A Look Back at the Last Four Years of Go Activities

 

The image above represents the proportion of time I spent on various activities in the more than four years that I have been recording the time I spend studying go.  I use an IOS app called Now Then.

Yesterday I decided to take a look at my top ten activities starting from the lime green section at noon and going clockwise around the beach ball.

I was pleased to see that Live Play was my number one activity.

Since I have joined BenKyo League I really enjoy watching other league members play so it is no surprise at all that Watching Others Play came in second.

In third place we have Spaced Repetition Problems which are the problems I do for the Internet Go School.

In fourth place we have BenKyo Live Stream.  I'm not surprised because Ben has had some pretty long special event streams in the past couple years.

In Fifth place we have Clossius Live Stream. 

A big surprise was YD Game Review at 6th place.  When I think about it though I was devoting about an hour and a half weekly to attending YD Game Reviews nine months out of the year, so it should not have been such a surprise to find it in 6th place.

In seventh place is Tsumego 101 Weiqi.  I've slacked off a bit with the tsumego practice and I need to pick it up again.

Clossius My Lessons comes in at eighth place.

Reviewing My Games comes in at ninth place. This was another big surprise.  I don't feel as if I spend enough time reviewing my games, so I was surprised that it even made the top ten.

Last, in tenth place among the top ten comes BenKyo Private Lessons.  There is a reason for that.  I started lessons with Clossius a full year before I started lessons with Ben.

Perhaps a year from now I will take a look at the top ten for just a year and see if they have changed.

Now for my usual Go Activities Content, a look at the last week:

It was a very busy week for Go Activity with over 26 hours spent.

I played a total of 16 games, two of which were simul games with In-seong Hwang.

Editing My Yang Lessons

I've been spending a considerable amount of time editing my Yang lessons to make them easier to review later.  I do my editing in CGoban.  When I edit my games I add the letter A whenever a comment is made about the next move.  I also add comments of my own which I set off from the lesson comments using double lines. Part of editing involves shifting comments to their proper location.  Sometimes a comment needs to be moved to make sense.

Once I have edited my lessons, I like to view them in Smart Go Kifu or SmartGo One.  The big advantage of viewing my lessons in SmartGo is that any coordinates typed into the game file are translated into letters for me.  Compare the image below from Smart Go Kifu  to the CGoban image above. Notice the addition of letters in place of coordinates. It makes reviewing so much easier.

See also the image below from SmartGo One on the iPad. I like to use the iPad in portrait mode because it allows me to show more depth for the game tree.

It is even possible to make a book out of my go lessons with Yang.

Ignore the error message. It has something to do with the date being read by the program.  It is nothing to worry about.

Later in the lesson...

The diagrams can be clicked through just like any other book created for GoBooks.

I'll be continuing to edit my lessons with Yilun Yang to get the most out of them.

Now for my usual Go Activities Content:

It was an average week for Go Activity with over 19 hours spent.  I played very few games this week.  All of them were league games.

BKL Members Get to Try Their Luck in the LUC Tournament in Apr

April brings back the Level-Up Challenge (LUC) to BenKyo League.

LUC is an occasion extra tournament in BenKyo League that allows members to play additional rated games with the members of their Main League group.  It is an opportunity for quicker promotion through the BKL ranks.

Join us in the BenKyo league to participate in our Main League Tournament, Title Tournament, and this month also the Level-Up Challenge Tournament.

If you join through reading this blog post, please tell Ben that buzzsaw sent you.

Now for my usual Go Activities content:

It was a fairly active week with over 22 hours spent on Go Activity.

Sixteen games were played.  All of them were league games.  Most of them were BenKyo League Title Tournament games.

Recruited NAOL Opponent for BenKyo League

I almost always promote the BenKyo League to my opponents in both the NAOL, and also in the Go Magic League.

It paid off this time and my opponent showed up the next day in BKL where I was happy to welcome him.

Here is the ending position of our game which he won quite handily.

We had a member join BKL this week who said that they joined based on reading this blog.  So please if you decide to join, tell Ben that buzzsaw sent you.

Now for my usual Go Activities Content:

It was a fairly active week for Go Activity with nearly 22 hours spent.

I managed to play ten games, all of them being league games.

Giving Up on The Western Server Challenge

I thought it would be easy to play 100 blitz games this month, but it has stopped being fun, and I think it has hurt my game.  After taking a break for a few days I find myself in a position where I would need to play over 5 games per day in order to meet the challenge. That doesn't sound like fun to me. I also find myself playing poorly in my League Games after having played so much blitz in the first half of the month. It is time to stop playing blitz and to refocus my attention.

Now for my usual Go Content:

Since I took a break this week it turned out to be a week very low in Go Content with fewer than 14 hours being spent.

Look forward to seeing more league games being played next week.

32 Games Played in the Western Server Challenge.

 

So far I have played 32 games in the Western Server Challenge.  I have 21 more days to finish the challenge which will require me to play on average 3.24 games per day, so I am just barely keeping pace to finish just the 19x19 games. 

I've given up on the notion that I might achieve the Grand Slam by playing 100 13x13 and 100 9x9 games as well. My rank has gone up as high as 8k and dropped as low as 10k which doesn't bother me at all.  I am currently 10k and have considered stopping now and letting my rank sit there, but I am likely to finish.

My only regret is that I may not have enough time to play the Title Tournament games necessary to hold onto my title in the BenKyo League of The Hand of God.

Now for my usual go content:

It was a fairly active week with over 23 hours of Go Activity.

I played only three games outside of the blitz games for the Western Server Challenge.

I'm going to have to start fitting in some more Title Tournament games when I finish up the WSC games.

Let's Go Baduk School - My Husband Tries Go

For forty-two years I have been trying to get my husband to learn how to play go.  I started off when we first met. I tried to teach him on a 19x19 board with nine stones of handicap because I knew no other way at the time.  That didn't go well.  He's told me that he isn't wired to play go.  I've tried over and over again to get him to play with no success.

Recently I think I have convinced him that he and I could have more quality time together if he would become a part of my world and embrace the go community with me.  I am actually hoping that I can eventually get him to join the BenKyo League.

But how do I get him interested?

Recently I found an iPad app designed to teach children how to play go.  I have convinced my husband to watch one chapter at a time and to play through the problems at the end of each chapter.  Today we completed Chapter One of the Korean Academy's App called Let's Go Baduk School.

Here is my husband answering questions.

Here is his reward for completing Chapter One.

Completing Chapter One wasn't too painful for him. He actually wants to repeat Chapter One another time before moving on to Chapter Two.  This shows me that he really wants to learn the material.

I am also working through the chapters of the program. There are quite a few of them and I am about halfway done. The first chapter that offered any challenge at all was the chapter on Mutual Life.  I did get a couple of them wrong the first time. Here are the 24 Chapters I need to complete.

You can search for this program on the Apple IOS App Store. I think it is also available for Android. It was $2.99 and I feel that the money was well spent. I am happy to be able to use the program with my husband. Perhaps I will finally make a go player out of him.

Now for my usual Go Activities content:

It was an active week with over 25 hours spent on Go Activity.

I played eleven games with all of them being League Games.

As of the time of this post I have already started to play in the Western Server Challenge.  The games are blitz and are taking about 20 minutes each to play.  I have already played 12 games in three days so I am well on track to complete 100 games of 19x19 before the end of the month.  I hope to increase the number of games I play daily so I can start on the 13x13 games before long.