to actually read something out and knowing what will happen not only boosts a player’s confidence but brings an entirely new appreciation for the game.

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