Last night I played a fun game against my friend Nate, but was definitely demolished by the end of the game. A 40 point loss… hahaha. Thought I admit that there was definitely a degree of disappointment in myself for playing so terribly, there is a silver lining in my complete failure.

So my experiment failed miserably, but I am sure that the experience I gained with be valuable in the future. In addition, I am happy knowing that my mistakes were not reading mistakes this time around. Though I may have made plenty of strategic and whole board errors, reducing the number of reading mistakes should prove to be very lethal once I take care of my flawed strategies. For those wondering about the kifu, it’ll be featured on a Monday Go Meditation in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, I have also decided to take my sensei’s advice and take the time to really watch Battousai’s 3D Tygem Series. Perhaps I can follow in his footsteps and gain sudden insight into the game through watching the series. Not sure how it will go, but I’ll be sure to let you know if anything changes.

In lieu of my last post on the desire to lose, I thought it would only be appropriate that I title this blog post after a marvelous game I played on Monday. It’s already slated for a Monday Go Meditation, so more on that game in a couple of weeks!

With that being said, I’m sure that some of you have noticed that the email subscription widget on the right has changed a bit. And in case you didn’t, here’s the basic rundown!

1. E-mail newsletters now have a new look and feel that should make the reading process more enjoyable!
2. You can now choose the frequency at which you want to receive your email newsletter!
   The only drawback to the plugin I’m using is that it isn’t very easy to switch to a different list, so if anyone would like to switch the frequency of their newsletter, feel free to contact me or go ahead and unsubscribe to the current list you’re on and resubscribe to the new one you want to be on. Either one works.

Finally, as you all have definitely noticed, I am on a book review rampage. I’ve gotten in a really great study groove, but I’m starting to feel the need to take it down a couple of notches since I have a few books I would like to spend more time on. Anyhow, more on that later on. Need to get some studying in before I pass out. XD

PS. To all my first email subscribers (who were all immediately being updated whenever I posted something), in order to prevent everyone from feeling like I am spamming your inbox, I switched everyone over to the Daily Newsletter in order to keep my emails to one per day. If you would like to be switched back to the Immediate Newsletter, just let me know!

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!

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.

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!

As a game progresses over time, it is very easy to lose track of the connections between your groups. After all, if you’re intently staring at the board for a long time, it’s not so far fetched to start seeing groups being connected when in fact they aren’t. In fact, if you take a quick look at the kifu snapshot above, it would seem that the top black group is doing alright. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

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Weekly Go Wednesday, Issue #1

Welcome to the start of my Weekly Go Wednesday (WGW) series! This purpose of this series is to add some excitement to the middle of the week, so that before you know it, it’ll be the weekend again! If you have any requests or would like to be a guest writer on this series, be sure to let me know!

Unlike the games I’ve posted so far, today’s opponent has a bit of history that deserves to be recorded down for the ages to come. For those who want to check out the game commentary beforehand, go ahead and scroll down to the bottom before settling down with a hot beverage for a tale of a chance encounter that has been a big impact in my life ever since.

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So last night I had some unexpected bro-time. It was great to be able to end class and head over to hangout with Nate and discuss philosophy, theology, and then one of the most intense games I’ve ever played so far. Man… here’s to you Nate. That was an awesome game. (Unfortunately, I do not have the game record; so lessons learned for next time!)

Now I’ve talked to Josh recently, and he suggested that I try to play two games a day and play people who are stronger then me without giving the handicap (in order to raise my rank higher). So interestingly enough, I decided to give it a shot against a 10 kyu. I have not had time to comment on my moves yet, but you’ll see about two to three areas where I’m literally one step short of winning the capture race. What does this mean? Clearly I did not read it out far enough. Enjoy bashing away at my very sad game…

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Blogger / Blogspot (Google)

WARNING: Contrary to my previous findings, it seems that Blogger may actually not be compatible period with Eidogo anymore. Let me know if you find otherwise.

Part 1: Putting the program into your blog.

1. Access the control panel for your blog.
2. Click Template.
3. Click Edit HTML.
4. A popup will appear that warns you the implications of editing HTML. Nothing to fear. Click Proceed.
5. Once your text editor appears, search for the tag </head>.
6. Move your text cursor to the beginning of the tag and press the Enter/Return key to create an empty line.
7. Copy and paste the following code in the new line break you just created.
   <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.eidogo.com/player/js/all.compressed.js"></script>
8. Click Save template.
9. Part 1 complete!

Part 2: Preparing your kifu for embedding.

1. Download your desired kifu (which should be an SGF file).
2. Open the SGF file in a text editor (e.g., Notepad).
3. At the very beginning of the document, paste the following code:
   <div class="eidogo-player-auto">
4. Go to the very end of the document, paste the following code:
   </div>
5. Select the entire text and copy it.
6. Part 2 complete!

Part 3: Inserting your kifu into the post.

1. Edit the post that you want to embed the sgf file into.
2. On the left side above the text area, you should see two option: Compose | HTML, make sure that Compose is selected (it should have a darker gray background that looks as if it is indented).
3. Move your text cursor to the area in the post that you want to post the SGF file to.
4. Type PASTE SGF FILE.
5. Click on the HTML tab mentioned in Step #5.
6. Find the text you typed in Step #4. It should look something like this:
   <div>PASTE SGF FILE</div>
7. Highlight the entire code mentioned in Step #6.
8. Paste copied text from Part 2.
9. Click Save or Publish.
10. Success!

Disclaimers:

• The Eidogo Viewer will not appear in the preview nor will it appear in the compose section. It’ll just look like a gigantic text version of your sgf file. Don’t worry though! It works on the actual site.
• In case anyone is using SmartGo2 to create/modify their SGF file, the code they produce will cause Eidogo to not see the proper handicap, the players and their respective colors, komi, along with any commentary made throughout the game. As a result, I recommend that you use CGoban instead.

Many thanks to Nate for helping me create this guide and Eidogo for creating an amazing viewer!!

Last updated October 29th, 2012.