My Week of Go Activities

 

30 hours a week for Go Activity appears to be my new normal. The fact that I am no longer counting time spent watching others play has a lot to do with that.

Live Play came in at second place for the week at nearly eight hours. I played 24 games. All but one of those games qualified for the Western Server Challenge. Games took about 20 minutes on average. All but one of them was blitz, so that isn't too bad.

I had a fairly impressive losing streak. When Clossius asked me how I felt about it I said, "I really don't give a crap." He applauded that attitude, and I believe we both feel that the Western Server Challenge has been been good for me. It has eliminated my fear of losing and my fear of ranking down. 

At the end of my losing streak I was 10k for 15 minutes. I took it in stride, and the game that I played as 10k which got me back to 9k started me on a fairly impressive winning streak. It brought me back to 8k where I now sit precariously.

There was only one loss during that winning streak, but it was only a 1.5 point loss.

My progress on the WSC continues to be steady. I have 90 games played with 10 more games to go in four days. I only need to play 2.5 games per day now. I'd like to finish the challenge at least one day ahead of the deadline if possible. 23 players have already met the challenge. I hope to join them soon.

I think the WSC is great to do once a year. Some might claim that it builds bad habits by encouraging people to play too fast, but I think habits are built in more than a month. I've actually done better with blitz than I expected and I have found that I enjoy it. I expect that I will continue to play it as a change of pace.

I admit that I am looking forward to playing games with longer time limits and actually getting into overtime in those games now that I am no longer so afraid of being in overtime.