The Hand of God

 

The image you see above is the icon created to represent The Hand of God which is the most prestigious title one can earn in the BenKyo League Title Tournament.  The Title Tournament (aka TT) is one of the ongoing monthly tournaments of the BenKyo League. The other ongoing monthly tournament is the Main League.

In the Title Tournament you are allowed to play every other member of BenKyo League as many as three times per month.  You earn 3 points for winning a game and you earn 2 points for losing a game.  With participation being rewarded so generously it is very possible to be competitive in winning a title simply by upping your participation. In the Main League you play in a small group of people near you level.

About five days before the end of January I saw that I had about 20 points accumulated for TT games. At that time I decided to get competitive about trying to reclaim the Hand of God title. I had held it two times previously.  In fact, I held it the first two months that the Title Tournament was in existence. It had been a long time since I tried to claim any titles much less the coveted Hand of God.  I played a good number of TT games in the last five days of the month, and also played a few more Main League games hoping to get enough points to win First Place in my Main League group.

My efforts paid off.  The results of the month are published in a pdf magazine for BenKyo League members.  Below are screen captures from the January magazine which show my results.

I managed to get 1st Place in B-Group. That prize comes not only with glory, but with a 60 minute Semi-Private Lesson with Ben.

The answer to the question of whether I had done enough to reclaim my 7k status is a resounding, "Yes!" Here I am listed among the BKL Promotions from January.

Now for how I did in the Title Tournament:

I managed to win three of the five Special Titles (based on specialized criteria).

Last, and most importantly, I was able to reclaim the most prestigious of the High Honors titles (based on simple criteria).  A player may earn only one of those titles in any month. The Hand of God is  awarded first. Then that player is exempt from the remaining three titles and the exemptions continue until all four of the High Honors titles are granted. 

I was happy to receive the three less prestigious Special Titles, but the only one I really cared about was The Hand of God. It is going to be my goal to reclaim my place at the top of the list showing who has won The Hand of God, and how often they have won it. It will undoubtedly take quite a while to achieve that goal.

Currently I am 3rd on that list.

The list is maintained in The Hall of Fame channel on the BenKyo Discord Server.

I now need to win four more times to take first place on that list.  There is no guarantee that working hard to schedule games will get me there, but I intend to try. It is likely to take more than four months to do it. The competition will be tough.

Here are lists of all of the available titles in the Title Tournament:

I'm so pleased with myself that I changed my OGS Profile Picture. Its meaning would not be obvious to anyone but the members of BenKyo League.  The HOG image was created for the BKL magazine after there was a discussion on the Discord server about the difficulty of achieving The Hand of God.  I had said that "That HOG is a slippery pig." That was a number of months before I decided to try to chase down and grab that hog again.

If you have suffered through my bragging today I hope that I have sparked your interest in BenKyo League.  

We have two recurring regular leagues every month, plus recently a third special league. Last month it was the Level-Up Challenge to give players an opportunity to earn extra ratings points. This month it is The Hero Mode Tournament: Ace of Diamonds in the Frost Dragon's Core. It involves beginning the game from a set position on the board and using negative Komi for rank differences of two stones and above.

On the fence about joining? 

Any time is the right time to join BKL. There is no waiting for the end of a month, nor for the beginning of a new Season.  We are suitable for 3d through beginners. If you choose to join based on what you have seen here please tell Ben when you sign up that buzzsaw sent you.  We have a generous referral program. For each member you bring it at the League level or above you get a 30 minute Semi-Private Lesson with Ben.

If you have questions feel free to ping me on Ben's Discord in one of the free channels, or you can direct message me.  I am buzzsaw.

Now for my usual go content:

It was an active week for Go Activity with nearly 20 hours spent.  I always feel good when the amount of time I spend on Live Play comes in as the top activity,  and at more than 25%.  I feel as if that is a good balance for me.

I see that Watching Others came in quite low at 1.3%, but that is most likely because I often forget to log my time when I am doing it. I watch others play quite often.

I got in six games last week, all of them being League Games.

I got a good start on the new cycle of AYD winning my first game. However that was to be expected since the order of games starts with the highest placed player in each group playing the lowest placed player in the group.  I had fallen from C2 to C3 this cycle and I landed at the top of the group.

There are nearly 300 rating points between myself and my opponent this week. That is the equivalent of three ranks. As a result I only gained 5 points from my victory. In contrast to that last week I lost 11 points for my loss to an opponent who gained 13 points for his victory. 

The major disadvantage of being at the top of the lowest group is that your wins don't count for much.  It isn't as bad as it used to be though when the gap in rank could be nearly 5 ranks.  The higher groups usually have differences in rank between about 100 to 200 points while the gap in the lowest group is about 300 points.