My Weekly Go Activities

 

It was a good week for Go Activity with over 36 hours. For the first time ever perhaps Live Play came in with the most amount of time spent. That was followed by time spent on the 101 Weiqi web site doing go problems.

I managed to hit my minimum target of ten games, seven of which were rated with a 6:4 win loss ratio.

All but one of my games fell into the "feel good" margin of loss. Games 4 and 8 were played way too fast. I have to be more mindful of my speed of play. They were both played with the same player. In conversation after the second game I came to find out that he is a Spectator Member of the European Yunguseng Dojang. We chatted, and I friended him. He did admit to playing fast so his opponents would play fast. Maybe he feels he can handle fast play better than others. The results suggest that he can. I obviously can't. I got sucked into his rate of play.

I did force myself to play this week with mixed results. I am trying to build the habit of playing in order to increase the number of games I play which is why I forced myself to play. If I get some bad results because I am not in the mood to play, I am just going to have to accept that.

My emphasis on Go Problems has continued. I completed over 1,000 problems on the 101 Weiqi site this week. I feel really good about that.

My Weekly Go Activities

 

This week was light on Go Activity. I had only a little more than 23 hours. I consider myself to have lost a week of go study by attending an online conference for five days, so I am going to add up games from last week and this week and consider them one week with one week lost.  

I have ten games to show since my last lesson.

Unfortunately it has been a really bad week, and I was unable to win a single game this week. However, every game played in the past two weeks fell within the "feel good" loss margin of 25 points, so they are all colored green on the game link column.

All but one of the games this week were played as black with the Points Lover Fuseki.  I am either doing poorly playing this opening or I am getting into trouble in the middle game, but I am losing. 

The game played on Fox is unavailable for review because I was unable to download it.

Intensive work on go problems has continued as shown below. 

Once the week is over I repurpose the spreadsheet above for the next week and move the total figures to a chart I am using to keep track of problems and games for the remainder of the year.

I'll admit to being a down about my game results this week. However, I am just going to continue to use the Points Lover Fuseki, at least in the games I play on OGS. I've dropped to 7 kyu. I'm not going to let myself care if I drop to 8 kyu. I'm sticking with this for a while. My plan is to put together an sgf file with Points Lover opening games in it and learn from it.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I spent over 37 hours on Go Activities this week. It was a very light week for Live Play because I was participating in a five day online video conference. That conference will spill into the next week, so my Live Play will be less than I would like for that week as well. I'm just going to consider the total for the two weeks as one week and accept the fact that a week has been lost.

There was no go lesson last week.

The big theme for the week has been an emphasis on Go Problems I spent over five hours on Spaced Repetition Problems and more than six and a half hours on 101 Weichi.

As always, Watching Others Play came in as the top activity.

I created a spreadsheet to keep track of my go problems for the week. After the week is over I transfer the weekly totals to a tab on my games spreadsheet. Then I reuse the sheet below to keep track of the next week.

The formulas on the right of the sheet are for gathering data for timed trials of problem sets. I performed my first timed trial on row 9 "Double Atari" of the 101 Weichi Spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was provided to me by my teacher Shawn Ray.

I copied the 101 Weichi spreadsheet to a sheet one of my own, and added columns for my own use. Below is a small part of my adaptation of the spreadsheet showing the results of my timed trial in the two columns on the far right. Blue cells represent Safari tabs that I keep open on my computer. When I close a tab I eliminate the blue color in the cell.

Upon editing, I deleted the column with Chinese language url links. I added a column for Safari translations.

My goal for the upcoming week is to continue working hard on go problems and to try to get in enough games to bring my two week total to a minimum of ten. If I can do better than that I will be happier.

My Week of Go Activities

 

This was a particularly active week with over 43 hours of Go Activity. Watching Others Play dominated the week. I played only eight games this week which is two short of my minimum. However, I spent over six hours playing those games largely because some of them were serious games. Three of the games were league games, and I won two of them. The one league game I lost was by only 1.5 points. I am currently undefeated in the MGA League.

I got a review from Clossius for the league game that I lost. He made it clear that this game came down to cutting points. I am not seeing the weaknesses of my opponent. Interestingly enough my opponent was not seeing her weaknesses either. 

My goal for this week was to do more problems on the 101weichi web site. I completed an average of 100 problems a day for a total of 700 problems this week. Because I keep track of how much time I spend doing problems I was able to calculate that I spent 26 seconds on average per problem.

In addition to the problems on the 101 site I am also keeping up with my Spaced Repetion problems on the Guo Juan Internet Go School. I do at least 150 problems a day there, so I did about 1050 additional go problems this week. I'm not lumping the Spaced Repetition problems in with the 101 problems though because they are different.

My goal for next week is to increase the number of games played to at least ten if not more. I will continue with the work on 101 Weichi.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I spent over 36 hours on Go Activities this week. There is a really big chunk of Clossius Time composed of four different Clossius activities. That is the large swath of pink on the left of the pie chart. I spent a significant amount of time this week watching the lesson videos of other Clossius students. 

I was a bit light on the number of games I played. There were only seven of them. That is three short of my self imposed minimum of ten. Only two of the games were rated.

If you click on the link below you can view the entire spreadsheet.

My Spreadsheet

In spite of playing so few games,  Live Play came in at over five hours. This is because the majority of the games were serious league games.

I am really enjoying playing in the leagues because it means more serious games that will be reviewed.

All but one of my games for the week fell within the 25 point "feel good" loss margin set by Clossius. The one that fell outside the margin did so by only half a point. Notice all of the light green in the OGS Game Link column on my spreadsheet.

My league game for the MGA was a narrow 1.5 victory. I felt good about the game, but I also felt very lucky. I always feel lucky when there is such a narrow victory because those games could easily have gone the other way. I felt even luckier, however, when I looked up my opponent in the AGA database. I found that she is 5 kyu AGA. I am 9 kyu AGA, and we had played an even game. My opponent played very well, and the game got complicated. There was a trade in the middle game. I am not sure who benefited from that trade, but I will probably find out next Monday when the game gets reviewed during a Zoom meeting. 

The bad news for this week is that I ranked down to 7 kyu on OGS. That is to be expected while I ride the line between ranks. I'll have to play a few more games on OGS this week to see if I can rank back up again and maintain the promotion.

There is other bad news. I've done fewer go problems on 101 Weichi lately than on the Internet Go School. I was particularly bad this week about that. I need to continue finishing my due problems on the Internet Go School, but I need to make more time for 101 Weichi too because that is how I can improve my reading skills.

My Week of Go Activities

 

This week I spent just shy of 30 hours on Go Activities. My life is feeling more balanced as a result.

I managed to play my minimum of 10 games this week. I did it by playing two games per day on five days, so I actually got two days off from playing. My games this week included an MGA League game and a Clossi League game, both of which I won.

It was hard getting in the last two games for the week, and I did force myself to play on a few days. It was quite late last night when I started to play my last game of the week, but I wanted to get it in. I was winning, but fatigue set in, and I missed an atari that forced me to resign. Aside from that it was a good game.

Look at all of that Clossius time clumped together in four categories on the left side of the chart! The narrow strip of Clossius time at the top of the chart is accounted for by the review of my Clossi League game this week.

As always my games spreadsheet is open to everyone to view. It includes links to my lesson videos with Clossius, links to all of my games, and AI-Sensei links to my losses.

My Week of Go Activities

 

My Weekly Go Activities blog post is coming much later in the week because I have rearranged my week to accommodate my new lesson day of Friday. I want to give Clossius a full week of the most recent games on my games spreadsheet.

I spent 36 hours on Go Activities this week and about half of that time was on Essential Go Activities in the form of Live Play, Go Problems, and Game Reviews. I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer worth the trouble of documenting the difference between Essential and Non Essential go activities. I don't think it is productive since I am pretty consistently logging between a third and a half of my time on Essential Activities. As a result, I am going to be dropping those statistics from my blog posts moving forward.

I am dropping a few things from my games spreadsheet as well.  I will no longer document the date that games are played. It is an extra step that does not give me any value in my spreadsheet, so I have eliminated the date column. 

I am keeping the Day of the Week column because I use it to plan my games through out the week, and I do see value in seeing if I am taking too many days off or if I am trying to get in too many games in one day.

Another column I am getting rid of is the Time of Day column that I had used to code the three hour periods in which I was beginning games. It served a purpose when I first stared using it to focus my attention on attempting to play earlier in the day. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that my domestic situation forces me to play in the evening against my better judgment. I don’t need to see the codes to remind me that I am playing too late in the day.

You can see the results of the above mentioned changes here:

Anyone who is interested in watching any of my previous lessons with Clossius can view them by hovering over the Lesson Number on my spreadsheet and clicking on the url for the YouTube upload of the lesson. You can also replay any of my games, and view AI-Sensei reviews for my losses.

My Games Spreadsheet

My Week of Go Activities

 

I spent a little over 35 hours on Go Activities this week. A good portion of that time was spent being social at the end of the e-Go Congress Zooming. Another large portion of time was spent Watching Others Play.

I took a four day vacation from Go following the end of the Congress which accounts for my light week of only six games. The reason for the vacation is that I am starting to be afraid to play again. I’m a little late with my post this week because my lesson day has been moved from Tuesday to Friday so there was no real need to post at the beginning of the week.

I’ve started the new week fairly strong with three games on Sunday and three on Monday. I’m hoping to hit 15 games this week which is a step in the right direction. I've had a problem with Fox not updating, so that is an issue to deal with. I took a day off on Tuesday and I have been playing fast and furious with my fearless account on KGS. I lost two games in a row with fearless, and ranked down two ranks going from 5k? to 7k today.

On the bright side I am close to ranking up to 6k on OGS, but that is only making me more afraid to play and steering me toward using an account on KGS that I don't give a crap about.

 

Now for the important stuff: 

My rated win loss ratio is 4:2    (66% Wins)

 9:18    Essential Go Activities  

 2:24        26%    Live Play 

 5:06        55%    Go Problems

 1:48        19%    Game Review

I joined the One Million Club on the Internet Go School

 

I have been looking forward to accumulating over one million points on the Internet Go School. It happened today when I finished all of my due problems for the day.

If you look at my study stats you will see that I tried really hard to make it happen yesterday, but it was not to be.

I love the Internet Go School. It is an important part of my go study every single day.

Not only am I now a member of the One Million Club. I am also number 52 in accumulated points, and I am getting very close to my goal of being number 50.

If you have not tried it yet consider the free trial. You might want to read a recent blog post of mine with more details about the go school. 

If you decide to sign up after the trial, tell them that buzzsaw sent you.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I spent over 35 hours on Go Activities last week.

It was the week of the e-Go Congress, so one might assume that I would play more game, but I played fewer games just as I do during an across the board real life Go Congress. Games were fewer and slower. I participated in the Open and in Pair Go. I chose not to participate in the Blitz Tournament because I think that blitz is bad for me.  I play too fast as it is. I was unable to participate in the DDK tournament because my official AGA rating is 9 kyu. Plus I promoted to 8 kyu for the tournament.

I’ve been to 18 actual Go Congresses to date. At a real Go Congress I spend most of my time being social and attending lectures. This was true of the e-Go Congress this year. 

The Twitch stream was full of great events including the Opening Ceremony, Closing Ceremony, and two lectures by In-Seong Hwang. It was possible to be social in the comments of the Twitch stream during those events. 

The addition of a Discord server made the event even more social than it was last year. People posted introductions and there was talk in the general channel. There were also Zoom Hang Out events to attend. I participated in a number of them this year, and enjoyed them immensely. 

One of the best parts of the Congress for me this year was participation in the Beginner’s Night on Tuesday. It was scheduled for three hours, but ran for four. I helped in one of the break out rooms in Track 1 for new players.

The highlight of the Congress was the Pair Go event. I was nervous about it, but it went really smoothly. My partner and I lost our first game by 3.5 points and we won our second game by 2 points making us 3rd place at our table. I felt really good about the close games. My partner and I had a great time. 

I was reminded this week of why I play go. I play go for the community. 

Now for the important stuff: 

My rated win loss ratio is 2:0    (100% Wins)

 18:02    Essential Go Activities  (over 50%)

 5:10        29%    Live Play 

 9:38        53%    Go Problems

 3:14        18%    Game Review

Positive Reinforcement for Games Lost by a Specific Margin

I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of my games for a number of months now. 

My teacher, Shawn Ray, encouraged me to create this spreadsheet as a launch pad for game review during our lessons on OGS.  When I play games on servers other than OGS I upload those games to my SGF Library on OGS. Putting links to all of the files in my spreadsheet allows us to easily begin reviews of games from any server.

In my most recent lesson Shawn and I talked about how he wants me to have positive reinforcement for games that I lose by fewer than 25 points. I am 8 kyu now on OGS. He said that when I get to 5 kyu that we should change that threshold to 15 points.

We came to the conclusion that I could continue to color code the Result and Rank columns as I had been doing all along in order to show the severity of wins and loses. However, he wanted me to color code the Games List column to be green for any game I lose by fewer than 25 points. He said that this would make me feel good about "close" games. The definition of "close" will get more stringent as I improve. I decided to go with a light green and a light red (pink).

Shawn said that he wished he could automate this for his students. It would actually be a great feature for OGS to add as an additional column with the ability to indicate the threshold, and to change that threshold over time depending on what your teacher recommends, or how much positive reinforcement you need.

Gosh! I actually feel so much better about myself now. I really do. 

I lost seven out of 14 games last week, but only two of them were by more than 25 points or by resignation, and one those games was only one point above the threshold.

Shawn is not only my teacher. He is my go psychologist.

My Week of Go Activities

 

I spend a little more than 36 hours on Go Activities this week. It looks as if this is going to be my new normal. I wanted to get 15 games in this week but I fell short by one game after I spent about two hours on the first Round of the Open in the e-Go Congress.

I was dead tired after that game, but I was also very disappointed because I had won it yet, due to a bunch of technical issues too great to go into here, the entire first round of the Open ended up in the trash heap. I found that discouraging enough to put me off playing my final game for the week.

Even though I only played 14 games I had over ten hours of game play. A good chunk of that time was spent on two AYD games and Round 1 of the Open yesterday. 

I am having a major problem with Fox. I can play games, but I am unable to download them. I'm not sure how to resolve this issue.

Now for the important stuff:

My rated win loss ratio is 3:6    (33% Wins)

 19:41    Essential Go Activities  (over 50%)

 10:04      51%    Live Play 

 7:04        36%    Go Problems

 2:33        13%    Game Review

 

Beginner's Night at the eCongress

I'm reaching out to my friends who may be curious about the game I play called Go. The Korean name for the game is Baduk, which is a lot easier to do a Google search for.

Anyone who knows me at all is aware that I devote a good portion of my life to playing and studying the Asian board game called Go.

If you are at all curious about the game I urge you to take advantage of a rare opportunity to learn about the game along with other beginners. Tuesday, July 20th in the evening at 8:00 PM EDT the eCongress is holding a Beginner's Night on Zoom utilizing the Online Go Server as the playing venue.

Rather than trying to describe this event to you I will provide a link to the document prepared by those hosting it for the American Go Association. All of the relevant details can be found in the document.

This event isn't just for total beginners. It is also for fairly new players who have the experience to  make it through a large board game, but want help learning more.

I will be attending the event as an observer though I might end up getting recruited to help depending on how many people show up.

The image above is the ending position of a 9x9 game played by my grandson Evan while he was visiting last month. We set up an account for him on the Online Go Server and he played a number of games with bots. I reviewed these games for him afterwards. I hope he continues to learn about go online.

Come join us for a night of Go. 

Discover a new passion.

My Week of Go Activities

 

Last week I put in fewer than 34 hours on Go Activities. I actually consider that to be a positive thing because I am trying to find some balance in my life.

In spite of a much lower number of hours than usual, I was able to play 15 games. This is fewer than I would like, and I am still trying to aim for 20 games per week, but I think I can be satisfied with 15 games.

The big news this week is that I created an account on the Fox go server. Interestingly all of my wins have been against 3k players.

Now for the important stuff:

My rated win loss ratio is 8:7    (53% Wins)

 18:56    Essential Go Activities  (over 50%)

 7:38      40%    Live Play 

 6:29      34%    Go Problems

 4:49      26%    Game Review

 

I Think I Got Someone Banned on Fox

Two days ago I created an account on the Fox Go Server. I had been wanting to do this for quite some time since apparently every serious go player has a Fox account. A number of my AYD friends are now playing on Fox and I need to be able to follow them there. As a Mac user, however, I needed to jump through a few hoops to be able to do this.

I eventually decided to install Parallels Desktop in order to be able to run the Fox Go Server. Crossover was not working for me. I am very happy with the way Parallels worked out because I did not want to play around with the command line which was another option. It was just easier to install a virtual machine to accomplish the task of playing on Fox.

I was lucky to be able to obtain the user name buzzsaw on Fox. I have the name buzzsaw on every go server I use now: KGS, OGS, Pandanet, and Fox.

I’ve played four games so far. I lost the first two and I won the second two. Those last two games were played as no komi games against 3k players. I am 5k.

This blog post is about the excitement involved in my most recent game.

Here is the board position when the excitement started. My opponent was typing things into the chat which I could not read. I informed him that I could not speak Chinese whereupon he accused me of being a dog.

I had just finished watching a live stream by Go Magic where I learned that Chinese refer to AI programs as dogs, so I suspected I was being accused of using AI, or even of being AI, which was actually quite exciting and complementary.

The full chat is included below in a series of screen captures. I did these captures so I could report his unsportsmanlike behavior. I also wanted to figure out how to keep him from playing with me again. I don’t need that kind of drama. I wanted to block this guy.

A friend of mine who had helped me learn how to use Fox suggested that I report this user. I noticed that there was an Admin button. I clicked it but did not see that it resulted in anything. However, an Admin must have looked at the conversation and banned him because his account had disappeared.

That saved my friend and me the trouble of posting these screen captures to Reddit. It also saved me the trouble of blocking him. 

It is worth noting that he sent me a game request immediately after the game was over. So he did want revenge. It would really be funny if he happened to be the same 3k I had beaten the day before.

I decided to create this blog post in order to document this exciting event. It is always a good day when you are accused of being an AI program by an angry Fox Player who is two stones stronger than you.

My Week of Go Activities

 

This week I spent over 40 hours on Go Activities. That is a little light for me, especially given that I played a lot of games this week. I tried to meet my goal of 20 games, but fell a bit short with 17 games.

New activities for this week include practicing Pair Go for the eCongress, trying some blitz games, and doing a Shadow Go game with a fellow Clossius student.

I did really well with my rated games, all of which were on OGS. I ranked up from 9k to 8k and appear to be on the verge of ranking up to 7k.

I achieved an impressive victory of 44.5 in an AYD League game. I was disappointed that a co teacher ended up conducting the review because I really wanted In-Seong to see that game and comment on it. I hope he clicks through this game before he does my yearly review which will be due in a couple weeks at the end of this season.

There are a few new features in my spreadsheet. I’ve added a column for the day of the week that I play a game. I have started to list blitz and Pair Go games in the events column. I color coded the “R” for game number five with a green cell to indicate that I ranked up with that game. If I rank down again I will indicate it with a pink cell. I only lost five games this week out of 17 and three of them were non rated.

I will admit to being a bit protective of my rank on OGS now that I have ranked up, and am close to ranking up again. I need to get back in there and play some more rated games.

Now for the important stuff:

My rated win loss ratio is 7:2    (78% Wins)

 20:23    Essential Go Activities  (over 50%)

 9:21      46%    Live Play 

 5:06      25%    Go Problems

 5:46      29%    Game Review