I joined the One Million Club on the Internet Go School

 

I have been looking forward to accumulating over one million points on the Internet Go School. It happened today when I finished all of my due problems for the day.

If you look at my study stats you will see that I tried really hard to make it happen yesterday, but it was not to be.

I love the Internet Go School. It is an important part of my go study every single day.

Not only am I now a member of the One Million Club. I am also number 52 in accumulated points, and I am getting very close to my goal of being number 50.

If you have not tried it yet consider the free trial. You might want to read a recent blog post of mine with more details about the go school. 

If you decide to sign up after the trial, tell them that buzzsaw sent you.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I spent over 35 hours on Go Activities last week.

It was the week of the e-Go Congress, so one might assume that I would play more game, but I played fewer games just as I do during an across the board real life Go Congress. Games were fewer and slower. I participated in the Open and in Pair Go. I chose not to participate in the Blitz Tournament because I think that blitz is bad for me.  I play too fast as it is. I was unable to participate in the DDK tournament because my official AGA rating is 9 kyu. Plus I promoted to 8 kyu for the tournament.

I’ve been to 18 actual Go Congresses to date. At a real Go Congress I spend most of my time being social and attending lectures. This was true of the e-Go Congress this year. 

The Twitch stream was full of great events including the Opening Ceremony, Closing Ceremony, and two lectures by In-Seong Hwang. It was possible to be social in the comments of the Twitch stream during those events. 

The addition of a Discord server made the event even more social than it was last year. People posted introductions and there was talk in the general channel. There were also Zoom Hang Out events to attend. I participated in a number of them this year, and enjoyed them immensely. 

One of the best parts of the Congress for me this year was participation in the Beginner’s Night on Tuesday. It was scheduled for three hours, but ran for four. I helped in one of the break out rooms in Track 1 for new players.

The highlight of the Congress was the Pair Go event. I was nervous about it, but it went really smoothly. My partner and I lost our first game by 3.5 points and we won our second game by 2 points making us 3rd place at our table. I felt really good about the close games. My partner and I had a great time. 

I was reminded this week of why I play go. I play go for the community. 

Now for the important stuff: 

My rated win loss ratio is 2:0    (100% Wins)

 18:02    Essential Go Activities  (over 50%)

 5:10        29%    Live Play 

 9:38        53%    Go Problems

 3:14        18%    Game Review

Positive Reinforcement for Games Lost by a Specific Margin

I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of my games for a number of months now. 

My teacher, Shawn Ray, encouraged me to create this spreadsheet as a launch pad for game review during our lessons on OGS.  When I play games on servers other than OGS I upload those games to my SGF Library on OGS. Putting links to all of the files in my spreadsheet allows us to easily begin reviews of games from any server.

In my most recent lesson Shawn and I talked about how he wants me to have positive reinforcement for games that I lose by fewer than 25 points. I am 8 kyu now on OGS. He said that when I get to 5 kyu that we should change that threshold to 15 points.

We came to the conclusion that I could continue to color code the Result and Rank columns as I had been doing all along in order to show the severity of wins and loses. However, he wanted me to color code the Games List column to be green for any game I lose by fewer than 25 points. He said that this would make me feel good about "close" games. The definition of "close" will get more stringent as I improve. I decided to go with a light green and a light red (pink).

Shawn said that he wished he could automate this for his students. It would actually be a great feature for OGS to add as an additional column with the ability to indicate the threshold, and to change that threshold over time depending on what your teacher recommends, or how much positive reinforcement you need.

Gosh! I actually feel so much better about myself now. I really do. 

I lost seven out of 14 games last week, but only two of them were by more than 25 points or by resignation, and one those games was only one point above the threshold.

Shawn is not only my teacher. He is my go psychologist.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I spend a little more than 36 hours on Go Activities this week. It looks as if this is going to be my new normal. I wanted to get 15 games in this week but I fell short by one game after I spent about two hours on the first Round of the Open in the e-Go Congress.

I was dead tired after that game, but I was also very disappointed because I had won it yet, due to a bunch of technical issues too great to go into here, the entire first round of the Open ended up in the trash heap. I found that discouraging enough to put me off playing my final game for the week.

Even though I only played 14 games I had over ten hours of game play. A good chunk of that time was spent on two AYD games and Round 1 of the Open yesterday. 

I am having a major problem with Fox. I can play games, but I am unable to download them. I'm not sure how to resolve this issue.

Now for the important stuff:

My rated win loss ratio is 3:6    (33% Wins)

 19:41    Essential Go Activities  (over 50%)

 10:04      51%    Live Play 

 7:04        36%    Go Problems

 2:33        13%    Game Review

 

Beginner's Night at the eCongress

I'm reaching out to my friends who may be curious about the game I play called Go. The Korean name for the game is Baduk, which is a lot easier to do a Google search for.

Anyone who knows me at all is aware that I devote a good portion of my life to playing and studying the Asian board game called Go.

If you are at all curious about the game I urge you to take advantage of a rare opportunity to learn about the game along with other beginners. Tuesday, July 20th in the evening at 8:00 PM EDT the eCongress is holding a Beginner's Night on Zoom utilizing the Online Go Server as the playing venue.

Rather than trying to describe this event to you I will provide a link to the document prepared by those hosting it for the American Go Association. All of the relevant details can be found in the document.

This event isn't just for total beginners. It is also for fairly new players who have the experience to  make it through a large board game, but want help learning more.

I will be attending the event as an observer though I might end up getting recruited to help depending on how many people show up.

The image above is the ending position of a 9x9 game played by my grandson Evan while he was visiting last month. We set up an account for him on the Online Go Server and he played a number of games with bots. I reviewed these games for him afterwards. I hope he continues to learn about go online.

Come join us for a night of Go. 

Discover a new passion.

My Week of Go Activities

 

Last week I put in fewer than 34 hours on Go Activities. I actually consider that to be a positive thing because I am trying to find some balance in my life.

In spite of a much lower number of hours than usual, I was able to play 15 games. This is fewer than I would like, and I am still trying to aim for 20 games per week, but I think I can be satisfied with 15 games.

The big news this week is that I created an account on the Fox go server. Interestingly all of my wins have been against 3k players.

Now for the important stuff:

My rated win loss ratio is 8:7    (53% Wins)

 18:56    Essential Go Activities  (over 50%)

 7:38      40%    Live Play 

 6:29      34%    Go Problems

 4:49      26%    Game Review

 

I Think I Got Someone Banned on Fox

Two days ago I created an account on the Fox Go Server. I had been wanting to do this for quite some time since apparently every serious go player has a Fox account. A number of my AYD friends are now playing on Fox and I need to be able to follow them there. As a Mac user, however, I needed to jump through a few hoops to be able to do this.

I eventually decided to install Parallels Desktop in order to be able to run the Fox Go Server. Crossover was not working for me. I am very happy with the way Parallels worked out because I did not want to play around with the command line which was another option. It was just easier to install a virtual machine to accomplish the task of playing on Fox.

I was lucky to be able to obtain the user name buzzsaw on Fox. I have the name buzzsaw on every go server I use now: KGS, OGS, Pandanet, and Fox.

I’ve played four games so far. I lost the first two and I won the second two. Those last two games were played as no komi games against 3k players. I am 5k.

This blog post is about the excitement involved in my most recent game.

Here is the board position when the excitement started. My opponent was typing things into the chat which I could not read. I informed him that I could not speak Chinese whereupon he accused me of being a dog.

I had just finished watching a live stream by Go Magic where I learned that Chinese refer to AI programs as dogs, so I suspected I was being accused of using AI, or even of being AI, which was actually quite exciting and complementary.

The full chat is included below in a series of screen captures. I did these captures so I could report his unsportsmanlike behavior. I also wanted to figure out how to keep him from playing with me again. I don’t need that kind of drama. I wanted to block this guy.

A friend of mine who had helped me learn how to use Fox suggested that I report this user. I noticed that there was an Admin button. I clicked it but did not see that it resulted in anything. However, an Admin must have looked at the conversation and banned him because his account had disappeared.

That saved my friend and me the trouble of posting these screen captures to Reddit. It also saved me the trouble of blocking him. 

It is worth noting that he sent me a game request immediately after the game was over. So he did want revenge. It would really be funny if he happened to be the same 3k I had beaten the day before.

I decided to create this blog post in order to document this exciting event. It is always a good day when you are accused of being an AI program by an angry Fox Player who is two stones stronger than you.

My Week of Go Activities

 

This week I spent over 40 hours on Go Activities. That is a little light for me, especially given that I played a lot of games this week. I tried to meet my goal of 20 games, but fell a bit short with 17 games.

New activities for this week include practicing Pair Go for the eCongress, trying some blitz games, and doing a Shadow Go game with a fellow Clossius student.

I did really well with my rated games, all of which were on OGS. I ranked up from 9k to 8k and appear to be on the verge of ranking up to 7k.

I achieved an impressive victory of 44.5 in an AYD League game. I was disappointed that a co teacher ended up conducting the review because I really wanted In-Seong to see that game and comment on it. I hope he clicks through this game before he does my yearly review which will be due in a couple weeks at the end of this season.

There are a few new features in my spreadsheet. I’ve added a column for the day of the week that I play a game. I have started to list blitz and Pair Go games in the events column. I color coded the “R” for game number five with a green cell to indicate that I ranked up with that game. If I rank down again I will indicate it with a pink cell. I only lost five games this week out of 17 and three of them were non rated.

I will admit to being a bit protective of my rank on OGS now that I have ranked up, and am close to ranking up again. I need to get back in there and play some more rated games.

Now for the important stuff:

My rated win loss ratio is 7:2    (78% Wins)

 20:23    Essential Go Activities  (over 50%)

 9:21      46%    Live Play 

 5:06      25%    Go Problems

 5:46      29%    Game Review

 

My Three Legged Study Stool

Financial advisors talk about the three legs of your retirement plan. They are Pension, Social Security, and Savings. 

Well, I date myself. They used to talk that way when people actually earned pensions. Being a retired teacher I’m lucky enough to have a pension, so my retirement plan does have three legs. 

The point is that three legs provide stability to a stool, so these three legs provide stability to your retirement plan. 

Since I have added private lessons to my Go Study Plan I have started to think of my plan as a stool with three legs.

What are these three legs? I’ll start with the order in which they were added.

1. Lectures and Spaced Repetition Problems at the Guo Juan Internet Go School.

I’ve been a member of the Internet Go School since its inception. During some years when I was not playing go I took time off from the Internet Go School, but that never lasted for long. I currently have over 1,000 consecutive days of study on the site. I have no plans to stop studying there as the site just gets better and better as more lectures and problem sets are added. The site was recently rebuilt from the ground up and looks fantastic. If you have not taken advantage of the free trial you should. Tell them buzzsaw sent you.

 

2. League Play at the American Yunguseng Dojang.

I've been studying with In-Seong Hwang now at the American Yunguseng Dojang since September of 2019. I joined following the U.S. Go Congress in Madison. Having gone for a year without playing a game between my last two congresses, I decided to join AYD purely to insure myself 45 serious games with reviews before my next Congress. 

That was the plan, but I found so much more in AYD. I found lectures that are mostly above my head, but are interesting nonetheless. They will be there for me to dive into seriously when I am stronger. I also found a sense of community, especially with players near my strength who have banded together to study and provide moral support to each other. We are the little fish in the very big pond of AYD. 

The European and American Yunguseng Dojang leagues are designed for students 12k and above. I was 9k when I signed up. Studying in AYD was a great start in getting serious about go again, but something was missing.

 

3. Private Lessons with Shawn Ray AKA Clossius. 

Having renewed my interest in playing go through AYD, I decided to get some personal attention to improve my love of the game. I'm no stranger to private lessons having taken more than 300 of them with Yilun Yang quite a few years ago. I came across Shawn Ray's Twitch Stream through a link on OGS near the end of 2020. 

A few of his students allow their lessons to be live streamed. It wasn't long after starting to watch those lessons that I decided I had to get some of that good lesson action for myself. I've taken weekly one hour lessons now with Clossius since the beginning of the year. He has reinforced my attention to the basics through his Clossi Approach. Check out his web site, and his Twitch stream to learn more. 

What I like about lessons with Clossius is that he applies just enough pressure to get me to go outside of my comfort zone. For instance, I'm playing 20 games a week now. I never would have chosen to do that on my own. I'm doing more go problems than I ever did before, and I am enjoying it, but I needed the push. 

Shawn has more faith in my ability than I have in myself, and as a result I am cautiously optimistic about improving. He isn't just my teacher. He is my coach. Even if I add in occasional lesson sets with professionals, which I hope to do, it is likely that I will continue to study with Clossius. I need a coach. I've thought about doing a ten lesson series again with Yilun Yang or perhaps Guo Juan. I've heard good things about other teachers as well, and I might try a few of them.

The pandemic has eliminated across the board play for me. The 2020 Congress was cancelled, and the 2021 Congress has been cancelled as well. I participated in the eCongress last year, and am doing so again this year. I am promoting to 8 kyu as a result of having gone 5:0 at my most recent online tournament.

I am hoping that we are going to finally get a Go Congress in 2022, and so far it looks as if that is going to happen. As regional tournaments start up I will consider attending them even though for the past ten years my only tournament experiences have been at the U.S. Go Congress.  I hope to change that moving forward.

I think I have come up with a good study plan with my three legged stool, and when we finally get to play again in real life I will get to see if my plan has paid off. I think my team will get me as far as I am capable of going.

My Team

Guo Juan - Professional

In-Seong Hwang - Amateur High Dan

Shawn Ray - AGA Mid Dan