I am out of hiatus. I will try to be substantial. I will probably fail.


KGS IS DOWN. KGS IS DOWN. KGS IS DOWN. KGS IS DOWN. DDDDDD:

X___X

This is a substantial post (for a change)

Keep in mind, I'm still lowly 4k, so this probably has issues


So far, 3-5 has served me moderately well.

I play double 3-5 paired with 3-9 as black, and ommitting the 3-9 as white.







Opponents generally decide to approach from the top either low or high. I have seen the low approach most often, as my opponents choose to take the corner.
At this point, I can play at either O or P16.







That's the ideal situation. It gets messy when it doesnt work though.






Like that. Or something. Eh, it just gets messy.

I find not much wrong with this opening, as I feel it suits me pretty well. Higher level players seem to think it really weird though. I guess I'll learn whats wrong with it when the time comes.

I think one of the main issues with this opening is I end up with a possibility for a moyo.. and then I play the exact wrong move. The walls I get from this give me really nice influence, but sometimes I lose territorially. I remember this happening at Congress a lot. A lot of the games I play rely on something dying, or some weak group I can chase around, because of the walls.



Wow, this post sucked.

Clan

Joined Blue Moon clan!

Got toastcrumb to 1k?

timshel is now solid 1k.. but due to losing consistantly, not winning consistantly. XD

I feel about 2-3k in strength.


I found out my double 3-5 has a name: "Jabberwock"

Improvement!

Whoo! -4.27k! 2 stone promotion!

A series of bad puns.

JinQianHan: [i'm ] DANgerousus

Violence [?]: Mingjuice: The Go player drink.
Violence [?]: It's got a taste that'll make you say, "GOOOOD-A MOVE!"

I hate losing won games. :/

Havent played anything noteworthy in a while.

Dang

Haven't posted in ages. :( Stupid finals. Stupid school.

In any case. This is pretty awesome. I'm getting close to shodan. AGA shodan at least.

I went 5-0 against 5ks and 4ks at the Jujo tournament. Now I'm just waiting for the AGA to update their ranks.

I remembered one of the better games. At my level, I don' t think I played particularly good games, just my opponents managed to mess up multiple times, and I could take advantage of these screwups.

I also learned how much I love komi.

Go Essay!

As cliché as it sounds, it was love at first sight. The smooth curves of the bi-convex stones, the satin sheen of the board, and the sheer simplicity of the game all attracted me. Go itself is a paradox: there are really only three rules, yet it is an intricate game. Beneath the facade of simplicity lies deep strategy and countless millions of permutations. It is a highly mathematical game, yet mathematical genius does not lend itself to strength. Of course, I did not believe this when I started playing in my junior year. It seemed like just a fling. It's a silly old game, I said. I'll master it in a year, I said. And a year later, here I am, still a middle ranking player: 5 kyu by the American Go Association standards. I failed to reach my goal, but that hardly means I failed completely.
Go was an attempt to connect to my culture, my heritage, my past. It embodies so much of Eastern culture, as well as philosophy. Go is a representation of life, which, at the premise, is simple, yet we derive so many complexities from it. This is similar to Taoist philosophy, which preaches the simplicity of life. Go is rooted in the history and soul of East Asia. Growing up Asian in America, I am caught in a conflict of culture. Of this culture clash arises a persistent and awkward struggle conform to both identities while still assimilating into American culture. In short, I abandoned a part of my heritage for an awkward identity that did not fit. I drew apart from my culture for too long, because in the end, I am Chinese and always will be. I should never have allowed myself to let that go. My parents told me, all the time, to be proud of my five thousand year heritage, but I did not realize its importance until much later on. And now that I do understand, I try to connect back, but its like attaching a severed limb. I can only hope the endings can heal and again become a part of me..
Yet I have learned much more from Go than just cultural lessons. Go teaches life. Beyond the typical lessons about dedication and perseverance, Go has taught invaluable lessons. It punishes greed; a greedy move may result in losing much more. It teaches sacrifice; sometimes one will have to give up something to stay alive. And in the end, it's not about winning, or capturing your opponent; it's about maintaining balance and harmony with your opponent's moves.
However, the most important lesson I learned from Go is humility. After a few winning streaks, I began to think I was “pretty good” but the truth is, I wasn't. I quickly became arrogant and overconfident, but when this happened, I began to lose . And I continued to lose, until I managed to suck up my pride and listen advice from stronger players. This pertains to life as well: sometimes, my pride gets the better of me, but I need to remember that no matter what I do, there will always be someone above me. No matter how well I play, I will never be a match for the masters of old. It's a bittersweet, yet reassuring feeling.
Maybe it started off as a harmless pastime. But it surely isn't that way anymore. Go has allowed me to improve pattern recognition skills as well as combinatorial game theory, but beyond that, it's given me much insight into not only my heritage, but into life itself. Go is life.

I LIVE

I swear I'm alive. Schools been getting me down ish. I haven't been playing much: I keep losing to 4ks. :/

So. I wrote a college essay on go. I think that counts

Oh, my AGA rank is now -5.998. Boo.

Blogger Beta

Blogger Beta is awesome

I haven't been playing go.

I think my 3-5 5-4 opening is completely valid, just I don't have the positional judgement/reading to back it up. I'll stick with common openings until then.

KGS3/ CGoban 3 is coming out soon.

I hate physics. English is crazy. School sucks. :( *emo*

Interesting Summer.

So. I started the summer as a 12k. I ended the summer as an AGA 6k, and being able to occasionally beat a KGS 5k. But I still have trouble at the 8-9k level, so that's what, 4 stones improvement over 3 months? Still far from KGS 1d. Whatever. I'll get there one day. Soon. Hopefully.

I tend to not play go when I have excessive amounts of free time. I tend to knit and draw in that time. I tend to play go when I really dont have the time for it. -___- figures.

But this summer was awesome for go. I met so many strong people. Wah. Lots and lots of cool people, esp James Wu. ;D

Last thing you'd expect

at Go Congress



Breakdancers.

Yeah. Note the audio.

Guo Juan

While at Go Congress, I was lucky to watch Guo Juan review one of Calvins games. I think this was the main thing I learned from Go Congress. It's easier to attack two groups than just one. Attacks should not be direct. When attacking groups, know which of your stones can die, and which should not die.

I haven't applied this much though. I'll try, I guess.

Congress

Go Congress was amazingly fun. I feel that I didn't take full advantage of all the lectures, etc there though.

Pair Go was fun. Frustrating, but fun.

Meeting all the strong players was also just so cool.

Sigh.

Hehehe.

I just totally gave up on 1d. I havent played, with the exception of a blitz game, in like, a week. Whee... :( Instead I've been doing totally useless things because I have the attention span of a goldfish.

Oh well. Congress tomorrow.. I'm dreading it. Ah well.

Uh. Wtf.

My parents think I'm going to get either
a) kidnapped
b) killed by an axe murderer
or
c) die in a plane crash

at Go Congress. They also believe that all go players I met online are secretly online predators out to kill me/bad stuff.


..
yeah. Someone convince them you're not axe murderers.

Fail.

Forgot to post this on Sunday.

Happy 20th, Wayne. Sorry, couldn't make it to shodan.



I fail :(

Ah well. Before this summer ends then.

I'm bored.

This was the first thing that came to mind after seeing INVINCIBLE posters.

.. Yeah.



I should be playing go.

Home

I'm home. And home is wonderful.

7 days left. Guh.

Chicago, here I come.

Ohnoes. It's AUGUST. School starts soon. D: Summer's almost over! 29 more days! Crunch time~!

I'm off to Chicago for 5 days. Damn you, college interviews ;_;. There are 12 days until Congress. That leaves me 7 days to get stronger, unless I spend loads of time reading go books.


Goal: AGA1d in 7 days. Woo! for ambition.
How I will achieve this: I probably won't.
I'll start by playing more games as W. Playing as B gives me this wonderful, tremendous advantage. I need to learn how to win without that advantage.
Then, I'll reread Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go until I need to pass it off to Calvin.
Then it's Attack and Defense, How to Kill and the Chinese Fuseki. Again.
I guess I should print out some professional games to review. Maybe I can borrow my mom's laptop to play a few games, too. That should be it for the amount of time I'm in Chicago. Bah, sightseeing. Who needs that. Ehe0

Lawrence's dad kept telling me to play slower in my games. So I slowed down, and found I can do much, much better when I slow down. Hey, at least I havent been blitzing. >_>;
So I guess I'll be playing games without time limits, or ones with very slow time limits from now on.

Can I do this? I can get to AGA1d probably. KGS, I don't know. I'll find out in September, when the next San Francisco tourney thing is.

Ugh, ambition post. One day, I'm going to look back on this and wonder what I was thinking.


In other news, yesterday, there were lots of spectators. I ended up teaching a girl from Miami and her sister how to play go. Then, her grandma asked where they could buy a goban. BWAHAHA. One more go player!

1/5

Woohoo! Won one game!

.. eheheh. I won against a 4k but lost against a 6k. Guess I'm really 5k now. Just a bit more and I'dve reached my goal this summer! In the game to the left, I was w. Almost killed, but ended up getting killed. Overlooked a cutpoint. Ah well.

Hm, results.
As far as I can remember, Michael (Cheng..?) won 1st place in the 1st division, Lawrence Ku won 1st in 2nd, Hugh something (little kid, really really cute) won 1st in 3rd, and I have no idea who won 1st in the 4th division.


8th place in 3rd division! Our of 9! Woohoo! XD





Yay for dramatic shots of people playing go. Haha, yeah...



This little kid was horribly cute. Don't think he played in the tournament, but he knew how to play go. I believe that's Tony something's little brother. Awwwwww.

Ah well. I'll figure out my real rank when the AGA updates it. I still have a month left. I can do this.


But man, I'm tired.



PS: Taiyaki is good. Little fish pancake things with red bean paste. :9

And, pictures to come once I upload them.

And uploaded...

Fail.

Um, I fail. Good news is I'm 5k AGA.

Lost all my games. Made super stupid mistake in a 3h (I'm taking W) game. The result of too much internet go- I didn't see the board correctly.

Oh well, two more games tomorrow. Maybe I won't lose them all. Thanks for your well wishing :P


Ing counting is weird.