My Week of Go Activities - One Move Life and Death Problems

 

I generally don't spend a lot of time reading go books. This week, however, I spent over five hours with "Workbook: One-Move Life and Death Problems". This is an interactive go book available to read on the SmartGo One app.

The book provides detailed analysis of dead shapes. I found myself going back to it over and over again. And, interestingly, I found myself trying to find those dead shapes in some of my games this week. I'll be spending more time with this book and the others written by Thomas Redecker.

The screen capture below is a taste of the type of detail to be found in this book.

Otherwise this is how my week looked.

I spent nearly 31 hours on go activities.

Live play came in at a respectable 2nd place with nearly five hours of time clocked. That isn't bad for six games. I slowed down considerably this week. I'm going to try to keep that up.

My Week of Go Activities - Moving Up to AYD League C1

 

Last week In-seong Hwang predicted, "Something good is coming." Last night I played my last match of the current cycle of the American Yunguseng Dojang, and something good did come.

I won my final match by 1.5 points. This was an important game because if I were to have lost it I would have remained in the C2 League, but since I won it, I will rise to the C1 League.

The game was a good one including a fairly epic ko. In-seong saved the review until the end last night, and introduced it as the classic AYD match. That made me chuckle a bit.

Below you can see that I managed to win 14 out of my last 20 games in AYD, but more importantly, I managed to break the 1,000 level in the YD rating system.

My good friend, Drewch, had an important match last night too. It determined if he got to stay in C1 or fall to C2. Thankfully he won his match which means that Drewch and I will be going head to head again very soon. Ben Mantle streamed our most recent match which occurred in cycle 1 of the current season. Perhaps we can get him to stream the upcoming match.

Now for the usual weekly activities information:

I spent nearly 32 hours on Go Activities last week. It was a slow week. 

It may have been slow on activity, but sadly, it was fast in terms of my speed of play. I was having trouble making myself play, and I decided to go back to the Fox server Tuesday afternoon after having not played there in a number of months. I proceeded to play and lose six games in the course of an hour and 20 minutes.

I got some good advice from a strong go player though, who advised me to stop playing for the day if I lose two games in a row. That is a good idea and I will try to make myself do that in the future.

I actually played nine games on Tuesday. Late in the evening, after playing my MGA League match, I returned to Fox for revenge. I won two games that night on Fox.

During my Private Lesson with Ben Mantle yesterday he reviewed my first three Fox losses. I will save the final three for Clossius today in our streamed lesson which has been scheduled for 4:30 PM EDT.

My Week of Go Activities - Something Good is Coming

 

This is the board position of my game last night in the American Yunguseng Dojang at the point of resignation. I played a 4k and managed to get a resignation from her which felt really great.

Let me explain the sub title of my blog post today "Something Good is Coming".

I've been studying with In-seong Hwang through the American Yunguseng Dojang for nearly three years now. I've played over 130 games during that time and my ratings graph shows that I have gained nearly 200 ratings points in the system.

The rating system rewards you more for wins against players you are expected to lose to. It also punishes you less for losses to those players. You can see this in the chart below. It shows the various amounts rewarded or deducted due to my last 9 games.

My most recent win against a 4k earned me 17 points in the rating system while my loss against a 3k (2nd on the list) only lost me 4 points.

So what does, "Something good is coming" mean?

I've struggled with passive play. I've gotten a lot of feedback from In-seong on the need to play more actively. It has not been easy to do, and I keep working on it.

Last night I got the best review ever from In-seong. He had many good things to say and capped off his comments with the prediction that, "Something good is coming." I hope I will not disappoint him and my other teachers who have also been encouraging more active play.

In-seong Hwang is going to be in attendance at the U.S. Go Congress this year. I had attended his lectures at the Congress in 2018 and 2019, but I can't really say that I ever actually met him because we were not introduced, nor did we speak. I am looking forward to actually meeting him this year. He says that he recognizes a great many names of the attendees as current or former students.

Now for the usual weekly information...

It was a light week for go activity with only about 24 hours spent.

I took a bit of a break this week and played mostly only those games that I needed to play for leagues, though I did play one rated game on OGS.

Notably I spent nearly three hours editing and reviewing the file from my lesson with Yilun Yang last week. I want to get the most from my lessons with Yang during my third stint at lessons with him. I still have some lessons from seven years ago that have not yet been edited. That is not going to happen this time.

Something else I did last week was spending a good deal of time playing around with SmartGo One. I want to be adept at using it for game recording by the time I get to the Congress.

My Week of Go Activities - BenKyo Speed Run

 

The big event this week was BenKyo's speed run from 8 kyu to 8 dan on Fox. Actually he did not make it all the way to 8 dan because a lot of the weaker players didn't know how to resign. He devoted 12 hours per day to the Speed Run over the course of three days. I was in attendance for more than two thirds of that time. It definitely dominated my activities this week.

The Speed Run was supposed to be two days, but due to the generosity of the people in the stream, who gifted a great many subs, the event was expanded to three days.

An additional goal was created for a future 12 hour special stream event with a variety of activities. Once again, the stream stepped up, and that goal was met as well. This event will take place soon.

I clocked nearly 48 hours on Go Activity this week.

I had great lessons this week with Yilun Yang, Ben Mantle, and Clossius. I am truly blessed.

I'd like to do a special shout out this week for Ben Mantle's Patreon. Take a look at the great tiers that he offers.

If you check out the VOD from the last day of the Speed Run you can catch one of my lessons with Ben at about the 11:07:00 mark. This VOD will expire in about a week.

Get on Ben's Discord server and watch his live streams to learn if studying with BenKyo Baduk is right for you.