Two Weeks of Go Activity: And Congress Report

 

This is my room at the Congress as I am getting ready to leave and return home. Notice the food containers piled up on the floor. They were delivered to me three times a day when I was stuck in my room for four days after testing positive for Covid on Wednesday, the day off.

The Congress handled the situation well, and they had a number of confirmed cases before the end of the Congress.

Notice the bunk bed with the plastic mattress. This was where I spent four days waiting to be able to leave. Next year I think I am going to have to swing for an actual hotel room. It won't cost a lot more and if I get stuck in it with Covid I will at least have a comfortable bed, a TV, and access to room service.

This is how I spent four days. I was really glad I decided to bring the laptop. I seriously believed I would only use it at the airport. How wrong I was.

I can't complain about the way the Congress handled things. They did deliver food from the cafeteria three times a day and even picked up my medication from the local CVS. I had a tele health meeting with my GP in my dorm room on Wednesday and I had my drugs by late afternoon the same day. I started my dosage that evening.

I have only myself to blame for catching Covid because I became complacent and removed my mask because nearly no one was wearing one. But wearing a mask indoors is not going to be enough next year unless I am able to remove food from the cafeteria and eat outside. I'm hoping I can do that.

I am 2:0 now with Covid at the Congress. I caught it last year and I caught it this year. I'm coming again next year and I hope to make it through without Covid for the first time.

Well that is enough about Covid.

Here is what my Go Activity looked like the week of the Congress and the week after.  I did not keep track of activities so there is no pie chart.

I managed to play three games in the Open.  I was 2:1 at the time that Covid Struck. The game I lost was only by 2.5 points so I feel pretty good about that.

One of the highlights of the Congress was playing a simul game with Yilun Yang. I took nine stones and did fairly well. The best part was when Yang came by and looked at my move and said, "Good." before he played his move. 

Yang ponders the board of the player next to me. Clossius is in the background thinking about his next move. Clossius won his game. I had to resign mine eventually.

My biggest disappointment of the Congress was being unable to play Pair Go with Ben Mantle. We had prepared for it and were excited about it. Ben did manage to substitute someone else and play Pair Go after all. I am happy about that.

Clossius reviewed my first game during a lecture on teaching Go to DDK Players.

My second game was reviewed by Mateusz Surma a pro who has written a series of problem books titled "You won't get dumber while thinking". 

There was a surprise ending to that game and he did a double take on my iPad when he saw the mistake that black made. After the review I bought two of his books. I got him to sign them.

These are the ones I bought. However, after attempting the problems in the easiest book I decided that I ought to get the two books that are easier. I found them on Amazon and had them delivered.

I have finished the problems through problem 16 in the easiest book without missing any. What I need to do is to find a way to have my husband check my work on these problems so he can tell me if I got them right or wrong. I don't want to run the risk that I will answer incorrectly but see the correct answer when I check on myself.

I did a few unranked self paired games at the Congress. I did at least one Baum game but didn't bother to enter that into my game record. I missed entering one of my self paired as well.

I was allowed to attend the Banquet at the Congress on Saturday night because it was determined that it was safe for me to be there with a mask.  I had to eat outside the banquet hall and there were two other Covid people who were allowed to attend the banquet. We found each other and ate together outside the banquet hall at a table in the hallway.

I managed to make it home Sunday afternoon later than expected. My flight was delayed by quite a bit, but it was not nearly as bad as last year when I had to spend about ten hours in the Denver airport because my flight was canceled and I had to fly into a different airport to get home. My husband provided me with Chinese food when I arrived home which I was grateful for. 

I isolated for a couple more days upstairs though I probably would have been fine just wearing a mask and having free movement throughout the house. My husband wanted to be conservative though so my second isolation period began in a bedroom upstairs. On Tuesday I tested negative. My isolation continued for two more days and I tested negative again on Thursday after which my husband was willing to be in the same room with me.

During my isolation I started to play go again.

I needed to play my final game of the AYD season on Tuesday night. I actually did pretty well in that game and almost won it, but I didn't. I've signed up for the next two seasons of AYD. There are only a few seats left at this point.

I played 14 games in the week following the Congress. Only one of them was a serious league game. The rest were either on Fox or were played with the new beta feature of AI Sensei where you can establish a rank for yourself and play against humanlike bots designed to be the strength of OGS players. This feature is free until the end of August and will be a feature of all paid accounts after that. So give it a try and see how you like it.

I started at 9k which seemed right because I won some and lost some and it took me ten games to rank up to 8k.

A few of my friends are trying this new feature of AI Sensei and it will be interesting to see if their ranks pan out to be the same as their OGS ranks. My AI Sensei rank has already exceeded my 9k OGS rank, but I expect that if I bothered to play rated on OGS I could probably raise it to 7k.

I have decided to take a break from serious play for the remainder of the month so I have blocked off my Calendly so there are no slots available until August begins.

I'm feeling down because of the Go Congress. I missed half of it and I feel as if I wasted a lot of money and got an unpleasant experience. It was much worse this year because last year I didn't have symptoms until the end of the Congress and tested positive after I got home. This year I tested positive halfway through the Congress so it was really quite terrible and depressing. Even though I had a laptop with me I didn't want to use it to play go because of simply wanting to escape into sleep the first few days and then because of the brain fog from Covid.  I think that is why I like playing the AI Sensei beta. I'm not dealing with a human being. There is nothing to be embarrassed about.

I'll keep playing the beta for the rest of the month and see how I do. Clossius wanted something rated to assess. Now I have something for him to look at.