My Go Teacher: Yilun Yang

I think I have a reputation for collecting go teachers, so I thought I would do a series of posts highlighting each of my many go teachers in the order in which I added them to my Educational Team.

My first go teacher was Yilun Yang, 7p.

I met Mr. Yang at a workshop he conducted in 1997 in Highland Park, New Jersey. It was a very special event since there were only seven of us in attendance. It was a much smaller group than I have seen at any of the other Yang Workshops I attended. 

Some people thought that I was too weak to attend a workshop with a professional player, but I was really glad I decided to go. I got an early introduction to Mr. Yang's principles, which he would later publish in his book The Fundamental Principles of Go. For years the only way to learn his principles was to take lessons with Yang or to attend one of his workshops. I was lucky enough to do both.

I saw Mr. Yang again a few months later at the 13th U.S. Go Congress which was not only my first Congress but also my first tournament.  By January of 1998 I had decided that I was ready to begin lessons with Mr. Yang. I started with two hour lessons on alternate Saturday mornings.

My lessons with Mr. Yang have always been text only. We started on IGS, the Internet Go Server. At the time IGS did not have the teaching facilities that KGS was later to develop, so I was not getting the full benefit of our first 13 lessons. If I had been a stronger player I might have been able to go back after the lesson to add comments and variations, but I was not able to do that as a 19 kyu. At the 1998 Go Congress I suggested to Mr. Yang that we spend the first hour of our lessons playing. I asked him to later spend an hour offline reviewing the game for me so I would have comments and variations to review. We continued in that fashion until I introduced Mr. Yang to KGS. We resumed two hour live lessons of play and review on KGS. This allowed for interaction during review and provided me with a game record to study later which included all of the comments and variations.

I've studied off and on with Mr. Yang since 1998 with two gaps. One was a four year gap and the other was an eight year gap. So I have 13 years of lessons with Mr. Yang so far.

In 2022 I came back to lessons with Mr. Yang and I have completed 40 lessons in my third series of lessons. Some of my lessons are still teaching games, but often I bring games to review.

For lessons 37 and 38 I brought Mr. Yang games to review. I am currently taking 90 minute lessons, and when I bring him games I bring only two so he can spend about 45 minutes on each game. I often bring games from leagues I play in. The two games I brought him for lesson 38 were both from the American Yunguseng Dojang. Those games do get reviewed by In-seong Hwang or one of his co teachers, but those reviews are about 15 minutes in length and address both players. I sometimes find it beneficial to get a 45 minute review from my side only for those important games.

Notice that I have two numbers assigned to each lesson. The first number is the number in the current set of lessons that I started in 2022. The second number is the number of the lesson since I started taking lessons with Mr. Yang. I have currently taken 376 lessons with Mr. Yang as the table shows. I plan to continue because one of the things that defines me is that I am a student of Yilun Yang.

For my lessons with Mr. Yang I have two sub tasks in my Go Activities app:

After my lesson I like to go back and edit comments. Sometimes comments get scattered a bit in the file because of moving from one area of the game to another. I like to fix that. I also like to move questions about next moves to right before the variations so it is easier to follow the review later especially for someone I share the file with.

While I have 336 lessons from previous sets of lessons with Yang, I am putting my emphasis upon reviewing my current 40 lessons and getting the most from them. I may even create problems in AI Sensei for each of the lessons.

Now for my usual Go Activities content:

I spent 18 hours on Go Activities last week which is an increase in activity over the past couple of weeks.

I played nine games last week with one of them being a Teaching Game with Mr. Yang.

I played three games on the Fox go server and am currently two games short of a double rank up from 11k to 9k.

I am excited, yet nervous, about the prospect of another double rank up on the heels of my recent double rank up from 13k to 11k.  My current record is undefeated which is fun to see. It is a sandbagging account though designed to allow me to focus my attention on my opponent's weaknesses which is something I often miss.

My Week of Go Activities

 

It was another light week for Go Activity with fewer than 14 hours spent.

Tsumego Dragon came in as the top activity at about two and a half hours.

It was a very light week for Live Play with only two games played.

I had a disastrous last game in the most recent Go Magic season. I ended up with only two wins, and one of those was by forfeit.

I have a lesson next Friday with Clossius so I'm going to need to play some games to get ready. Maybe I will have him look at my Go Magic losses.

Listening to the Star Point Podcast

I have recently started to listen to the Star Point podcast produced by Justin Oh. I listen to it through the Apple Podcast app, but I am sure you can find it on your preferred podcast app.

I was surprised to enjoy listening to someone talk about Go, Baduk, Weiqi without any reference to visuals of any kind. Since I intend to continue to listen to Star Point I decided to create a sub category for it under my Miscellaneous Study category where I list activities for which I do not plan to have sub categories.

I'd like to explain a change in the way I am naming my blog posts moving forward. Previously I would title each blog post beginning with "My Week of Go Activities". I would then add to the title anything extra I was blogging about that week, and I would begin my blog with that extra content. Moving forward I will simply title my posts with the additional content and no mention of Go Activities which I will continue to add at the bottom of my post. I am doing this because I am sharing my blog posts on the AGA web site where there is a limit to the number of characters I can use for a title.

Now for my usuals Go Activities content:

I put in nearly 12 hours on Go Activity last week which is very low for me.  I did manage to bring in Live Play at the top position with nearly three hours of time spent.

I played six games last week, one of which was a teaching game during a lesson with Yilun Yang, 7p. Of the remaining games, four were League Games, and one was the correspondence game I started with someone I met at the Princeton Go Club when I attended their special teaching event last month.

I was lucky to kill something in that game. The black group on the bottom died early in the game. I am white. I am not a fan of correspondence play especially not rated, but I enjoyed this game.

I am still taking a break from play insofar as I am not seeking out any games. I am only playing the games that are scheduled with me in leagues I am committed to. I am also playing teaching games with teachers when I have lessons. I'm able to get away with this lower level of activity for a while because I don't have lessons scheduled with Clossius during most of December on account of the Holiday season. It is a nice break for me, and even with the break I played six games this week. I suspect that is more than most casual players play.

I might log into Fox and play a few games in the coming week. I will need games for Clossius for our next lesson scheduled for December 29th. That gives me two weeks to get enough games together for two hours of game review with him.

I hope my readers are having a happy Holiday season.

My Week of Go Activities: Wrapping Up Season 6 of NAOL at 4:1

I've finished Season 6 of NAOL a day early with a record of 4:1. My first game was a serious loss, but I managed to squeak by with wins in my final four rounds. I'm looking forward to season seven beginning probably some time after the new year begins. Perhaps I will see an increase in my NAOL rank which is currently at 12k and three stones below my OGS rank and two stones below my AGA rank. I'd feel like a sandbagger if it were not for the fact that the other members of my division were in the same position with NAOL ranks lagging behind OGS ranks.

I'm not doing nearly as well in the Go Magic League where I have a 2:2 record with one of my wins being by Forfeit.

Now for weekly activity report:

I put in a mere 15 hours on Go Activity last week with the top activity being Watching Others play.

I played four games last week with all of them being League games. I actually played two NAOL games on the same day.

I am in no hurry to ramp up the number of games I am playing.

My Week of Go Activities: Reading Go Books

 

My top Go Activity last week was Studying Go Books which came in at exactly six hours. I decided to read a series of books called "Black to Play" and I finished the first two books in the series, and I just about managed to finish the third book.

I am reading these books on the SmartGo One app. So far these books are a great introduction to the game. I didn't have any trouble answering anything in the first two books. Surprisingly, I did have a bit of trouble with some of the problems in the third book which is ranked at 20k to 15k. It was mostly tesuji problems I was having trouble with if I recall correctly.

I have the remaining books in the series to read and I may pause on the series after the fourth book which should take me to 10k.

Now for my usual Go Activities summary:

I spent nearly 27 hours on Go Activities last week. It was a fairly active week for me, but I was not active with Live Play.

I got in only three games last week. They were all games that I had to play for a league. I didn't play any games on Fox nor did I seek out random games of any sort.

One thing I did, which is unusual for me, is to go into depth with self review on one of my games. I spent nearly two hours reviewing my NAOL game.

When I had my lesson with Ben I had him open my review and I handed him control. That way he was able to see the comments I had made about my own game as he was doing his review.

I actually typed in comments when I reviewed the game which is probably why it took so long to do the review. I went over it on my own first and then I did look at AI. 

If anyone cares to look at my self review you can find it here. There are variations in this file from Ben's review as well as my own, but there are no typed comments from Ben, just variations. The cool thing is that handing the control to Ben to review my game will allow me to type in some of his comments later if I feel like it. I'm not sure if I will do that, but it is nice to know that I can.

What I found interesting during my review with Ben is that I had a really vivid memory of the game because I had spent so much time on the review myself first. I had a real feel for what I considered to be the story of the game and I told it to Ben. I knew pretty well what was coming up as Ben reviewed the game. 

Contrast that experience with the fact that usually by the time Ben or Clossius reviews one of my games in a lesson I have very little memory of what I played next in any given situation.  That might be because I usually play eight or more games in a week, and I play rather quickly. I felt as if I was better prepared to ask questions during the lesson because of having spent the time on the review. It was a nice experience.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I spent over 22 hours on Go Activities last week.

Nearly five hours of time was spent on Live Play

I played six games last week. One of them was a teaching game with Clossius during one of his streams. The remainder of the games were league games.

Considering that I only logged the league games as Live Play I spent about one hour on each of my league games on average which is a lot longer than I spend on Fox games. Granted my opponents used more clock time than I did, but it was time spent on Live Play and I was often using their clock time to count or otherwise analyze the board.

Clossius reviewed my NAOL Game for me. If you are interested in watching that review you can find it here. My game is the first of three games that Clossius reviewed for the NAOL last Wednesday night. He reviews weekly for NAOL when the league is in season.

My defeat at the hands of NickBee in my NAOL Game was decisive. I never felt as if I was in control of that game. It pleases me though that I was able to let that loss roll off my back. I was simply outplayed every step of the way, and that happens sometimes.

My Week of Go Activities: Attended Princeton Go Club "Alpha Go" Screening and Teaching Event

 

On Sunday, November 11th I attended the Princeton Go Club for the first time in over five years. The club has been meeting post pandemic with a rather fluid schedule based on when members want to get together.  They have a Discord server. The purpose of the server is primarily to arrange meetings. I've been on the server for awhile, and I have wanted to attend a meeting for quite some time now. I found a member willing to give me a ride to a meeting and decided that I should get there this week.

Sunday Princeton Go Club had a special event at the Princeton Public Library which included a viewing of the film "Alpha Go" after the screening there was a brief presentation on the rules of the game, followed by opportunities for the public to play with club members.

The photo at the top was take from the back of the room during the presentation about the rules.

More photos to follow:

Tables were ready for people to play.

I noticed from the initial setup of the boards that they had some rather small sized 19x19 boards available for use. I was glad that I brought a number of wooden 9x9 board with me and some boxes of Ing stones to use with them. I went about putting those small board on the tables incase people wanted to start with 9x9.

The small boards got a lot of use with the 19x19 boards mostly getting pushed to the side,  at least for the beginners.

Since I am not a member of the club, and most of the club members have never even met me, I largely stood back and observed after making my boards available. I probably interjected more comments than were appreciated during teaching, however. Sometimes I just can't help myself.

It was a nice event, and I actually have a correspondence game going on OGS already with one of the attendees.

I am hoping to attend some regular club meetings in the near future.

Now for my usual weekly Go Activities Content:

I put in a little over 17 hours on Go Activities last week. That is a bit on the low level for me. Live Play came in as the top activity.

There was a lot of BenKyo Blue on my Go Beach Ball this week from four different activities.

I played seven games this week. Four of those games were league games. The remaining games were played on the Fox Go Server.

I was playing on Fox with my newly earned rank of 11k on my sandbagging account which is five ranks lower than my legit account.

The three Fox games were Shadow Go Games played with the help of an OGS 3k friend. It is nice to have some instant feedback on my ideas in a game.

I'm feeling a little better about my go today. I'm not as much in crisis as I was last week, but I am still vehemently denying that I want to get stronger. That is the way I am protecting myself.

Go Magic Games are already in progress and NAOL games are starting soon. The current AYD season will be ending soon and there will be a month off before the next season.

My Week of Go Activities: Going Through a Go Crisis

 

This game sparked my Go Crisis. I'll have more to say about that later.

I've been kind of taking a break from go this week. I dedicated only a little more than eleven hours to Go Activity this week, which is really low for me. 

I'm going through a bit of a crisis wondering whether I really want to care about getting stronger.  Trying to improve doesn't seem to be good for me psychologically. 

The go community is my life so there is no question that I want to continue to be active in the community.  The BenKyo League is the center of my social life. I enjoy taking lessons because I like spending time with my teachers. I live for the week I am able to attend the U.S. Go Congress every year, but caring about improving is starting to feel dangerous.

I notice that I have become increasingly afraid to play and that I am bothered by specific kinds of losses. Not all losses bother me. Close losses don't bother me. Even large losses where I have simply been outplayed at every step of the game don't bother me. Those opponents are just better than I am. There is nothing about those losses that threaten my sense of well being.

Losses as a result of fights are another matter altogether and they are what bother me. This is probably because I don't fight by choice, and I know that fighting is the weakest area of my game. Any loss where something really terrible happens bothers me. It has always been that way, but I used to be able to shrug it off after a little reflection. That doesn't seem to be the case any more. It is taking me longer to shrug those losses off.

Recently I had a loss in the American Yunguseng Dojang that particularly bothered me. It involved a big fight that made it necessary for me to kill a large group of stones to have any chance in the game. I was doing it, but then I made a mistake.

The mistake below lost me the game. I came away from that game wondering why I even bother to play. I don't want to feel that way again, and it seems as if the temporary solution has to be to convince myself that I don't care about winning or getting stronger, and that I play simply to be social.

So until further notice I am just having fun. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

Here once again is my shame:

I am Black. Move 99 was a 42 point blunder.

I did go on to win my next AYD game by 1.5 which helps me feel a little bit better, but I am still not ready to care again yet.

Something else on the bright side is that I finally double ranked up again on Fox with my sandbagging account. I went from 13k to 11k.

Things I am going to do to make myself feel better this week include:

Spending more time on Tsumego

Reviewing some of my previous lessons

Watching go videos on the Go Magic web site.

Playing some Guided Go on Fox with one of my go buddies.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I was lazy and didn't play much. 

I'm just not into it right now. 

I'm not sure what to do to change that.

I hope next week is better.