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.