Had Fun At The Jennie Shen Workshop

We had a good workshop last weekend with Jennie Shen at the University of Pennsylvania.   I played three even games with players very near my own strength.   The B group had a concentration of players in the 10k through 8k range.     

Jennie provided good analysis that went deep into the middle game fighting.  I found it very interesting watching not only the B analysis (my own group), but also catching the tail end of the A analysis when I was lucky enough to conclude one of my games early on with a resignation, my own, of course.  :-)

I was very pleased to have the time to sit in on the A analysis while my peers were laboring to conclude their own games in the next room.   I can never understand the desire to finish workshop games which are probably only going to make it to move 100 in analysis, although Jennie went deeper into the game than I am accustomed at workshops.

We all were able to see the A analysis on the final day since it made little sense for B players to play a game with each other that would not see analysis while a pro was in the next room.  I don't think anyone in the B group opted to play rather than watch A analysis.

I also found it a contrast to what I am accustomed to that handicap was used in the games.  At Yang workshops games tend to be even regardless of the disparity in rating in order to allow for more natural opening play for analysis.  That makes sense given Yang's emphasis on opening theory.   In contrast Jennie seemed more interested in getting to the very late opening and early middle game.  She mentioned a part of the game that we, in English, do not even have a name for: the part which is actually between what we call the opening and what we call the middle game.   She told us the name for it in Chinese, but I didn't quite catch it.  Maybe we need another go word in English.   I imagine there is no word for it in Japanese either, because if there were we English players would undoubtedly be aware of it, and using the word as our own, as we do so many other Japanese terms.

Jennie informed us that you can't lose the game in the first sixteen moves, but when a strong player interpreted that to mean that she did not think the opening was important, she was careful to correct him on that.  The opening isn't unimportant, you just can't lose in the first sixteen moves, barring a very unusual situation.

I got to see some players at the workshop that I had played in previous tournaments, and I got to meet some new people too.   One of the highlights of the weekend was our trip to Chinatown for a nice dinner.   I was in the same car with NannyOgg from KGS who had come down from New Hampshire in a rental car.  Through failure to observe on all our parts that car was impounded that night.  When we walked back from dinner we could not find the car and confirmed with a passing police officer that it had been towed.  The four of us from that car, including Jennie, got an exciting and lengthy trip to the impound lot to reclaim the vehicle.   Jennie characterized it the next day as a super tesuji.  

Off To Jenny Shen Workshop

Tomorrow I will be off to Philadelphia to attend the Jenny Shen Workshop.   I can hardly wait.   I will see NannyOgg there.  She is the author of the Shodan Challenge Blog which was one of my primary inspirations for starting a blog of my own.    NannyOgg and I met online initially through the Wings Go Club leagues.   Way back in the day I think that I actually used to give handi to Nanny, but those days are LONG gone.

I am not going to be bringing my Tablet PC to the workshop.   It still works fine, but it's old and slow, and I have two game recording devices at my disposal, both of which I will be bringing with me.   I will have my iPod Touch with SmartGo touch, and I have my Palm device with Pilot GOne. 

Got A Review Yesterday

In my previous blog post I put out an open invitation for stronger players to observe my games weekdays from about 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM and offer comments afterwards. 

Yesterday I stuck up an auto match at the assigned time and noticed a 1 dan and a 1 kyu observing.  After the game was over they offered to review.  It turns out they had seen my blog posting and taken me up on my request for observers.   I very much appreciated the review.

Got Myself One Official Mentor - Looking For More Off The Record

While reading Go Discussions I learned about a room on KGS with which I had been unfamiliar.   It is called The Enclave.   I discovered that many people I know hang out it in regularly.  I was pleased to see them there, and I have met some new people as well.   

I found out that they have a mentoring system at The Enclave.   Having mentored someone since January myself, and seeing how it has benefited him to have someone sitting in on so many of his games, I thought that maybe it was a good idea for me to seek out a mentor for myself.    I realize that this might sound odd coming from someone who takes professional lessons.  The person I continue to mentor also takes professional lessons with Yang.  However, two hours of a professional's time on alternate weeks is not the same thing as having a stronger amateur player following you around and taking an interest in your game.   That is what I do for my "mentee".  We rarely play each other but we review a lot.  I don't think there is a good simple word for the one who is being mentored, so I call him my mentee.  Forgive me for making up a word.

I got a mentor through The Enclave who is 1k and who is mostly available evenings.   I don't play much at all in the evening, so I don't expect that my games will be watched much, but we can certainly review the games I play earlier in the day, which is probably a better use of the limited time my mentor may have available to give me than for him to watch me play and review afterward.  That takes twice as much time, if not more.

I also don't think most people are as interested as I am in watching games of players weaker than themselves.   I actually find it fascinating to watch games of players three, four, and five stones weaker than myself to see what I can find in their games that they might not have seen themselves.  I think it is a good way to focus on life and death as those situations often come up in the corners at my level and below.   It is also a good way to look for good end game moves.

My feeling is that the greater the number of  strong players who take an interest in my game the better, so I am hoping to find others to watch me play from time to time.

So let this be an open invitation to players stronger than my own 8k on KGS to look in on my game and to offer some comments afterwards if the spirit moves you.   Having observers makes me want to try harder for "the fans" and helps me to slow down a little.  As much as I detest blitz, I play really fast if I don't check myself.   I tend to play weekdays between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM on KGS as buzzsaw. I use auto match, so my games won't be in a room, but will appear in the active games list.   My attitude lately is that strangers are for play, and friends are for review.  That seems to be working for me emotionally.

Got Discouraged Yesterday

Yesterday I had a very discouraging go day.  I know I should play more, so I decided to play some games yesterday in the morning before my lesson with Yilun Yang to warm up.    I played three games in a row early in the morning.  They were auto match games set at the slowest possible setting, which is 25 minutes of basic time.  I played them rather quickly though, not using the time I had available to myself.  It wasn't a blitz pace by any means, just a fairly normal online playing pace.   I lost all three games, which really didn't bother me  all that much.  I was fine with the results, and glad that I had gotten some games in.

What bothered me was the effect that these games had on my lesson with Yang a half hour later.   After the first lesson game was over Yang commented immediately that I had played too quickly.  He hadn't told me that in a long time.  I knew it was true.  I had been sucked into a quick pace with those games earlier, and even though I had taken a half hour to distance myself from them, I continued to play at way too quickly a pace to think through my moves properly for my lesson.  This was very disturbing to me.

My lessons are at 11:00 am.  I know one thing for sure.  I won't be playing any games the morning of my lesson again.  I'll do tsumego instead, and play game after.

Counting Up My Go Workshops So Far

After signing up for the Jenny Shen workshop coming up this December I realized that it would be my first multiple day workshop with a pro other than Yilun Yang.   That prompted me to ask myself just how many workshop I had attended with Yang to date.  

From August 1997 until January of 2008 I have attended Yang Workshops at four locations.  In the early years I would attend three workshops a year during the Summer, Fall, and Spring.  More recently I have limited myself to one workshop per year in the Winter.

Following is a list of those workshops to the best of my memory broken out by year:

1.......1997.....New Jersey Yang Workshop

2.......1997.....Lancaster Yang Workshop

3.......1998.....Gaithersburg Yang Workshop

4.......1998.....New Jersey Yang Workshop

5.......1998.....Lancaster Yang Workshop

6.......1999.....Gaithersburg Yang Workshop

7.......1999.....New Jersey Yang Workshop

8.......1999.....Lancaster Yang Workshop

9.......2000.....Gaithersburg YangWorkshop

10.....2000.....New Jersey Yang Workshop

11.....2000.....Lancaster Yang Workshop

12.....2001.....Gaithersburg Yang Workshop

13.....2001.....New Jersey Yang Workshop

14.....2001.....Lancaster Yang Workshop

15.....2002.....Gaithersburg Yang Workshop

16.....2002.....New Jersey Yang Workshop

17.....2002.....Lancaster Yang Workshop

18.....2003.....Gaithersburg Yang Workshop

19.....2004.....New Jersey Yang Workshop

20.....2005.....Evanston Yang Workshop

21.....2005.....New Jersey Yang Workshop

22.....2006.....Evanston Yang Workshop

23.....2007.....Evanston Yang Workshop

24.....2008.....Evanston Yang Workshop

Unusual Auto Match Results

I played an auto match game on KGS today and recognized the name of my opponent as someone I had played before.   I recalled that the last time we had played it was a rated game in which I was leading up until the end.  After I passed my opponent pulled off an invasion that should not have worked, but it did, and I lost that game by 18.5

I recalled that the main reason I had lost that game was that I had not bothered to count the board as I would have in a real life tournament game.  I had plenty of time on my clock.   I could have counted, and I could easily have made a few defensive moves if I had bothered to count the board.   Even without the defensive moves I came to realize later when reviewing the game that the correct move would have come to me if I had spent sufficient time reading.  I found the right move easily later.  However, I let myself get thrown by the invasion.

Today I was leading again in what should have been the last few moves of the end game.   I counted the board and saw I was at least 15 to 20 points ahead.  I made a few defensive moves.  As the game was finishing up my opponent tried to pull off an invasion again anyway.  This time he failed.   I kept my cool and countered of of his moves.   I won the game by 22.5

None of what I have written so far is that unusual.  However, when looking at my list of games I came to find that my previous game with my opponent had been eight days earlier, and it had been most my recent game on the server.  Both games were rated.  It is odd that I should end up with the same opponent for auto match eight days apart.  I guess we both like auto match, and I guess we both play at the same time.  He is in Japan and I play in the morning here is New Jersey.

I need to watch less and play more for sure.

Signed Up For Jenny Shen Workshop

Jenny Shen is going to be giving a workshop in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania on December 12, 13, and 14.   It is being sponsored by the Penn Go Society.  The workshop is being offered at a great price due to a grant the club was able to obtain.  Penn Go Society members and Youth Players may attend for $50.00 and all other will pay $100.00.  That would include me.   Considering that a workshop like this would ordinarily run about $200.00 this is a great deal.  

I have taken some of Jennie Shen's lessons on the audiogolessons web site, and she is a good teacher.  I also saw her review games at the U.S. Go Congress this year.  I am looking forward to taking this three day workshop with her.  Since I know a few of the people who will be attending I am sure it will be a nice social occasion as well as a great educational experience.

Go Art - Unusual Self Portrait

I was talking to a friend of  mine online today who is a go player and also an art student.  I was telling him about how I had to create a self portrait for one of my classes back in art school.  I combined the two most important things in my life into that portrait and left my face out of it.  No one said I actually had to include my face in the drawing so I didn't.  I was a rule breaker even back then, and not much of a drawer.  I actually I wove most of my assignments.   The drawing is pictured above propped up against my iMac which happens to be showing a go game I played at the tournament in Hoboken last Sunday.   I drew that picture in 1974.  Interestingly enough, at the time I drew that picture I was already in love with the game of go in spite of having only played a few times and being unable to find players.  I had driven through a Hurricane to play one of the games I had played up to that point.  This was the phase of my life when I traveled with a go board under my arm and forced all my relatives and friends to play the game.  None of them developed an interest, and they all accused me of making up the rules as I went along.

Hoboken Tournament Report

Yesterday I went to the Hoboken tournament.  It was a long trip starting out early.  I left the house at 6:20 am to catch a train leaving Princeton Junction at 7:11 am.  I got lucky at Seacaucus Junction where I caught a connecting train that should have already left the station.  Since it was arriving late to Seacaucus I didn't have to wait the 25 minutes for my connecting light rail line to Hoboken.

I met a go player I had been mentoring online since January for the first time yesterday at the tournament.  He is 11k KGS, and decided to enter at that rank.  Unfortunately he went 0-4, so he won't have an accurate assessment of his strength from yesterday's results.   I think a lot of it may be the need to get used to over the board play, with which he is largely unfamiliar.

I went 2-2 at the tournament myself.  I considered this a really good result because I had self promoted at the Congress and just recently earned my 9k rating, up from 11k.  

I had unusual results yesterday because I lost to both of my adult opponents and won against both of my child opponents.  Both of my child opponents were students of the Feng Yun Go School, so I didn't expect to win those games.  One of those children went on to receive a prize for winning three out of four of his games.

My first game was against a previous opponent.   He is currently 5k on KGS and was playing as an AGA 8k, so while my AGA-KGS ratings lag is two stones, his AGA-KGS ratings lag is three stones.   We had a challenging game.  We were both in byo yomi by the end of the game.  There were only 4 periods of 20 seconds for byo yomi, so it was a fast paced end game.   He won the game by a wide enough margin that it was unnecessary to actually determine a final point difference.  I think it was somewhere in the 15 to 30 point range.   My opponent, with whom I had lunch after the game, told me that he felt I had him through the early middle game. 

My second game was with one of the Feng Yun youngsters.   The game with him was interesting on a number of counts.  He was very aggressive and picked a fight with me, which I happened to win.  Feng Yun actually came over and stood at the board for a while visually assessing the position.  I was happy with that because I had killed a huge group in that fight by then.   My opponent was very young, perhaps six years old at most.  He could barely reach to the far side of the board.  More than once early in the game he had to aim and pitch his move to the other side, so I slid the board as far away from myself as I could so he didn't have to reach any farther than necessary.   Still he ended up shifting stones from one place to another because he would bump up against them on his side of the board as he reached to my side of the board to make his plays.  Luckily I was recording the game with SmartGo touch on my iPod.   About halfway through the game I stopped recording but I actually had to open the record during the end game to reposition stones that had been pushed out of place after I had stopped recording.   The most interesting part of our game was that after all the dame were filled there was a meaningless ko on the edge of the board.  It was simply a ko between one of his groups and one of mine.  The life of neither group depended on who won the ko.  I was ahead by a sizable margin and there were many dead stones scattered across the board.   When there was nothing left to do I took the ko.  But after awhile it became obvious to me that there was no point in playing it and I put a stone in my own territory and told him that he could have the ko.  Rather than fill it he proceeded to make more threats.  I ended up handing him three stones before I finally got annoyed and said, "I'm not going to take the ko again.  So you can fill it or we can put a stone on every point of the board that doesn't go towards making two eyes."  He looked really disappointed, then pondered what I said for a moment and filled the ko.  We passed our stones and it was over.   As I removed the dead stones and started to place them back into his territory he told me that he resigned, which was actually annoying after he had put me through the trouble of playing the end game, but at least I was saved the trouble of scoring.

My third game was against an adult who I had never played before.   He played his first move on the 3-5 so it was an unusual game at my level from the start.  Very few 9k start with anything but a  4-4 or 3-4 in my experience.   We ended up with a ko fight for the life of some stones at the bottom of the board.  It was important to both of us.  In my haste to approach and also in my confusion over recording the game I managed to miss seeing an atari from his last ko threat.   He kindly offered to let me take back my move, but I told him that I wasn't allowed to take back a move even if he said it was okay, and that it was my fault and I needed to accept the responsibility.  But, what a nice guy to offer.  It is interesting that the tournament director made a point of actually telling us at the start of the tournament that we should not take a move back even if our opponent offers a take back.  Those words must have been ringing in my ears to give me the strength to take my medicine as I knew I should.  My early resignation in the third round gave me an opportunity to get to know my friend from KGS who had also resigned relatively quickly, and to gather my strength for the battle to come.

My fourth and last game was with another Feng Yun student, who I had played at the Oza earlier in the year.   She is a good player and we always have a tough game.   Last time I killed a group of hers early on, and she nearly bounced back to win the game.   I believe she is the superior player.  This time I separated some of her stones and she separated some of mine to even things out.   She ended up reducing the size of my groups and I was very short on time so I didn't really have time to count near the end.  I think it was close, and it would have been nice to know by how much.  It wasn't as if I needed to decide whether to invade or not though, so I could live without counting.  I just had to keep playing the best I could.   There was a group of her stones in the middle of the board, however, that looked somewhat vulnerable.  If I filled all of the outside liberties and then got in a couple of atari moves in succession I might be able to kill them.   I waited until it was time for filling dame anyway, and then I started to fill them.  I got in my first atari and she saved the stone.  I got in my second atari and she made a protective move but it allowed me to atari seven or more stones which could not connect due to shortage of liberties.   She resigned right away.   We determined that she had needed to let the single stone go when I made the first atari.    I don't really know if I needed those stones to win or not, but knowledge of their imminent capture did bring a speedy end to the game via resignation.

The thing that is notable about yesterday is that I played significantly more slowly in my games than ever before.  I was in byo yomi once, and minutes away from it the other two games that actually concluded.   And even in the resigned game I was behind my opponent in time by 15 minutes or more.   I may have been playing slowly at the Congress as well, but with twice as much basic time it is hard to tell.   I consider my new slow pace to be an advance because it is an indication that I am thinking more.

I stayed for the awards ceremony and got a ride back to Princeton Junction to retrieve my car.  I was lucky that part of the Princeton Go Club had room in the car to save me from the trip via public transportation.

Purchased iPod Touch

The new iPods came out on Tuesday.  Wednesday I put in my order.   I had my iPod engraved with my name and email address just incase it gets lost.  If an honest person finds it they will be able to get in "Touch" with me to return it.  Tt the very least it will be hard for a thief to sell it when it is engraved with someone's name.

So what does the iPod Touch have to do with go?  A lot.  SmartGo is currently in beta for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  Anders Kierulf announced this shortly before the U.S. Go Congress on the Go Discussions forum, and asked for beta testers there.  I saw SmartGo in action on the iPhone at the Congress, and even posted a picture of Anders with his iPhone here on my blog.

As soon as I finish the basic set up of my iPod Touch I will be installing the beta of SmartGo, and may have it up and running in time for the Hoboken Tournament on the 21st of September.  The iPod may arrive as early as today.

In addition to SmartGo, there is at least one other go related programs for the iPod Touch, such called Tesuki, which will soon be available in the iPhone App Store.  Tesuki is mentioned in another thread on Go Discussions.

EuroGo TV

I was doing a search for "Baduk TV" recently on the web and came across a web site for EuroGo TV  

I was pleased to see that all of the videos that I have looked at so far on this site were recorded in English.  They have free videos at the site, and they also have an advanced membership option that allows you to view videos at higher resolution and  download sgf files.  Membership gives other benefits as well.

I did a search for Guo Juan on the site since I am a big fan of her Audio Go Lessons

The search yielded many videos featuring Guo Juan including a four part series covering a workshop that she conducted at the European Go Congress for double digit kyu players.

Not A Go Post - A Graphics Post

I am taking a course on Photoshop Elements 6, and was having trouble posting a gif file on my other web site using iWeb.  The image was converted to a png file.  So I am going to try to upload the file here as a gif.

Go On A Treadmill

I posted this message on Go Discussions, so if you read that discussion group you can probably skip this blog entry... otherwise please continue.

I have a membership to a local gym that has something they call "cardiac theatre" which is simply a row of television sets tuned to various channels with audio input devices on each treadmill, elliptical, and bike. You can plug your own earphones into these input devices and change channels so you can watch TV or listen to music stations while you exercise.

I know I should get to the gym more often, but network TV and music is almost as boring as walking on the treadmill and doesn't make the time go by that quickly for me.

Yesterday I took my Tablet PC to the gym with me to see if I could stand it up in the book stand on the treadmill. This would never work with a laptop because the book stand is narrow from side to side, and not particularly deep either. I had to put my tablet into a portrait orientation because the width of the space was not adequate to hold the unit in landscape orientation. This made it necessary for me to size the window of cgoban so it only occupied half of the screen because it doesn't work well in a portrait orientation. If I had allowed it to fill the screen in portrait mode 
I would have had only a narrow strip at the bottom for the commentary and for the move tree. The tablet was surprisingly stable on the rack and I didn't have any fear of it falling off.

My thirty minute walk seemed like only a fifteen minute walk as I reviewed one of my Yang lesson games on the tablet.

Next I'm going to load up my tablet with some screen captures of audio go lessons and try listening to them as I walk. This will be easier because I won't have to use the stylus to navigate a tree structure as I walk. (Before anyone asks if I will share my screen captures I will say that I made them for personal review and not for distribution. Guo Juan deserves her Euros. She's already got mine.  She should have yours too.)

I wish the gym had wireless. That would be fantastic. I could watch go games live and maybe even play them "on the go".

I have a stationary bike at home, which I don't like as much as a treadmill, but if I could rig a good system for supporting the tablet while riding I might get some use out of it.

The image at the top of the post represents the appearance of cgoban as it takes up half of the screen space of my tablet in portrait orientation.

SmartGo for the iPhone

SmartGo for the iPhone and iPod made its debut at the U.S. Go Congress this year.  I was lucky enough to get a demo from Anders before the first round of the U.S. Open.  Here he is pictured holding his iPhone with SmartGo active.  The picture doesn't do the display justice, which is brilliant and dazzling.  Anders, however, is looking good, as usual.

I'll be getting an iPod when the next model comes out, hopefully in the Fall.  I can hardly wait to have all of the recording and reviewing power of SmartGo in the palm of my hand, at which point my Palm will likely be history.

Terri

Knowing A Position Can Pay Off

My teacher, Mr. Yilun Yang, has always recommended studying life and death.  It undoubtedly develops one's reading "muscle", but I think that when one knows the status of certain positions for certain, it also gives one the confidence and patience needed to find the solution in one's own games.

An example of this type came up in my game yesterday.

I had just played c14 to complete the corner.  It was my assumption that the corner could no longer be invaded.  I think I had read about it in a book at one time.  My opponent and I were chatting during our friendly game, and he said that he was thinking of where to invade in the upper left.  I told him that it was my understanding that theoretically an invasion in that corner should fail, although I admitted that I could not claim to know exactly how to refute it if he tried.   Thus the gauntlet had be tossed...  The starting position appears below...

Before we get to the actual sequence of play, which dragged on for a nerve shattering 20 moves, I want to show the position which I felt I knew.  It helped boost my confidence in the middle of the sequence, and helped me to avoid a bad move, which I might have played if I had not known the position.  Most of us know that "six die and eight live".  I even own the tshirt from Samarkand.  This life and death proverb refers to stones in a row along the second line.  The position below is taken from this game, in which six in a row appear.  Because I could recognize that this would be the position  a few moves before it actually occurred, I was able to resist the urge to make a premature hane at b12, which would have increased my cutting points, and would probably have resulted in disaster.

Here is the "six die" position...

And here is the actual sequence of play...

It was great to be able to see the "six die" position coming, and to know how to deal with it all the way through the nobi at 12, the hane at 16, the throwin at 18, and the nobi at 20.

Now I really have to pay some attention to the the following shapes:  the L, the L+1, and the L+2.  Getting the status of those positions down cold ought to be worth something.  I want to not only know what is alive, but how it is likely to be attacked, and how to refute those attacks.

Strong players can not only read, they also know stuff.  I know stuff about the opening, but I don't yet know much stuff about standard corner positions.   It's on list of things to do to acquire such knowledge.

Played Rated - Went From 8k to 7k

The friend I blogged about yesterday kept our date to play a rated even game today on KGS.  Yesterday he was 6k and gave me two stones in our handicap game.   Today he was 7k. We played an even rated game with 6.5 komi, which meant I was still slightly under handicapped.

It turned out that I didn't need the komi.    As we approached the second half of the endgame my opponent resigned because it became apparent that my moderate lead could not be overcome as there were only regular end game moves left and no real tricks to be played.

Upon his resignation I immediately became 7k, which was my plan all along.  

We had a really good time playing.  We agreed to play a slow game and chatted throughout.  Adding time, if necessary, was agreed upon by both sides.  My opponent played the game on a real board alongside the computer to slow himself down.  Since he is very far from a go club he hardly ever gets a chance to play an opponent on his real board.

The whole game had quite a real life club flavor to it, and I will probably use a real board myself next time when I play this opponent to slow myself down as well.  Incase anyone is wondering, we did agree that there would be no variations played out on the real board.  It is impossible to enforce, I realize, but I trust this person, having known him online for many years.

The real life feeling was enhanced by our review, which we conducted along with another of my online go friends who I started helping back in January, and who has since gone on to become a Yang student.  My fellow Yang student showed his superior reading skills by pointing out something I had missed in the game.  There was a weakness I was aiming at and I thought that after my opponent had added a couple stones that it no longer worked, but it actually  did work due to a ladder.  I had tried to read it but was off enough to think it didn't work.  

I've saved the game analysis locally to my computer and will go over it again.

Time To Play Rated Again On KGS

About two weeks before the Congress I stopped playing rated on KGS because I had a good solid 8k rating, and I wanted to maintain it as justification for my two stone self promotion.  And since coming back from the Congress I have been busy reviewing games and have not played much, and not any rated games at all.

Today I accepted an offer for a clan game in the Battlefield room on KGS.  I am a member of the Honinbo clan.  The offer came from a long time go acquaintance for a game at no more than two handicap stones.  Since the offer came from a 6k, and I am 8k, I took the offer.  He seemed surprised to see me, probably because  I so often turn down offers to play.  I have to stop doing that.  But I also have to be firm about not playing when I really don't want to play, but that is another problem altogether which I may address in another post.

The game proceeded well for me.  I made a kill early on in the game.  I managed to win by 39.5 so I may have won without the kill.  But who knows what would have happened on the rest of the board without it. 

My opponent suggested that I play some rated games to get my rating up to where it belongs. 

I have decided that I will try to play one rated game each weekday between 8:00 am and 9:00 am my time, which is Eastern Daylight Time.  My opponent and I have a tentative date tomorrow for an even rated game at that time.  If I lose it won't hurt me since I will be under handicapped anyway, but if I win it should help me get my rating where it belongs, which might be 6k or 5k by now.

Self Promotion Pays Off

The games from the Congress have been factored into the ratings.

Before the congress I was -11.41904 with a sigma of 0.25708

After the congress I am -9.35656 with a sigma of 0.68605

I don't have all that far to go to get to 8 kyu :-) and with my new improved sigma it should be easier to get there.

I am very happy.

My U.S. Go Congress Results

I am back from the Congress and have good news to report.

I went 3-2 at my self appointed 9 kyu rank. I didn't need the note I brought from my teacher to convince the TD to allow me to self promote, but I showed it anyway just for fun. I had printed out our conversation from the sgf file in which we had our discussion, and had the TD okay it.

My first game I lost by 5.5
My second game I won by 2.5
My third game I won by 2.5
My fourth game I lost by 0.5
My fifth game I won by resignation while I was at least 40 points ahead on the board. That felt really great.

Based on the starting ranks of my first four opponents I could tell that none of them had self promoted... too many digits following the decimal point. My fifth opponent had self promoted from 12k to 9k, which based on his record he feels was one stone too optimistic. That game may not help me, but the other four should put me somewhere near -9.5 when the dust settles.

One of my rationales for trying the self promotion this year was that I was flying back early Saturday and would be unable to play the 6th round. I didn't want to run the risk of doing well as an 11k and miss the chance to earn a prize. I would have been heart breaking to board the plane at 5-0 with a game yet to play. I hoped to go 2-3 as a 9k and claim a new rank.

As it turned out my record of 3-2 meant that if I had played today I might have gone 4-2 and probably could have come in third again this year if I had done so. Last year I pulled that off with a 3-3 record, but that was undoubtedly a fluke caused by too many players byeing out of too many rounds in my band. Mediocre results and fighting spirit paid off last year. They probably don't always get such good results.

I'm okay with not playing the last round this year. Having lost my first game I probably didn't have all that great a chance at a prize anyway.

This was undoubtedly the best Congress I've ever had because I was able to tell people that I self promoted and that I was even in wins and losses at the end of the fourth round. It felt like a major victory. And the 9k I probably earned is a ten stone increase above my first AGA rating of 19 kyu.

I am very anxious for the ratings to be updated so I can see where the dust will settle.