Congress Journal - Boston 2026

Since I am still having issues getting images onto my blog, today's post will be purely text. I enjoyed spending time with many people I could name, but I will refrain from including names since I don't know how people would feel about being named publicly  in my blog. I do not name my U.S. Open Round Opponents either, though I supposed you can find them on Leago if you are interested.

Friday, July 24th

I flew in and arrived in the late afternoon.  I met up with a BenKyo League member for dinner. We went to an upscale place where I got some nice seafood. After that I checked in at the Congress, unpacked, and got to bed at a decent hour.

Saturday, July 25th

Not much happens the first day of the Congress. People mostly travel and register,  but I like to get on site early. I like meeting up with people I have seen at previous congresses, and trying to mask the fact that I can't recall some of their names. I remember all of their faces well, and their names equally well.  I just have trouble putting them together, especially when there are so many. This comes with the territory of being an old fart, and never being good with names to begin with.  As a teacher I depended heavily on my seating chart. There was a time, quite a while back, when I tried taking pictures of people at Congress with their name tags believing that I would study them later, and hoping that it would help.  It kind of did, but I gave up on that strategy a long time ago.

I played two fun games. One of them was with the TD of the U.S. Open. In that game I lost a group in the middle game, but still had some hope. All hope was given up when I lost a second group.  The interesting thing about the second death is that I saw it coming, and I was quite sure it was going to happen.  I took a photo of it, but I am still having trouble with images in Blogger, so don't expect to see it for a while. 

The second game was with the fellow BenKyo League member I had dinner with the night before. We played an even game for fun. We did it primarily to practice recording with Smart Go One, and to practice using the clock. While we were playing, a mature gentleman who I recognized from the 6th round of the Portland Open sat down to watch us play. He and my BKL friend then played a game which I enjoyed watching.

I was solo for dinner in the hotel bar, or I thought I was solo.  I sat down at a table next to two Congress attendees I know well. We ended up joining our tables, and we were joined by another Congress attendee before long.

I considered playing in the 9x9 tournament.  I had not done that since my first Congress in 1997.  Maybe next year.  Instead I was approached by a very young 3k who asked me to play a Baum game.  The Baum tournament is fun games between children 15 years old or younger, played against adults at least 40 years older that the child.  My perky gray hair will be a beacon to all of them.  In Portland I played six games and got twenty bucks for it and an invitation to be in a group photo.

It turns out that I was asked for more Baum games later in the week, but the timing always happened to be inconvenient, so there were no more Baum games played.

The real action starts tomorrow.

Sunday, July 26th

I woke up at about 3:00 am and was unable to fall back to sleep. I guess I was nervous about my first rated game in two years. I missed the Austin Congress last year because of my husband's health issues.

I lost the first round of the Open.  I had not played rated since two years ago at the Portand Congress.  I was paired today with the same person that I played in round six in Portland. My opponent is technically adept.  I was not at all surprised that he won.  He happened to be the mature gentleman who played my BKL friend yesterday.  I later came to find out from the information on Leago concerning the Baum tournament, that he is 89 years old.  He is my new role model.  I want to be 89 years old at a future Congress dominating the Baum tournament because everyone wants to play me.

After my Open game was over I watched another BKL member finish her game. It was the first time she had played in a tournament, and her opponent had recorded the game. The three of us went downstairs to The Skittles Room, which is where you can review games and talk about them. This keeps the main playing area quiet.

After that I got a "grab and go" lunch from the tables in the lobby and took some time to ping BKL folks about our dinner tonight. Then I took a nap. I woke up several times, but I probably got about two hours of interrupted sleep in the afternoon.

We had a crowd at the BenKyo League dinner. We had 16 people at the table that included a couple of spouses or friends.

It was a nice gathering.

Monday, July 27th

I lost my second game of the U.S. Open today. My opponent was a sweet young man. I did get a picture of him with his name tag. I believe he may have won first place in his division, but I have not been able to find a list of the winners.

Lunch was with two other BKL members at Whole Foods.

At 1:30 pm I attended a DDK Workshop with Shawn Ray. It was titled "The First 30 Moves: How Strong Go Games Begin.  He had a good sized crowd and did a great job. I attended with two other BKL members.

At 3:00 pm I attended the "AGA Future Congress Directors Meeting".  I have no intention of directing a Congress, but I like to keep my finger on the pulse of what is happening. It was very interesting. The Congress in Seattle in 2027 was heavily discussed.  Other things were talked about, but there will be no spoilers from me here.

At 4:00 pm I attended "Real Control" by Michael Chen. 

I had no plans for dinner, and it didn't look as if I was going to get an invite, so once again, I headed solo into the hotel restaurant bar. I sat down at a table and within a few minutes I made eye contact with a go playing stranger walking into the bar who was also solo.  He asked if I was dining along, and I said, "Yes, but you are welcome to join me." We had a nice diner and conversation together.  It is encouraging that on the two occasions so far that I thought I would be alone for dinner, that I ended up with company.  

After three lectures earlier in the day, I was all lectured out.  I knew I couldn't focus on an 8:00 PM lecture, so I headed back to my room and got to bed quite early.

Tuesday, July 28th

I woke up at 5:00 am, which was okay given that I had gotten at least seven hours of sleep.  I learned how to use the coffee maker in my room and enjoyed the Congress mug, which is quite nice. It is now my morning coffee cup.

I went to breakfast alone, but found a BKL friend eating alone and joined him. 

I finally won a game in the Open.  It was round 3, and I ended up playing an 11k who had won her first two games.  We had a nice game which I counted to be a 7.5 point victory for me.  It turned out to be a 6.5 victory, so I thought I had missed the count by one point.  However, I had to pass twice as white, so I had actually counted correctly.

I met up with another BKL member for lunch.  We went to a place where we got sandwiches and had ice cream for dessert.

I attended the second DDK lecture given by Clossius.  He did a really good job on it again. The title of the workshop was "Corner Patterns: Joseki Made Simple".

I attended a pro lecture at 3:00 PM, then I went back to my room to rest before dinner.

I went out for dinner with three friends, and we had the best sushi I had ever had.

Wednesday, July 29th

I went on a tour of MIT and Harvard.

I was so tired I spent the rest of the day resting.  I even took a nap.

I think this might have been the night that I had dinner in the hotel bar alone.  There was only one night when I didn't have company, and I believe that this must have been it.

I didn't look for activity in the evening, and I went to bed early to get a good night's sleep.

Thursday, July 30th

I won my Round 4 game today.  I played someone who reminded me that we had played during one of the pandemic Congresses online. I had given him five stones at the time. I am now 2:2 in the Open.  I am not planning to play rated games outside of the Open. There will be no Self Paired for me, nor the Seniors Tournament, nor Women's Tournament.

I attended a DDK workshop with Gabe Schwartz.  The topic of the workshop was "When to Sacrifice vs. Save Stones". 

I attended a lecture by Ryan Li. The title of the lecture was "Forged in Battle: Go Seigen's Dominance in the Jubango Era".

I had dinner with a BKL member in the hotel bar.

I played pair go with a member of the Princeton Go Club. He is 1 dan and I am 9k, so we were a 4.5 kyu pair. 

We lost our first game and we won our second game. It was probably the highlight of my Congress. We made a really good team.

Friday, July 31st

I won my game in the Open.  It was against a young person, but not an extreemly young person. 

I made a number of big mistakes in the game, but I was far enough ahead that I maintained my lead. We finished fairly quickly. After it was over I watched the game of a fellow BKL member until it was over.  The game was winding down as I approached their board.

I ran into Feng Yun, 9p in the lobby and she recognized me and remembered that I am from New Jersey. I reminded her that I had played her daughter at the Princeton Go Club many years ago. It was probably more than twenty years ago. It felt really good that she recognized me.

I had a grab and go lunch in the hotel lobby. 

Then I attended a DDK Workshop titled "Introduction to Aji" by Nate Morse.

That was followed by "Ahead of the Century: Go Seigen's Harmony and Modern AI Echoes" by Ryan Li

I actually did quite a bit of admin work for the BenKyo League while I was at the Go Congress, especially on Friday.  We have two new members in need of rank Placement for BKL, and we have a season wrapping up at midnight tonight.

Woops.  I was so sure I was going to do my spaced repetition problems every day at the Congress, but I have lost four vacation days.

I attended the DDK Workshop "Basic Introduction to Aji" by Nate Morse.

I attended "Ahead of the Century: Go Seigens' Harmony and Modern AI Echoes" by Ryan Li.

I met up in the lobby with three other people, one of them BKL, and we decided to go out to a seafood place.  I had a nice fried clam dinner.

I had planned to watch the streaming of the US Open Final round by Micheal Redmond online in my room.  But it turned out that there was no commentary online at the time of the event. I headed downstairs to listen in the ballroom, but having washed my hair I was unable to put in my hearing aids, as a result I could hear very little, so I returned to my room and relaxed.

Saturday, August 1st

I lost the 6th round of the Open.  It turned out that I could have won if I had seen that it was possible to turn the upper right corner into a seki.  I did not see that.  I learned a lesson.  I am happy with my 3:3 record. I had stopped recording mid game because I felt as if something might have been off with the record, but it was okay. I had actually missed a critical move in the game, and should have taken time away from the board when I realized it, but I stopped recording and forged on at a much faster pace than I should have because I had stopped recording. Thanks to a kind players to my left I was able to benefit from the fact that his recording device was actually recording my board as well as his.  There must have been some 360 degree thing going on with that recording device.

I attended the DDK Workshop "Basics of Middlegame - Attack and Defense" by Chris Sagner.

I attended the AGA Chapters Assembly.  There was discussion of increasing dues, which passed and will begin as of September 1st.  That includes an increase in the Lifetime Membership option from $1,000.00 to $1,500.00.  So if you have ever considered Lifetime Membership, now is the time to pull the trigger on that. If you made it all the way to this point in my blog post you might be hearing about this before it is announced anywhere else. I suppose if you read this far, you deserve the heads up.

I encouraged members of BKL who did not have other plans to meet at the banquet.  A number of them had already left, but we ended up with a few sitting together at the banquet.

I didn't hang out with anyone after the banquet was over, but rather, went back to the room to pack and get a good night's sleep.

I ended up waking up early and arriving quite early at the airport. I had a wait of over five hours for my flight. I spent my time online, and I am now working on this blog post in the air on the way back to New Jersey.

It was a great Congress.

I really like having the Congress at a hotel. It was great to have everything in one building.  I liked the fact that they didn't have more than one lecture taking place at a time. I didn't feel as if I had to choose.

The only down side of having it at a hotel is that there is no meal plan, and social interaction is reduced because there is no place where everyone eats nearly every meal. Having such a location facilitates interraction. There was a food channel in the Congress Discord which could be used for recommendations and meeting up, but I didn't utilize it.

What would I have done differently? I should probably have tried to prepare a little more to meet up with people for meals rather than leaving it totally to chance. On the few occasions that I went into the hotel bar alone I met up with someone for dinner in all but on occasion. I think I ought to participate in the evening events and attend fewer pro lectures.  I pretend to focus on the pro lectures, but I don't succeed in gaining much from them. I actually enjoy the DDK lectures.  I should do a simul game next time.  I am considering skipping the Open next year and playing in the Senior Tournament instead. If I skip the Open I would be able to position myself in the Skittles room to play Baum games starting at about 10:30 by which time most of the children would have finished their games.

I am very much looking forward to the Congress in Seattle next year.  I am hoping that my participation at the Princeton Go Club will make me comfortable enough with over the board play to feel better about playing rated games at tournaments. I am also looking forward to observing the Princeton Go Club members taking advantage of the opportunity to play self paired rated games which will be submitted once a month through Leago.  There is not yet a starting date for Self Paired through Leago. It is going to be great for people who don't get to tournaments often.

Well, that sums things up.  It is off to the Princeton Club on Wednesday with a go clock which I am going to encourage people to use.

We have less than a year to wait until the next Congress.

Heading Off To Congress

There are no images in this post because I am having trouble with Blogger.  Hopefully I can fix my issue soon, but I am going with just text this time.

I am looking forward to Go Congress in Boston this year.  I didn't attend last year in Austin, and definitely didn't want to miss another year.  I've only missed two years in a row once since my first Congress in 1997.  I didn't attend in 2010 or 2011.

While at Congress I don't track my activity because it is just a pain to do so.  I will give a report upon my return though. I may keep a journal while I am at Congress and post that when I return.

My main goal this year at Congress is to come out of it still being 9 kyu.  It is a struggle each year since 2012 to remain 9 kyu, or to pull myself back up from 10 kyu.  It's not easy riding that rail between DDK and SDK.  Some day I will get back to 8 kyu, which I was in 2012 for a brief moment in time.  

I also want to get through the Congress without consuming a vacation day from my Internet Go School account.  I intend to do my spaced repetition problems every day, preferably before I leave the room for breakfast.

I am up to 13 vacation days from a low of 3 days in the Internet Go School.  It has been quite a while since I consumed a vacation day by accident, and I have gotten my number of problems due per day down to about 30 on average with judicious use of the EASY button.

I didn't blog last week, so I am going to mention two weeks of go activity before I head out. In the absence of images, I'll just mention how many games I played. The last two weeks were light on activity with just four games played.

I should do better than that next week at the Go Congress. I will play at least the six rated games in the U.S. Open.  I won't be playing in the Die Hard on Wednesday since I will be participating in a tour of Harvard and MIT with a friend from BenKyo League and her husband.

Something special about the Congress this year is that my birthday will be happening during the event.  What better way to spend your birthday?

I Might Have Found a Potential Over the Board Rival

I returned to the Princeton Go Club after a week off. I wasn't willing to brave the heat wave we were experiencing last week, so I did not attend.

This week I played two games with a member estimated to be near my rank. I had not yet had a chance to play Kyle who has been studying go for about five months, but does not know his rank.  That was surprising to me, and would suggest that he may not yet have an active presence on any go server.

We played two games.  In the first game we thought we had created a really large seki, but looking at AI later, it became clear that it was never really a seki.  He might have known that all along. I'm not sure. I think Andy, one of the strongest member of the club knew that it was not a seki. He had taken a look and held back from commenting on it. While my stones were doomed to die, I made a pretty bad blunder as the game was finishing up which dispelled any hope that there had ever been a seki, so I resigned. 

I was clicking through the game in AI Sensei later, and followed the progress of a blue move which resulted in a ko fight which white wins to resolve the lower right, while trading the lower left group. Black makes it into bent four in the corner.

In the second game with Kyle I asked for a two stone handicap.  Actually, I kind of demanded a two stone handicap. I was actually quite tired from the first game, and explained that we would be unlikely to finish the second game because BenKyo Baduk was scheduled to review my NAOL game that night. I wanted to be back home to watch the review live. When I needed to leave, we ended the game. It was looking fairly even, and later, when I uploaded the recording I found that it was pretty dead even. B+ 0.2 on AI Sensei.

I posted both of the games to the club Discord server.

In spite of being tired, I am glad that I played the second game because it gave me a good indication that Kyle and I are not too unevenly matched.  Kyle might be a potential rival.  I say potential rival because I'm not sure if a two stone difference is actually rival territory.  I could certainly try to catch up, and he could certainly work on maintaining his rank lead, but I doubt that would be hard for him. I've played for thirty years, and I've worked really hard in the past five years just to stay even at 9k AGA. I've been 9k AGA for 14 years. Kyle is technically adept after just five months of study, with no idea of how strong he actually is, so maybe it isn't really a rival situation except in my own head.  I've played two of the strongest players at the club with varying handicaps, but they are so much stronger than I am that they can't be counted as rivals.

I decided to have Clossius review the two games I played with Kyle in my most recent private lesson with him.  Clossius also reveiwed my most recent game with Andy, who is 2k. I shared a link to that lesson with the members of the Princeton Go Club on their Discord server.

I should mention that Clossius is having a special on packages of go lessons until the end of July. This is the best price he ever offers. It is his Go Congress Special. The package includes 12 one hour lessons for 300 dollars, which comes to just $25.00 per lesson. I stack my lessons with Clossius to create two hour lessons.

If you are interested in this great lesson deal from Clossius you can find it here.

And you can find Clossius's Tsumego Dragon app here.

Now for my usual Go Activities report:

I spent over 18 hours on go activity this week. My top activity was BenKyo Private Lesson REPLAY, which came in at six hours and 18 minutes. I watch my lessons not only to review them, but also to create problems from the games that Ben has gone over during the lesson.  This past week I created 56 AI Sensei problems from just one game with Parker. There is another game with Parker in the lesson that I will be creating problems for in AI Sensei. I just haven't had time to do that yet.

I played five games, two of which were across the board at the Princeton Go Club.

Notice that there is a notes column in my spreadsheet.  For the two games played with Kyle I added notes.  To see a note I simply hover over a cell with a black triangle in the upper right corner of the cell.

l should start adding notes to the games in my spreadsheet more often.

Nakade - I've Been Pronouncing It Wrong For Over 50 Years

Go Magic has a course on Life and Death that I spent a good deal of time with today. In the process of doing so I learned that I have been saying the word nakade wrong for a very long time. I have also been saying piranha wrong too. I trust Vadim on this because he is a linguist. To find out how these two words relate to life and death, you will just need to take the course.  If you are reading this blog, you probably know what the first word means.

Now for my usual Go Activities Report:

It was a very active week for go activities with over 27 hours spent. I spent a great deal of time reviewing a lesson with BenKyo Baduk and making problems from it using AI Sensei.

I did not make it to the Princeton Go Club last week. I played four games last week. One of them was a correspondence game that I finished with BenKyo Baduk as part of my benefits for my Tier 6 on his Patreon.

This week I will be attending the Princeton Go Club again.

I Bought a Standing Desk for Go Activities

I spend so much time on go related activities on the computer. I'll be sitting down, or even reclining in bed for hours. This can't be good for me. I've been eyeing this desk for quite a while and finally decided to get one. I don't intend to use it all the time, but even a couple hours a day of standing has to be better for my health than sitting, or reclining, for six to eight hours a day.

The desk I bought is made by a company called Work From Home Desks. The pieces just slip together and are held in place by other smaller pieces. I should probably get a stool to go with it so I can easily transition from standing to sitting.

I have it set up in my living room next to our TV which is on a base that allows me to swivel it so I can see the screen while standing at the desk. I can imagine watching my lessons on the big screen and replaying the variations on an actual board on the desk.

I used the desk to play my most recent Go Magic game on an actual board while playing on my laptop. I play rather quickly, and this slowed me down a little bit, which is a good thing. There is a very nice laptop support that I bought separately from the same company that I use mostly on the kitchen counter when I am cooking. You can see it in the above image.

After an hour we had gotten this far in the game. It was my first time playing on a real board standing up. I had not built up the stamina for it yet, so I took the laptop and sat down for the remainder of the game, which did not go well, but it was already not going well. I don't blame it on standing though. I just played poorly.

Here is the final board position after about another 30 minutes of play. White managed to get a huge bottom.

We had an observer who kindly left a good number of comments after the game was completed. You can find them here.  This observer is a former member of BenKyo League who is thinking of returning.

Followup On Internet Go School Study Habits Progress:

Wow! Marking some of the problems as easy has really brought down the number of due problems. Today there were only 24 due problems.

I can start watching more lessons and adding more problems now.

Keeping the number of due problems at a reasonable level is a delicate balancing act between marking problem I am able to solve on the first try as good or easy, and marking missed problems as either hard or forgot.  Sometimes I mark missed problems as hard a few times before marking them as forgot.

I got to go club again this week, and about 50% of my games are now being played over the board at club. 

What I wore to club this week:

 

Now for my usual Go Activities Report:

I played five games this week. I lost all but one of them.  I'm not doing very well.

Cleaning Up My Study Habits at The Internet Go School

 

I hit a nice round number of days in a row for the Internet Go School last week, and I am building up my Vacation Days as well, yet I need to do more work on my study habits in regard to this web site.

Recently I have been trying to make sure that I do the minimal number of problems to avoid losing vacation days, but I have ended up accruing large numbers of due problems, which I periodically clear by clicking "hard" on all problem to gain a clean slate. It has become obvious to me that this is a waste of my subscription, so I am working on trying to do more problems each day, and set up some better study habits.

I started by doing more than the minimal ten problems.  You'll see that I was averaging about 45 problems a day from 5th through the 12th of the month, but that wasn't enough to avoid the accumulation of a backlog of problems that was continuing to get larger.  I finally bit the bullet on the 13th, and actually completed my entire backlog rather than clicking the problems away.

The last three days on the chart above represent completing all due problems each day, which results in a 50 point bonus. The dark segment on the 9th shows that I spent some time watching a new video. The image below shows the details.

I ended up adding 8 problems to the training system from that lesson.  The yellow segment that day represents the use of the Quick Look feature of the site. That allows one to solve all of the problems from a lesson outside of the Training System.  This is a great way to preview problems before watching a lesson, but it is also a good way to revisit problems from a lesson as a unit, after they have become separated from each other within the Training System.

Not long ago I came upon a problem which, if I had marked easy, I would not see it again for 29 years. I don't expect to live that long, so I marked it as hard, so I will see it again in 14 years if I am lucky enough to still be alive. I'd like to see this bulky five again some day.  Maybe I will revisit it through Quick Look.

I had to laugh about the problem I encountered a while back that wouldn't be seen again for another 81 years.

On the 16th I decided to do some Quick Look review of problems from the Easy Life and Death category of lessons, which can be found under the Basic Course main category.

I started to review some of the earlier problems using Quick Look.  I then discovered that additional shapes had been added since I first worked through this category.  I am going to have to watch those lessons. I worked my way through shapes 1, 2, and 3, and started with shape 4 on the 16th. I see that I had not yet watched the C-1 lecture.

I'm definitely going to have to start marking more of the problems as easy to push them farther ahead in time. This will make room for new problems, and keep the number of due problems at a reasonable level. I would consider that between 40 and 60 problems daily.

Reflections on attending the Princeton Go Club:

I've attended The Princeton Go Club for two weeks in a row now.  It is the first time in many years I have attended a club.  I am really enjoying it.  I have been very socially isolated in recent years. My social life is pretty much entirely online, and my husband and I very seldom have visitors in the house.  We rarely leave the house except for appointments with doctors.  We don't go places anymore. I think going to club is going to be good for my go, but more than that, I think it will be good for my brain, and for my mental health.  They say that social isolation is very bad for your brain.  My general practitioner was very happy when I told her about going to the club.  I play go not only because I love it, but also because I am hoping that it will help prevent dementia, but I never thought about the fact that the social interaction that comes with go might be just as important as the game itself.  During and after club it feels like parts of my brain are lighting up that don't light up from playing online. It is hard to describe, but it feels real.

I wore this shirt to go club this week.

Now for my weekly Go Activities Report:

It was a moderately active week for go activities. I played five important games this week. 

My Return to the Princeton Go Club

 

I returned to the Princeton Go Club on June 10th, playing there for the first time in I don't know how many years.

Probably my greatest regret concerning the game of go is that I did not go down to to play at the Princeton Go Club when I first moved to Somerville, New Jersey in 1980 to start my career as an art teacher. I had already spent ten years trying to teach friends and relatives how to play go with little to no success. I loved the game, but I had no one to play with. I knew that there was a club at Princeton because it was listed in the back of one of my go books, but I was afraid to go there because I wasn't sure if they would welcome an inexperienced player. I should have known better. Because I didn't go to the Princeton Go Club in 1980, I wasted another sixteen years of my life that I could have been playing go.

In 1996 I discovered go on the internet, met a few people from the AGA, started to play at the Highland Park Go Club, and eventually found my way down to the Princeton Go Club.  I would go down periodically, I even played some games with Feng Yun's daughter during a narrow window when she was my strength, and I enjoyed playing in the New Jersey Open for a good many years.

I'd been wanting to attend at the Princeton club again, but the difficulty of parking in Princeton made it difficult for me to go to the Sunday afternoon meetings.  Recently the club started to meet on Wednesday evenings at the Panera Bread outside of Princeton in the same shopping center where the Wegmans is.

So this past Wednesday I headed out with my go bag filled with a slotted go board and a set of antique wafer thin slate and shell stones that I purchased from Baduk Club.

Here is the bag resting on a table board on my bookcase.  If you look down you can see quite a few go books including my all time favorite, Fundamental Principles of Go by Yilun Yang. You will also see two boxes of Ing stones in cheap plastic food containers. Down, and to the left, are the first bowls and stones I ever owned.  A friend secured them for me in China town in Philadelphia.  I paid twenty dollars for a set of wooden bowls, some very nice glass stones, and a folding wooden board.  The year was 1970.

Here are the stones I brought to club. I could not resist them when I saw them online. They are shaped like Necco candies.

I am told that the meeting was a smaller gathering than usual.  When I arrived Parker was already there.  He and I played a five stone game.  He is 2k and I am 9k.  Seven stones seemed like a lot though, so we decided to try five. We used Parker's board and double convex stones for the game. We didn't get a good photo of the finished game, but here is the ending position from the upload of the game record to AI Sensei. About 30 moves or so into the game we realized that it would make sense to record it, I pulled out my iPad, and we replayed it on the screen. I'm glad we did because I am happy to have the record.  I created a folder in SmartGo One for the Princeton Go Club.

I lost that game by 3.5 according to our count, and I was quite pleased with the result.  I would have been pleased with anything short of a 20 point loss. We might have unintentionally shifted a few stones while counting though. When I uploaded the game record to my OGS library I was quite surprised to see that it turned out to be B+ 0.5.  The difference certainly isn't important.  The five stones seemed like a good handicap, and we will probably use it again. If we had played even, my butt would have been well whooped, so it is important to keep that in mind with handicap games. If you win a handicap game it just means that maybe the handicap should be lowered. It isn't a competition. It is more of a dance made more interesting for both by the presence of the handicap stones. As end game approached, I pointed to the lonely handicap stone at the center of the board and said, "You've effectively made this a four stone handicap game."

While Parker and I were playing Brian and Andy had a game.  Before leaving Brian took a selfie with the rest of us. 

From left to right: Brian, Terri, Parker and Andy. 

Photo by Brian.

You may notice that I am wearing a shirt from the 2024 Portland Go Congress.  I have resolved to show up in a different Congress shirt each time I come to the club until I have to start repeating them, or wearing other go shirts such as my Yilun Yang 9x9 board shirt, which turned out to be a big hit at a Yang Workshop.

After my game with Parker I played a game with Andy.  We also used a five stone handicap. This time we used Parker's board with my stones, which were actually being used by me for the very first time. I managed to find a throw in that did more damage than it should have, which ended the game.

Here is the board position at the end of the game from my point of view. It was B+R

Having played two games myself, I encouraged Parker and Andy to play using my stones. They did, and it was a pleasure to watch.  An observer stopped by and asked about the game. I explained what it was about, gesturing at the board and showing the final position of the game with Parker on my iPad.  This showed how the board would fill.  That brought up the question of scoring, which I said we would see in the ongoing game after the board filled up. I explained that after there are no more profitable moves to be made, both player would pass. That was not to be the case with this game, however.

The game finished with a resignation just as I was telling our potential new go player about how the stones would be moved around creating easy to count chunks of territory, making scoring easier.

Parker and Andy then set about filling in the gaps on the borders for the benefit of our observer. They made a dead group alive in order to replicate a typical game that goes to counting. They then moved the stones around to get easy to count rectangular blocks of territory.

I gave our observer the url for OGS.  Let's hope he enjoys what he sees there and comes back to the club.

I had a great time at club tonight, and will definitely be back. Playing across the board made my go world feel larger again, much as it did in the first decade of this century. That was the heyday of Wings Across Calm Water Go Club. It was also a time when I attended multiple tournaments and workshops each year, not just the Go Congress.

If you are within driving distance of Princeton please come to the club some Wednesday night. I expect to try to attend most Wednesdays between now and the Go Congress.  I need practice playing across the board, and I also need practice recording games.

Now for my usual Go Activities Report

It was a moderately active week for go activity with over twenty hours spent on go.

I played four games this week.  All of them were important.  There was a Go Magic league game, a NAOL League game, and two Princeton Go Club games. The time spent playing at the go club is not included under Live Play.

I am planning to return to the Princeton Go Club next week again.