My Week of Go Activities - Taking a Post Congress Break

 

It was a busy week of Go Activities with over 50 hours spent, but very little of that time was spent playing go. I played six games since the Congress and lost all of them. I'm in desperate need of a break so I am taking one.

I spent an amazing 17 hours finishing the Anime series Hikaru no Go. I feel like I need to find something else to watch now.

I am taking a break from playing go after the U.S. Go Congress. I really need it.

It is my plan to play only league games for the next month, and to not play any rated games. If I get to the point where I am actually winning more games than I am losing I will consider playing some rated games. If not I will just continue with league play.

I was disappointed with my performance at the Congress. I went 2:3 in the U.S. Open, the games for the Open have not yet been entered into the database for the AGA. The Die Hard games, in which I went 1:4 have been entered into the database. The good news is that I only lost 0.04 ratings point as a result of my terrible performance. That gives me hope that I will hold onto my 9k rating by the skin of my teeth since I am unlikely to lose the 0.15 of a rating point necessary to dip me into the 10k range. My sigma did increase from 0.35 to 0.52 though so there may be more damage than I anticipate.

The good news is I am likely to get to play as a 9k next year. The bad news is that I'm likely to do as poorly as I did this year again next year.

The TD for the Open was very strict about allowing self promotions this year insisting on a three stone self promotion rather than the usual two stones required. As a result there were totally new players who had the option of choosing their starting point based on their perceived strength while you had veteran players who had not had a rated game in three years unable to self promote even though they felt as if they were stronger, but not three stones stronger.

It is going to take a couple years for the ratings to shake out.

One of the things I am likely to do in the next month is to review some of my lessons from the past year.