Lately I’ve been on a serious slump in everything -__-. Slump in school work, slump in Go, slump in health, slump in life. I can’t get rid of this feeling of disgust and hatred inside myself for performing so poorly in everything I do during the past week. Just yesterday I stayed up all night (already fail right there, I was on a great roll of not procrastinating until this) to do homework and took a small “nap” at 5am. Without an alarm clock. I think you can guess what happened from there, all my homework was for nothing grade-wise.
I’ve also been studying less and less as I feel completely burnt out, and my midterm and homework grades have been less than stellar. Right now I’m very much banking on my final exams in 2 weeks. Each exam for every class weigh exactly 50%, so this is my one and only chance to recover. Too bad I haven’t exactly been taking the initiative so far.
And let’s see, with Go…currently I have three accounts that are 5d, four that are 4d. Strangely, I have one that is 1d as well. That account is the one where I only play the san-ren-sei opening. Now I’m pretty sure playing an opening I’m not familiar with should drop my strength by three stones, so I think there’s some sort of placebo effect going on there. However, on all accounts I have been going on very bad losing streaks. It’s blatantly obvious why too: my Go just feels hollow. I lack focus and direction, and I always keep saying to myself during the game “why did you just play that move?” or “did you REALLY just play there?”.
From a more global perspective on my game, I’m just finding the game less enjoyable as a result of my pathetic performance in everything else I’m doing. So I think I need to stop playing for a bit and straighten out my life first. If I’m not in good spirit when I play, my Go just falls apart. This is also why I put myself in vacation-mode on OGS, a turn-based server I’ve been playing on recently.
What I find myself doing in 90% of my online Go games.
Health has also been problematic. I’ve been running and going to the gym less, and just a few days ago I broke a month-long streak of no soda. I’ve been averaging 4-6 hours instead of 6-8 hours of sleep a day. I’ve also been eating out more and cooking less so financially I’ve also been going downhill. Especially when you eat at Specialty’s, why must they make food that’s so delicious yet so overpriced?
Ugh, but yeah…I’m seriously falling apart as a human being right now. I need someone to just give me a good punch in the face and tell me to get myself together -__-. Sigh…
Amateur dan players can become Go teachers and make as much as golf or piano teachers.
Majority of high schools and colleges will have Go clubs, leagues, and competitions.
Courses on Go research or history will be offered by universities.
Major companies such as IBM or Google will provide support in Go AI research.
Top amateurs can become professionals here and make a living from it.
Striving to become a Go professional from a young age and without travelling to Asia is viable.
The annual Go Congress brings in numbers by the tens of thousands.
Sections on bookshelves just for Go are seen in libraries and in bookstores.
Walking into a cafe or a bar and seeing Go boards becomes the norm.
Go will get coverage from major television networks such as ESPN.
It all seems nice doesn’t it? It also seems so far away, so distant…but the day will come someday. I have high hopes that this is something I will experience in my lifetime.
An audience of fans in Korea watching a pro Starcraft game. Imagine if this was the same for Go fans watching the top board in the US Open.
However, without those who work hard to introduce the game into the lives of more and more people, we can’t even dream about these possibilities. This is why I have more respect for them than even those who play Go at a professional level. After all, how could some of them even know about the game without those who work hard to introduce the game to them in the first place? So this post goes out to the Go players who start up clubs, organize tournaments, volunteer for organizations such as the EGF and AGA, and do all that they can to ensure the growth of the wonderful game of Go to the Western world. It really is a shame that it took me so long to realize and appreciate the amount of work these people put into the game.
PS: Regarding the last point in the list, I will leave you with this video from Korea (broken into three parts). All the fancy props, pro commentators, and editing…not for an international tournament game between players like Lee Sedol or Gu Li, but for an online game played on Tygem between two 9d players that the commentators don’t even know the identities of. To go to such great lengths to analyze their game is just…wow. If the last point ever was fulfilled, it’d be the equivalent of a game between MilanMilan and kghin getting analyzed and broadcasted with pro commentators :
And I’ll leave the SGF of the game they’re reviewing here:
Added CyberORO/World Baduk to the Go Servers section, where I review Go servers I’ve played extensively on.
Added a Tsumego section, which doesn’t have much for now but will basically contain problems I’ve composed. There’s already one there, so see if you can solve it .
Added a Links section, where I just post favorited Go sites and my bookmark.
Yesterday I made a thread over at Lifein19x19 forums to discuss the question: What makes someone a 9-dan? I intentionally left the definition of 9-dan a bit vague for discussion sakes, but for this post I’m going to have it mean “anyone strong enough to reach 9-dan on a Go server”. In the thread I provided several characteristics such a 9-dan has in their Go:
They can read with incredible depth and width.
They have a massive joseki database in their minds.
They can remember games they played eons ago.
They can adapt to various time settings and utilize it efficiently (since not all pro tournaments have the same, or even similar, time settings).
There are some others I’ve posted in the thread, and some of the response posts in the thread are excellent – so be sure to check it out if you haven’t already. I think most Go players can agree with the first three points I made, but what about #4? How can 9-dan players be better not only on the board, but with the clock as well?
First off, I’d like to note that regarding overtime systems, byoyomi is by far the most popular choice in Asia for Go players. The big servers in Asia only support byoyomi, and most tournaments use byoyomi as well. It’s also very popular in America and Europe, but nowhere as dominant. So what I’m about to write only applies for byoyomi overtime.
9-dan players know how to utilize their byoyomi periods more efficiently than weaker players. This is especially noticed online, but can be seen in televised league games between professionals as well. There are a handful of such videos you can find on Youtube, and the one I’ve posted below is a game between Umezawa Yukari 5p and Ishida Atsushi 9p that illustrates my point. Pay close attention to how much of the byoyomi period they use before making their moves (and sometimes using ko threats at the last second to gain more thinking time, a tactic some people call a “timesuji”):
The majority of their moves either spent nearly all of the byoyomi period, or was played quickly – the latter for many reasons, such as a move to play was obvious or was what they read. Another example is shown below, a more humorous game between Yoda Norimoto 9p and Cho Chikun 9p:
As I’ve mentioned earlier, this is also noticed in online games. When you watch 9d vs. 9d games on Tygem, you will notice that many players, especially the top 9d players, won’t make moves, especially in middle-game, until the countdown voice just finishes saying “9″ (it counts up to 10 once you have 10 seconds remaining). It’s very exciting to see especially when they’re down to their last period and they continue to get it down to the wire regardless, brushing against the reaper of time losses. Take a look at the bar plots below:
Barplots of byoyomi period usage between two Tygem 9ds who played and between two KGS 1-2ds.
I observed a game between two top Tygem 9d players (along with nearly 800 others ) and paid attention to their byoyomi (time settings were no main time, 20 second byoyomi x 3). Every time they used up a period, I just counted the time they spent on their next period instead. I kept track of how much of their byoyomi period they spent for every move, went over a recorded video of it briefly to ensure accurate measurements, then threw the results into R to spit these bar plots out. I did the same thing in a game that was played between a KGS 2d and a KGS 1d with identical time settings. The blue barplots are for the 9d players, and the yellow barplots are for the KGS 1-2d players.
You can clearly see that the KGS players, whose IDs I’ve removed for privacy reasons, didn’t utilize their byoyomi periods fully, the KGS 1d player only getting down to 2 seconds once on a period. Meanwhile, the 9d players got it down to the wire more frequently than for any other time leftover except for the 20-second mark, or moves that were played instantly. However, if we look at the third row of blue barplots, where I took out the last 45 moves in their game to not count time spent filling dame and playing 1/2 – 1 pt. moves, you can see that the players got it down to the last second most frequently.
Now I know from a scientific point of view, two game samples are absolutely, nowhere near enough to start making claims, but these results are consistent with what I’ve noticed over the years. Next time you see high dan games online or pro games on TV/Youtube, pay attention every once in a while on how they spend their byoyomi. And it makes sense; whenever I’m in byoyomi I find it difficult to stay paced and read calmly (or at all?) because I keep worrying about the time. Many players will, instead of trying to improve their reading under heavy time pressure, try to avoid the issue by playing the instinctive moves, or the moves with the best feeling instead when they hit overtime. They figure there isn’t enough time to do anything except shallow reading, or god forbid counting (PS: it’s very much possible).
Below you will find observations I made for only one side in two other games that show similar trends. I was on another computer at the time and didn’t have recording software, so I just wrote down the values as the game progressed, which is too difficult to do for both players. Oddly (and fortunately), the one side I observed for both games turned out to be the winners .
Barplots showing winner-sided byoyomi management in two different games (30 second periods).
When I had Cho Seokbin stay over at my house a few years ago, I remember him giving a lesson to a player who was on the brink of reaching SDK and asked for some general suggestions after their game and review. When the player told Seokbin that he played mostly slow games on KGS and DGS, Seokbin strongly recommended playing faster games. Not blitz, but 15-30 second byoyomi with minimal main time. Aside from the obvious benefit of being able to get more games in, this also helps increase the efficiency in your reading by putting more time pressure on you.
As a result, it also helps remove the bad habit of reading and re-reading the same sequence repeatedly to assure yourself that such-and-such is dead/alive (because you won’t have the time to do so :p). Pros and strong players do not play like that. Once they read something as dead or alive, that’s that – they don’t go back to re-reading it unless a surrounding situation changes, because they’re confident in their reading abilities. And we can try to emulate them in this regard by learning how to make more use out of both our opponents’ and our own time, especially in overtime.
First off, I’d like everyone to know that I’ve added a section on Go servers to my blog where I review many of the Go servers out there I’ve played extensively on. So far I’ve covered Yahoo! Go (kind of), FlyorDie, GoShrine, KGS, and Tygem/TOM. Later I’ll add in CyberORO/WBaduk, IGS, Netmarble, and some of the turn-based servers such as DGS and OGS. But yeah, hope you guys check it out and if you see anything strange or you wish to discuss a point I made, feel free to leave a comment .
If I'm feeling ambitious, might review some of the more obscure servers, like the Bapool Go Server.
I’ve also updated the About page, where I write a bit about myself and ways you can contact me. To the technically savvy, is the way I’ve added my email and live messenger account safe enough, or is it better to just write my email like this: sols_email _ a t _ gmail [dot] com? You can never be too sure right?
Anyways, first off: the results of the Cherry Blossom went in the AGA database today. As expected, my disastrous performance had some major hurtin’ on my AGA rank, dropping from 5.7 to 5.5. I guess this means I’ll have to try 6d later . Looking at my AGA card, I was a bit struck to see that my win percentage in the last 6 months was 20%. Seriously, can you fail harder than that? Now, I’ve only played in two tournaments in the last six months but still…20% is a very dismaying number that I haven’t seen since my last Physics exam (ba-dum, tsh!) and I hope I can raise that up by going to some of the monthly ratings tournaments at the Seattle Go Center.
Sadly, tournaments held by the Tacoma Go Club (TGC) ceased so I can’t go to those to try and heal my ratings. The reason is mostly due to inactivity. The President of the TGC, Gordon, stopped going because he was rather annoyed when he went for a few consecutive weeks a while back and no one was showing up. I can’t blame him though – he has to pay the toll and it’s not a short drive for him to get to the coffee shop where the club usually meets. Another active member, Jonathan, stopped going because he’s participating in a NASA program outside Washington. Mike also stopped going due to his busy day job. These members were the crux of the Go club, so as a result the members that sort-of-kind-of went like myself stopped going and the TGC flopped.
Where the TGC (used) to meet ...
Now, before anyone starts getting any ideas, I live 45 minutes away from Tacoma and only stop by for the weekends for family visits. Also, the few times I did used to go, I would always be playing 13-32 handicap or -100 komi games. It only takes so many games before one gets sick of playing such ridiculously-handicapped games. But still, I feel like I should step up to the plate and revive the TGC. I’ll see what I can do over the summer.
For those who read my last post on the fall of GoDiscussions and the rise of Lifein19x19 (L19) forums, great news – activity in L19 is increasing and more features have been implemented. It’s amazing how much got done in such a short time. I’ve also started playing in two Malkovich games, one against zinger 1d in a 2 stone game where I take White (thread) and another against Tabemasu 7d in a 0.5 komi game where I take Black (thread). I completed one Malkovich game against Joaz Banbeck 1d in a 3 stone game which was excellent. It lasted about 6 months and garnered over 36,000 views! In the end I did lose though, and got the game reviewed by Andy Liu, also known as bigbadwolf[9d] on KGS.
I decided to try the Malkovich games I’m currently in a bit differently from my game against Joaz. Instead of writing out why I played such and such a move, I post video commentaries instead. It saves time, makes it easier for me to express myself, and it’s just more fun! You can see an example below where I go over the 5th move I make against Tabemasu:
The Malkovich games have just started so for kyu players who wish to follow them (and hopefully learn a thing or two), it’s a great time to check them out while they’re in progress. Moves come in daily or so.
Anyways, I’m out. Hope everyone’s ready for the Monday…blah T__T.
Looks like the community at GoDiscussions.com (GD) has had it once and for all and are now trying to find a new home. For those wondering about why GD is falling apart and how the community is responding, you may check the discussion here: http://senseis.xmp.net/?ReplacingGoDiscussions
Personally I’m a bit sad that something that was once so great and magnificent could fall apart, mostly from administrative negligence. I still remember when I first signed up on GD back in 2006 (and when I was still a kyu !) and had a lot of hope and expectations for the site. Indeed it expanded and fulfilled many of my hopes and expectations, but things started to fall apart a few years in. I guess the first signs of crumble was when the Product Database fell apart and ross, a member on GD, had to start doing some of Don’s work. I’m surprised people coped with it so long, particularly after database errors were fixed months after it happened (though recently they popped up again after a server crash last weekend). I guess they, like me, wanted it to work to the end and give the owner as much credit as possible before getting fed up and trying something else.
There are currently two forums that people have migrated to: Life in 19×19, created by Jordus from GD, and IgoDojo, created by the owner of Shodan Imports (Update: IgoDojo is now redirecting to Life in 19×19; this is great news, and very admirable for Chuck Thomas, owner of Shodan Imports.). At the moment I’d say Life in 19×19 has the greatest momentum and it’s surprising to see how many veterans from GD have already migrated there. The Go functionalities on that site already seem to have surpassed what was on GD, which was expected when you have members like fwiffo (who created the eidogo plugin for WordPress), Kirby (an overall helpful and active member who also helped with diagrams and other technical issues), Joaz (the mastermind behind the “Malkovich” forum games), and more!
Also taking into consideration that Life in 19×19 (wow, it’s really getting tedious to write out “Life in 19×19″…I hope they either rename it soon or come up with an abbreviation of it…L19^2 seems too quirky) has more members and just has the stronger “community vibe”, I’d wager that in due time it will surpass GD and become *the* place for interacting with the Go community. Even wms, the creator of KGS, is actively posting there . At the time of this writing the forum is already closing in on 100 members.
Anyways, I look forward to the development and growth of the Life in 19×19 forum; hope to see you there (soon)!
Yesterday I went to the Seattle Cherry Blossom Festival, where the Seattle Go Center hosted two Go tournaments, one for everyone and the other for youth players in a lightning tournament. It seems just like yesterday I was young enough to enter the youth tournament and went 2nd to Luke Allen when we were both 5k . Anyways, I drove up to Seattle and went to the open tournament. For this tournament, I chose to enter as a 6d instead of my usual 5d for several reasons:
There were only three dan players signed up: myself, a 2d, and a 1d. Meaning, I would have to play medium to large handicap games since this was a handicap tournament. I personally feel that there isn’t too much of a difference between, say, a 6 stone and a 7 stone game. Thus, I thought it wouldn’t be too bad dealing with an extra handicap stone for this particular situation.
My rating was 5.7 at the time, and I figure rounding up to 6 wasn’t really an exaggerating self-promotion.
The tournament field was also not very large, so I concluded that it wouldn’t be a big deal.
Regarding the first point I made though, Maxwell (GameFAQs on KGS) had signed up after me and he is an AGA 6d player, so at least one of my games would be even which was nice. This gave me a chance to get my revenge against him, as I was 0-1 against him prior to this tournament from a monthly ratings tournament at the SGC; he had just come from Minnesota, so maybe any Minnesota players reading this article may recognize his name.
However, I should have taken into account the possibility I would be up against Chris Cameron in a 5h game. The last time we played, I found playing against him with 5 stones extremely stressful and while there was a chance for me near the end of that game for me to win in a complicated L&D fight, the opportunity only arose because he was running low on time and it was a desperate Hail Mary play that I made when I realized I was down by 20 points approaching endgame. In case anyone has a tingle in their brain by the mention of his name, he was the Hurricane winner in the 2007 USGC (the same year I took the Keith Arnold award :p).
Anywho, long story short, my performance in this tournament was disastrous and ended up going 0-3 (which also means I’m 0-2 against Maxwell <_<). However, I learned a lot of new things, got a chance to know a handful of locals I hadn’t met before, and most importantly had a great time. The tournament started in the morning and ended in the evening for nearly 8 hours of Go bliss with lunch break. I also had a chance to check out the festival and watch a handful of performances. There were a lot of people in the Cherry Blossom Festival and it seems the Go players weren’t the only ones having a good time (sorry for bad quality, taken from cam phone):
Lots of people showed up!
Japanese performance.
So yeah, I’ve posted my three games below and commentated on them, writing my thoughts on the moves made and what I thought about each of my games overall. The first two games are complete and the last one has the first 150 moves (I was nearly brain-dead after my last game). If you see anything particular that’s strange in the SGFs, let me know as I did transcribe them from memory and could have easily made a transcription error of some sort. And of course feedback, questions, or constructive criticisms are more than appreciated!
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) and paid attention to their byoyomi (time settings were no main time, 20 second byoyomi x 3). Every time they used up a period, I just counted the time they spent on their next period instead. I kept track of how much of their byoyomi period they spent for every move, went over a recorded video of it briefly to ensure accurate measurements, then threw the results into R to spit these bar plots out. I did the same thing in a game that was played between a KGS 2d and a KGS 1d with identical time settings. The blue barplots are for the 9d players, and the yellow barplots are for the KGS 1-2d players.
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