Master Play: The Style of Go Seigen

Description: In the second volume of Yuan Zhou’s series “Master Play,” Zhou goes into the difficult to understand style of Go Seigen, the greatest player of the 20th century. While you might have issues making sense of Go Seigen’s games on your own, Zhou does a brilliant job demystifying his moves and help you get a glimpse into the brilliant and innovative mind that Go Seigen posseses.

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I recently finished Master Play: The Style of Go Seigen (Review coming soon!), and it has really given me a lot to think about in regards to the way I play go.

For starters, though I’ve been familiar with the concept of professionals ignoring an area when there just aren’t any good moves to play, it wasn’t until I saw Go Seigen’s games till I realized how true this really was. In fact, not only did Go Seigen constantly resist giving in to his opponents; but he would also not hesitate to trade large sections of the board! And what made it even more mind-blowing, was that these areas he would sacrifice were places that were only a few moves away from solid territory!

With that vivid illustration in mind, I couldn’t help but start to notice how stubborn kyu players get about hanging onto stones or territory. It’s as if once they’ve made a decision (i.e., I have declared the right side to be mine!), they will defend it to the end regardless of the fact that they are losing. Another example of this is I’ve noticed is: “Oh look, I’ve spent the time to play three stones here, even though they are now strategically useless, I must save it at all cost even though I will let my opponent walk right into my territory!” Granted, I realize that you must understand strategy and such to be able to walk away from some groups, but this seems to be a general trend that I’ve noticed.

In addition, I think I may have started to internalize the idea of, “If you can’t find a good move, play somewhere else.” In other words, seeing Go Seigen’s game for the first time has really shocked me into realizing how much freedom there really is on the go board. Although a sequence might be considered sente or an area might seem large, it may not actually be from a whole board perspective or from another player’s strategy.

I keep trying to bring this post to a nice closing statement, but it seems that this post is destined for random ramblings. It’s still a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that I’m sorting through, but I guess that’s one of the benefits of having a blog right? A way for me to dump my thoughts and attempt to sort it out in the process. xD

On an entirely different note, in case you haven’t heard about it, the American Go Association (AGA) has taken a big step towards establishing a presence online. Starting in October, there will be an AGA Online Tournament that will be used to help gather information and help them figure out the right way to proceed with online games in the future. And yes, I have already signed up! For more information, check out their post here.

Get Strong at Invading

Description: In the fifth volume of the Get Strong at Go Series, Bozulich provides a ground-breaking book on a topic that every player in go encounters: invasions. Once the spheres of influences have been established, being able to choose the correct invasions is a key skill to becoming stronger and winning. Through 171 problems, readers will have many opportunities to practice and hone their invasion abilities.

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Commented Games by Lee Sedol: Volume 2 - Dream to Be the Best

Description: Described as many as the Korean version of Invincible, this series contains some of the most detailed commentaries that I have read thus far. In addition, it is evident that Lee Sedol 9P and Lee Sena have worked work to make the content accessible to both that beginner and intermediate players as well. This book not only goes into Lee Sedol’s thought on go strategy and his thoughts on the moves that occur; but also talks about his feelings and mental state during each game along with anecdotes from his journey to being one of the strongest go players in the world.

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Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been making it a habit to head out to the local Starbucks to remove myself from the distractions of being in the apartment (aka putting on shows on Netflix or rewatching Hikaru no Go for the five millionth time). And overall I have to say that I definitely enjoy and look forward to these study sessions.

I have half a mind to design a little billboard for myself with a welcoming message for people to ask me about go when I’m sitting at the table with my board and stones. I saw a number of customers walk by looking onwards at the board a few times, but I was in no position to really teach them at the moment. So in the future I think I may create me a some portable materials to setup a “booth” and allow interested people to ask me about the game and learn about it.

Other than that, it’s been a pretty productive session. So far, I’ve played one game, finished _Get Strong at Invading _and _Commented Games by Lee Sedol Volume 2 _(so be sure to look for those reviews soon), and am hoping to get a bit more work done on _Get Strong at Tesuji _and Jump Level Up 2. Anyhow, that’s all for this random post! Till next time!

Friday Go Forward: Week 33

Overview

This has been pretty hectic in regards to work and life in general; but for some reason I still managed to convince myself that I needed to increase the scope of my training to be far more vigorous. So as you’ll notice below, the regimen has spiked quite significantly. And the fun part of all of this is that the training regimen is still far from complete. xD Anyhow, for now I think it will be enough if I manage to survive my training regimen without burning out. Once I’ve gotten acclimated to it, then I will be looking for ways to improve it once again. Hope you all have had a good week!

Games

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

Daily Training

• Life & Death Routine (Magic Baduk Go on iPhone)

  • 300 Beginner Problems -
  • 50 Intermediate Problems
  • 25 Advanced Problems
  • 10 Expert Problems

• 10 Pages of Jump Level Up 2

• 25 Problems from the Get Strong at Go Series.
• Play at least one game per day.

Reading Material

• Working on Commented Games by Lee Sedol - Volume 2.
• Working on Get Strong at Invading.
• Working on Jump Level Up 2.
• Started working on Get Strong at Tesuji.

After I got back from boxing last night, I was pretty much wiped out. The funny thing about me is that no matter how tired I am though, it seems that I somehow manage to find the energy and motivation to do something go related. So I decided to check out my first episode of a BadukTV English game review of Lee Changho 9P vs. Lee Sedol 9P.

For those who aren’t aware of the popularity of go in the rest of the world, there are actual television channels that are ENTIRELY dedicated to go. Now, I don’t know about you, but I would love it if we had something equivalent here in the Western world. Unfortunately though, go has not yet risen to that level of popularity. On the upside though, pioneers like GoGamGuru and BadukTV have taken the first big step to bringing us one step closer to that dream.

Here is the video that I watched last night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCBHI_lNgXI&list=PLq69jNwwOmf-Lkbyny1HwiRUKMg6uuFo2

Since I had never watched a TV episode dedicated entirely to go (excluding Hikaru no Go), I was a little nervous that I might get bored or that I would be unable to gain anything from it. Contrary to my fears however, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Though many complain about the co-host interrupting often and saying “Yes” all the time, you have to be conscious of the fact that the English is clearly not her first language and that chances are pretty good that her mannerisms derive from Korean culture. So with that in mind, I was able to look past it rather easily and just enjoy all the marvelous go.

For those who enjoyed the video above or would like to find out more about where you can watch more episodes like this, check out GoGameGuru’s BadukTV to get access to more BadukTV that is accessible to English speakers!

As many of you are aware, I recently started a discipline of playing at least one game a day. And while I am happy to report that I have been keeping up with it, it occurred to me that there are many people out there who would probably like to attempt something similar; but decide not to due to assuming that it would be too “time consuming.” So, I thought that I would go ahead and write about my experience on finding time for one game a day.

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