For anyone in the go world, it should not come as a surprise to you when I say that a majority of go books that I own are from the Japanese school of go (e.g., Kiseido). After all, a lot of new players come to know of the game through Hikaru no Go, which would explain why there is generally a large focus on Japanese go terminology, literature, KGS, and so forth. As a result, I would not be surprised if a large number of go players are unaware that the go they’ve been exposed to all this time is just one style of the major countries.

Now, for those players who are immersed in the professional world, I’m sure you would agree with me when I say that Korean and Chinese styles of go tend to go unnoticed by these players. It is by no means their fault for not knowing this, but realizing this has made me aware of a fantastic learning opportunity for players interested in truly getting stronger.

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I have no idea what’s going on. It’s like whenever I play a ranked game, my personality changes and I become hell-bent on destroying groups. Any notion of growth or progress that I’ve made seems to be thrown out the window. How frustrating!

I think part of my problem is that I stop reading when I play people around my rank. I just play moves that feel okay and then try and repair the damage later on. In addition, I have no notion of giving any leeway to my opponent. It’s quite mind boggling…

A game of go is a game of go… It should make absolutely no difference if it is ranked or free. The problem now is to figure out how to hit my zen state when playing ranked games…

In case it hasn’t been obvious, lately my style has been a moyo style that emphasizes attacking and capturing groups to win. For today’s game, I am proud to announce my first deliberate attempt at playing a territorial style.

In terms how I feel about territorial style, I have to say that it is a very draining method of playing for me. Ultimately, in my mind, territorial style boils down to cutting up your opponent’s territory and making pockets of live groups around the board to win.

While this sounds like a rather straight-forward approach, it requires a lot of patience and calm reading in order to make sure that your opponent doesn’t succeed in capturing one of your groups (which would ultimately end in your loss). In addition, you have to try and make sure that you are maintaining a lead and not falling behind.

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Lately, I have noticed that my games have become quite violent. =D And by that, I mean that the theme of my games are: threaten to make a huge moyo, and then kill whatever comes inside of it.

While it lets me know that I will win with absolute certainty if I manage to kill the group, we all know that this strategy is extremely flawed and is extremely risky. And as if the fact that you will lose most of your games trying to do this wasn’t bad enough, I just get more discouraged and frustrated as time goes on. So I know that if I continue along this path, I will end up getting fed up and dropping go for no good reason.

So the goal now is to train myself to steer away from that style of play. It’s not that I will be meek and never fight back, but I will focus on giving my attacks an edge that sends my opponents running while I gain the necessary points to win. For now, I will focus on a profit oriented style instead of the killing style that I am so habituated to. So in terms of the criteria for my games for a while:

1. I will practice attacking while gaining profit.
2. I shall not kill any group unless they are forced into a shape where I am absolutely sure of its demise (e.g., bent in three).
   And to continue a new tradition that frozensoul recommended to me, I will start a repetition exercise of writing any new go lesson I am trying to learn fifty times. By doing so, I’m hoping that it will sink it better than simply reading once and trying to remember amidst a game.

Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #13

Whenever a player says that they’ve hit a wall in their growth, the first question I would ask every player is: Are you playing any even games with stronger players? That’s right. Are you putting yourself in a precarious situation where defeat is practically guaranteed? And before you go rushing off to write your rebuttal in the comments, here me out in the following Q&A:

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Overall Rating: 5 / 5 Ponnuki

Basic Information

• Title: Mastering the Basics, Volume 3 - Making Good Shape
• Authors: Rob van Zeijst and Richard Bozulich
• Publisher: Kiseido
• Publication Date: December 2002
• Page Length: 206 pages
• Number of Problems: 245

Synopsis

• Gives players fantastic exposure to new concepts and ideas regarding shape.
• High quality content for a subject that has minimal literature compared to other concepts of go (e.g., life and death).
• Any player who has a desire to get stronger and enter the realm of SDK’s should absolutely get this book.
• A hybrid of theoretical/conceptual explanations along with problems to illustrate the ideas.
• Appropriate for 15 kyu and stronger.
• Recommended for serious players.

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Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending another one of Yuan Zhou‘s Monthly Workshops!

We started off with a life and death problem that is called “hunting the 6 stone bird.” Apparently it’s a very old problem that has been around for a long time, for those wondering what the shape looks like. For those who would like to try it out for themselves, here it is below:

Afterwards, I got to hear a very captivating review for one of Lee Changho 9p Vs. Park Junghwan 9p games in the most recent Ing Cup World Go Championship. It was one that was full of full of suspense, excitement, and a capturing battle on epic proportions that made Park Junghwan the decisive victor.

As I listened to Yuan Zhou review the game, there were a few things that really struck me:

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Originally, as you all well know, I had intended on just continuing abstaining from ranked games, but it seems that the time has come for me to return to ranked games. What spurred this sudden change of ideas?

Well, I was talking to Tilwen today, and he said the following, “You’ll have to earn your true rank soon so that you can no longer just say that you won games because you are lucky that stronger players are underestimating you since you have a 6k next to your name.”

As I sat there struck by his comment, other players’ comments about my true rank began to flood into my head.

“Oh man… are people starting to see me as a sandbagger?!”

(o.O)

For those who don’t know what sandbagging is, it’s purposely lowering your rank so that you can easily win. Definitely not my definition of enjoyment.

Starting off my return to ranked games has been rough though: four straight losses. It was so unbelievably frustrating at the time because I had just spent the last month playing against stronger players and actually managing to win in even games. So to lose consecutively to players that are supposedly around my “fake 6k” rank has been rather depressing. Although why I’m losing is not a mystery to me, it is due to one thing and one thing only: my ego.

More on this later…

Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #12

Like the flow of water down a waterfall, every player’s goal is to have their territory pervade into as much of the go board in the most efficient way possible. As kyu players, we often attempt to do this with moves that either look or “feel” right. We are compelled to play these moves for a variety of reasons (i.e., we saw a professional do it, we heard some proverb that we follow without regard to the situation, etc.), yet we often find ourselves grumbling and frustrated when our work is laid to waste or even killed off.

While part of the issue with our plays lies in our lack of understanding behind the purposes of each move, I have often found that we are also just as guilty for an important and often overlooked piece in our in our play: the follow-up move.

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It’s been awhile since I last posted a kifu on here, and for my first KGS game post for 2013, it is only fitting that I post this one.

To give some background to this game, it’s been about five weeks since my friend Nate and I had the opportunity to play one another. So the anticipation of the game was making me a little bit nervous since I’m quite sure that he’s stronger than his KGS rank. Nonetheless, I was excited at the opportunity to finally get to start the new year properly with a game with him.

This game was a magnificent show of tenacity and fierce fighting spirit from both players (if I may say so). Both of us were unrelenting in trying to stay ahead and find a way to conclude the game in his favor. It took a whopping 1.5 hours, which was more than either of us was probably anticipating; but what an intense and awesome 1.5 hours.

In regards to the blog post title, I felt like Go Seigen at certain points of the game because I was like, “Twenty points? Was that supposed to be mine? No matter! Here! Take it! Let me show you how that will dwarf in comparison to my attack!” On the other hand, this game is a mega-fail for me because of the fact that I lost my tenacity in the final move and failed to realize that the game was actually one move away from victory.

I hope that you enjoy one of my craziest games to date.