A psychologist go playing friend of mine enjoyed my recent post titled Change Is Hard: I Need a Go Psychologist. He said that it is his favorite blog post of mine so far because it is so vulnerable and “so me”.
I’ve decided to continue to show my soft underbelly for the amusement of my go psychologist friend. I am continuing a series I will call “I Need a Go Psychologist”. Why not lay myself bare? My go life has been an open book so far.
I will take time away from actual go study today to share my feelings about yesterday’s tournament while the wounds are still raw, and the fruits of self reflection are clear to me.
The image provided for this post is a game I played today with a YD friend. That game actually made me feel better. I was white. I’ll go into detail about the purpose of this game.
First I want to talk about the tournament. Let me begin by saying that it was the most efficiently run online tournament in which I have had the pleasure to play. It was the South Central Go Tournament. Bart Jacob deserves kudos for everything involved with the tournament. He vetted ranks to the best of his ability. He provided a live document with all the information we needed to participate in the tournament. He had us muted by default on Zoom during tournament play, which cut down considerably on disturbances. He provided breakout rooms for players who wanted to review games later. He offered a tip on how to include your KGS handle as part of your Zoom name to help identify your opponents in case you wanted to pin them in Zoom to watch them during the game. It was all great, and I really enjoyed it, except for one thing.
I ended up playing white five times out of six. That was bad enough, but in day two I had to give handicaps of 2 stones, 4 stones, and 5 stones in my games. I felt like a sacrificial lamb. This may have been unavoidable. I may have been on the edge of a ratings gap that forced the pairings program to select me to provide handicaps to those below who needed them. If that was the case, and there was no way around it, then too bad for me, and I’d need to deal with it. There was a part of me, however, that thought it would be a good idea to avoid choosing the same person three times in a row. Perhaps the program could have found someone else for at least one of those games. I tried to keep a positive attitude through games 4 and 5. After predictably losing both of those games I considered requesting a bye for Round 6. However, I am not a quitter. So I pulled up my big girl pants again, and I decided to play that 6th round, and to do the best that I could.
I looked at those 5 handicap stones, and for one brief moment, I considered being a total dick and hitting the resign button. It was not ever really an option to do that though. I could never do that. I played the game, and struggled for as long as was reasonable to try to turn this game into something of which I could be unashamed. I had actually played out rounds 4 and 5 to their conclusions. I did resign round 6 after move 116, however.
My first thought was, “Look for the positive in this.” I gave this guy pleasure. It is a positive that I could be a source of such obvious joy for another human being. I remembered that my goal in playing go is to make friends, so I proceeded to chat up my opponent and make a friend. I discovered that I was playing a fellow teacher. He is seven years into the profession. I am a retired teacher and 14 years into retirement. We bonded over our love of learning. We discussed our OGS accounts and ratings. I came to learn that we are actually three stones apart, which made me feel a little better about the game. I had used the same bonding approach with my four stone loss earlier in the day.
The tournament was over. I was drained, and I thought I was safe.
However, feelings of despair started to wash over me immediately. After a few minutes of confusion I actually started to cry. I identified the reason quickly. It was because this tournament was so reminiscent of my very disturbing first tournament. That experience is at the root of my long standing tournament anxiety. I went 1-5 in my first tournament (a Go Congress) due to registering too high at the suggestion of friends, including the assessment of a professional player. After five losses I had requested a bye, and only played the final round because the TD begged me to give four stones to a player whose opponent had not shown up that morning. I won that game to earn my first AGA rating of 19 kyu. Yesterday’s tournament brought back all of the negative feelings associated with my first tournament experience. I even revisited the time I spent crying in the ladies room after losing round 5 to a sandbagging 8 year old who claimed to be 26 kyu.
I knew it was irrational to even care about yesterday’s results because I never play handicap go. So how could I be expected to have a chance to win the four stone or the five stone game? I might have gotten lucky with the two stone game if I was really two ranks better than my opponent, and if I played reasonably well, but the high handicap games were simply not games I could be expected to win.
It was irrational to care about going 1:5 in that tournament, and I had already identified my past experience as my trigger, so what was going on?
It took some digging to figure it out. I never really studied or played seriously before. I got to 9k enjoying pro lessons as a social event and feeling the same way about tournament play and workshops. I am now, however, investing about 40 hours in go study per week and I am expecting results. I really do not want to bother to devote any of that time to handicap go. There may be positives to playing handicap go for me, but tournament play is not one of them. For the past ten years I have played only at the Go Congress in the U. S. Open. All of my tournament games are even. At 9 kyu I never have to give handicap in a tournament. I avoid the Die Hard where I might have to give handicap. I mostly avoid the Die Hard because the time limits are about half of the 90 minutes that I get of basic time in the Open tournament. I’m training to use my time with YD games that provide 40 minutes of basic time. If I am unlikely to ever give handicap stones in the one go event in which I actually play, why study handicap at all?
One might suggest that I should embrace handicap go as a means of encouraging new players in face to face clubs. Covid aside, I doubt that I have attended a club meeting in over ten years. Even if I were to find myself in a club situation I could provide encouragement by playing handicap go poorly. That would provide even more encouragement, and would not effect my AGA rating. In fairness, these tournament games from yesterday did not count toward AGA ratings, but if I was attending a small face to face tournament in the future, then handicap games such as these would effect my AGA rating.
With only one go event on my calendar per year, even pre Covid, and with my focus on doing well in even games at that one event, I have little interest in handicap go.
What I love about YD is that all games are even. One expects to lose to stronger players in the league, and hopes to win against weaker players. The emphasis is on doing one’s best with normal play in normal openings and benefit from review. Winning and losing are not important except for league movement. Handicap is nonexistent.
I started to think of how hard I am now studying, and the future that lies ahead. If I am phenomenally lucky I may have twenty Go Congresses to attend before I die. That is 20 tournaments in my future. If I defy all statistical odds I might have twenty five more Go Congresses to attend.
So it all comes down to how I am going to spend the last go study hours and years of my life. That reminds me that I am mortal. That fills me with regret over how I have spent my time in the past. I’ve taken lessons with a pro. When I did that I wasn’t serious about playing or about advancement. I just wanted to have fun. Now I am serious about studying and playing, and I am hopeful that a modest amount of advancement may still be possible before it is too late.
About the board position at the top of the post? That is a game of Kill All played with another YD player. We used nigiri to decide who would play black. Black places 17 handicap stones using free placement. The goal of the game is to kill all the white stones. We decided that the game would end if white made a living group. I played white. There was a ladder that did not work, but it helped me. Black resigned. We will do this again. I’ll take black next time.
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