My Week of Go Activities - I broke 100K Clossius Channel Points

 

I have been watching Clossius teaching on his Twitch Stream since at least December of 2020. I took a screen capture last week of the moment I broke 100K Channel Points,  and I want to provide Clossius with a shout out today. 

By the way, Clossius is going to be at the U.S. Go Congress next week, and I will get to meet him in person for the first time. This is after taking 70 lessons with him over the course of  a year and a half. 

In order to help finance his trip to the Congress Clossius has offered a fantastic deal on a package of lessons. This package should still be available on his Kofi website as of this writing, but it may disappear at any time... for certain by the end of August.  He is selling a package of 12 lessons for only $400.00 which is a deep discount over his single lesson price of $50.00 Do the math people.

The advertisement is over.

Here is how my week looked:

I put in over 29 hours on Go Activity last week with live play taking up over six hours even though I played only four games.

One of the things I did last week was to prepare for the long time limits in the U.S. Open by playing a game with another BenKyo Baduk student using 90 minutes of main time. That game took an amazing three hours to play. We had many observers come and go during that epic game. They left comments and variations in the game which we were able to view later.

I decided to have Ben Mantel review that epic game using 90 minutes of my Twitch Time. Dedicated Twitch Time is a benefit of my membership to Ben's Patreon. My time with Ben on Twitch is available to me as Highlight Videos. I'm posting a link to that review. 

If you are interested in getting dedicated Twitch Time like that with Ben please take a look at his Patreon Tiers. Personal Twitch time starts at Tier 4. Additionally, you can earn Twitch Time as a prize for winning 1st or second place in your League at the Tier 3 level. If you choose to join one of Ben's Tiers please mention that buzzsaw sent you because I can earn some Twitch time through Ben's new Referral System if you stick around.

I've been playing less, and studying more, as the Congress approaches. I've completed three private lessons with In-seong Hwang this week and really enjoyed the experience.

I can't wait for the Congress.

I hope to see some of you there. Look for the gray haired elderly woman with the number 8 on her name tag, and tell her that you have followed her blog. I would be happy to meet you.

My Week of Go Activities - Watching Hikaru No Go

 

This week I added a new Category to my Go Activities. I've decided to finally watch Hikaru No Go. I had watched a handful of episodes previously, but never got very far with it.

The rest of my go week looks like this:

It was quite an active week coming in at nearly 38 hours for Go Activities. 

Something I have added back is Watching Others Play. I had stopped counting that time, but I am trying to observe the games of others in a more active way so I feel it is worth counting it.

I played very few games this week so my Live Play was down.

Live Play will be down again next week because I am going to concentrate on replaying my games on a real board. Clossius has wanted me to do that and I was resistant to the idea, but with the Congress coming up, I think it would be helpful to me to be looking at real stones on a real board. Replaying those games is going to take time. Additionally, I want to devote time to playing out some recent lessons with Ben Mantle on a real board, especially memorizing a few sequences he wants me to commit to memory.

It is two weeks now until the U.S. Go Congress and I am getting excited.

My Week of Go Activities - Playing a BenKyo Baduk Lesson on a Real Board

 

In one of my lessons this week with BenKyo Baduk (Ben Mantle) we went over a joseki. He wants me to begin practicing its use in my games. I said I would play it out a real board first so I decided to watch my lesson video with a real board. I also played out a few other highlights of the lesson.

I was especially interested in starting to play things out on a real board because I have not played a game across the board in nearly three years. The last time was at the 2019 Go Congress in Madison. I don't want to be at a disadvantage when I sit down to play at the Congress.

Aside from enjoying my lesson on a real board, this is how the rest of my week looked:

It was a relatively light week on Go Activity with about 23 hours spent. Nearly seven of those hours were spent on Live Play. Nine games were played. Many of them were League Games.

I'm looking forward to the U.S. Go Congress in a few weeks. I'm really excited. I'll be meeting friends I made over the last three years in the Yunguseng Dojang. I will also be meeting new friends from the BenKyo Baduk Discord server.

My Week of Go Activities - Special Training with In-seong Hwang

 

This summer In-seong Hwang is offering something very special. He is offering pre Congress private lessons and post Congress game reviews. I signed up right away when I heard about this. So did a number of others. The three lesson packages were sold out the same day they were announced. There were only 13 of the packages and they went very fast. This prompted In-seong to add more lesson packages in August. 

My 90 minute private lessons will take place on KGS using Discord voice. I'll get to speak in these lessons. I will get three of them on three consecutive days about a week before the U.S. Go Congress begins.

The second part of the Special Training consists of a two hour private review during which we will go over my five Congress games, or any five games of my choosing. it remains to be seen if I am going to do well with recording.

I'm going to have a lesson heavy month in July with private lessons from four teachers. 

I look forward to seeing In-seong at the Congress. I attended his lectures at two Congresses in the past but did not actually meet him before.

I am in the C1 league in AYD this cycle and expect to be losing all of my games. I have risen to a level where it is not really possible for me to compete, but I am going to try my best. In my AYD game last night I had to play even against a 3k. I failed miserably. In-seong asked me if I play mostly stronger players, which is the case. He suggested that I play 3 stone handicap games against weaker players to practice fighting back from a lost position. I believe that Clossius gave pretty much the same advice once. So I guess it is time to try to make those handicap games happen.

The is what my week looked like this:

It was a light week for go activity with only 23 hours spent.

Live play came in at first place at over seven hours.

I was asked to play some rated games this week, but I am afraid that Clossius is going to be disappointed. 

It was the final week of the month and I had to hustle to get in league games in the BenKyo Leagues. I expect to get a few titles in the BenKyo Free League (soon to be renamed the BenKyo Title Tournament). I also expect to win the BenKyo B League again.

Ben will be disappointed about something this week too.

He asked me to start playing different openings in my games that are not league games. Unfortunately, all of my games were League Games this week.

Tsumego suffered this week.

I must do better.