My Week of Go Activities

 

This week is the second week of my vacation from playing Go. I am finding It very refreshing. I played one YD League Game this week. I spent an hour and 13 minutes on that game. That was the extent of my playing for the entire week. There were times when I actually felt like playing last week, but I wanted to give myself a rest. I'm glad I did.

In spite of not playing I managed to put in over 33 hours on Go Activities. Watching Others Play came in first followed by Clossius Lesson (Others). I was catching up on lessons played by my YD friends who are also Clossius students. I also focused on Spaced Repetition Problems from Guo Juan’s Internet Go School.

I’ve made a good start back with playing even though my company has not yet gone home. They will be here through tomorrow afternoon. However, if I were to achieve my 20 game goal for my lesson next week, I needed to start playing four games a day on Sunday. Here is my progress so far for the week. I won four out of five of my games plus I ranked back up to 8k on OGS.

The one loss was embarrassing, but instructive. I lost focus, and got confused about the status of some stones. I had previously cut off three stones which I could capture easily to get myself out of trouble. I got flustered and forgot that fact. If I had kept my focus I would have easily gone on to win that game even though I lost a few points in the middle of the board. Here is the game for anyone who is interested.

I play a little trick on myself in setting my goal for 20 games by putting the day of the week I intend to play games into the handicap cell on my spreadsheet. That helps to keep me on track.

Something big that happened this week is that I had a frank discussion with my husband about the time I spend studying go. It turns out that I had been focusing on Go Problems and Go Videos above Live Play because I wanted to be able to be interrupted from my study if my husband wanted my attention. I explained this to him, and he agreed to accept the fact that, in order for me to play my games during the  day, when I am more fresh, that I will need to be inaccessible to him for periods of time in the neighborhood of 30 minutes at a time. I think this is going to be a literal game changer. It will definitely make me more willing to play in the middle of the day. I had often been postponing my game play for the late evening after my husband was asleep, which was not optimal for me at all.

I'm feeling a lot better about playing again.

I Made the Leaderboard on Guo Juan's IGS

 

I've stopped trying to do extra problems to get into the top 10 of the Leaderboard on Guo Juan's Internet Go School. Some days, however, I manage to make it onto the board simply by doing my due problems early enough in the day. Today was such a day. I hit number 9 today. Yea me!

I love the Internet Go School. It is an essential component of my go study.

Last week I played only one game because I was on a vacation from playing for two weeks. I did spend a lot of time on go activities, however, spending over four hours on Spaced Repetition Problems from the Internet Go School site.

I also spent nearly two hours listening to new lectures in order to add more problems to my due problems set.

If you are interested in more of what I have to say about Guo Juan's site, which I highly recommend to all go players, please check out this recent blog post.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I engaged in over 33 hours of go activities this week, which is low for me. I have company in the house for two weeks, so I cancelled my next two go lessons and cut way back on game play this week, playing only four games. I am amazingly happy not playing. This week I only played my required league games for AYD and the Clossi League plus a teaching game with Clossius during my lesson on Tuesday.

I stole moments from family time to watch others play, to watch videos when possible, and to review my own lesson as well as the lessons of my friends. I pretty much kept up with my go problems, which I consider my most essential go activity.

I created a new category this week because I was teaching my grandson how to play go. He is visiting for two weeks. I set up an account for him on OGS. The first few games he played I coached him a bit. Then I told him it was time to start learning from his mistakes. He played so I could not see the game in progress because we learned that I can’t help but butt in if I can see what he is doing. We review the games after they are played. I am hoping that he keeps up with this after he returns home.

I’m not going to bother sorting out essential go activity from non essential go activity this week.

My goal next week is to spend time catching up on YD game reviews.

My Week of Go Activities

 

This week I put in a little over 50 hours on Go Activities. I fell short of my goal of 20 games because I had to clean the house and do other preparations for a two week visit from family which is coming up soon. In spite of that, I still managed to play a respectable 15 games. You can see my list of games for the week in my spreadsheet.

I added two new categories to my activities this week. I did that to fine tune the time I spend on all things Clossius. These new categories also help to obscure the amount of time I am actually spending on Clossius related activities. For those who are curious it came to over 14 hours this week. 

There are now five Clossius activity categories. Clossius Lesson (Others) is new. I watch the lessons of two of my fellow YD members who are also Clossius students, and I decided to give that activity its own category rather than counting the time under Clossius Patreon, YouTube. 

Another new category is Clossius Group Class. This class is something new that Clossius is doing for Patrons at the $25.00 tier level. Being at a higher lesson tier I will get this benefit as well. The first month of classes is free for everyone as details are worked out. I not only participate in the class live, but I find it valuable to review the class through the recorded video the next day. We are practicing stone visualization, so being able to pause the video to concentrate on where the stones are supposed to be can be helpful.

Now for the important stuff:

My rated win loss ratio is 4:6    (40% Wins)

 20:18    Essential Go Activities  

 7:49      38%    Live Play

 7:15      36%    Go Problems

 5:14      26%    Game Review

 

I'm having family visit for two weeks. Therefore I am cancelling my next two lessons with Clossius and cutting down on go activity for the next two weeks. I will be playing my league games.  I also hope to participate in the Clossius Group Class either live or by watching it after the fact. 

I'll be back to taking lessons with Clossius in July.

My Week of Go Activities

 

Surprise! Live Play came in first, for the first time ever.

I am giving it a place of honor in the blog post.

This week I put in nearly 53 hours on Go Activities. I am proud that I increased my Live Play time to nearly ten hours. I increased my number of games played to 20 at the suggestion of my teacher. I agree that this increase in play is going to be good for me. I also agree that the number of games is probably right. 

However, the sharp increase turned out to be painful for me. However, the pressure was entirely self imposed.  My issues are my own, and no one else's fault.

I don’t think I have ever been quite as miserable playing go as I have been in the last half of this week. I felt compelled to fit in the games I needed in order to meet my quota. I had started my week at a rate that was better than usual, but not nearly good enough if I were to meet my new goal. I put myself under that pressure. That was my decision. I could have started playing four games a day on the fourth day rather than attempting to make up for lost time. I could also have built in a rest day on Saturday as I hope to do moving forward. Lesson learned.

I was doing quite well at the beginning of the week. On Sunday I resurrected my goddess account and got her to a healthy 5k. I even got a resignation from a 3k on Tuesday. But after playing two games on Tuesday with 14 more games to be played in the final four days, the pressure set in. It got to me, and it was down hill from there. I managed to stabilize goddess at 5k even after losing four games in a row.

However, after most of the week was over, I had one more day to play, but I had five more games to complete. The rating of goddess was looking tenuous, so I decided to focus on OGS for those last five games. I thought I could hold 8k there even if I lost since I had recently been as high as 7k. That expectation proved to be folly on my part. I went on to lose four games in a row, dropped to 9k, and finished up the day with a 1.5 point win.

I was on a downward spiral from Wednesday on. I was miserable. I’m not sure if I was miserable because I was losing or if I was losing because I was miserable. I don’t remember which came first. Regardless, it was a most unpleasant four days.

That being said, I am not giving up on playing 20 games a week. I just need to figure out how to do it without making myself so miserable.

In my spreadsheet for next week I have committed myself to playing four games for five days. Putting the days of the week into the Handicap cell may help me to meet my goal. It is my plan to rest from Live Play on Saturday and Sunday. If I slack a little during the week I will still have Saturday to make up for it. Or I may choose to forgive myself the slack for my mental health and promise myself both Saturday and Sunday off.

It is Sunday today. I am really happy to not be playing. I took advantage of the time today to review my lesson from last week which is a real gem. That video can be found here. My lesson starts at about minute six into the video.

And to be clear, I know that it is totally my own fault that I was miserable this week. I put the pressure on myself. There was no pressure from my teacher, merely a suggestion to play the 20 games.

I think I need a go psychologist.

Now for the important stuff:

My rated win loss ratio is 6:10    (38% Wins)

 30:00    Essential Go Activities  (over half)

 9:53      33%    Live Play

 12:06    40%    Go Problems

 8:01      27%    Game Review

I am hoping for a happier week.