See This Problem Again In 120 Days

Today when I was doing my problem for the Training System from Guo Juan's Internet Go School I had a problem that I had seen often enough, and I found easy enough, that I would not see it again in 120 days. That's pretty cool.

I have my share of problems that I must click the "forgotten" button for. Don't get me wrong. I don't remember everything. But when you remember something well enough not to have to see it again for 120 days it feels good.

I love the big pig's snout.

I've had an incredibly busy week because I picked up my new MacBook Pro last Tuesday, so I missed a couple days of problem training, but the system allows for that.

I need to play some games today. In order to meet my goal for playing seven rated games this week I must play four games before tomorrow morning. I will probably sit down and play them all at once in the evening.

My 5k? Rank

I wanted to preserve the memory of my brief time as a 5k on KGS, even if it was as a 5k with a question mark attached.

I ran into my good go buddy, Charles, on the server this morning. We spent a little time looking at the last few moves of the final game I played yesterday. It was a shameful game during which I allowed my opponent to gain a 50 point lead. The game was over and there was really nothing to do. But I saw a weakness, and I made a few plays to try to exploit it. I was successful. 

He resigned, but Score Estimate shows me ahead by over 20 points when he resigned. That means that my desperate plays created a 70 point swing in the game. He had a huge moyo, which I destroyed.

If you are interested in seeing the game you can find it easily on my KGS Analytics page for the games I played yesterday. Just click on the third game. It is the one with popo.

I played horribly in this game, and I know it. It is not a game to be proud of. I just managed to pull something off at the end. That always feels fine.

Charles asked me if I was getting over my playing phobia. I told him that I was feeling a lot better about it. Charles shared his secret with me. He said that the real secret is not to care. I think he is right.

Just to make it easy to see what happened at the end of this game, here is a screen shot of the board before I started to make trouble. Look at that huge black moyo.

And here is a screen capture of how the board looked at the time of resignation.

I Played Three Rated Games Today

It was my plan to play a few rated games and get a real rating again.

I played a game and won it. That made me 7k?

I played another game and won that one too. That made me 6k?

Then I figured I would play one more game and lose it, and I would have a real rating. How could I beat a 6k player?

I had a lost game. Everything was going according to plan, and then at the end I tried to complicate things, and my opponent resigned.

So now I am 5k? and I am REALLY afraid to play, so I stopped for the night. I'll play again tomorrow, but I just had to stop for the night. The last game I played was played way too fast and it was kind of funny.

I Want To Play Like Charles

Some of us study more than we play, and some of us play more than we study.

I have a go buddy named Charles who plays a great deal. He will review a game with me if I am online when he has finished, especially if I tell him I want to look at something in the game. We will go over the game record together sometimes, but mostly he tends to move on to the next game rather quickly.

Charles and I are like Jack Sprat and his wife. We are opposites.

While Charles plays a lot, I don't play much at all I'm afraid, except for my biweekly lesson games with Yilun Yang, 7p. That's not the way to get stronger.

I want to be more like Charles. His name on KGS is "chaslayton". Look at his playing record.

Today he played 15 games and is now working on game number 16 as I write this post. Yesterday he played 11 games, and the day before that he played 12 games.

When I told Charles today that I wanted to play like him he said, "Oh you mean too fast and when you are tired?" I laughed and said, "No. I mean without fear."

So as of today I am officially adding to my study routine the following: I will play seven rated games each week. I will play without fear just like Charles, only maybe a little more slowly. This will average to one game per day, but I am going to probably play those games in one or two sittings. They will be rated games. That is the whole idea of playing without fear. Of course, we can fear playing free games too. We can fear looking foolish, rated or not.

When I logged on to KGS today I found a message from Charles. It appears below.

I think the time is now. I've got between now and next Tuesday morning to play my seven rated games.

An L Shape Problem

Diagram A

Problem Starting Position

This is a problem from the "Corner Shapes 5A - L shape" lecture from the Guo Juan Internet Go School. I watched the lecture recently and added the problems from the lecture to my Training System problem set.

Today this problem was presented to me again. The last time I had seen it was a week ago. Today I (white) solved this problem easily beginning with a stone at A3. Black answered at A4, and I (white) threw in at C1.

I was rewarded with the information that my answer was correct, but rather than move on quickly to the next problem I took a little extra time with this one.

Diagram B

Problem Ending Position

Looking at the final position I said to myself, "I believe it is dead. I am sure that the reason the system tells me this is the correct answer is this that no matter what black tries next, white will be able to stop him from making life. But I want to see what happens if black continues to play." 

One of the nice things about the Training System is that it allows you continue to add stones to the problems even after they are solved. This is particularly nice for weaker players, such as myself, who need to see stone-for-stone what might be obvious to a stronger player.

In my first attempt to help black I played a stone at B1. The obvious white response was to play at A2 to take away black's opportunity to make a second eye by playing there himself. Black is obviously dead after this. Even I do not need to see anything more. 

Diagram C

First Attempt At Living

That entire sequence was easy for me to visualize without putting stones on the board. But was there more that black could try? Yes, there was.

Starting again from Diagram B my next attempt to help black involved playing a stone for black at A2. This was a much trickier move. The correct white response required much more reading this time. I extended the initial throw in by adding a stone at B2. Even if black take at A1 white can throw in at C1 to prevent black from making a second eye with a play at that point. I can visualize this sequence too, but it is harder.

Diagram D

Second Attempt At Living

So if I ever find myself in black's position in Diagram B, I would try playing at A2 before I would try playing at B1. I would also hope that my opponent's reading skills are not up to par.

By the way, there is one other internal move that black might make at A1, but it isn't worth considering because white doesn't even need to respond to it. If black plays A1 in Diagram B he dies in gote.

This problem was actually easy for me, but I rated it as "good" because I wanted to see it again sooner than 37 days from now. I'll see it again in 26 days.

Looking Back at My First Go Congress

In the past few weeks I have been avidly reading a great go blog, BenGoZen. Recently Ben did an in depth, day-by-day report on his experiences at the New York City Go Congress this year. You can find the first post in that series here.

This was Ben's first congress. I was really impressed with the extent to which he documented his experiences and the detail he provided in his daily posts. It not only makes me want to do something similar next year, but it also sends my thoughts wandering back to my own first congress, which was markedly different from Ben's primarily because of the disparity in our level of experience at the time of our first respective Congresses.

This post is for Ben primarily, who is interested in hearing about what it was like for me, but also for anyone who would like to hear about a first time congress experience.

I don't have pictures from the Congress so this will be pure text.

Background Information

It was 1997. I was 44 years old. I'd played my first game of go at the age of 17, but I had not been able to play more than a handful of games until 1996 when I discovered that I could play on IGS. It opened a whole new world for me that I had only suspected existed. I quickly touched base with a few AGA members on both IGS and NNGS. A real life affiliation had landed me at the Highland Park Go Club because the AGA assigned Robert Muldowny, then 2 kyu as my go mentor. He came over to my house to play a game of go with me. After that I ended up frequenting the Highland Park Go Club with regularity. That landed me at my first go workshop with Yilun Yang, 7p in the Summer of 1997 right before the Lancaster Go Congress. The Yang workshop was hosted by Don DeCourcelle, also from the Highland Park Go Club.

Heading Out to Lancaster

The Go Congress was at Millersville State College near Lancaster. I have no sense of direction whatsoever so it took a lot of courage on my part to head out alone without a cell phone. I only knew two people who would be at the congress. I knew Chuck Robbins in person because I had met him at the Yang Workshop, but I didn't know he would be at the Congress. I knew Evan Behr from playing online with him on IGS. He had encouraged me to come to the Congress. So I really thought I was only going to know one person at the congress.

Arrival and Getting to Know a Few People

I arrived the night before the congress started because Evan assured me that I wouldn't be the only one who would, and I wasn't. Evan greeted me and introduced me to Sam Zimmerman. I believe that Chuck Robbins was on hand as well that night. I helped them to stuff bags, and volunteered to help out at the registration table the next day. I was such a joiner in those days. There was an elderly 2 kyu player named Charles French who was helping out as well. He was on the lookout for a Pair Go partner. His long time partner, Polly Pohl, was moving on to greener pastures, as she had found herself a 6 dan, and was seriously competing to win the Pair Go competition. I had no idea that as a female 16 kyu my pair go partnership would be quite a hot commodity. Charles clearly took advantage of my lack of experience, and got a commitment from me before I knew what I was giving away.  I might have saved myself for a stronger player, had I only known.

Meeting More People Throughout the Week

I am sure that I met more people at my first congress than I am going to mention here. In some cases I am just not sure if I met them at a later congress, so I will only mention people who I am certain that I met at that time.

I met Matt Lecin a 9 kyu, who like myself, had the bad luck to play many under rated children at the congress. We commiserated and went on to become fast friends.

I met Keith Arnold who helped me flesh out a song I was working on. When I found out how rare women players were at the Congress, rarer then than now I believe, I had been inspired to write a song about it.  I had brought my guitar with me and I started working on the song Friday night using an original tune from a song that I had written myself. I subbed in words relevant to the pair go event to create the song.  The entertainment for Saturday night had bailed and Sam Zimmerman asked me to sing at the Opening Ceremony. So I made short work of completing the song with Keith's help.

I met Larry Gross who was the Chapter Coordinator of the AGA. At that time Ing would provide equipment for the Congress, and it would be distributed to clubs at the end of the Congress. Just before the congress ended I ponied up my $35.00 to form the Wings Across Calm Water Go Club, and I went home with six Ing boards and six sets of Ing stones. Evan Behr had given me a fan for helping him during the week by knocking on his door to wake him every morning. (He'd forgotten an alarm clock.) Evan had won the fan in a previous tournament. Evan and I asked someone what the fan said, and they told us it read, "Wings Across Calm Water". I have a sneaking suspicion now that we did not hear him correctly, and it may have actually read "Winds Across Calm Water", which makes a lot more sense when you think about it. Be that as it may, Wings Go Club was born, and it existed for at least a year as a high school go club before it became famous as the first virtual chapter of the AGA with many active members and it's own room on KGS at a time when KGS was just getting started.

I met Bob Felice who introduced me to a piece of technology called the Palm Pilot on which he was recording his tournament games.

I met Gus Garcia who was selling sheets of stickers with numbers on them which people were using to record their tournament games by peeling off the stickers and attaching them to a paper kifu. Lots of people were using them, including me. This would have been a big technological leap if it had not been for the Palm Pilot. As it was, the stickers ended up being a technological stumble of sorts. It was a good product, but its time was going to be short lived. I asked Gus about a discount on a box of 500 sheets of go stickers because I liked them so much. He was willing to let me have a box for $400.00, which was a 20% discount over purchasing the sheets individually. But I took a good hard look at the Palm Pilot, which for the same cost, could do so much more. It was no contest. I bought the Pilot immediately after returning from the Congress. I no longer needed stickers, and a long love affair with small devices had begun leading me eventually to the Tablet PC, and then to the iPad, and eventually to the iPhone.

I met Polly Poll whose decision to change partners in the pair go competition had born fruit. She and her partner became the American pair go champions that year, and went on to represent the AGA at the international pair go competition in Japan.

Accommodations and Food

I stayed in the dorms. There was no air conditioning and it was a very hot week. I rented a fan for the room, and I survived. It was actually quite nostalgic to be in a standard dorm room again. I spent my first two years of college in a room like that at West Chester State College. One of the high points for me was when one of the Japanese female players told me in the hallway that she thought I was a college student. I guess I still had it "going on" at 44.

The food in the cafeteria was actually quite good.

The Bob High Song Competition

I had to write something and enter it, of course, being a serious song writer. I chose a song by the Beatles called "Gotta Get You Into My Life" and composed new lyrics for it. It was called "Gotta Get Two Eyes and Make Life." I didn't even get honorable mention, but Bob Felice, the editor of the AGA Song Book, told me at a much later congress that he remembered my entry, and particularly liked my refrain:

Ooooooh, then you kill with a placement.
Ooooooh, such horrendous abasement,
Every single place on the board.
Gotta get two eyes and make life.

How many times do you see the word "abasement" in a song?

The Main Event

The 1997 US Go Congress,  the US Open, was my first tournament EVER. I had played relatively fews games over the board, and I had never used a clock. I was a total novice, and I did not know what to expect. Evan told me he thought I was a 10k. Yilun Yang had declared me a 16k. I think Yang was right, but no one had taken into account the extent to which I would fall victim to tournament anxiety, especially after spiraling into a series of defeats as white at the hands of under rated children. I was unfamiliar with playing as white, and I had no "loyalty" to the white stones at all. After I started to take lessons with Yang in early 1998 there was a period of time when he made me play white in our lesson games more often than he had me play black. I think he was trying to get me to establish a sense of loyalty to the white stones.

My first game was with a child who had a reputation as a sandbagger. I fell into his pace, which was fast even for me, and I lost quickly. I resigned that game. I was okay with it. I figured I would win one eventually if I was properly rated. It turns out that I was not.

I proceeded to play white except for one game as black. I lost every game up through my fifth game in the US Open. My games were mostly with under rated children, but I didn't know that. My fifth game was with a young girl whose IGS rating was 26 kyu. Her father was a go teacher and recommend that his students use their IGS ratings when registering at tournaments. He wanted them to have a good experience. They usually did. What bothered me was that he should have known better. This girl demolished me on the board. Afterward I actually cried in the ladies restroom after that game. The only thing that brought me out of the ladies room was that I had left my fan behind at the table and wanted to retrieve it before it walked away. I wasn't sure I ever wanted to play in a tournament again. I told the tournament director that I requested a bye for the last round of the US Open.

I showed up in the playing area for the final round anyway. I figured that I would observe. Chuck Robbins came to me and begged me to play. It was twenty minutes into the game and there was a little boy sitting without an opponent. It was his first Congress and Chuck didn't want him to go without an opponent. I told Chuck, "I'll do it for you." I sat down and we put four handicap stones on the board for the little 20 kyu. I was hardened by then, and I didn't give a crap anymore. I gave it my best shot, and I beat him too, probably because I didn't care.

Having one victory allowed me to come away from my first Congress with a rating. I was a 19 kyu. I think it was fairly accurate, at least based on the tournament anxiety I had built up, and still suffer from.

Other Events at the Congress

I think I played in the 9x9 tournament.

I don't remember how my partner and I did in the Pair Go Competition, but I know we did not win our table. We may have won one of our games. We went on to partner for at least one more year. Then Larry Gross and I partnered in San Francisco.

I don't think I played in the Die Hard, but I think I did play a couple of Self Paired games during the week.

Summary

I suffer from tournament anxiety to this day based on my bad playing experience at my first Congress, and I am left with an irrational fear of children. In spite of that, though, I had a wonderful Congress. I had a great time overall, and I soldiered on in the US Open in spite of my difficulties up through the 5th round.

If I met you for the first time at the 1997 Lancaster Congress, and I did not mention your name please leave a comment below. It isn't that I've forgotten you. It's just that I wasn't sure it was Lancaster where we first met.

I Can Make a Ghost Head Now

It is almost Halloween. What better way to celebrate than with a ghost head? 

I have been enjoying the new Training System over at Guo Juan's Internet Go School now for nearly three months. I love my daily problem set. Some of the problems are harder than others. 

I remember a little over a week ago I was presented with a problem that resulted in a ghost head shape. It was very impressive, but my initial thought was, "Are you kidding me? I'll never learn this. There are too many moves." But each time the problem came along, and I failed to see it, I would move into the solution mode and play the problem out a few times.

A couple days ago I was a few moves into one of the problems and I saw a cut I said to myself, "The ghost head is coming after this cut if I can only make the right moves to bring it about." It felt so good just to know that I could see that the ghost head was coming up even if I couldn't remember every move to make it happen. Bear in mind that the problems are presented in random corners, random order, and random colors, so recognizing it was a real accomplishment.

That day I did it! For the first time I remembered all the moves and I made the ghost head without having to back up after a wrong move. That doesn't mean I will be able to do it ever time, but I did a very long hard sequence of moves to get that ghost head, and it felt so good.

Here is the starting position on the problem:

Here is the ending position on the problem:

As you can see a great number of moves are involved including the sacrifice of two stones at c2 and c1.

I'd like to share my statistics for my activity with the Training System. You can see that as I spend more time with the system I am doing more problems on a daily basis.

You can view your statistics by the day, month, or year. I'm hoping that they will add a week view at some time in the near future because that would be useful for me. I have requested that view, and they have been very responsive to suggestions for adding to the new Training System, so I believe I will see it at some time depending on the other things they want to add and their priorities.

I'll keep you all posted about how the system is working for me. If you decide to subscribe please let me know. We can talk about it.

My next post is going to be a look back at my first Go Congress in Lancaster in 1997. It will be coming soon.

Guo Juan's Internet Go School Training System

Anyone who has visited Guo Juan's Internet Go School knows that she has hundreds of audio go lectures. You can rent them individually for a month at a time, or you can subscribe for a year of unlimited viewing. I think the year subscription is the way to go. I have subscribed in the past, and I have always had the best of intentions about watching and learning. The content is great and I always start off strong. It is hard, however, to stay focused especially if you are a weaker player life myself. I didn't feel as if I was retaining the information the way I should. As a result I allowed my subscription to lapse about a year ago.

Now the team over at the Internet Go School has come up with a way to help all of us commit their great content to memory using a new Training System. The system is based on a learning technique called spaced repetition which is applied to problem sets created to reinforce the content of the individual lectures. There is a new link called Training System where you can read up about this and experience the system free for yourself before you choose to subscribe. There are two free lectures with problem sets that you can try. This is enough to give you the experience of the Training System.

I tried the samples and subscribed to both the lectures and the training system the same day. That was August 28th. It's been over a month, and I'll tell you about my experience. You can see my statistics below:

I have enjoyed doing the problems and have fallen into a routine of completing them very early in the day. My usual routine is coffee, problems, breakfast. Then I get on with the rest of the day. They say it takes 30 days to ingrain a new habit. I can tell you that this study habit has become firmly ingrained because I not only enjoy my problem sessions, I crave them.

Within days I found myself watching more audio lessons than I ever would have imagined. I wanted to keep adding to my problem set. Of course, I'll only be presented with so many new problems per day, but I have nearly 1,000 problems in my set now.

You can see in the upper right of the above image that I have 931 problems enabled, 657 of which have not yet been presented to me. New problems are fed to you each day, and you can change the speed at which they come to you, but doing so might be overwhelming, so I have left the default parameters in place, trusting the system, and being patient.

I quickly got used to rating the problems. I like how the system moves problems that are easy farther back for review. I have some problems that won't show up again for over 40 days because I remember them each time they are presented. Above you can see that if I found this problem easy it would not appear again for 43 days. If I had forgotten it I would see it again in ten minutes.

I love that the problems appear in random quadrants, and in relatively random order. The color of the stones also changes. This ensures that it is the problem itself you are remembering by way of the configuration of stones, not the orientation on the board or the stone color.

Below you can see the lectures that I have watched in the past month since resubscribing to the audio lectures.

Yes. That is a total of 69 lectures viewed so far in about a month since resubscribing.

I'm retired, so aside from a little cleaning and cooking I can devote all of my energy to quilting and studying go, so the number of lectures I have watched is high. I specifically wanted to keep up with the Joskeki for Beginners series, and the new Life and Death series.

What I am finding is that I am clicking the forgotten button more often than I would like on some of my earlier problems, especially in the Joseki series. My intention is to replay those lectures again to gain a better understanding of the context of the problems. I could stop watching new lectures right now and still have new problems coming to me for quite some time, so I can afford to go back and view lectures for a second or even a third time.

I know that the Training System is enriching my love of the game. That's what it is all about for me. Using this system is the first step in the creation of a study plan for myself which I will add to over time. I highly recommend this system to any go player. It is a great way to become familiar with joseki and to review basic principles.

Aside from creating new lectures with problem sets, Guo Juan and her team are adding problem sets to existing lectures. In addition to that, the Step By Step Course is being totally revamped.

Thanks to Guo Juan and her team for a great new resource in the Training System.

Getting Two Moves in a Row

In the game of go the players alternate moves, playing black or white respectively. You can't get two moves in a row in the game of go, or can you?

Actually, you can, but your opponent has to make a mistake first. Both last year and this year during one of my US Open games I had an opponent play out of turn. It was my turn and my opponent placed a stone on the board. I'm not going to mention any names here, from last year or from this year, because that isn't important. Also, it could certainly happen to anyone. I will report, however, what I did in each case.

Last year when my opponent played out of turn I was shocked and started waving my hands and saying it was my turn, but it was too late, and the stone ended up on the board any way .  I had no clue whatsoever what to do about it. My opponent and I talked about it. I assumed that if I called over a TD that my opponent would lose the game right then and there, and that seemed like too severe a punishment to mete out. If we had been playing according to Japanese rules I think that is exactly what would have happened. As it was, I took pity on my opponent and decided to let it slide. The stone came off the board and the game continued. I was a little unsettled by the experience, and I lost that game by 1.5 points. I ended up resenting it after I found out what the consequences would actually have been of his having played two moves in a row. I thought about it a lot after I found out the consequences, and determined that I would not let this pass again.

My research into the situation revealed that the penalty was not nearly so severe as I thought. Under AGA rules the offense was not game ending in and of itself. Let's assume that black played out of turn. Black passes the wrongly played stone to the White player. White then gets two moves in a row, and Black passes a stone to white at the time when it would have been his turn to play between the two white moves. This new knowledge made me kick myself for hot having called over the TD. I could easily have gotten a two point advantage out of it to win the game.

I promptly forgot the consequences of play out of turn, and went on with my go life.

Then, one year later, during one of my games at the US Go Congress my opponent played out of turn again. There was once more waving of hands on my part as I informed my opponent that it was my turn. The stone came swiftly off the board. I hesitated for a moment, but I kept my cool and said that I would call over a TD after relaying the fact that I did not bother to do so last year for a similar event. I did tell my opponent that the consequence of having played out of turn was not so severe as one might suspect. I wasn't out to play a head game on this person.

It took quite awhile to get a TD. The TD and I approached the board together. Resolving the issue actually became a bit tense as there seemed to be a misunderstanding over whether my opponent had actually played the move or merely had begun to play the move as was claimed. There was little difference in my opinion between playing it and beginning to play it if it was on the board, and if my having said it was my turn was the only thing that brought the stone up off the board. My opponent also never mentioned the intention to deny the move when I went to fetch the TD. After it became clear that I wasn't budging on the issue, my opponent finally accepted my account of the event and also accepted the resulting penalty. The TD did hang around for the resumption of play. He also returned during the scoring phase, which I thought was rather nice because it showed that he wanted to be sure that we were both conducting ourselves in a civil manner in the aftermath of what was potentially a very unpleasant situation.

It was a close game, and I gained a bit from from the exchange of pass stones, yet my opponent still won the game by 3.5 points. At the time I was actually relieved and pleased with the result because I didn't like the idea of winning because  my opponent lost track of whose turn it was.

My drive to win must have been incredibly low. I totally failed to benefit from having the opportunity to take two moves in a row. This was a head smacking oversight on my part. If I had really wanted to win I might have looked harder for a group with two eyes composed of only one point each. That would have been decisive. Or I might have found a peep that could not be ignored. I could have gone on to punish that peep because my opponent would not have been able to answer it because of the penalty of losing a move. In review later I found such a peep, and a part of me is sorry I did not look for it during the game. I was so focused on getting on with the game, and gaining distance from the unpleasantness, that I played two relatively harmless sente moves in a row and collected the two pass stones offered.

There is a very nice peep at c2 that would have easily won the game for me.

Above all else I value my connection to the go community, and so I am proud of the fact that after we had both passed I was able to tell my opponent that I was sorry that things had become a bit unpleasant and that I would like to discuss the go application Smart Go Kifu that I had been using to record the game and also the app Smart Go Books, because my opponent had inquired about thee applications, and I am always eager to promote Ander's apps.

My opponent and I had a nearly hour long discussion during which we discovered that we had previously exchanged emails. It's a small go world after all. We spent time reviewing our game, which we were able to do because I had recorded it with Smart Go Kifu.

At this point I am somewhat conflicted over what I might do in the future if my opponent makes two moves in a row. I know for sure that I won't flap my hands and sputter about how it is my turn. That only results in the opponent removing the stone so quickly that they may decide to argue that it was never actually played. I will allow that stone to quietly be played. But will I also allow it to be quietly removed? I don't know yet.

What would you do?

2014 Go Congress in NYC

This was my best go congress ever. I had a fantastic time. I was initially concerned about the lack of a food plan, but I managed to share meals with some friends during the congress, and I found a really nice take out sushi place that I frequented often bringing my lunch back to the playing area.

I had my best result in the US Open ever this year. I had taken third place on three occasions, but had never done better than that. This year I took 2nd place in the 9 kyu division. Oddly enough 3:3 was enough to earn me that honor. I attribute that to a relatively small band. The 9 kyu band had only seven people in it. The 8 kyu band was much larger, as was the 10 kyu band. They could easily have subsumed us under one or the other of those larger bands, but they chose to keep us as a separate entity. The other thing I credit for my win is that the games had to have been incredibly evenly split. Regardless of how I achieved this honor, I don't look this gift horse in the mouth. It earned me a rank certificate from the AGA. This is the second year these certificates are being given, and I believe that they may have been given only to first and second place winners.

I participated in the pair go games with my pair go partner Gurujeet Khalsa. This was our third year of playing pair go together. Last year and the year before we were undefeated winning our table both years. This year we won our first game, but lost our second. So the pressure is now off for next year. Whew. (Photo credit: Arnold Udell)

My most recent passion is English Paper Piecing and I was caught stitching during the first round of the US Open. (Photo Credit: Chris Garlock/American Go E-Journal)

I attended the teacher workshops again this year, and much to my surprise I got a second teaching certificate from the AGA. I am doubly qualified to teach beginners now.

My experiences at the Go Congress this year have renewed my interest in studying, and I intend to document that here on my blog in the weeks to come. It is my hope that I can come to the congress next year stronger than ever, and in a position to fight for first place in the 9 kyu division.

Looking Forward To The Go Congress This Year

I will be attending the Go Congress this year, which will be located in Manhattan at the Hotel Pennsylvania.  I am signed up and will be playing as a 9 kyu.  I have not played in an AGA tournament since the last Go Congress in Tacoma.

Online Tournament Game With Bent Four

Recently I joined a new room on KGS called Invincible.  They are hosting an eight week tournament, and I decided to participate.  So far I have played three games in the tournament.

Today's game was a win for me by resignation.  (It is the only game played by me (buzzsaw) on January 17, 2014.  So take a look if you like.  I played black with a two stone handicap against a 6k opponent.  The rule set we are using for the tournament is the AGA ruleset, which I am pretty familiar with since I have played in AGA tournaments face to face since 1997.

My opponent was a fairly aggressive player and I was feeling behind, but I got lucky in that he failed to make a protective move in the upper right corner.  This allowed me to play two forcing moves that threatened snapback allowing me to create bent four in the corner, which I initially thought was a sure kill.

When my opponent made his first pass I asked him if he recognized the upper right as bent four and, therefore, dead.  He told me that he thought it was seki.  I knew it was bent four, but I also knew that by AGA rules we really were supposed to play it out.  I also knew that I should eliminate all ko threats before initiating the ko.  We discussed it and I decided not to accept it as seki, but play it out instead.

What happened was I stared at the board for a few minutes and grew impatient and scatterbrained.  I thought I was going to have to lose points to eliminate the threats, but what I failed to remember is that my opponent was going to spend a point for every pass he made.  Actually he could eliminate ko threats too with his turn, but that didn't really matter because regardless of who had more ko threats the other side could continue to eliminate theirs and force the opponent to give a stone in return.   My rational, calm, post game mind tells me these things, which my irrational, perturbed, "game" mind could not recall.

I finally threw caution to the wind and initiated the ko.  He made me respond to a first ko threat, but when the second threat that was played against me I realized that it was not really a threat at all because it depended upon the stones I could capture for its effectiveness, so I ignored the threat, and captured the stones.

My opponent resigned.  We had a nice review afterwards with some observers chiming in a bit.

What excitement.

What fun.

I Won't Be Blogging About Quilting Here After All

Last night I joined the Central Jersey chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild.  On the membership form they asked if I have a blog and I decided that I really ought to go with my hexylady domain name for the time being, and try to make it into something.

So this blog will continue to be dedicated to the game of go.  I'll try to get here more often and update you on my involvement in the go community.

Just last week I got a notice that my KGS Plus membership was due to expire in seven days and I went immediately to renew it.  The last time I renewed it for only three months, which was a definite sign of my inner conflict over continuing to funnel energy into this game.  This time, however, I optimistically rejoined for a full year.

2013 In Review

It has been over a year and a half since I last posted to this blog. I’ve decided to make one post for the year, and here it is:

So what has happened in my go life for 2013?

I have continued to take two hour lessons with Yilun Yang on alternate Thursday mornings.

I had hoped to attend the New Jersey Open in February, but a cousin of my husband died and I didn’t feel it was right to leave my husband alone, so I decided not to participate.

I attended the U.S, Go Congress for the second year in a row after a two year absence in 2010 and 2011. It was the first time ever that I went an entire year with no tournaments between congresses. I enjoyed meeting up with old friends at the congress and spending time with the go community. I got certified by the AGA as a go teacher in their first teacher certification workshop. I haven’t done anything with the certification, but I’ve got it.

I’m still 9k AGA, and slightly weaker than my previous 9k rating.

I play very little go anymore except with my teacher, Mr. Yang.

I play only enough rated games to hold onto a rating on KGS, which wavers between 9k and 7k depending on my mood.  My go definitely reflects my mood.

I think about quitting lessons, but so much of my identity is tied up in being a student of Yang, and also in being a go player. I find this ironic since I play very little go.

So what has happened in the rest of my life during 2013?

I’ve found a new passion. Actually I should say I have rediscovered an old passion. It is quilting.  I hadn’t quilted for about 25 years, but I am doing a lot of it now, specifically English Paper Piecing using hexagons. I’m hoping that I can find the purpose in my life through fiber arts that I used to find through go. Perhaps I can become a part of the quilting community.

What does 2014 have in store for me?

I’ll continue with go lessons at least up through the U.S. Go Congress.

I’ll attend the Go Congress in mid town Manhattan. How could I miss that?

I’ll try to blog about my go activities once a week, but I might very well convert the main function of this blog to the story of my journey in the world of quilting, and the bigger world of fiber arts. There was a reason I didn’t choose a go related domain name when I started this blog. I used my own name because I suspected that I might some day write about something other than go.

Condor's Nest

The Crane's Nest is a common go position that I don't see much in my games. I guess once the players know how it works they generally can see it coming. It involves a shortage of liberties and inevitable capture.

A similar situation arose in a game I played a few days ago on KGS. It was a little bigger, however, and my good go buddy KGS ID ChasLayton referred to it as a Condor's Nest when he observed it.

Here is how it developed. The game was fairly even up until I made a mistake playing at g12. That stone was easily cut by white.



Later I felt the need to try to get into the center and so I played a move that felt to me as if it were an overplay. That was L12. My opponent responded with L13, which actually turned out to be a mistake.



Rather than responding instantly to his move I took the time to look and to read. It seemed to me as if something might happen. After I was fairly certain that I would be able to continuously atari and capture with a shortage of liberties I played m12.



Although the damage was great, it was still a game. We were playing it for review purposes anyway, so we took it to the end. I did manage to win even though white tried to cause trouble with an eleventh hour invasion in the lower right.

It was a fun game and I am glad I took my time to think and to read. Near the end I counted the board a number of times. It is all good practice for the Go Congress.

I Found a Pair Go Partner For the US Go Congress

I like to play pair go at the congress. Women are at a premium at the congress and never have a problem finding a partner. I could go without a plan and easily find a partner and have a good time.

However, I wanted to make a good choice in advance, so I asked the advice of my long time teacher Yilun Yang. During our lesson on Thursday I asked him if he thought it would be better for me to seek a partner of my own strength or if I should seek a stronger partner. His advice was to seek someone a little stronger than myself.

I know someone from the DC area who I have played a few times at tournaments because we have been progressing/stagnating at the same pace for a little while. Recently he rose to 7k and hopes to feel strong enough to promote to 6k for the tournament. That puts him at just the right level for me. I suggested this to Yang and he said that a couple stones higher will be good, and that I may even play better than him sometimes. I assured Yang that my potential partner had read "The Fundamental Principles of Go", so he "knows something" as I put it. Yang thought it was great that we would have a common foundation.

Last night we talked online and I asked him if he would be my pair go partner and he agreed. Even before he knew I was coming to the congress he had asked if I was interested in some slow games for analysis with his teacher as he prepares for the congress.

When he said that he might not be good at pair go, having never played it before, I assured him that the important thing is to have fun. I think we will try to play some rengo games on KGS so he gets an idea of what it feels like to lose control of the game. I think that is the most important thing to know about pair go. That, and the fact that it is sudden death, so you have to watch your time, and you have little time to read because you can't depend on byo yomi at the end.

I'm getting excited.

Let's Hope I Can Now Get Line Breaks

A helpful reader responded to my request to figure out how to get my line breaks to work.

I went to the posted URL and followed the directions. Hopefully this post is two paragraphs rather than one.

Coming to the US Go Congress This Year

I've attended a total of twelve congresses since my first tournament in 1997. Unfortunately, I have missed two congresses in a row.

Three years is just too long to go between congresses, so I have decided to bite the financial bullet and attend this year. For one thing, it is on the East Coast. Next year it will be in Seattle, which will increase the cost of attendance for me, so I will probably pass on that congress. Another reason to attend this year is that I'm looking forward to going back to North Carolina.

I remember the 2006 congress fondly, and expect this one to be even better. I am currently 8 kyu AGA, and will be entering as such. Let me know if you plan to attend. My comments are moderated because I had a lot of trouble with spam a little over a year ago, but I will be notified of comments via email and will approve them quickly if they are relevant.

By the way, this post actually has paragraphs in it, but for some reason they aren't showing up when I publish the post. I have observed the same problem in a blog that I started with wordpress.org. I don't understand the problem, but because it appears in both blogs I am assuming it is something local on my computer. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get my carriage returns to show up I would really appreciate it. If I can't solve this problem I will be reluctant to post these dense unending paragraphs. They are so ugly.

Since learning how to fix the problem I have gone back and edited this post to add in the carriage returns I had originally wanted, but I left the content about the problem in the paragraph above.

Recent Go Activity

I got a kick in the butt today by a comment to my last post where I said I was going to post more often, but then I didn't. Thanks for that kick in the butt.

I'll try to do better. I've actually been doing things. I just haven't been writing about them.

I finished Book 1 of the Level Up series as promised.

What is even more exciting is that I am currently reviewing the digital versions of two books that will soon be available in GoBook format. I can't say the names of the books, but I can say that they have been out of print for years, so it will be exciting when they come out.

2011 Appears to Have Been a Bad Year

I can't believe that I made it all the way through 2011 without a single post to this blog. The truth is that I had been focused on other things besides go: running, lowering my cholesterol, worrying about my mother.

However, during that time I continued to take private lessons alternate weeks with Yilun Yang, 7P. I also continued to take group lessons with Guo Juan, 5P. I have enjoyed both activities, but have not been working particularly hard on trying to improve.

I am pretty happy to be a solid single digit AGA kyu player now. Maybe my subconscious wants to keep my rating the same as my AGA ID number. Rather than focusing on rank, I am mostly just enjoying the interactions with my teachers, and the social interaction with my fellow students in the group lessons.

It has also occurred to me that I don't really have a plan for how to study go. I have so many resources. I noticed that my last post was about the Level Up series. I have the series, and I pick up a book from time to time, but I have not worked my way systematically through them. That is something I am hoping to do in the next few months. I wish they were in GoBooks format. That way they would always be with me, and I would be likely to pay more attention to them.

Today I am opening up the Level Up book number 1 and I am going through it from cover to cover. The truth is that I actually study go every day in one form or another. I just haven't been writing about it, and I haven't been very efficient either. I'm going to be more public about my study habits in the future. So look forward to another post tomorrow.

Level Up Series

In the past week or so I have completed books 1, 2, and 3 of the Level Up series.

I downloaded all of the answer PDF files available for the books and installed them on my iPad under the iBooks app. This makes it easy to check my answers. I go through a book one time without looking at answers and then I go through it one more time checking one page at a time against the PDF file.

I am currently working my way through book 4 of the series.

I notice that books above level 10 are currently available, but they do not appear to have PDF answer files ready for those volumes yet. I hope they will by the time I work my way through volume 10, which is as high as I have purchased so far. I won't buy any higher until the PDF files are available.

While answers to books 1 through 5 appear to be really easy, I imagine that above 10 the answers will be harder.

I am really enjoying these books.

Audio Go Lessons I Have Been Watching Lately

I have been concentrating on the Basic Course lectures in the past few weeks.

Recently I watched the following lectures:

All About Eyes Lecture 1

All About Eyes Lecture 2

All About Eyes Lecture 3

Efficiency For 30K - 10 K Lecture 1

Efficiency For 30K - 10 K Lecture 2

Efficiency For 30K - 10 K Lecture 3

Double Atari Lecture 1

Double Atari Lecture 2

Double Atari Lecture 3

I Am Moderating All Future Posts

It came to my attention that someone was spamming my blog. I had seen a number of foreign language posts in the past and left them because I assumed that someone actually had something worthwhile to say even though I could not understand it myself.

Today I found over 20 comments on my most recent post, which is months old. Many of them have links to obscene web sites.

It is a sorry thing when one has to moderate her blog to avoid such things. Please do not comment to this blog simply to agree with me on this point.

Thank you in advance for your patience when you make a comment to a future blog post and must wait for it to be approved.

Maryland Open

I played in the Maryland Open last weekend. I played four games, winning two, and losing two.

I wasn't too unhappy with my results, since my losses were both less than ten points, and my wins were close to 20 points. I was pleased that my victories were more decisive than my losses.

Upon checking the KGS ratings of the two opponents that beat me, I found that they are 5K and 6K on KGS compared to my own 8K, so I feel as if I performed well against them. I did feel rather pushed around by both of them.

An interesting reunion occurred during the third round with an opponent who remembered me from the San Francisco congress eleven years ago in 1999. We had played that year. He must have been a mere child at the time since he is in graduate school now. That was eleven years ago. I was quite frankly surprised that we had progressed at the same pace given the difference in our ages. He recalls that we were both about 15K at the time of our previous game. Now he is 10K and I am 9K. Our game at this tournament was interesting in that he was way ahead, but I managed to isolate and kill a number of stones leading to my victory. He tells me that something similar occurred eleven years ago, and even pointed to the area of the board involved. I was impressed that our game had been that memorable for him.

I had my iPad with me and I recorded my games with it. But even more interestingly I played a 9x9 game with another iPad owner over the internet on KGS while we sat across from each other at a table at the Maryland Open. We accomplished this through the use of remote desktop software. I was using LogMeIn Ignition. We both have 3G iPads so we could log in to our home desktops (both 24" iMacs) even though we did not have wi-fi access at the playing site. I won that 9x9 by 1.5 points even though my first move was an obvious miss click.

March Audio Go Lessons - My Watch List

I purchased the year long subscription to the Audio Go Lessons web site at the middle of the month in March.

Following is a list of the Lessons I watched during the month of March:

Step By Step Series Lesson 1

Step By Step Series Lesson 2

Step By Step Series Lesson 3

Typical Mistakes Lecture 1 Level 30k - 20k

Important Stones Lesson 1

Important Stones Lesson 2

Efficiency for 30K - 10k

Invasion Lecture 1 30k - 1k

Important Stones Lesson 3

Efficiency for 30k - 10k Lesson 2

Some of these are lessons I had previously purchased, and which had since expired. It was good to go back and view some of these lessons again. Some of these lessons were new to me.

If I continue to watch lessons at this rate I will be able to watch twice as many videos in one year as I could have watched if I had rented them one video at a time, and I can go back and watch them as often as I want for a full year rather than a full month.

I'll make it a point to report on my usage for the month of April.

I Subscribed To Audio Go Lessons For One Year

Guo Juan has offered a new payment plan for her audio go lessons web site, which can be found at her Internet Go School. For 99 Euros you get a full year of unlimited access. I decided that this was an attractive plan for me because it meant that I wouldn't have to worry about access on individual offerings expiring after one month. 99 Euros is significantly more than I would have paid in the course of a year to watch individual titles if I had rented each one separately. However, now that I will be trying to get my money's worth, I will probably watch many more videos. I won't have to ask myself if I want to bother to spend the single Euro for a particular title. It's really nice not to have to worry about the videos expiring after a month.

My first order of business is to go back over the easiest Step By Step videos that I had watched in the beginning. Those are excellent videos that I might otherwise not have bothered to rent again.

NJ Open Round 5

These pictures were all taken by Don DeCourcelle.

This was an incredibly peaceful game. Not a single stone was captured during the game. The final position has one dead stone of each color near the center of the board. This is not unusual for me since I am basically a very peaceful player.

The first image is a picture of the board just before scoring. I played black in this game and the bottom territory is worth 49 points. After confirming that fact, we simply removed the lone stone on the first line and placed it elsewhere, and didn't bother to arrange that area any further.

Here I am with my gray hair pondering the board. Don posted these images to Facebook, and I find it amusing that I had made an appointment to color my hair as a reward for reaching my goal weight about an hour before I saw this photograph on Facebook. Seeing it only confirmed the wisdom of my decision.

This is my worthy opponent Iris Lin, who had won all four of her games in the New Jersey Open before our game.

Here is a graphic representation of the board position that Don made for me.

New Jersey Open

I played at the New Jersey Open again this year, and had a great time.

Many of my old friends were present. One old friend who had been conspicuously absent for years made an appearance. Don DeCourcelle, who hosted the New Jersey Yang Workshop for two years, made the NJ Open his first tournament in his return to the go scene after an absence of at least five years.

I played at the rank I "earned" at the Hoboken tournament last year, which is 9k. I was very close to 8k and would like to have played at that level, but I know that the AGA has a policy against one stone self promotions, so I didn't try to push it at registration.

I came to find that, as last year, they were lax in enforcing the policy against one stone self promotions. I found this annoying. I guess it doesn't pay to know and follow the rules.

I went 2-3 and solidified my rating of 9k achieving a revised rating of 9.11 with a sigma of 0.48.

I took my Macbook with me to the tournament and used it to record my games, which drew some attention from the younger set. During the fist game I carelessly misplaced a stone, and recorded only up to the point where it mattered. With the remaining four games I was much more careful and recorded up to the last move of these games. I actually think that recording hurt my games rather than helped them, but at least I have the game records for analysis.

I have already had Yilun Yang review Round 2 and Round 3. I will have him review Round 4 and Round 5 during our next lesson.

Round 1:

I played white against a Chinese Opening. I won that game by 13.5, and did not find myself feeling under pressure during the game at all.

Round 2:

I played white again. This time it was a very close game which I lost by 0.5. I was able to pinpoint a totally unnecessary move on my part which cost me the game. I was so ashamed by the offending move that I was tempted not to show it to Mr. Yang because I knew what he would say about it. I showed it anyway, and he said exactly what I expected, "This is a 25 kyu move." I definitely didn't deserve to win that game. I did take comfort though in knowing that I was playing at the right level by coming in so close in spite of such a terrible mistake.

Round 3:

This game was with a young girl who I had played at the Oza two years before. She had won all her games when she played me, and I think she may have gone on to win the rest of them. I lost this game by 14.5. I was surprised, however, when Mr. Yang reviewed it I was told that I should have won the game. I made some bad errors that prevented me from doing so, but apparently I started out well. This game was the third game of the day, and I don't really like to play more than one serious game per day, so by the time this game was under way I was exhausted. I actually stood for this game to remain focused. It probably worked against me though by making me even more tired.

Round 4

I was refreshed the next morning, and this game I had high hopes of winning. Early in the game I captured quite a large group. Unfortunately my opponent fought back valiantly, cutting off a couple key stones which added significantly to his territory. I lost that game by 3.5.

Round 5

This game was against a young woman who had won all four of her previous games. At the end of the game she told me that I had offered her the biggest challenge of the tournament. During the game she actually said at one point that she would really like to get sente. I know the feeling well. I won that game by 18.5.

I'm not disappointed with my results since two of my losses were so close.

Go Takes A Back Seat To Fitness

I noticed recently that I hadn't posted on this blog since September of last year, and I'm going to tell you why. I've still been playing go, and taking lessons. However go has taken a back seat to my efforts to trim back down and to improve my general level of fitness.

Retirement has been a blessing. It's been good for my go, but it wasn't good for my figure. So for the past year I have been working to take off the 30 pounds that slowly crept on at the rate of a little more than a pound a month once I was no longer on my feet eight hours a day battling teenagers. I used to be a high school art teacher.

I've been putting a lot of my energy into my other blog which I maintain on Spark People. I post to it at least once a day. Starting in October I began training to run a 5K race, and I ran my first race on Sunday, February 28th.

I have replaced the picture from when I was a high school art teacher with a photo of myself crossing my first finish line below my goal weight.

You can read about my 5K on my Spark Blog.

I attended the New Jersey Open this year and will post about that experience soon.