I have much less rank anxiety than I used to. I care little about my online go ranks, especially the ranks of my NAOL and Go Magic leagues. I care little about my OGS, Fox, and PlayGo sever ranks. My rank anxiety has recently focused mostly on my AGA rank and my BenKyo League rank.
I've ridden the fence between DDK and SDK in the AGA for a number of years now. I was actually 8k in 2012, but I think ranks have gotten tougher since then. It shouldn't be important, but I like being SDK, so I have been a bit protective of my rank. I actually missed out on the opportunity to play in the DDK tournament at the Congress the one year they had it because I was 9k at the time. It was bad timing indeed.
In the past decade my opportunities to play in tournaments have been limited to the U.S. Go Congress. This is very different from the years of 1997 through about 2010. In those days I would attend multiple tournaments in a year, so I had many games to my credit. I went from 19k to 9k during that time, a bit less than a rank per year. Since then I have mostly stagnated in spite of being very active in the online go world, especially since 2021.
At the Congress I mostly limit my rated games to the U.S. Open. One serious game a day is plenty for me. I even missed the Congress last year, so it has been nearly two years since I have played a rated game. I'm not sure if I will play in the Die Hard this year or not. The Senior Tournament and the Women's Tournament are open to me, but I like to socialize in the time available to me outside of the Open Tournament.
Now, concerning my BenKyo League rank anxiety...
There are two leagues in BKL. The Main league games are rated, and the Title Tournament games are not. A little over a year ago I dropped two ranks very quickly in BKL. Due to a long losing streak I went from 7k to 9k in the course of a couple months. I wasn't psychologically prepared to drop another rank, so I set myself as inactive for Main League play, and I focused my attention on the Title Tournament where you can play anyone in the league from 5d all the way to 20k up to three times per month. We have a rank floor of 20k in BKL. All that means is that if you are weaker than that you will be ranked as 20k. We invite anyone who feels ready to play 19x19 games. It isn't too early to join us.
I'd been thinking about my rank anxiety, and a few days ago I decided to set myself active for Main League again. I invited the members of my group to schedule games with me via my Calendly link. I got one taker and we played. I was nervous, but willing to accept that I might be on my way to 10k by the end of the month. I just resolved to do my best. It turned out to be an exciting game in which I managed to kill a corner. It should not have died actually. It should have resulted in seki at worst. I was pleased to have killed it, but even more pleased to discover later that I could have won the game even if my opponent had made the seki. I think I would have been fine with losing the game. I had prepared myself for that, but I have to admit that getting a win on my first game back felt good. It also helped to get a bit of a hedge against falling to 10k. I would need to lose four games now before the end of the month to fall to 10k for the May Season of BenKyo Leauge. I know I made a lot of mistakes in that game, and missed a lot of things too, but I feel as if I played flexibly in the center of the board.
Here is the final board position:
If you are interested in clicking through the game you can find it here.
With all of this mention of BenKyo League, I would like to make a special offer to players with OGS ranks of 20k through 25k. (Just for that range of ranks). We have a generous referral program at BKL. If you join and tell Ben that buzzsaw sent you, I will get a 30 minute Semi-Private Lesson with Ben. Message me on Discord to tell me that you are responding to this offer, and when you join and say that I recruited you, I will let Ben know that I am passing my reward directly to you. My name on Discord is buzzsaw. I am willing to do this for players from 25k to 20k because I have an interest in increasing our roster of DDK players. They are the future of BKL.
BenKyo league comes with three interactive group classes per month. You get two leagues, and homework. You also get a community, the value of which is impossible to measure. The fact that people do not play their games at the same time means that you will likely get observers dropping comments and variations into your live games, which you can study later. Many of the stronger players in BKL are happy to play Title Tournament games with you. I am one of them.
Learn the details about BenKyo League here.
Are you ready for BenKyo League? You are if you are playing 19x19 games.
You can join the Discord for free and get a taste of the community in the free channels.
Now for an expanded Go Activities report. I have not posted for a few weeks. Rather than catch up with each missed week, I will post details of the entire previous month. My activities app allows me to do that.
It wasn't a terribly active month. I spent a little over 13 hours on go activity per week, but I had fun. Now that I am caught up I will try to post weekly again with something new to say if possible.
The top activity was watching my BKL buddy Patrick play his games on Twitch. He streams his NAOL games and also his BenKyo League games, and he is only one rank away from me in BKL, so I find his streams interesting.
Twelve games were played during the month.
I was brave enough to open my Calendly for Main League games, but not brave enough to schedule them myself. I jokingly told BenKyo Baduk during our most recent lesson, where we discussed my rank anxiety, that if my group members schedule with me, that I will play, but that I'm not brave enough to seek out games on my own yet. I guess that is the next thing I need to work on. I will take one step at a time in overcoming this BKL rank anxiety.
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