My Week of Go Activities

 

30 hours a week for Go Activity appears to be my new normal. The fact that I am no longer counting time spent watching others play has a lot to do with that.

Live Play came in at second place for the week at nearly eight hours. I played 24 games. All but one of those games qualified for the Western Server Challenge. Games took about 20 minutes on average. All but one of them was blitz, so that isn't too bad.

I had a fairly impressive losing streak. When Clossius asked me how I felt about it I said, "I really don't give a crap." He applauded that attitude, and I believe we both feel that the Western Server Challenge has been been good for me. It has eliminated my fear of losing and my fear of ranking down. 

At the end of my losing streak I was 10k for 15 minutes. I took it in stride, and the game that I played as 10k which got me back to 9k started me on a fairly impressive winning streak. It brought me back to 8k where I now sit precariously.

There was only one loss during that winning streak, but it was only a 1.5 point loss.

My progress on the WSC continues to be steady. I have 90 games played with 10 more games to go in four days. I only need to play 2.5 games per day now. I'd like to finish the challenge at least one day ahead of the deadline if possible. 23 players have already met the challenge. I hope to join them soon.

I think the WSC is great to do once a year. Some might claim that it builds bad habits by encouraging people to play too fast, but I think habits are built in more than a month. I've actually done better with blitz than I expected and I have found that I enjoy it. I expect that I will continue to play it as a change of pace.

I admit that I am looking forward to playing games with longer time limits and actually getting into overtime in those games now that I am no longer so afraid of being in overtime.

My Week of Go Activities

 

It was an average week for Go Activity with nearly 32 hours of activity.

Almost 30% of that time was spent on live play. I played 24 games and spent about 25 minutes per game. The AYD Game and the two BenKyo League games took considerably more time than any of the blitz games which clocked in at as low as 14 minutes in some cases.

I am still participating in the Western Server Challenge run by Clossius. Today I was one game ahead of him, but I am sure he will get to 100 games before I do.

I have 41 more games to go in the challenge. I am enjoying playing blitz this week. The lesson I had with Clossius where he and I played blitz helped me get more comfortable with it.

My Week of Go Activities

 

It was a light week for Go Activity by my usual standards. I only put in about 27 hours.

Live Play came in at the number one spot at nearly eight hours.

There were 23 games played, so the average time per game came to about 20 minutes. That includes time spent by both players.

I am so focused on playing my games that I have spent very little time on review and study. 

With the number of games I need to play, and the number of days I have left in the month, I am going to need to play 3.3 games per day to reach my goal of 100 games, so I am still on target to reach my goal by the end of the month. 

This can be done.

My Week of Go Activities - Plus First Week of the Western Server Challenge

 

My spreadsheet got the seal of approval from Clossius during my lesson because it contained 20 games. It would have had even more if the Western Server Challenge had begun on Friday when my week starts. Clossius was all smiles over my spreadsheet.

It isn't too late to join The Western Server Challenge. There is a button to sign up.

My plan is to keep an eye on how many games I must play to get to 100 and to try to stay ahead of it a little.

I added two new columns for the month of March to track games that count toward the challenge.

I spent nearly nine hours on live play for 17 games. The last three games were counted toward BenKyo Personal Stream Time as they were a part of the Guided Go with BenKyo stream. Some of the games were as short as 12 minutes. Games come to a little over 30 minutes per game on average with league games taking the longest.

I'm playing a lot of games at blitz speed, but it is feeling good to get in a lot of games. There should be more than 20 games next week. Let's see how many.

Clossius is a great teacher and I must give his lessons a shout out. We've had 54 lessons together so far. You can watch him teach most of his lessons during his live streams on Twitch because most of his students have generously agreed to share their lessons with the public. 

You can watch my most recent lesson with Clossius to see if lessons with Clossius may be right for you. If you view this lesson you will see that he and I have a very good time together. 

Guided Go with BenKyo

Ben and I had a great stream last night in which he guided me in playing three games against opponents who were fully aware of what was happening. They muted the stream so they could not hear what Ben and I were saying. They knew that they would get the benefit of that discussion by watching the VOD later. Games were not rated, and were resigned by me 40 minutes into the game so we could move on to the next game.

Everyone knew what was happening and no one got hurt.

This was a stacked two hour Twitch Redemption on my part. I put together two of my 60 minute slots. Ben generously added in some time at the end of the two hours to offer everyone some joseki knowledge about an attachment to the large knight's enclosure. He also generously did a review of the final game of Guided Go,  which was a game I played with Kdar.

I'm hoping that those who watched the stream found it entertaining. I'll probably be doing this again.

I'd like to credit Clossius with the inspiration for this special stream. He had played Guided Go with me in one of my lessons with Drewch who is a student of both Clossius and Ben, as am I. 

If you didn't get to see the stream last night check out the VOD.

Thanks to those who participated.