In case you weren’t aware, there is about to be an epic clash between two titans of our time: Gu Li and Lee Sedol! They have perhaps the most well known rivalry in the professional scene and will be starting their jubango (i.e., ten game series) to determine who is the strongest this weekend!

And for those who are curious to see the epicness and excitement captured in a video, you’re in luck! Thanks to Nate for sharing this so I could discover it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huGtJCjsQ5I

The game will be broadcasted live on KGS starting at 8:30 pm EST / 5:30 pm PST. The commentary by Myungwan Kim and others will start at 10 pm EST and 7 pm PST. Be there if you can! I know I will try my best to!

Kaz’s Online Go School is finally here! For those who don’t know about Kaz, I discovered him from his site (http://www.kazsensei.com) a couple of years ago and have been waiting for his website to become fully live and functional. The website is a bit hard to navigate, but after going through it, I thought that it would be great if I ever got a chance to learn from him. So after waiting for a couple of years, I am psyched to tell you that the opportunity is finally here!

So for those curious about this online go school, let me start with this: The first session of Kaz’s Online Go School is 8 classes for only $6 USD. Now that I have your attention, here’s my elevator pitch for the school.

1. His teaching style emphasizes teaching amateur players who are adults which is quite unique! In fact, he states in his ad that the range of players he normally teaches is 30 to 70+ years old and talks about how teaching children is very different from teaching adults! So in other words, it sounds like he has a lot of experience working with amateur players (which is precisely what many of us need).

2. Kaz will generate a text for student’s to study after each lesson. It’s great to get online reviews and such, but I think it’s great that Kaz will also be generating offline content for students to study as well in order to reinforce the concepts learned from the last lesson.

3. You get 8 two-hour group lessons with Kaz for only $6 USD. This is such an incredible value and such a great deal if anyone has done even the slightest bit of research on the other online schools available. For those who haven’t, one of the most popular online go schools charges about $135 a month. So yeah. ‘Nuff said.

Bottom line: I think any player who has even been remotely interested in participating in an online go school needs to do this. There is just no reason for why you shouldn’t give this a shot for $6 USD. It’s seriously an incredible deal.

For more details on his school, you can find it in his Kaz’s Online Go School (PDF). I took the liberty of taking his email and updating some of the language and structure in order to make it easier to find the information you need. And for those interested in the free problems set that he attached to his email, be sure to reach out to him!

And just in case it isn’t clear, I have already paid my $6 and will definitely be participating in this. Let me know if you guys have any other questions and I’ll do my best to answer them. Hope to see you in class!

For those who haven’t heard the news, I am super excited to inform you about GoGameGuru’s announcement on introducing new and affordable go equipment!! As an avid go enthusiast who is constantly checking local stores and online retailers for go equipment, it is really exciting to see GoGameGuru fill a niche of go equipment that I think is desperately lacking right now. Here are the featured products that are coming to GoGameGuru:

Read More

I’m going to break my general rule of not posting twice in a day because the AGA newsletter has informed me of an awesome blog that I couldn’t wait to share with you!

Osaka Go Camp Blog

Here’s the basic rundown: A group of western go players are attending a 3-week go gamp in Osaka!!!!!!! They get to do all sorts of cool things like visit the Kansai Kiin and play with professional players!!! Ahhh!!!! Soooo cool!!!!!!

Of course I’m insanely jealous, but for those like me who probably won’t be able to travel to Japan anytime soon for a go retreat, this blog is a great way to get a taste of it for now. =)

For those who are on the East Coast or have plans to be in the area during Memorial Weekend, be sure to try and come out for the 40th Maryland Open Go Tournament! Here is a basic rundown of the event for those who are curious:

• When? May 25th and 26th, 2013 (Saturday and Sunday)
• Where? 501 N. Rolling Road, Catonsville, MD 21228 (near Baltimore)
• What? 5 Round AGA Rated Tournament (3 Rounds on Saturday & 2 Rounds on Sunday)
• Why? As if playing go in person was not enough incentive, there will be prizes in all sections (dan and kyu) from Yellow Mountain Imports and cash prizes for the open section!

For more information or to sign up, please be sure to visit their site here: Maryland Open 2013. Hope to see you there!

For those who have not heard the news, there is talk of the possibility of Lee Sedol coming to the United States (Source: GoGameGuru). For those who are not aware of who Lee Sedol is, he is one of the top professional players right now. While many of us in the Western hemisphere could only dream about the possibility of even seeing one of his games live in person, the mere thought that I could possibly meet him in person and (in the ultimate of possibilities) actually get lessons from him is just….

Although even if that ends up becoming true, it won’t happen for at least another three to four years. So, guess I have a bit of work to do until then huh? After all, I wouldn’t want him spending time trying to teach me obvious mistakes that I myself notice.

With that potential awesomeness aside, my losing streak continues to thrive as I wrap up my final ASR games. Just one more left to go. After that, it’s time to do a serious assessment of my training regimen.

This weekend has been pretty crazy and busy, but I thought I would let you guys know about something my friend azural found in his perusing of a go forum: PlayMoreGo.com.

The purpose of this short film (i.e. movie trailer) is to try and find a way to tackle the issue of how to explain the game of go in an exciting way. Not everyone has the time nor ability to watch something like Hikaru No Go and get bitten by the go bug, so this is something that I think would really help to further spread the word of go. After all, just because someone doesn’t like chess doesn’t mean they won’t be smitten by how amazing go is. =D

Based on the their website, I think they have the potential to make something incredible. So if you would like to support them, be sure to visit their page at IndieGoGo (an equivalent to Kickstarter) to do so! In case you don’t know what Kickstarter is, the group only receives the funding if they reach their target goal. If they fall short of their goal, everyone gets their money refunded. It’s a win win situation!

They only have a month to go and still need to raise a bit of money. So if you can, please donate what you can! I already have! =D

After Kaya.gs came out with their go server, I would have never suspected that I would be sitting here telling you about a brand new go server; but reality always has a way of surprising you and I am thrilled to tell you about a brand new go server!!!

Go9Dan will be approaching the server in a brand new way by adding the element of currency to the game. This means that players will now have the ability to put more than just their rank at stake when they play. There are multiple kinds of currency, but in general, they will allow players to bet on games, observe professional games, teaching games (which I believe are from professionals… but don’t quote me on this), buy instructional videos and books, and so on. For more information on the currency, click here. And for the record, while I don’t agree with all the aspects that they plan to utilize the currency for, I do think it will bring a new aspect to online play that will motivate more people to play.

If that wasn’t enough to get you interested in checking Go9Dan out, would it be of any interest to you if I told you that 9 dan professionals will be on this server?!?!?! 9 dans like Lee Sedol?!?!?!!? runs around like a little kid

Here are some of the fantastic benefits that you can get by signing up before February 8th, 2013:

1. 3 months of Lite Membership
2. 500 Gold
3. 1,000,000 MPoints
4. Entered into a raffle for a chance to play a game against Lee Sedol!!!!!!!
5. Having the possibility of being one of three players to win a free teaching game with Lee Sedol!!!!!!!!

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now for those who have now explored the sight and are coming back to tell me, “Whoa. Ben. You forgot to mention that this will be a server with a monthly subscription.” False. I intentionally left it off until this point because people need to see the value of the go server first. Now that you’ve seen the potential value of this server, I want to emphasize to you that signing up now is a win-win situation. No money commitment, and the potential benefits are ENORMOUS!!!! And like with any service or product, a 3 month trial to see if you think its worth the money is about as good as it is going to get.

So don’t delay! Go sign up now and be sure to put down bengozen as your referral! See you guys there!

Hey everyone. I just discovered a brand new go resource that got me so excited I had to post about it instantly!

It’s called BadukMovies and is made by Peter Brouwer 6D and Kim Ouweleen 4D and looks like a magnificent wealth of information. I will put up a detailed review for the site in the future, but at the bare minimum I wanted to let you guys know about this site first!

BadukMovies

2010 Columbus Day Workshop with Guo Juan 5p

Who wants to spend Columbus Day weekend in the beautiful Catskill Mountains, studying go, and having a good time?

There still are openings. Don’t let this opportunity pass. Click here for info.

Reblogged: Shodan Challenge