I am Enjoying Group Lessons with Hwang In-Seong

I promised that my next blog post would be about the group lessons that I am taking.

Last summer at the U.S. Go Congress I attended the evening lectures of Hwang In-Seong who is a popular online go teacher with a go school that emulates the Korean Dojang training. I enjoyed the lectures and was interested in joining the group lessons. The thing that convinced me to move forward is that I knew that, regardless of what else I might get from these lessons, I would get five serious games a month that would be reviewed by a strong player.

Throughout my go life I have studied more than I have played, and I thought it was about time to achieve some balance by playing more, knowing that those games would get reviewed.

There is an American Yunguseng Dojang, and there is also a European Yunguseng Dojang. Since I am retired, and I do not enjoy playing at night, I thought about joining the European group, but decided to go with the American group because I would be getting to know people that I would actually be likely to encounter in real life at a Go Congress. Upon registration I discovered people there that I already know.

I want to start out by saying that the teaching is excellent. In-Seong, the main teacher, had me pegged from the first game, and has gotten to know me better with each game. Sometimes games are reviewed by a different teacher. In-Seong has a few teachers that help out, though he reviews most of the games himself. The other teachers do an excellent job as well. However, when In-Seong reviews you know that he is drawing on his memory of your strengths, weaknesses, and overall style. It is amazing how he can do that for so many students in the leagues. A won game is no guarantee of praise, by the way. It is more about what you are learning than what you are winning. I like that. He is very encouraging. But don't play a fast casual game. You will be called out on that. Until I got used to taking my time I would set my Apple Watch timer for ten seconds and not allow myself to play until the alarm went off. It worked.

The lessons are for students 12 kyu and stronger. Since I am 9 kyu AGA I thought that there would likely be a few people weaker than myself, but I am pretty much at the bottom of the barrel here. I started out in the lowest group. I managed to spend two months in the second lowest group recently, but I am back to the lowest group again. Games are easier for me in C3, but I prefer harder games and  losing in C2, so I hope I can get back there.

I am doing well this month in the C3 group with with a record of 2-0 so far. A friend of mine, Jaydee, is doing equally well. If we end up with an equal record, and someone does better than we, then I will win the tie breaker to move up because of initial placement in the league table. That is how I ended up moving down last month. There were three of us with equally low records.

Most games are played on a specified day. For the C Groups that day is Thursday at 8:00 PM Eastern time. The review takes place at 10:00 PM the same night. Reviews can last for more than two hours so I end up with a serious case of "go head" at midnight. It generally takes me at least two hours to wind down from the review, and I am often awake still at 3:00 AM. which is what happened this week because my game was last on the review list. If I am lucky and my game is early on the list I leave the review after my game and watch the remaining games when the review video is uploaded. At first I felt like I needed to stick around for all of the games because it seemed rude to leave, but being on the East Coast is a big disadvantage. I wish I lived on the West Coast. :-) Seattle would be nice.

It would actually be possible for someone to get a lot out of the leagues even if they were never in attendance during regular league times. Games can be played ahead of time by agreement. Reviews can be watched after the fact.  The only thing you would miss out on would be the opportunity to ask questions and respond to comments.

Part of the league membership includes hour long lectures on many topics. There are a few sample lectures on the web site which you can watch. There is an amazing collection of lectures from the past and more added each season.

A great part of the league membership is your personal page. Here is mine:

The personal page includes a table of games. I could barely get a screen capture of mine on the iPad by holding it in portrait mode.

The personal page also includes links to every one of your reviews. Here are reviews from the past three months.

You also get a graph of your progress in the leagues. I started out with an 800 rank and am now at 875. You can see a streak of five wins between games 20 and 25. That was when I rose from C3 to C2. You can see the subsequent crash down.

When you watch a recorded review it is possible to add comments. I have marked the starting point of my review in the video below so it is easy to find again. I have also taken note of homework which was given to me by In-Seong during the review. The starting point of the review of a friend is also indicated.

I highly recommend these group lessons. The next season won't be starting until September. Think about it. Maybe we can get a D group going in the American Dojang.

Playing Correspondence Games on OGS

I am continuing with revealing what is new in my go in the past five years.

One of the things that I have added to my go routine is playing on OGS, the Online Go Server. I do not play live games there though. I have taken a liking to correspondence games. I usually have up to ten games going at a time on the server. The reason I limit myself to ten games is because I like that the games are shown as thumbnails of the board positions. Beyond ten the games they are shown as a list, which does not display well on my iPad. Edit: Based on a comment to this post, which you can read in full,  I was informed that I can adjust a setting for the number of thumbnails that will display. I have increased that number to 20.

What I like about correspondence play is that there is nearly a limitless amount of time to consider each move. This makes it more likely that I will consider alternate moves before playing. That is a habit I need to develop in my live games on KGS.

Another thing I like about correspondence play is that every time I come back to a game I have to come back to it with fresh eyes because I have been playing nine other games simultaneously. Sometimes I even have to check to see what color I am playing.

Playing correspondence games reduce the likelihood that I will be caught up in the rhythm of the fast play of my opponent. Admittedly, this has happened on occasion when my opponent and I have been on the server at the same time, and have alternated play at a relatively fast pace.

Having ten games going at once increases the likelihood that you will be able to log on during a busy period and spend an hour making moves in multiple games with players who are online also. The first time this happened to me I thought, "This is as close as I am ever going to get to playing simul games like a pro." Funny thought. I had to laugh.

Correspondence games allow you to step back from a difficult situation and gain some psychic distance, but one can just as easily become obsessed with resolving a situation and stay up too late waiting for your opponent's next move. The game above is a case in point. I am white. I have killed the surrounded black group near the bottom of the board, but not until I struggled with it during the course of the day, and way too late into the evening. Then I lost a significant amount of sleep because I could not wind down.

This morning I woke thinking first thing of this game, and the fact that winning it is not a sure thing by any means. My opponent is stronger than I,  and she is tricky too. I see a corner in the lower right that can be invaded. I see a potential cut at o13. I worry a bit over the atari at g8, and wonder if it might cause trouble. That is probably not the case though. I need to do some reading about it; reading that I would not have time to do in a live game.

Gentle readers, please to not give me any hints. I want to win this one on my own.

My name on OGS is buzzsaw. If you play there, and you want a correspondence game, please message me and tell me that you have read my blog.

My next post will be about my new group lessons.

My Attendance At the U. S. Go Congress In Recent Years

A few things have happened in my go life since I had been blogging with any frequency five years ago. I'm going to spread out reporting on those things over the course of a few posts. I will start with reporting on my participation at the U.S. Go Congress.

After discontinuing lessons with Yilun Yang I stopped playing go altogether except for tournament games at the Congress. I was really only playing with Yang anyway, but all of a sudden I was not playing at all except across the board at the Go Congress. All of my other tournament opportunities had dried up. The New Jersey Open was defunct, and there was nothing else nearby.

I continued to attend the Go Congress in the past few years with relative frequency, but I did miss a few.

I was at the 2014 Go Congress in New York City. This was one of my favorite Congress venues.

I was not in attendance at the 2015 Go Congress in the Twin Cities, so I went for two years without playing a game.

I attended the 2016 Go Congress in Boston. I took Amtrak. It was a great Congress.

I was not in attendance at the 2017 Go Congress in San Diego, so I had another two years without playing go.

I attended the 2018 Go Congress in Williamsburg where I did poorly and dropped back to double digit kyu for the first time in quite a few years. I had been 8 kyu for a brief moment in time, but had maintained a solid 9 kyu rating even without playing for a number of years.

I attended the 2019 Go Congress in Madison. It was time to fight back to 9 kyu. I was not sure that I could do it because, true to form, I had not played a single game in the year since the previous congress. My 10 kyu rank, however, was just a squeak lower than 9 kyu, so I did have a competitive edge. I managed to use that advantage and take 2nd place in the 10 kyu rank with a record of 4-2. Pictured with me here, at the top of the post, is one of my opponents, Gary, who I played in the 6th round. He beat me to take 3rd place in the 10 kyu rank. If I had won that game I would have still been in 2nd place and Gary would not have been in 3rd place, so I am glad he won. Gary was in a similar position as I, having recently squeaked down into the double digit kyu territory. We were the sandbaggers, and we came face to face in the 6th round.

My win in Madison convinced me that it was time to resume play and study. There will be more to come on that in my next post.