I’ve been sick the last week or so. And against my better judgment, I thought it would be a great idea to try playing League of Legends (LoL) again. Haha. Fortunately after only a game or two, I was very quickly reminded of how much trash talking and just unnecessary cursing and name calling goes in those games. You get like 1 game of good sportsmanship for every like 10.

Anyhow, so then I was like, “Screw this! I’m just going to play go! Who cares if my rank drops or whatever. I’m just going to play and gain experience in go instead of trying to level up my account.” And what do I decide to play first thing in? Blitz.

Needless to say it was fraught with reckless play and incredible bloodlust. Just kill… get killed… try to kill again… and then ultimately combust in one fantastic poof where I resign. Haha. And the best part is that I decide to try and continue on to another game, which ends in a similar manner. I suspect that this may be induced by the League of Legends I had just played, but no matter.

Oh well. Haha. It’s times like these I have to look at myself and either fall into the emotional roller coaster I used to feel when I would lose like earlier, or to simply laugh it off and move on. And as someone who is currently working towards a path of zen, I choose the latter. =)

Weekly Go Wednesday #20

For those who are not familiar with the realm of poker (or gambling in general), going on tilt refers to a emotionally wild state where a player is prone to make irrational decisions and often ends in their unfortunate demise.

To illustrate, imagine that you have a straight flush (5-6-7-8-9), which happens to be second best hand that a player can have in the game. Mathematically speaking, the odds of your opponents having the royal flush (which is the best hand) is so slim that it’s practically not worth mentioning. To sweeten the deal, none of your opponents have any idea that you have this amazing hand and you’ve reeled them in for a ton of money. When time comes to show the cards, you find out that the impossible has happened: one of your opponents has the royal flush and cleans you out.

In a fit of rage and frustration, you go to get more cash and start to play wildly and bet aggressively in an attempt to win back what “should have” been yours. Over the next few hours, not only do you fail to win any money back, but now you are in a bit of debt and in the most terrible of moods. That is what going “on tilt” is. And it is no different with go.

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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…

So over the past week, my rank on KGS actually went up to 6k and I managed to defend it properly against a 5k. Good news right? I’m back at 7k now. (-.-) How does that happen you might wonder? Losing four straight games in a row. That’s how. Haha.

You know those times where no matter what you do (whether it’s fate or you just sabotaging yourself), you keep on losing? That’s me right now. Haha. I’ve gone through four straight losses and it’s been pretty pitiful.

I lost my first match to in a relatively normal way. Not on tilt quite yet, and then I decide to challenge him to a rematch. And then I get excited when I think that his group is killable, and end up losing my entire corner early on in the game. There goes my second loss.

From that point on though, it was like I was on a pure vengeful pursuit to win against him. I played him once again, and decisively won a number of key battles, and then I lose on time.

As if that weren’t bad enough, I then go off and challenge another 6k. This match is going great, because he’s in a killing mood too but I’m managing to outread him for most of the game… and then I failed to realize one of my sequences put a big group in atari and then everything died…

ARGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Yesterday I went on tilt and promptly lost four games in a row. After that, with no sleep and a ten page paper on my mind, it was game over for any other games I tried to start. It wasn’t until last night where I finally ended my streak with a win over a 14k.

So the question for new players is: how do we prevent this tilt? It’s something that I hope to be able to write about in length in the future; but for now, I hope that the following perspective will help shed some light for you.

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So I’m unbelievably busy with grad school work now, but that didn’t stop me from trying to play today. I have a ten page paper to finish by 7:00pm, and I played go… I know…. Anyhow, I lost my first game due to failing to defend a single point. Unfortunately, with all the stress, lack of sleep, and urgency of other things that I need to do, I went on tilt and could not regain composure. Against my better judgment, I went ahead and played another game after that. No good either. Two resignations. Ugh…

The lesson of the day is simple. It’s just like Yuan Zhou told me, “When you play Go, you don’t want to have other distractions or other tasks eagerly waiting your attention.” And I definitely think that all this school stuff definitely impacted the quality of my games. sigh. It was two games… need to just move on.

Make that three losses… this is just an awful streak. I’m being outfought in every battle… absolutely pathetic…