My Week of Go Activities - Shared Go Lesson Taught by BenKyo Baduk

 

I did better logging time for Essential Go Activities this week. I logged nearly eight hours and over five of them were devoted to Live Play. I put in another 16 hours on Non Essential Go Activities which included lessons and watching videos.

I played six games and won only two of them, but they were both by resignation. The four games I lost were all very close, one of them a 0.5 loss. So I felt that I had a good week.

I could have played more games, but I got tied up with a long lesson Thursday night.

Ben Mantle tried something new with me and a player very close to my level who is a good friend of mine. We shared a lesson which went a little over three hours. We each used 90 minutes of our time for the lesson and got a game reviewed. In addition to that we ended up discussing some life and death situations. It was an interesting way to study together. The other player and I have been sharing our lesson video links with each other since we started taking lessons with Ben, so it was logical that he would come up with the idea of combining our lessons to see how it would go. I'd consider doing it again on occasion. It might be really good as a public stream where we use our Twitch Time.

Anyone considering lessons with Ben should check out his Patreon Tiers. There you can see what all of the Tiers have to offer. I recommend Tier 3 as the best starting point. If you join at that level you get three group lessons a month and nearly unlimited league play.

My Week of Go Activities - Low Activity Week

 

Whoops. I meant to do more Go Problems this week, but failed.

I spent about four hours on Essential Go Activities, most of which were devoted to Live Play.

I played six games this week.

There is nothing to brag about this week. Non Essential Go Activities logged in at about 13 hours.

I'll do better next week.

My Week of Go Activities - Joseki Study

 

Before I show my Essential Go Activities chart for the week I would like to talk about my recent homework from Ben Mantle. Ben decided that some joseki study would be a good addition at this point in my go development.

The diagram above is from AI Sensei. It is from the game that Ben and I reviewed in my lesson from September 1st. In that game I had stepped back when my opponent played the q17 wedge. Ben told me that I should have given atari from the outside, and AI clearly agrees. Ben spent about 15 minutes of our 90 minute lesson explaining how this joseki can go.

Ben suggested that I memorize this and use it in my games. Not only should I give atari at A when I am black, but I should also try wedging at q17 as white. 

I definitely saw the value of learning this joseki,  but I was skeptical of my ability to memorize it simply by rewatching the video a number of times. I decided to invest a good deal of time creating a demo file to study. 

Rather than using the sgf of the review on OGS as a starting point I decided to create the demo file from scratch in SmartGo One on my iPad while watching the video of my lesson. The fact that OGS numbers the moves of a variation was quite helpful in this process. I needed to watch a few seconds at a time and add the variations in the demo file while meticulously typing in Ben's comments. This process helped to cement the variation in my mind.

The aim was to be able to review the sgf file at my own pace and read the comments so I would be able to understand the reasons behind the moves. I am not proud that it took me about three hours to create this demo file. However, I am pleased that after doing so it only took me between 30 minutes to an hour to be able to master replaying the main line of this joseki. Below is the main line of the joseki without the forcing moves white gets to play at the end starting at n17. 

There are some other gems I need to memorize from some of my other lessons with Ben, and I think that I can probably do better creating the demo files in the future now that I have made one successfully.

I even played out the joseki on a real board.

Above I have played the joseki out with one of white's forcing move continuations. This can actually be played out with the black shimari facing in the opposite direction and also with switching the colors. So it can be played out 16 different way.

I'm looking forward to doing more joseki study.

Now for my Essential Go Activities chart:

I spent over eleven hours on Essential Go Activities this week with nearly seven and a half hours spent on Live Play.

I started my week with wins and ended my week with wins, but had a streak of losses in the middle. I played eleven games this week. Many of my games were BenKyo League Title Tournament games. I have decided that I am going to be competitive this month in the Title Tournament.

I engaged in about 13 hours of Non Essential Go Activities this week.  Over three of those hours were devoted to my Joseki Homework from Ben. My method is hardly efficient, but it is rewarding.

I was a little light on Go Problems this week and I intend to do better next week.

My Week of Go Activities: Played Lots of Games

 

I spent about six and a half hours playing go this week.

Keeping with my method of only tracking three Essential Go Activities, my Go Week clocked in at a little over nine hours.

I was a little light on reviewing my games, though there was a good deal of review during lessons. That time, however, was not recorded as Essential Go Activity.

I played 14 games this week, one of them was a teaching game with Yilun Yang. I continued with our usual lesson activity of doing a teaching game because I didn't feel as if I had a good collection of games to use for review.

I am hoping that if I continue to play a large number of games that I will be able to select a few games to use for review in our next lesson.

Though I am showing details on only the Essential Go Activities this week, I did record other activities. I spent a little over 11 hours on Nonessential Go Activities such as lessons and watching go videos.

In my lesson with Ben Mantle on Wednesday we decided to put an emphasis on looking at attacking in my game reviews. In preparation for my lesson on Thursday I played four games as BuzzKill on KGS. We reviewed three of them. I'm going to keep trying to play more games as BuzzKill and working to recognize the weaknesses of my opponent.

In our Thursday lesson Ben showed me that I should play at 1 in the upper right and how to continue. I'm supposed to memorize this.

I think I'm going to have to make a demo file and type in the explanations from the lesson. That ought to help me.