Celebrating Six Consecutive Months as the BKL Hand of God

 

I have mentioned the BenKyo League title of The Hand of God previously.  I took an interest in competing for the title in January of this year, and have managed to win it for six consecutive months.  My achievement earned some notice in the BenKyo League monthly Magazine which you can see below.

I've earned the title a total of eight times, and am now sitting at the top of the list of holders of that title.  The history of title holders is maintained in the Hall of Fame channel of BenKyo League where Title Holders and Main League Prize Winners are recorded for posterity.

I'll have a challenge holding my title in the month of July because I will be away at the U.S. Go Congress the 13th through the 21st.  I am trying to get ahead on points for the Title Tournament before I head out for the Congress.

Now for my uusal Go Activities content:

It was a moderately active week with Spaced Repetition Problems from the Internet Go School coming in as the top activity.

It was a slow week for Live Play with only eight games being played.

Getting More Active in the Internet Go School

First of all let me admit to having been lazy with blogging this month.  I won't try to catch up with a week by week description of my Go Activity. Rather I will just pick up from here.

My special topic for this week is my participation in the Internet Go School. I've been active in the Internet Go School to varying degrees since its inception.  For the past year or so the number of problems I was doing on a regular basis had dropped, and I decided about a month ago to pick up the pace.

My Go Activities this week reflect the work I have been doing to up my game at the Internet Go School.

The orange slice of the chart above represents over six hours of time devoted to the completion of Spaced Repetition Problems in the Internet Go School.

My efforts have placed me at number four on the Leaderboard for the week.

It isn't a small matter to even get in the top ten of the Leaderboard on a regular basis, so it felt good to be number four, if only for a short time.

I have managed to add back problems from the Basic Course on a gradual basis in the past year by rewatching lectures, and adding back problem sets a few at a time.  I have added back all of the problems from the Most Basic section and from the Basics: Step-by-step section.  I still need to add back some problems from the remaining sections of the Basic Course.

I have made progress on building up my vacation days which had dropped below 20 at one point, and I am getting close to 2,000 days in a row of study with the Internet Go School.

I highly recommend Guo Juan's Internet Go School.

I had the pleasure recently of playing two games across the board with a good friend of mine who stopped in on his way home from a trip to Boston with his father.  Those two games are at the top of my list of games for the week.

It was a busy week with 12 games played.  All but the two games played across the board were BenKyo League Title Tournament games.

Speaking of BenKyo League, I had a particularly good month in May winning titles in the Title Tournament.  I have commemorated the event with a partial screen capture of my roles in BKL.  There are other roles cut off below.

The roles of The Hand of God through The Phoenix are titles from the BKL Title Tournament.

I was given the role of BenKyo Ambuzzsawdor because I am known for my promotion of the BenKyo League.

BenKyo League Added 14 New Members Last Month

 

BenKyo League is growing at an amazing pace.  Since the beginning of May we have gained 14 members.  Ten of them are new, and four of them are returning members.

You can join BenKyo League through Ben's Patreon which you will find in this link to BenKyo League.

Check out Ben's Tiers.  Tier 3 will get you two leagues, three interactive group classes a month, and a fantastically active go community. Currently there are over 70 class videos a library which continues to grow every month.

We'd love to have you join us in one of our five Main League groups.  

When you join, please let Ben know that buzzsaw sent you. We'll get you started playing right away to place you into our rating system.  

Looking for DDK Players for BenKyo League

 

BenKyo League is growing.  Seven new players joined us so far in May.  We welcome players of all levels with players ranging in strength from 4d to beginner.  The league is a great value for $25.00 a month.  It includes two leagues and three interactive Study Group Classes per month, and a library of over previous class videos that you can watch. 

Right now I am especially hoping to recruit DDK players.  We already have ten DDK players and we are looking for more.

I assure you that it is not too early to join. You can learn in a great community. You don't need to wait for new month or a season to begin.  Now is the time to join. And if you do, please tell Ben that buzzsaw sent you.

Now for my usual go content...

It was a typical week with nearly 20 hours of Go Activity.

I played seven games alternating losses and wins.

I am not doing well in this season of NAOL.

5,000 Plus Games and STILL Not a Dan Player

I think it is fairly commonly said that you should play 1,000 games to achieve dan level status. 

I realize that playing 1,000 games is a suggestion rather than a guarantee. It may have rung true in a time when there was no internet, and every game was across the board and precious. Those games were probably recorded on kifu and poured over afterward.  I doubt that the proverb holds true today except perhaps for those devoting a great deal of time to study and review.

On occasion people have asked me how many games I have played and I have usually estimated 3,000.  

I thought it was about time that I made an effort to come up with something more accurate. I started with looking at the games I have played on KGS over the years using my two most active accounts, goddess and buzzsaw.

After renaming myself from goddess to buzzsaw I pretty much stopped playing with the goddess account which only has 656 games.  

Let's take a closer look at the buzzsaw account on KGS where the bulk of my games have been played.

The buzzsaw account was created in 2005 during the height of the Wings Go Club popularity on KGS.

The blue cells represent the period of time when I studying with Yilun Yang for the second time. I started lessons with Yang again in May of 2022, and am still taking lessons with him.

In 2015, when I stopped lessons with Yang,  I virtually stopped playing go.  These were my quilting years. There was a period of about three years when the only games I played were at the U.S. Go Congress, and I didn't attend every year.

The orange cells represent the time when I was involved in the American Yunguseng Dojang. I am currently on a Spectator Membership for AYD, but intend to return to league play at some time in the future.

So from where have I documented the remaining games that make up the 5,000 plus games I have played?

When I counted up my games on KGS small board games were deliberately not counted because I only wanted to count 19x19 games.  The rough estimate of games on OGS comes from deleting 100 games to account for the occasional small board game I have played which is why I say it is an estimate that I have 1300 games on OGS. The tournaments game count is directly from the AGA Ratings Database. The Fox games are all 19x19.

What isn't included are all across the board games other than tournament games.  These are club games, and workshop games, of which there are many. It also does not include games played on IGS, NNGS, the ancient Yahoo Go Server, and my less active KGS accounts.  These games probably account for an additional 1,000 games.

Though I played my first game of go in 1970 the games I am counting start from 1997.  There was not much to count in the first 27 years when I unsuccessfully tried to force family and friends to learn how to play the game.

Having counted over 5,000 games I am satisfied that I have played quite a few games, and will probably stop counting now. Why did I count them up?  I was simply curious.

I've pretty much given up on the idea of ever achieving dan status, so I'm not complaining, but observing.

Now for my usual Go Content:

It was a very active week for Go Activities with nearly 27 hours spent.

Eleven games were played.  Four of them were Guided Go games played with the help of Clossius during my two hour go lesson.  Most of the remaining games were BenKyo League games.  There was one NAOL game played.

Renewing Membership in The Internet Go School

A couple of days ago I needed to resubscribe to Guo Juan's Internet Go School.  I did so without hesitation. It was 149 Euros to renew my membership for another year.  I try to start every day with Spaced Repetition Problems from the Internet Go School.

Some days I get distracted and end up using a vacation day because I forget to do my problems before midnight.  I am trying very hard to remember to do my problems every day.

I currently have 14 days in a row without missing a single day.

For the past four days I have been adding more problems by reactivating some of the problem sets I had deactivated previously.  When I do that I rewatch the lectures related to the material.  

Today I added the three problem sets related to lesson 9 of the Basics: Step-by-step from the Basic course.

I'd like to work up to 100 problems on most days.

I am currently number 14 on the weekly leader board.

Now for my usual Go Activities Content:

It was a fairly average week for Go Activity with more than 18 hours spent.

I played six games, all of them being BenKyo League games.

My Week of Go Activities

Nearly 22 hours were spent on Go Activity last week.

Ten games were played.  Four of them were Guided Go with Clossius on Fox.