I’ve been losing quite a bit lately. Whenever I played a live game against a person of relatively equal strength, I seem to do alright for awhile and then completely fall apart at the end. It’s been rather frustrating, but I think I may have discovered my problem: I’ve gotten to a point in my go where I am constantly trying to rush to the finish line.

What do I mean by that?

Well, in short, it seems that I’ve stopped appreciating the game as each move progresses. My head is so focused on the end result of winning or losing that the ability to simply enjoy each step of every game has become obsolete to me. In addition, I’m rarely devoting my attention to a game anymore. I’m always trying to multitask and respond instinctually to my opponents. It’s gotten so bad that I don’t even try to properly read out life and death sequences anymore. I just play what appears to work at first glance.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I seem to have forgotten the whole concept of “playing against myself.” Just today, I made multiple careless errors where I assumed my opponent would play in one area. When in actuality, I would never have expected myself to play there to begin with. So I ended up essentially passing the turn to my opponent time after time.

I’ve gotten myself into quite a bind haven’t I? Haha…

As of late, I have been finding it difficult to really get my head in the game. I’m not sure if it’s due to the busy schedule of having relatives from out of town, or whether my mind is undergoing some new twists and turns that is changing the way I see the game.

For those who have been keeping up with my progress, you probably remember that I mentioned a recently gained ability to estimate territory. Unfortunately though, it seems like my mind is once again becoming adverse to doing it and it’s causing me to just play moves on a local scale (which is turning out terribly might I add). And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve gotten into a bad habit of not fully reading moves out before I play. This is ends up causing a vicious cycle of where I end up playing regrettable moves because of laziness as opposed to not seeing a particular sequence. Oy vey…

To counter these bad habits, I’m going back to the basics and doing life and death problems the old fashioned way: Read it till you figure it out. No more exposure to new material. Just a good ol’ fashioned tsumego drills. In addition, I’ve started Cho Chikun’s book on Positional Judgment to hopefully get myself more comfortable with evaluating the whole board. We’ll see how it goes…

Also, for those who enjoy game commentaries, you should definitely check out my long time friend and rival’s new post on a game he played recently at Yuan Zhou‘s Workshop! It is a fun exciting game that shows an excellent command of play by Black and numerous examples of how overplays are supposed to be punished. Definitely worth checking out!

For those who were expecting a Monday Go Meditation post, I apologize for not being able to have a kifu in time for this week. I have relatives visiting from out of the country and the past week has been pretty crazy. I promise that there will definitely be a game for you next week. On a separate note, I feel that I am obligated to record the fact that my journey has hit a little bump on the road.

After many years of resisting the urge to join my friends and family in League of Legends (LoL), I finally gave in and have officially become part of the LoL community. xD Haha. I’m trying really hard not to become an addict and let everything go to the wayside, so there is no need to fret that I will suddenly stop playing go in lieu of playing LoL. My goal is to play in moderation to alleviate any possibility of burning out when it comes to studying and playing go. I have full confidence I will be able to achieve this. =D

For those who are curious about my summoner name, you can find me on sentecrosscut. (If you’re looking for the account referral name, sentenobi is probably what you need.)

Overall Rating: 8 / 10 Ponnuki

Basic Information

• Title: Mastering the Basics, Volume 6: All About Ko
• Author: Rob can Zeijst and Richard Bozulich
• Publisher: Kiseido
• Publication Date: September 2007
• Number of Problems: 121 Problems
• Page Length: 250 pages

Synopsis

• A solid book that serves as a great reference on ko while providing problems and example games.
• Appropriate for 1 dan and stronger.
• Recommended for serious players who really want to study ko.

  Read More

Overview

This week seems to have been dwindling down in terms of playing. Part of it is due to the fact that I know that I’ve been in more aggressive mood lately (which usually leads to me going on tilt), but I think the other part is that I am getting in a study groove again. I’ve gotten an urge to try and read as many books as I can possibly can before needing to burning out from studying, by which of course then it’ll be time to play more games again. On top of that, I’m also trying to really create a robust Book Review section for this blog so that players can really get a sense of what they’re buying when selecting a book.

Games

• KGS - 1 game (0 wins : 1 loss)
• DGS - 1 ongoing game
• Nova - 1 ongoing game

Training

• Started the Essential Life & Death series again.
• Finished the theory section and some problems in Mastering the Basics: Ko.
• Finished my first reading of Kage’s Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go.
• Started reading The Chinese Opening by Yuan Zhou.

Lessons Learned

1. If I can’t give 100% of my attention to a game of go, I should refrain from playing with strangers.
2. I need to re-discipline my reading abilities so that I feel certain about what might happen instead of playing a move because it “looks like it’ll work.”

Overall Rating: 8 / 10 Ponnuki

Basic Information

• Title: Kage’s Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go
• Author: Toshiro Kageyama, 6-dan (translated by James Davies)
• Publisher: The Ishi Press, Inc.
• Publication Date: October 1975
• Page Length: 204 pages

Synopsis

• An entertaining book from Kageyama that illustrates handicap go concepts through a conversational style of writing.
• Does not explain handicap go from a traditional textbook like style.
• Appropriate for 5 kyu and stronger.
• Recommended for serious players who already have a foundation on handicap go.

  Read More

Overall Rating: 9 / 10 Ponnuki

Basic Information

• Title: The Chinese Opening: The Sure-Win Strategy
• Author: Masao Kato (translated by Steve Lloyd)
• Publisher: Kiseido
• Publication Date: May 1989
• Page Length: 145 pages

Synopsis

• An in-depth explanation of the Chinese fuseki.
• Covers a lot of various scenarios that players might encounter when trying to play the Chinese fuseki.
• Appropriate for 8 kyu and stronger.
• Recommended for serious players.

  Read More

I am excited to announce that a new Book Review landing page has been launched and can now be found in the top menu. In addition, for those who have been checking out the book reviews, you will probably notice that the format has been changed as well for the more recent reviews.

After looking over the old reviews, I realized that a lot of my attempts to be more descriptive regarding aspects like “Content Quality” or “Readability” did not always deliver the correct message I wanted and could cause some confusion. So, in order to ensure that you are getting the most out of my reviews, I thought it would be more helpful if I simply gave the following:

1. What I Expected - As the category suggests, these are some of my thoughts and hopes prior to reading the book.

2. What You Can Expect - After reading the book, I aim to highlight important areas that I think people would want to know before buying the book.

3. My Thoughts as a X Kyu/Dan - This section is for those who have time for a little more in depth analysis as I ramble and/or elaborate about other aspects that I think will be helpful at the time of my current rank. The reason for putting my rank down is that when I inevitably reread the book again (since I never absorb everything the first time around), I thought people would be interested to see if my perspective has changed at all.

Now of course, I can only do so much anticipating in regards to what readers find helpful. So, if you have any ideas or requests for things you would like to see in my reviews that would help you make a better decision, please comment below or contact me so that I can help make the reviews even better!

UPDATE: There’s a small change to the third category since I thought people would find it helpful to see my thoughts on the books as I grow in strength instead of deleting what I previously thought at a weaker rank. And in addition, all the book reviews will eventually match the format listed above.

Overall Rating: 5 / 5 Ponnuki

Basic Information

• Title: Mastering the Basics, Volume 5 - The Basics of Go Strategy
• Author: Richard Bozulich
• Publisher: Kiseido
• Publication Date: January 2007
• Page Length: 216 pages
• Number of Problems: 101

Synopsis

• Fantastic overview to concepts that many beginners should be exposed to early on in their study of go.
• This is a hybrid book that consists of theory along with actual problems.
• Content is appropriate for 18 kyu and stronger.
• Problems are appropriate for 9k and above.
• Highly recommended for serious players.

  Read More