My Week of Go Activities: Going Through a Go Crisis

 

This game sparked my Go Crisis. I'll have more to say about that later.

I've been kind of taking a break from go this week. I dedicated only a little more than eleven hours to Go Activity this week, which is really low for me. 

I'm going through a bit of a crisis wondering whether I really want to care about getting stronger.  Trying to improve doesn't seem to be good for me psychologically. 

The go community is my life so there is no question that I want to continue to be active in the community.  The BenKyo League is the center of my social life. I enjoy taking lessons because I like spending time with my teachers. I live for the week I am able to attend the U.S. Go Congress every year, but caring about improving is starting to feel dangerous.

I notice that I have become increasingly afraid to play and that I am bothered by specific kinds of losses. Not all losses bother me. Close losses don't bother me. Even large losses where I have simply been outplayed at every step of the game don't bother me. Those opponents are just better than I am. There is nothing about those losses that threaten my sense of well being.

Losses as a result of fights are another matter altogether and they are what bother me. This is probably because I don't fight by choice, and I know that fighting is the weakest area of my game. Any loss where something really terrible happens bothers me. It has always been that way, but I used to be able to shrug it off after a little reflection. That doesn't seem to be the case any more. It is taking me longer to shrug those losses off.

Recently I had a loss in the American Yunguseng Dojang that particularly bothered me. It involved a big fight that made it necessary for me to kill a large group of stones to have any chance in the game. I was doing it, but then I made a mistake.

The mistake below lost me the game. I came away from that game wondering why I even bother to play. I don't want to feel that way again, and it seems as if the temporary solution has to be to convince myself that I don't care about winning or getting stronger, and that I play simply to be social.

So until further notice I am just having fun. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

Here once again is my shame:

I am Black. Move 99 was a 42 point blunder.

I did go on to win my next AYD game by 1.5 which helps me feel a little bit better, but I am still not ready to care again yet.

Something else on the bright side is that I finally double ranked up again on Fox with my sandbagging account. I went from 13k to 11k.

Things I am going to do to make myself feel better this week include:

Spending more time on Tsumego

Reviewing some of my previous lessons

Watching go videos on the Go Magic web site.

Playing some Guided Go on Fox with one of my go buddies.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I was lazy and didn't play much. 

I'm just not into it right now. 

I'm not sure what to do to change that.

I hope next week is better.

My Week of Go Activities: Reviewing Yang Lessons

 

It was a fairly normal week of Go Activities in terms of the number of hours spent at well over 25 hours. What was unusual about this week was that the top activity was Yang Lesson Review.

I spent over seven hours reviewing some of my lessons with Yilun Yang 7p.  When I say reviewing I also mean editing the lesson files. 

I take 90 minute lessons alternate weeks on KGS with Mr. Yang. I've been a student of Mr. Yang off and on since 1998 when I was 19 kyu AGA. The lessons are purely text lessons. There is no audio during the lessons nor is there a video file for review. Everything is in the sgf file. Mr. Yang continues to conduct his lessons in this manner and he is really good at it. He is a quick typist. All of the variations and comments are in the sgf file. The files can be reviewed exactly as they are, but I like to edit the files to move the occasional misplaced comment back into place, to mark the next move as A when it is convenient to refer to it one move ahead, and to add comments of my own later about my understanding. Editing my lessons makes it easier to review them again at a later date, and it also makes it easier for someone else to understand them if I choose to share them.

One of the things I decided to do with my Yang Lessons is to make them into books to read with SmartGo One. Here is a portion of the book I created with one of my lessons.

I had started lessons with Yang again after a seven year break about a year and a half ago. I have 35 lessons accumulated so far. I was very lazy about editing them and decided to get to work on them this week.

I have a numbering system for my lessons. The first number in the file name is the number in the current series of lessons. The second number is the number of the lesson in the total of all of the lessons I have taken since I first started with Mr. Yang in 1998.

I spent very little time on playing games this week and have only three games to show for it.

TWO Weeks of Go Activity - And a New Go Jacket

I skipped posting my Go Activity last week. I will catch up with data from the two most recent weeks, but first I would like to show off a jacket I recently ordered from Baduk Club.

When I am at the Go Congress I like to have a light jacket or sweater to wear in the playing area because it tends to get cold from the air conditioning. I had been admiring this jacket on the Baduk Club web site for a while and decided to get one to bring to Portland next year where the Go Congress is going to be held.

I'm hoping it will look as good on me as it does on the model.

Now on to my usual content.

Two weeks ago I put in nearly 25 hours on Go Activity with Live Play coming in as the top activity.

Last week I put in nearly 28 hours on Go Activity with BenKyo's Live Stream just barely topping out Live Play.

The big news for the week is that I am just about to double rank up with my sandbagging Fox account.

I have just one more game to win and I will be 11k. I'm actually nervous about playing that game.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I put in nearly 25 hours on Go Activities this week.

I played very few games with only four games being played. All of them were league games.

My Week of Go Activities

It was a week of moderate Go Activity with nearly 21 hours. Live Play took top place at over 24% of time spent.

I didn't play a lot of games but the games were close and all but one was a win. That loss was only by 0.5 and was very painful as it was an American Yunguseng Dojang game that prevented me from moving up to C1 from C2. The game was with a good friend of mine, Gurujeet, who is the President of The American Go Association.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I put in only about 22 hours on Go Activities for the week.

It was a light week for go activities with only five games played two of which were teaching games with Ben Mantle during my lesson.

My Week of Go Activities: Doing Well in Two of My Leagues

Recently two of my five leagues started up again and I am doing well in both of them. They are the American Yunguseng Dojang League and the Go Magic League. I have two wins and zero losses in both of those leagues so far.

I'm still waiting for NAOL games to begin again. They will start soon. It is the 5th season on NAOL and I have played in all of them so far.

It was a busy week with over 32 hours of Go Activity.

I always like it when Live Play comes in as the number one activity. It did so this week with over six hours devoted to Live Play.

Seven of my ten games played were League Games. Of the remaining three games two were Fox games and one was a teaching game with Ben Mantle.

Clossius has suggested to me that I play 5 3x30 games on Fox to get more game experience. I had been playing 20 3x60. I played both of my Fox games at the faster speed, but did not enjoy it as much and played fewer Fox games as a result. I still haven't decided if I will stick with the faster time limits or not. I am close to ranking up on my sandbagging account and don't want to risk missing that chance, though I should not care about the rank on the sandbagging account and I probably ought to start playing a few games with my legitimately rated 6k Fox account.

I had an interesting 0.5 win in my most recent Go Magic league game.

Go Magic R2 Season 2

My opponent and I had a nice long conversation after the game. I pitched Benkyo League to him. I also gave him the link to the Clossius Twitch Stream and invited him to come and watch my lesson the next day. I fully intended to review our game with Clossius during that lesson. Unfortunately my lesson needed to be cancelled so the game was never reviewed. I let my opponent know so he would not show up for the review that would not happen. 

My next lesson with Clossius will be two weeks from now, so I might have Yilun Yang review this game in my next lesson on Monday. I'd be able to share the text file with my opponent and it might be really cool to be able to share my pro review with him. Of course it will be reviewed from my side, but I am sure it would still be interesting.  I'll get it reviewed somehow. I am just not sure how yet.

In my most recent AYD Game I won by 42.5 which I thought was really great. I was a little disappointed that the big takeaway from the review was that I played too fast. It is true, of course. So in my AYD Game today I am going to make it a point to use my time so I won't get that comment again. I play quickly anyway and I got a bit caught up in the pace of my opponent which was bad.

Since I won't be taking a lesson with Clossius for another two weeks I am likely to focus on League Games for the next two weeks and use the remainder of my time to review some of my most recent lessons with Ben and do some editing of my lesson files with Yilun Yang. I will have plenty of games for Clossius for our next lesson without playing more on Fox.

My Week of Go Activities: Taking it Easy

 

I put in 29 hours on Go Activities last week, but I took a break from playing.

Here is my one game for the week. It is a Yunguseng Dojang game that I won.

I didn't have a lesson with Clossius on Friday so I decided to take it easy.

Two of my Leagues are starting up again. The one game I played this week was from one of those leagues.

Things will be busier next week.

My Week of Go Activities: Antique Go Stone Purchase

 

I took delivery yesterday of a fantastic set of antique go stones from Baduk Club. They are delightful wafer shaped disks of slate and shell.

The set came with petite wooden bowls large enough to hold the stones.

I actually prefer thinner stones over thicker ones, and these will be real conversation starters if I ever make it to the Princeton Go Club again, which I definitely hope to do.

I feel like I now own a piece of go history.

Now for my usual weekly report on my Go Activity:

I engaged in nearly 23 hours of go activity last week the largest portion of which was spent watching others play.

I played eight games last week, five of which were played on Fox. Of those five games, I only played one as black. Fox players love to play black.

I'm taking a break from playing in the current week, but I will be back strong to get more games for Clossius to review in my lesson next week. This week I don't have my usual lesson on Friday. I'm moving to a schedule of alternate week lessons now that I have chipped away fairly well at my backlog of lessons.