For this week's go meditation, we continue our journey down memory lane! Last week I was a mere 15 kyu, but this week we jump ahead to when I gained my first stone! Kageyama says that one of the greatest enjoyments of go is gaining a stone in strength (which obviously becomes far less frequent as one gets stronger); but I do remember the excitement of seeing my rank tick up a number. Haha. Anyways, I hope that you'll find humor and enjoyment as you watch my past self flail around the board. =D See you next week!

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For this month's go meditations, our theme is Novice November! For many of you, I'm sure you found this blog when I was already a solid single digit kyu and working my way up the ladder. However, this was most certainly not always the case. xD So to remind some of you who only see where I am now, I thought it would be fun if we did a throwback of games back when I was a fledgling double digit kyu. With that said, let's turn back time to when I had just started go and played my first KGS game against a human opponent as a 15 kyu. Enjoy!

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For this week's go meditation, I am pleased to share with you another game from my friend and rival Nate. In this game, there is a huge struggle between both players to take the lead and resist each other's intentions. In addition, though this game is won by resignation, I cannot stress enough how challenging this game was. I can definitely say with confidence that I gave this game everything I had that night. I can only hope that you can appreciate this incredible game as much as I did. It was quite an amazing journey.

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For today's go meditation, I will be featuring a second one of my games from Tygem with another 3 dan! This time I am playing White and actually manage to legitimately win! (Though last week's game is technically a legitimate win, I feel like I was lucky with the capturing race on the right.) This game is a great example of how losing whole board vision for even just one move can make a huge difference in the outcome of the game. Fortunately for me, it didn't cost me the game this time; but it very well could have. Enjoy!

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For today's go meditation, I am happy to feature a new player to the reviews: RisingStar! At his request, I will be going through an even game that I played with him recently. Overall, RisingStar played very well and surprised me numerous times with his decisions to take critical points and to give me an easy win. In fact, I would have to say that there were a number of times where I was at a rather disadvantageous position and might have lost if he had just been a bit more aggressive. Nonetheless, a job well done to RisingStar and I hope that you enjoy this review.

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