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.