When I decided to go on a ranked game sabbatical, I will tell you right now that I doubted my own abilities to follow through on it. If I could relate it to a person’s diet, it is as if a carnivore tries to go vegetarian for a month. For most people, the thought is incredibly daunting and seemingly impossible. Just like ranked games, I wasn’t sure whether it was entirely possible to go a whole month without playing a single ranked game; but here I am, Day 17, and the differentiation between ranked and free games has become a faint blur. I will be the first to admit that this will not be permanent, but I think this new perspective has allowed my go to be far more creative than before.

The other benefit to playing these free games is that the obsession with winning and losing has also begun to diminish. Most of my games are even games against players that are at least 3 stones stronger, so getting demolished constantly seems to have been good for my go soul. =) On top of it all, when winning and losing becomes more of an afterthought, I find that my games are far more interesting and expand on my current abilities.

Still not convinced? Well, then let me direct your attention to a game I played with a 3k. Hope you enjoy!

There’s one thing I’ve learned recently is that leagues are a fantastic place for experimental games. Not convinced? Three reasons:

1. They are free games. You have nothing to lose.
2. More often than not, you are playing people stronger than you. If you’re going to lose anyways, why not do so while learning something new?
3. The reviews of your games will yield more nuggets of wisdom than normal since you are trying to break into new territory.

My record thus far has been pretty abysmal, but like the title of this post suggests, I feel like I’ve been going out with a bang each time. Don’t get me wrong, the losing aspect still stings a little bit; but I am comforted by the idea that the games are not terribly lopsided as a whole.

Here’s to hoping I can hang on to my place in the Beta class… fingers crossed

Contrary to my previous attempts at abstaining from ranked games, I’m happy to report that I have kept to that promise thus far. I won’t say that it hasn’t been difficult, since I can’t help but stare at the numerous opponents I could be playing. Nevertheless, the free games that I’ve been playing have helped to abate that desire. In addition, I’m also very happy to report that my apprehensiveness at playing White has diminished significantly since that last post.

In regards to my study, I’ve been working on studying more on shapes and how to attack properly. The free games have been great because they allow me to experiment with the concepts I’ve been exposing myself to, and as always, having stronger players review my games afterwards give me a better sense of how far off the mark I am when attempting to apply X Y Z principles.

As I’ve began to enter the realm of mid-SDK ranks, I am beginning to see that the terrain of each game has begun to deviate from the go I was familiar with before in the lower kyu. For example, many games in the past were often determined by large captures. Nowadays, I have noticed that failure to take direction of play and whole board strategy into consideration generally ends poorly for me. It’s not to say that my reading abilities are good enough as they stand, but the other intricacies of the game (e.g., leaving behind aji on purpose, solid knowledge of joseki, etc.) will soon become critical to master if I am to take the next step.

After many months of almost going and then not being able to, I am happy to report that I finally made it out to one of Yuan Zhou‘s monthly workshops. This post is slightly overdue since I went to the November one; but it comes at a right time since the December workshop is right around the corner!

For those who have never been to a go workshop, here’s a high level overview of what you might find:

• In depth review of a game (usually a professional one)
• One round of games (with a main time around 45 minutes)
• Game reviews for the games that were just played

As I arrived at Yuan Zhou’s house, I nostalgically recalled the two lessons that I had taken with him in the past. They seemed so long ago, but I was glad that I was finally back to seriously study the game. As I walked towards the entrance, I felt a little apprehensive as I wondered whether I would be able to gain anything from this workshop since I am so weak; but before I could have any serious doubts, I was greeted by Yuan Zhou and welcomed inside.

I was happy to see that Nate had already arrived, and promptly sat myself next to him as I was told to work on the life and death problem on the board. As we sat there staring at the board, Nate made a comment that made me laugh,

“Two years after Shifu told me someone named Ben might be coming who was close to my level, you’ve finally managed to show up.”

After everyone had arrived, it was time to see if the students had figured it out. As luck would have it, since I was the weakest player there, I was to give the first response. Recently, I had been exposed to some of the quirkier life and death problems that required atypical moves just as making the empty triangle descent and such; so I ended up choosing that move even though I couldn’t quite see the end of the sequence. Sure enough. I was wrong. Haha. Eventually a stronger player gave the right answer, and so we finished up the explanation and moved on to the review of the professional game.

The game we were reviewing was one of Ishida Yoshio and Rin Kaiho‘s games from 1974. Before we even began looking at the kifu however, Yuan Zhou launched into a fascinating explanation of the history behind the game: Go Seigen & Kitani Minoru, the Super Six, the terse feelings of having a non-Japanese player hold both Meijin and Honinbo titles, and so on. While some may wonder how relevant this is to getting better, it is like a cultural tour of this game we all devote so much time to that many often overlook. And if you still aren’t convinced, knowing the history behind the entire game made for a much more exciting review since you have an understanding of the players and how high the stakes are.

After the exciting game review, we had lunch and then proceeded with the afternoon game. Since we had an odd number of players, one of the players recorded my game while I had the opportunity to play. I felt kind of badly that I was playing and the player had to record, so in the future, I think that I would not mind being the recorder instead so other players can play instead. Anyhow, here’s the game record from that afternoon.

After all the games were finished, Yuan Zhou reviewed all of the games. If there’s something I learned from that experience, you tend to remember your lessons a lot better when other people are watching the review and seeing the mistakes you made. For example, the one thing that I will remember forever is the Elephant’s Eye (which I’ll write more on at another time). In addition, being able to have both sides of the game reviewed really helps to open you eyes as to what was supposed to work and what wasn’t supposed to work. On top of that, getting to see the game reviews for everyone else’s game was also very helpful.

Although I started out skeptical of what I would gain from the workshop, I am now a huge fan of them. Since most of players will never have the opportunity to be an insei and study go at that level of intensity, I really feel that go workshops are like one day insei experiences. Everyone who attends is committing their time and money, and you can be sure that everyone wants to make the most out of it. In addition, they are spaced out in such a way that you don’t have to worry about information overload. In fact, that’s exactly what you want since the time apart from each workshop allows you to absorb and apply the things that you learned so that you will have new things to learn the next time around.

I highly recommend Yuan Zhou’s workshops if you ever have the opportunity. The next workshop will be December 16th, 2012. If you’re interested in attending one of Yuan Zhou’s monthly workshops, contact him at yuan.zhou@zhouyuan.com. Hope to see you there one day!

So I currently have the pleasure and exciting opportunity to be participating in an all week training for Adobe CQ5.5, but that means that there is very little time for playing go. =(

In order to satiate my go craving for the day, I’ve actually started watching dan level games and trying to predict where I would go and understanding why they play the way they do. Granted, I know that I do not have the reading ability that they possess and thus will not be able to understand things entirely; but I think that it has been a fun exercise for me to improve my ability to analyze the whole board position when I have more time to play.

Meanwhile, a big shout out to my friend Scotist who had a fantastic winning streak yesterday! Great job man!

When I woke up this morning to check to see if my ASR class had changed, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was actually promoted to Beta II!!! Definitely wasn’t expecting it and I’m sure it was because of the need to fill in the class after people were either demoted or dropped. Nonetheless, this is great news for me because it means that I’ve managed to graduate two classes since I started in July! Although it would be nice to be promoted to Alpha class next month, my goal for this month is to simply stay in the Beta class for now.

With the upcoming North American Go Convention (NAGC) in February 2013, I realized that I am extremely motivated to find out how strong I can get before the tournament/professional event. More often than not, I have found that although it is always exciting to hear professionals give lectures, I was always too weak to really appreciate their commentary and insight.

As a result, I have decided on a new route of study for the month of December: no ranked games. The reason for this is because no matter how hard I try, I am still stuck in the state where ranked games still cause a bit of anxiety regarding its impact on my online rank. Although I hope that this will no longer be an issue one day, I know that this impacts my ability to try new things and simply play better go instead of trying to win.

“But Ben, you’ve tried this before! And you failed miserably every time!”

You are correct and incorrect at the same time. This time around, instead of simply going on “sabbatical” from playing go, I will primarily focus on league games and any free games that stronger players would be happy to play with me and help me review afterwards! With this approach in conjunction with my study of the game, I’m hoping to see results by the month of January.

If this works out well, I may even continue doing this till the NAGC! But like many things in life, one step at a time. Wish me luck!

So for those who don’t play on KGS, I actually managed to climb back up to 6k and hang on to it (knock on wood). As it is everyday, I had an urge to play a ranked game and decided to play against an opponent who is actually more along the lines of 5k but recently got downgraded to 6k. Although I was resistant to playing him at first, I decided to plunge ahead since I planned on beating stronger opponents anyways.

Let me just say this for the record: I never quite understood the importance of endgame until this game.

I mean, sure, everyone “knows” that the endgame is important. As I look at the people around me however, I realized that most kyu players tend to disregard this aspect of go since most of their games are contingent upon big battles which often result in early resignations. With that in mind, how could you blame them for not paying more attention to endgame?

As I’m approaching the mid-SDK range, the games that I have played have begun to take on a new form from the big battles I used to fight. While this makes me a bit nervous, this is part of the journey to becoming the strongest player I can possibly be.

The following game is one that I think many of you would find quite interesting since it consists of a rather complicated capturing race and is a great example of why a player’s endgame skill can be the difference between victory or defeat.

While he ended up resigning due to the capturing race, in reality this game goes down as a defeat in my book. Had I been more careful about my endgame, I’m quite sure that I would have earned that victory fair and square; but it is clear that my reckless endgame actually cost me the game. This game has really humbled my opinion of my abilities and reminded me how critical it is to:

1. Practice estimating the score so that I do not have a distorted view of the game.
2. Be more meticulous about my endgame moves since I only get a few opportunities to really practice it.
3. Continue to practice my reading abilities so that I do not get caught in liberty shortages due to misreading.

Here’s to hoping I have learned my lesson.

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

Big announcement everyone! I am ecstatic to tell you about a brand new go event coming to the East coast!

North American Go Convention 2013 (NAGC)

Here is a high level overview of all the exciting things you can expect:

1. Game review sessions with professionals!
2. Simultaneous games with professionals!
3. Lectures from professionals!
4. Multiple open tournaments for players of all ranks that are AGA rated and can be up to 23 rounds for kyu players and 17 rounds for dan players!
5. Pair Go (Rengo)
6. Blitz Go
7. Lots of awards!!!
8. And more more more!!!
   So if you’re even thinking about possibly going, go ahead and pre-register here because there is no obligation to commit to anything but you will at least have your name down early on in case spots for simul games or reviews from pros become unavailable due to high demand (which you know is inevitable). So don’t hesitate and hurry up and go pre-register! I’m already pre-registered for Gold Access in DC, but I’d also be open to going to NJ as well if given enough persuasion!

If you are going, be sure to let me know because I’ll definitely be there! Ahhhhh!!!! So exciting!!!!

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

In my entire go playing thus far, I never actually found a real preference for one color over another… until recently.

I’m not sure if any other players share this concern with me, but I recently developed a resistance to playing White. As I sit here wondering how I got to this place, I can only come up with the following possibilities:

#1. I have no control over how the opening will play out.

Now this seems kind of childish, but I feel woefully unprepared to deal with the openings that my opponents tend to play. For example, a play that I know will always haunt me until I get familiar with it is the 3-4 opening. I have a vague idea as to how to deal with it, but I still feel at a loss when I think about it.

#2. I feel like I have to be more aggressive in order to nullify Black’s plans.

I recognize that with komi White does not nearly have the disadvantage that it used to have, but the idea of being one move behind Black gets under my skin more than I’d like it to.

That being said, perhaps all of this irrationality stems from the fact that I’ve recently begun to finally grasp the strategy behind go. My whole board understanding has grown and as a result I have a better idea how things fit together, but I think a side effect of this is I started realizing how much I actually don’t understand.

For those who aren’t aware, I have been working with the sanrensei for quite some time now and have developed quite a liking for it. Unfortunately though, sanrensei only really works as Black. I’ve tried playing sanrensei as White a few times, but the only times I win are when my opponents allow me to gain the initiative and outplay them tactically.

I know that this adverse reaction to playing White will subside in the future, and perhaps one of the best remedies for it is to simply gain better understanding of the different counter strategies to the popular variations that Black generally plays. It’s a pity there isn’t a book out there that deals specifically with this subject matter. If there isn’t one when I’ve become much stronger and gained a better understanding of the strategic elements of White, you can be sure that I will be posting articles on it to help fill the void.

One thing is for sure though, I want this feeling to disappear as soon as possible.

You ever have one of those moments where you play an opening and wonder how far you deviated from the joseki? Well, when you had one of those moments, did you ever happen to find out that you managed to play the proper moves without any joseki knowledge? Because that happened to me a couple of weeks ago, and it was one of greatest moments ever because I felt that it was a sign of growth and understanding of why certain moves are played.

Check out the game record below starting from move 7.

Pretty neat huh? But here’s one thing I will say to my fellow go players who are trying to reach dan level: While I have been a big advocate of avoiding joseki study throughout my own growing process, I believe that I may have reached the point where joseki study can no longer be avoided. I must admit that I never thought I’d reach this point, but it seems that the time will be upon me very soon…