My Week of Go Activities

 

Surprise! Live Play came in first, for the first time ever.

I am giving it a place of honor in the blog post.

This week I put in nearly 53 hours on Go Activities. I am proud that I increased my Live Play time to nearly ten hours. I increased my number of games played to 20 at the suggestion of my teacher. I agree that this increase in play is going to be good for me. I also agree that the number of games is probably right. 

However, the sharp increase turned out to be painful for me. However, the pressure was entirely self imposed.  My issues are my own, and no one else's fault.

I don’t think I have ever been quite as miserable playing go as I have been in the last half of this week. I felt compelled to fit in the games I needed in order to meet my quota. I had started my week at a rate that was better than usual, but not nearly good enough if I were to meet my new goal. I put myself under that pressure. That was my decision. I could have started playing four games a day on the fourth day rather than attempting to make up for lost time. I could also have built in a rest day on Saturday as I hope to do moving forward. Lesson learned.

I was doing quite well at the beginning of the week. On Sunday I resurrected my goddess account and got her to a healthy 5k. I even got a resignation from a 3k on Tuesday. But after playing two games on Tuesday with 14 more games to be played in the final four days, the pressure set in. It got to me, and it was down hill from there. I managed to stabilize goddess at 5k even after losing four games in a row.

However, after most of the week was over, I had one more day to play, but I had five more games to complete. The rating of goddess was looking tenuous, so I decided to focus on OGS for those last five games. I thought I could hold 8k there even if I lost since I had recently been as high as 7k. That expectation proved to be folly on my part. I went on to lose four games in a row, dropped to 9k, and finished up the day with a 1.5 point win.

I was on a downward spiral from Wednesday on. I was miserable. I’m not sure if I was miserable because I was losing or if I was losing because I was miserable. I don’t remember which came first. Regardless, it was a most unpleasant four days.

That being said, I am not giving up on playing 20 games a week. I just need to figure out how to do it without making myself so miserable.

In my spreadsheet for next week I have committed myself to playing four games for five days. Putting the days of the week into the Handicap cell may help me to meet my goal. It is my plan to rest from Live Play on Saturday and Sunday. If I slack a little during the week I will still have Saturday to make up for it. Or I may choose to forgive myself the slack for my mental health and promise myself both Saturday and Sunday off.

It is Sunday today. I am really happy to not be playing. I took advantage of the time today to review my lesson from last week which is a real gem. That video can be found here. My lesson starts at about minute six into the video.

And to be clear, I know that it is totally my own fault that I was miserable this week. I put the pressure on myself. There was no pressure from my teacher, merely a suggestion to play the 20 games.

I think I need a go psychologist.

Now for the important stuff:

My rated win loss ratio is 6:10    (38% Wins)

 30:00    Essential Go Activities  (over half)

 9:53      33%    Live Play

 12:06    40%    Go Problems

 8:01      27%    Game Review

I am hoping for a happier week.