Sol's Blog of Go and Fun

As short as the journey was...

2008-02-14T14:37:00.001-08:00

Looking back over these past few months, Go has done me more harm than good, and at such a critical moment in my studies it has only been making me more miserable, so I have now decided to quit this game for the sake of my education, at least, until I get into the department of engineering, so for about 2 years. I know it's not going to be difficult for me to pull this off, since over these past few weeks my Go activity has already been skyrocketing (downwards) and this is merely taking the final step on the ladder. KGS, DGS, GoDiscussions, Tygem, attendance to the Go clubs (to play Go), and yes the maintenance of this blog; I'm putting it all away.

It was fun while it lasted. I have decided it is for the best.

Not feeling great...

2008-02-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

Right now I am feeling awful with a headache that just isn't going away...(took Tylenol, Excedrin, natural sleep...just getting worse). To add on top of that, my to-do list of homework (CSE programming assignment Thursday, Calculus assignment Thursday, Linguistics assignment Thursday, Calculus and Linguistic quizzes tomorrow) is stressing me out way too much, and to add on top of that, I'm struggling to keep with the pace of these classes...

With all of this mess, I just haven't had much time to finish up the pieces of my draft and publish it here. I apologize for, once again, going past the deadline (might as well call this blog the Blog of Broken Promises? Catchy.). Until I clear out my to-do list, I may not be able to put up the big post I've been working on here and there until as late as Saturday. It depresses me a lot to feel so burdened about all of this, but I'm definitely not going to give up on this blog (I just gained a lot of respect for all the bloggers out there to dedicate themselves to this hobby, and here I thought it was a breeze...), but I am afraid that 1 week/post is a promise that I cannot keep every single week. Some weeks I am just overloaded with college work and I cannot find myself with the extra time, not even Go! (I missed the last two club meetings and haven't played more than a couple of games these past two weeks...). Perhaps I should just give in to blitz or something.

Sorry :(.

PS: And oh, for those wondering how I did on my Math midterm: horrible. I studied hard, but studying late apparently caused me to make some terrible mistakes on the test (i.e: slicing a region vertically rather than horizontally to determine its area, what was I thinking...).

I'm going to sleep. Ugh.

Tewari logic; college stress++; sneak peaks for an epic post.

2008-01-25T10:04:00.001-08:00

Sigh, tis has been a busy time for me...as I am writing this update, I have a...

Calculus midterm on Thursday.
Difficult Java assignment (est. 15 hours) on Thursday.
Linguistics assignment on...guess? That's right, lovely Thursday!
Difficult Calculus assignment (est. 7 hours) due Tuesday.

Just thinking about it is stressing me out! I will try my very best to resist the temptation and not go to the Seattle Go Center, which is about a 15-minute walk from my campus, on Tuesday (Tuesday nights are the usual club meetings).

Regarding my Go, I haven't been doing so well these days. It has become harder and harder for me to get more serious and slow games in as I start to take my education more and more seriously. Often, I find myself doing work for about 30 minutes, then taking a break by playing 1 Go game. Already, you should realize that there is something wrong with this (assuming a good majority here knows that I am not a blitz player).

Typical schedule:
Food --> 30m of studying --> 1 Go game (est. 60 m) --> 30m of studying --> Food --> 1 Go game (est. 60m) --> Surfing --> 15m of studying --> 2 Go games

And this would be on a good day! Indeed, it goes downhill daily every time I try to study. Actually, on Saturday I told myself I would get a specific portion of my math homework done, and because of these 'breaks', combined with my now-apparent severe lack of self-discipline, I had gotten less than half of what I had expected. I tried the good-ol' To-Do list method, but the only thing I would get out of that is an upset me for not completing the list 99% of the time, losing the will to keep going afterwards, and then just going back to square 1. Sigh...what to do, what to do...

Anyways, back to Go. I have been slipping in trying to keep my oath. I feel like it's a 1 vs 100 sort of thing. Me against KGS. It's actually kind of interesting to notice the slight (but can definitely be sensed) difference in treatment I get when I switch between two accounts that have different ranks (especially in places like the KTL).

KGS...my friend, my enemy.

All of my old 'anonymous' accounts that I go on have been changed; I added my identity in my profile to let anyone be aware of who I am. You may wonder why I would be switching accounts when rank hasn't become such a great concern for me, and the simple answer is that at times I wish to play a more challenging game if I feel like I am in a healthy state (basically, 8 hours of sleep or more haha). If perhaps I have a huge desire to play but my condition isn't so great, then I'll just go on my main one. Because I have noticed an increasing # of observers coming to watch my games (fans? hahaha...oh how nice would that be...), I think they at least deserve to know whether I am playing at a higher or lower-than-decent condition.

Recently I have been going on hangame.com and watching their VODs of pro games and lectures. It is a great study tool and I hope to find a way that will allow Westerners access to their service as well (it even has live streaming of Badook TV.). Anyways, I have been watching a lot of games commentated by Yoo Chang-Hyuk 9p. He is a very well-known pro, but definitely an interesting commentator as well. One of his main methods he uses for teaching in commentary is tewari analysis (TA), which until recently I have begun to wonder about.

I'm not someone that works so well with logic (perhaps I should take a class on logic soon), but based on my observation it seems that TA is a powerful tool but also a double-edged sword. I'll put up an example of what I'm talking about, this is from a game between Lee Chang-ho 9p and Park Young-hoon 9p:

Question: Why was Yoo Chang-Hyuk 9p (commentator) bothered by this move?

He explains it in a TA:

Answer: Left is in-game. If the right was played, Black wouldn't play 6, but at 'a' instead. This is why '4' is wrong...?

I realize that TA has its benefits (for instance, I guess it makes you look awfully smart if you use it in review...heh). To be serious for a second, high-dan players who have helped me with understanding joseki use TA to explain the validity of each moves, so indeed it is a powerful tool.

However, it can also be a double-edged sword (much like Go itself!). Very, very rarely have I have used TA to review the few kyu games that I have done because I am afraid that I may be giving one side more bias than the other. This seems to be the pitfall, in that it is too easy to make a worse move on one side than the other because you have the power of controlling the roles of both players. Also, TA is also great for in-game playing. Of course it is much more difficult to do a TA while you are playing in a game, but perhaps in order for me to improve I must begin to look at my moves in this sort of fashion, especially in the opening, which is my weakness (then again, where is my strength?).

Sneak peaks:

Because this blog post is perhaps below my usual standards (damn you studies!), once I get through Thursday in one piece, I will put up a better-than-usual blog post this upcoming weekend (probably Sunday or maybe Monday) regarding two topics (yes, I have already gotten a good head-start on draft):

1) Yilun Yang and my thoughts on his teaching...

I'll leave readers to their own interpretation on this image.
I should note that this is only a piece of the puzzle, so I beg that readers do not assume that it will be just criticism. I have too much respect for Yilun Yang 7p. You can treat this as sort of a joke and teaser, though it will be used in the post at some point.

2) The prospects of Go in the US with Hikaru no Go on the side.

I'll leave readers to their own interpretation on this image.

I hope you guys look forward to it :). Thanks for reading!

The Oza Experience.

2008-01-21T22:13:00.000-08:00

//started Jan.19th - Well, I just arrived back in my hotel room, exhausted and stuffed full of BJ's pizza (incredibly delicious by the way!), my dinner with Erik(someone I knew from the 2006 Go'n'Games China trip) and his friend. I know this post is going to be a bit past the 1-week/post due-date (a few hours), so for that I sincerely apologize, I tried my hardest to post yesterday, but it was too difficult to stay up and the temptation to just say 'bah, I still have tomorrow anyways' was too great. Unfortunately, it is still too difficult to stay up, but because of my readers, I will post and hopefully have this up before 2 :).

Tournament: North America Oza - Los Angeles
Time Settings: 1 hour/30 (5) byo-yomi

I finished with a 3-3 record as a 5d. I'm not happy about this, but not disappointed either. The one game I screwed up a lead and lost miserably (round 5), made up for the one game I screwed up from the very start, was behind immensely through the whole game, and ended up winning miserably (the game I didn't deserve to win - round 6), so I feel alright. I'll post up some quick comments about each game I played...regarding full SGFs, I put up the first 4 SGFs and will upload the last 2 soon. Also, some of the diagrams will be very slightly off to the SGF positions, the SGFs were slightly edited after I posted here to make sure the sequences were played in the right order and other sorts of those details. However, they are very small changes compared to the diagrams, so they won't have any impact in the comments I made in the diagrams.

Also, before I discuss a bit about the games, a bit of a side note: this is my first major tournament where I played all rounds with an iPod and listening to different soundtracks and albums against different opponents. Not only did this keep me attentive throughout the game, but also it felt that the time went by much faster with music then without it. Adding to the fact that of the 3500-some games I've played on KGS that 99+% of them were played with iTunes open, I figured...eh, why not? So along with a brief description of the games I played and all that jazz, I'll also put in the specific soundtrack I was listening to during each game :p. You can just take it as trivia.

--Day 1--

Game 1: Huan-Min Chang 5d (White) vs Me (Black) - B+0.5
Listening to:
Kimi ga Nozomu Eien OST
Well this was certainly the game to kick off the tournament. When I first saw him, my initial impression was 'wow, this guy looks like Yilun Yang!! . No joke...dammit, now I regret not taking a picture of him! But yeah, it was a bit amusing. I couldn't tell whether he was Chinese or Korean, so I just said a timid 'hello' and wished for a great game. Now, though he looked like the 7p, his play was definitely not so professional...if you think a 5d can't make a mistake before move 10...

...think again. What is this?! (8)

I don't know if this move gave me the confidence or what, but wow...it definitely didn't take long to establish a clear lead...

-_-;

So here is where I would like to say 'then he resigned and I was happy, the end'. Unfortunately, overconfidence + lack of focus = deadly combination, and no matter how many times I tell myself not to do it, sometimes it just...happens. What happened near the end gave me the worst feeling of shock in my stomach...

I felt like crying. How greedy and careless can I get?

It seems every tournament I find myself getting into there's always one of *those* games, you know what I'm talking about? That one game where you just think to yourself 'Why? WHY!?' for making a stupid move or misreading something blatantly obvious and exhuming 20 minutes of your main time beating yourself up over it and trying to get rid of that knot in your stomach? ...Or maybe it's just me, I really am a weird person -_-. Anyways, after spending a few minutes debating whether to cry in the playing room or in the bathroom, I decided it was best to just suck it in, remember what Jang Bi told me regarding such situations and not to be on a tilt, and find the best way possible to control the severe bleeding.

As a consequence, I gave away a leg.
Before-corner: 17 pts.
After-corner: 2 pts. - 4-stone loss (-8) = ~ -6.

Fortunately, the comfy lead I had established was just barely enough payment to finish the stupid ko. But god...what a terrible way to begin a tournament. I tried my best to focus 100% through the game after this. I am just fortunate that Lady Luck was merciful to me, I've lost too many games because of situations such as this.

Game 2: Me (White) vs Jessie Suh 5d (Black) - B+Res
Listening to:
Best of Benny Benassi, Sugarless Girl
This was probably the hardest game I played in day 1. Unlike my first opponent, it seems he played relatively solid throughout the game. Also, even though I lost, the loss was not because of a gigantic blunder, but because of a hard game that was a bit difficult to pinpoint in where the tables were turned. In a sense, if I lose a game but the meaning of the loss is a bit ambiguous, I don't feel so bad...wow, I really am a strange person.

This was the first game I decided to try a hamete:

A difficult but not-so-rare hamete. Normally, White plays 'a'.

Continuation. In game, he played 'a' and tried to make it painful for me to keep the 7 stones. The best move (according to Dinerstein) is 'b'. I'll edit this post later and post more info about it if people want it.

Normal joseki (follow-ups after 10 beginning with 'a', 'x' is reference to the ladder that White must have...otherwise he should never played the extension (stone on top of 10) to begin with.

I wasn't too happy with the result, but I definitely wasn't sad, so it felt fine for me. As the game paced along nicely into the middlegame...

Because I failed to attack the 4 stones effectively, my 4 white stones in effect naturally died. It was hard to attack because I had to keep in check the liberties of my 12-stone group at all times.

The marked move was my move of resignation. I thought 'a' did not work, but later Jang Bi told me that there are some possibilities with it (not immediately, but after a preparation sequence, shown in the sgf). Regardless, he said the reason I lost wasn't the move itself, but my attitude. Even when I think I lost, I should at least try out the sequence that seems to have the most potency rather than just play a 'give-up' move. He suggested 'a' or 'b' to try.

Game 3: Steven Burrall 5d (White) vs Me (Black) - B+Res
Listening to:
Sonic Firestorm
Though we had never met and talked, I knew he was Matthew's dad, and I had always called him the 'mountaineer' because of his rugged (thanks to Keith Arnold for a better verb description ^^;) appearance (even the huge water bottle he was drinking from was intimidating!!). While I wasn't quite 'scared' so to say, I had wanted to play him for quite some time because he seems to be one of the more well-known players in the AGA and not too many people can question a rank with years behind it, so I though this would be an interesting way to gauge myself.

In the opening, I tried to take advantage of the game as quickly as possible, cutting from joseki twice and creating a shimari and hoping to gain grounds immediately:

Wasn't quite something I was used to doing.

Anyways, I did indeed gain a lead very early, it seems that my hunch was towards the right direction in that perhaps he was good at principles, theory, and simple play, but not in fighting...as soon as something 'happened' on the board, I had gained the lead:

This sequence is dubious and painful for White...

He also made a misread early in the game, probably assuming that I would steer his stone to the left, which would be a broken ladder for me, when actually I could kill it by steering it to the right and using a crane's nest tesuji to capture it...

White thought that since the ladder was good, this would work. Unfortunately, I can steer the other direction and capture his stones in a crane's nest.

Feeling comfortable, I decided that I can end the game by killing the center group, but it seems I paid a very large price, squeezing him into a corner (ok, a rather *large* corner that was originally mine...) so that I could use the thickness to prepare an attack. I am pretty sure that it was overpriced, so I didn't feel good:

The group cost $14.99 and I already paid $13.50 (+tax!).

After successfully killing the dragon (it grew from a baby to a medium-sized one) to offset the overpriced corner sequence, he wasn't willing to give up and decided to try and create a second weak group to try and kill my bottom group that was connected to both of his groups. Once it grew two eyes and the second weak group died, he calmly resigned. It was a fun game.

As long as the bottom group, the choke hold to both dragons, was safe, then the game was over.

--Day 2--

Game 4: Me (White) vs Cherry Shen 6d (Black) - B+Res*
* This game was commentated (very nicely!) by Fredi 6d. Good stuff.
Listening to:
Graduation
Taking White against a 6d by itself was interesting to me (actually, the two times that has ever happened to me so far, I had won, so perhaps I can stage a 3rd upset here...), but the game was also very fun. The game kicked off with a joseki that I hadn't played in a very long time, and knowing that it was a very popular variation, it just struck me 'How come I didn't learn this?!'. Regardless, it seems I played a variation that, according to SmartGo, 3 pros played...and perhaps as an omen, all 3 had lost the game :).

In-game variation on the bottom left versus a better variation on the bottom right;
top left-->right is the common shared sequence.

A few moves later, I made another mistake, hallucinating a bit when I had read out playing a corner sequence where I would let her form a shimari and I would gain an extension to expand my moyo, but for some reason, hand and mind didn't connect and I ended up playing the corner first. It threw me off-balance, but looking at it, it didn't seem like such a bad decision, though I wish that the corner extension was high rather than low now.

She said she was scared of this moyo, but really I thought Black looked nicer, so I guess both of us thought we were losing :).

When she played 'a', I knew that that was my one chance to catch up. Though not quite sure if the tiger mouth was the right response, the fight ended up a ko that didn't seem too harsh to me, though during the ko fight I make *another* mistake (and yes, most of these mistakes I brought up so far were noticed pretty much a move after I had played it, so my feeling during this game wasn't exactly fantastic) in playing a ko threat that destroyed a potent ko threat:

In the game, I played 3 first, which removes the ko threat of playing 1 and then 3.
stupidmistake++;

Regardless, I ended up winning the ko fight, and claiming the entire top as mine, I felt (and post-game she agreed) that I was winning. So guess what I do when I'm winning? I overplay, naturally, and begin to slide downhill...

This was just too greedy. I should have played approached the left corner instead, what was I thinking? She later got 4, which was huge and terminated my good feeling inside.

We make a huge furikawari in the game, but this was definitely better for Black than White. Now, I felt I was behind by at least 5 points...

She eventually clinches the victory with this tesuji that I totally didn't see, haha...

Overall, even though I lost and I caught many of my mistakes almost immediately during the game which led me to bad feelings during the game, afterwards it didn't feel so bad, if I had won it definitely wouldn't have felt like something I'd deserved with so many mistakes!

Game 5: Kevin Chao 5d (White) vs Me (Black) - W+Res
Listening to: Various (Favorites playlist)

Bleh, this is the only game I can't quite remember enough of (probably because my mind wanted to forget about it? heh...), but this was the game where I was maintaining an easy lead throughout the game until I screwed up at the very end. It definitely ruined my mood. I talked with Tom Xu 4d about it a bit (we played in the Cotsen a few months back, my performance was fail but our game was quite fun, though I also lost to him then as well.), and he talked about how the opening threw him off as well because it seems Mr. Chao doesn't know joseki so well and both of us had a good lead on him until screw-ups in the middle game:

If 8 was played against me online, I may have very well asked 'misclick?'.

But yeah, it's definitely been a while since losing a game has hurt so much...(probably not since losing to Mr. Weimer 4d in the USGC...) which led me to play my final game in a terrible state...

Game 6: Me (White) vs Kyung H. Ok 4d (Black) - W+0.5
Listening to:
-none- (iPod battery died)
Anyways, after losing game 5, which drove me insane because it was the first game I had lost where I maintained an upper hand before making a stupid misread (well, my game against Cherry was also the case, but I was already behind so I didn't feel so bad then), I thought that...eh, 2-4, 3-3, doesn't matter much to me at this point, so I figured I'd try an...unique... opening. After losing the 5th game, I had talked to some of the new friends I had made during this excellent tournament on what I should try, with some very odd and interesting suggestions, including the fuseki Yilun Yang played against Janice Kim (lol).While I hadn't decided on one by the time I was matched up, I just figured I'd play something that wasn't so crazy but at the same time, nothing I hadn't done in the past 5 rounds.

Let's just say Mr. Ok and his friend were pleasantly amused by it...

"Them: Haha, oh, it's Yamashita opening!
Me: *thinks to self* 'More like the I'm-kinda-upset-so-I'll-play-a-lolgame' opening"

This is the game I didn't deserve to win. I felt horrible for winning...well, actually, take that back, I don't feel too horrible because the guy I was playing laughed to his friend who was playing next to him because he was dominating me very early in the game (mostly because I was just being stupid).

Though there is a small ko skirmish, this group ends up dying and I am behind by miles. My opponent had more eye contact with his friend than the board, probably thinking 'ROFL THIS GUY IS 5d?! LOL!'.

It was quite plain to me that after he captured the big group he maintained the 'haha, this is going to be so easy for me hehe' attitude...

Reminds me an awful lot of this game of Hikaru's...

At first it annoyed me but then I realized 'Wait a second...I always used to do that.'. I also realized that many of those games...I had lost. So, I don't know whether this was when determination kicked me from behind, but I decided to calm down and play to my maximum limit. In the end, even though I did not manage to kill the bottom center and claim all of the belly, I still managed to win, which still confounds me because I did nothing exceptional after the big giant blunder kill. I couldn't help but smirk as Mr. Kyung and his friends (another one stopped by later on) were stunned that I had managed to eek out a 0.5 win...

...but then we all laughed it off. Later, I apologized to Mr. Kyung for playing somewhat brashly early in the game, and he told me that it was nothing to apologize for, he had only underestimated me after his initial impression of me as an angry, confounded kid who was doing poorly in the tournament and figured he would just be reckless in the last round....

...wait a minute!

Overall, this was a great tournament. While it felt a bit strange to me that only 1 opponent I played wasn't either Chinese or Korean (I didn't get to play some of the people I was hoping to play...), many of the games were definitely enjoyable and I felt that I learned a lot in each one, regardless of the outcome. Hopefully I will do better next year!

PS: Sorry that I'm a day late, I actually rushed to do this (I'm blogging this in the lobby of the hotel haha) and I tried my best to get it done yesterday but unless I wanted to stay up till 5 it was unlikely. Also, when I say I'll talk about 'someone' in particular as a critic, it won't necessarily be the post after the announcement, so regarding my post on Yilun Yang...simply something I will do in the future, that's all :).

And remember, I will post the last two later, so keep checking, or you can hit me up on KGS.

Thanks for reading!
//finished Jan.21st

PS2: The final outcome of the 2nd poll...very interesting:

When KGS spliced the EGR into the ECR, what'd you think?

Good; kept off-topic chat under control. - 4 - 10%

Bad; it's still a chatroom; ECR is half-dead anyways. - 23 (57%)

Unsure. - 8 (20%)
KGS? EGR? ECR? What? - 5 (12%)
(KGS = KGS Go Server; EGR = English Game Room; ECR = English Chat Room)

It seems I am not alone after all :p. 3rd poll is up, relating to the Oza experience.

And also, because I haven't had time to go through everything, if anyone finds an oddity or a mistake, please contact me right away, thank you.

Progress on the Oath; Kibitzing 101; Shygost, the Yilun Yang bunshin.

2008-01-13T11:24:00.000-08:00

Progress on the Oath, Kibitzing 101.

So it's been only a few days since I posted my oath (refer to previous blog post if you don't know what I'm talking about), and already I've realized how hard it is to control myself and keep the oath. I've already played two games where I could feel the blood rushing to my head, a tantrum inside me waiting to be released. I had to tell myself over and over again about the oath.

Edit: A few hours after this post, it seems rage has gripped me after my game against Principito and causing me to play recklessly on KGS. I've cooled down a bit (after some sleep), and hopefully that doesn't happen again...but now it seems I have some catching up to do ^^;.

A few hours ago I played against 'Principito'. I had played against him anonymously for quite some time and had never lost to him, so after losing my first game to a 2d and seeing him open up a game offer, I thought I had a freebie on my hand. I even played 5-5 because I was confident...

...I think you guys can guess what happened.

O..m..g...*facepalm.jpg*

But it wasn't just the humbling loss that I deserved. It was one of those games where you're winning comfortably, almost to the end, then all of a sudden you realize you forgot a little tesuji somewhere and lose all of the 200-some moves of hard work you put into the game (sup Nakano). Not only that, but lost in front of a handful of observers (whereas my past wins against my opponent it was only us and maybe 1-2 others...), so it was one of the worst bad beats I've had in month, so imagine how I felt when I looked back and remembered the oath that I made:

"*I will make sure not to judge a player of his strength based on a game or two or his online/real-life rank... ...bad beats and lucky wins, I will take them with stride and move on, realizing that there will be some days I won't play to the best of my abilities. I am a human being, not a robot."

It helped me a lot, but of course, it was still difficult and took me quite some time to cool down and 'let it go'. I'll also have to thank 'Fredi'[6d] on KGS for standing by and making sure no observer would push me past the limit with taunting kibitz, he's helped me a lot recently and definitely the only person I look up to that's younger than me. Thanks man, even though I still won't forget where you forced me and Sam to sleep in our first night in Sweden...

Close enough.

The second game was played two nights ago, it was a tournament game against a 2k on KGS. I forced myself to try and play my best against him but unfortunately, this wasn't the case, as since this tournament ran late into the night, I was very hungry and committed the Go sin of eating (ramen) and playing at the same time, so my concentration level wasn't at its maximum. Deep inside, maybe I did let the [2k] get to me which led me to underestimate him just slightly, crossing the line on oath #4 once more. I was trying my hardest to resist the ego in me though.

Needless to say, it was also one of the worst games I've played in months. I played an anti-suji that led my healthy group to die in ko. Unfortunately, the ko threat I made was worth 0 points so essentially I gave my group away for free. Bad fuseki. Bad joseki play. Now, I still won the game, but let me tell you, I was quite upset. I went outside and wept a little bit over my bad moves and got some fresh air. Truly, it was a disaster-piece. However, that's not the whole story. To add the cherry on top of the sundae, I was upset over some of the predictable yet sensible comments on how since I was doing so poorly the 2k must have been stronger /sandbagging and I was weaker than 3d, what my current KGS rank says at the moment. Oath #2:

"*I will stop caring what other people think about me. Why should I go out of my way to make sure some guy on the other side of the world thinks that I am [insert-number-here]-kyu/dan? If they think I am [insert adjective here], okay, let them think whatever they wish."

So already these two oaths I (and hopefully many others) have made are starting to become challenging, but I am confident that by not going astray and sticking to this path that, overall, we will become stronger (and I don't mean Go strength) people.

Going back to the kibitz I was talking about earlier, I think that a lot of people have a bad mentality regarding the practice of kibitzing. They think that when they kibitz, they are in this sort of environment:

It's no ballgame. The players can very well read what you say after the game!

So here, you can say absolutely anything you want, you know that the players will not hear you. However, this is not the same with kibitzing. The players can see what you say about them/their play, they must simply wait until the game is done, that's all. It's interesting to note that I have seen particular people kibitz totally different when they are blabbering in a Teaching game where comments are shown live as opposed to ranked/free games where the comments are shown after the game, the only difference being the time interval and nothing more.

One of my biggest pet peeves I see in kibitzing is trash-talking on the players playing. Again, they think that they are in the baseball field, that they will not hear it anyways, so they are free to express their stupidity. Trust me when I say this, there is a world of difference between...

BadKibitzer[?]: white is so weak...
BadKibitzer[?]: he is 7d? plays like kyu player rofl.
GoodKibitzer[?]: it seems white isn't doing so well, maybe it's just not his day.
--
BadKibitzer[?]: wtf is R16? it sucks haha.
GoodKibitzer[?]: R16 seems dubious but I could be mistaken.
--
BadKibitzer[?]: why is black still playing? should have resigned 20 moves ago.
GoodKibitzer[?]:
(that's right, there is no need to say anything when you see a situation where someone is playing on and not resigning when the situation reveals that resignation is proper. Usually the person just isn't..'in the mood'.)

Of course there are countless examples and I could go on for days, probably because I was a bad kibitzer for years. Even today I still worry over how many people have censored me for my low-quality manners and off-topic chat in the past. Even today I slip and make the occasional snide remark, but I've been trying my hardest to not do so because of oath #3:

"*I realize that, as lovely as KGS or Go servers may be, it is a part of the world known as the Internet, a world that is far from perfect and has its fair share of assholes. I will make sure to try my best not to be like one of them... ...Just like in the real world, I will try to treat others how I would like to be treated."

I think there are 2 ultimate rules of thumb here for kibitzers:

#1: If you wouldn't say it directly to the player's face, then you shouldn't kibitz it.
#2: If you wouldn't want it said to you by another player, either stronger or weaker, then you shouldn't kibitz it.

Rule #1

I can only imagine how much more wonderful KGS's kibitzing would be if everyone at least tried to follow these 2 rules. But of course, it's the Internet I'm dealing with here, with stupid people rampant (including myself) that even play Go, so perhaps it's a wasted effort. What a dear, dear shame.

Shygost, the Yilun Yang bunshin.

On Friday, for the first time, I went through an entire shygost lecture. I've heard much about him and visited his lectures once in a while, but never stayed for more than 10 minutes because I just found it pointless. Wait, pointless? Shygost's infamous and popular lectures? To an extent, yes. The reason why I say this is because, from what I've noticed, he basically has the same philosophy and spits out the same principles as Yilun Yang 7p (and of course, the execution isn't even close to par with the man himself). If you've ever looked at Shygost's KGS profile, you will see that he has spent the most amount of time with Yilun Yang, and it definitely shows.

Perhaps some may call this nit-picky, but has anyone ever noticed this part of his profile?

'I play at the 6d level.'...?

As far as I'm concerned, this is the only information he gives regarding his strength. Now you may be thinking 'wait, time out Solomon...didn't you just go off in the previous post on how rank just isn't a big deal, especially on a server like KGS?'. Yes I did, however, the case is different with shygost because he is running a business. If his lectures were free, I could care less what he says about his playing level. But such is not the case, people are paying for the weekly lectures he does. I think this sort of rank ambiguity is almost deceitful to his 'customers'. What exactly qualifies him as playing at the '6d' level? And what system 6d? Anyone who has traveled their fair share of Go trips or has done even shallow research on ranks knows that the difference between a Japanese, AGA, ORO, KGS, IGS, Euro, and Chinese/Korean 6-dan is huge. It is not unreasonable to say that a Chinese 6-dan can give an AGA 6-dan 3 stones. And yes, I did prioritize them from weakest to strongest based on my own observation and experience. However, official data reveals that Mr. Kemper here isn't even AGA 6d, but merely AGA 5.3d, which is roughly, what, KGS 2d?

So now I can hear people saying 'oh Solomon, it's not about the strength, but the teaching!'. Indeed, that is very true, however I'm just laying out the plain facts. I'm not saying he's a bad teacher (yet), I'm only saying that the way he handles his business is a bit sketchy, and I firmly believe that if one is going to profit from teaching Go (or anything for that matter), the facts and information about one as the teacher should be clear, detailed, and easily available to the customers, and that is just not what I have seen with shygost. 'I'm 6d', nothing more.

Now I would like to talk about the lecture itself. I have to admit that the way he does the lecture was very interesting and as far as I know he is the only person who does a lecture the way he does it, letting the weakest players play out the moves with him, then climbing up the rank ladder after an analysis with the previous leveled player with everyone present. However, the thing that bothers me with this system is that not everyone watching will benefit equally. When a 20k makes a 20k mistake and shygost has to explain to him or her why it is a mistake, do you think the 1-dans that are there will benefit as much as the 20k? Of course not, and yet, time is ticking, and vice versa. Imho, it would be better if he did lectures geared for more specific group levels in different weeks, but this is just my opinion and since it's his business he can do whatever he wishes.

Another thing that bothered me in his lecture was that, for about 10 minutes near the end of the hour, his cat comes to him and he starts talking about his cat! He even tells a little anecdote about some girl in a church and her cat or something like that, I can't remember the details because I was busy just wondering 'this guy's wasting our time telling stories to people who are paying for his lecture? What is this?' 10 minutes may not seem like a long time, but 60 minutes isn't so long either. That's about $8 of the $50 lecture that went to cat stories, I'm sorry but is this what people want to pay for? I was quite disappointed, and it wasn't the first time I had heard him go off-topic and talking about his pets, anecdotes, himself and his life rather than Go. I have also noticed that he occasionally throws in modesty by saying 'I'm 6-dan but I'm still so weak yadda yadda', 'man, you think I know a lot? Pros know wayyyy more than I do.', etc. etc., which I can only see as a time-consumer.

What I've also noticed about his lectures is that he doesn't read. Really. He only plays strictly on rules and principles, most of which are what he credits to Yang anyways. It surprised me when I saw him a few days before the lecture, reviewing a game he played with some SDK player and incorrectly determined an L&D status of a group that was definitely a kyu-level problem. One should also notice that when he does get a bit deep into the middle-game during his lecture he will always say something like 'oh, I may be wrong here...' when the slightest reading is necessary for him.

In the review session I observed, apparently he thought
that this move wasn't necessary for 2 eyes...right...
(edit: this is only a 'piece' from the board position...).

Overall, I wasn't impressed by shygost's so-popular lectures. As long as you could commit yourself to apply Yilun Yang's principles in your games, then in my opinion you'd be better off just reading Yilun Yang's books, because that's all shygost does from what I've observed, spitting out the principles, applying it to the game that is being played by players of a wide spectrum of levels, and then recycling them over and over again. Or of course, if you're comfortable financially, you'd be better off taking lessons from Yilun Yang or participating in his KGS+ lectures rather than shygost's. Also, shygost's ambiguous strength is dubious; it may not be the biggest factor in a teacher, but it is still a factor, that is undeniable.

And to add the cherry on top, I'll throw in this amusing quote I heard from shygost in his lecture last Friday: "I honest to goodness do not know what I'm talking about". Indeed Mr. Shygost, indeed. Once again, I can hear some people telling me 'look Solomon, no one's forcing you to go to shygost's lectures, why are you being so hard on him?'. I don't think I'm being hard on him at all, I'm just giving a critic's review on his information and lectures, that's all. In terms of friendliness and personality, I think he's a great guy. If you think he's also a great teacher, then by all means don't let this post deter you from attending (and contributing) his lectures. My review may not be suitable for all levels, I think that kyu players in the 5 - 15k range will enjoy and benefit from his lectures especially. All of this was just my opinion, and I know that many will disagree with me on what I've said, but hey...this is a blog, right? :) Don't hesitate to comment to express your agreements/disagreements.

Next: Yilun Yang himself. :D

Thanks for reading!

PS: I think I've been averaging around 3 posts a week. It's been too much and taking a lot of time from me, so now I will be restricting myself to 1-2 quality post a week. Maybe 2, but 1 a week is my guarantee to my readers :).

P1: The Kiseido Ego Server, Confronting my demons; P2: College begins! Violence against Violence

2008-01-09T16:00:00.000-08:00

As I am typing this blog I am running at around 4 - 4.5 hours of sleep and just had my first meal of the day. The skydive in my sleep time (I had between 10 - 12 hours of sleep during winter break, and so far have had about 4 - 6 hours of sleep since school has commenced) has been devastating to my body, my studies, and perhaps even my Go. Two of my KGS accounts have plummeted a rank over the past few days, and I have been doing very poorly over-the-board recently. I can almost *feel* the limitation in how far I can see ahead of the game, the water isn't as clear as it once was and it feels like I am now looking at a muddy swamp, this is the best way I can describe my reading. I have even lost some interest in play because nothing frustrates me than sub-par performance and frequent blunders. Thankfully, friends from the Seattle Go Center cope with my frustration and bickering :), I owe them one someday.

This is a two-part blog. I was going to post one part at a time, but eh, I don't think it makes too much of a difference, so I will post up both parts.

Part 1: The Kiseido Ego Server, Confronting my demons.

Yesterday night I played a game against Wang Yang 5p in a 4-stone game. I could go over this game in this blog, but that's not the issue I am concerned about at the moment (perhaps I will do it later). Rather, it was the kibitz that I was deeply disturbed by. To bring those up to date, I play as 'Capsule' on KGS. It has a rank of [16k?]. Now, to make a long story short, it basically started when I had a [?] rank and no one accepted to play a ranked game with me...except a 16k. I was angered by this greatly, so after I won the game I decided to just stay at the rank I was given and stay as a [16k?] to express to everyone how hard it is for people with unstable/[?] ranks to get games. Also, to go along with some of the comments I read in the kibitz log, I wanted to convey the question: why do so many people care about ranks? It's just a freakin' number! Perhaps I'm overreacting here, but for years I have always considered KGS to be the "Kiseido Ego Server" because, let's face it, so many Go players in the virtual community have such a big ego when it comes to rank. They take it wayyyy too seriously, which is unfortunate because, like all other Go servers, the KGS ranking system is not all-knowing and all-accurate.

There are ways to achieve a rank on this server that is at least several stones stronger than your actual strength (without cheating of course), it just takes a bit of time (and luck).

A good way to check if a player's strength is reflective upon their current KGS rank is to simply look at the Games tab.

1) Are they blitz games with lots of time wins?
2) Are the vast majority of the games handicap games as White?
3) Are the opponents somewhat sketchy?
4) Did they play many ranked games (i.e: 30+) or just a handful?

There are many ways to check.

For years now I have always played under anonymous IDs. Why? Because...well, I was scared.

-I was scared that friends would watch and taunt my weak play.
-I was scared that I wouldn't play to my best in every game (an impossible feat by the way).
-I was scared that KGS might end me up with a rank lower than my projected rank from bad beats or with a rank higher than my projected rank from lucky wins (which meant it was harder for me to play on that account because...
-I was scared that I might attract observers who would be skeptical of my play on an account several stones stronger than me).
-I was scared that I would lose games to people 2+ stones weaker than me in even games.
-I was scared about what people thought about me.

And now I wonder. Why? Why did I care so much how people came to think about me? Why do I care so much over a damn number? Why was I under the control of KGS's ranking system? Perhaps I felt like I had a burden of a responsibility on my back to vindicate my fairly new AGA rank online. Long ago when I was (and still am) immature I had taunted AGA dan-players for their high ranks in real-life but low ranks online, and I didn't want to become like them. I tried and tried very hard to make sure that my KGS and AGA ranks were something I could brag about. What an ego I have. What an embarrassment I am.

Well, today I am finished. It is time that I confront my demons and just 'let go' the whole fuss about a number.

I will make an oath in this post. If you are just like me, playing anonymously and hiding from your peers because you were worrying so much over rank and how other people would judge you based on your number, consider taking the oath with me right here, right now.

MY OATH

~~~~~~
*I will stop playing anonymously and hiding from my friends. I won't care how my account rank will turn out, it is only a number. If it turns out to be lower or higher than my projected rank, so be it, over time it will change and if it doesn't then I will have to re-look into that projection I made earlier.

*I will stop caring what other people think about me. Why should I go out of my way to make sure some guy on the other side of the world thinks that I am [insert-number-here]-kyu/dan? If they think I am [insert adjective here], okay, let them think whatever they wish.

*I realize that, as lovely as KGS or Go servers may be, it is a part of the world known as the Internet, a world that is far from perfect and has its fair share of assholes. I will make sure to try my best not to be like one of them. I will try my best not to show even the slightest attitude of superiority to anyone at any level. Just like in the real world, I will try to treat others how I would like to be treated. I will not be an elitist.

*I will make sure not to judge a player of his strength based on a game or two or his online/real-life rank. Assuming my current official AGA rank is correct, I will come to accept that just because I am a 5d does not mean I will win against 4d's 100% of the time in even-games. Or 3ds. Or 2ds. Or 1ds. Or 1ks. Bad beats and lucky wins, I will take them with stride and move on, realizing that there will be some days I won't play to the best of my abilities. I am a human being, not a robot.

*I will play and treat Go as it once and always was: a game.
~~~~~~
I will no longer be playing anonymously unless there is an extravagant reason. I will bite the bullet and not obsess myself over ranks.

Expect me to be playing ranked games on 'Capsule' once more everyone.

Part 2: College begins! (KGS) Violence against Violence.

My classes in college so far look to be very interesting. I am currently taking Linguistics, Java Programming II, and Calculus II. I am delighted to announce that all 3 of my professors look to be promising. The Linguistics professor is great with mixing jokes into her clean and organized powerpoint lectures, the CSE143 professor is just downright hilarious with his analogies and anecdotes that he'll bring up to help us understand some of the concepts behind programming (currently, we are brushing over last quarter a bit with arrays and ArrayIntList), and the Calc professor is very calm and paced in presenting the materials to us, though perhaps to the geniuses in our class he may seem slow and boring. All 3 also received great praise and high marks on ratemyprofessor.com, so I am looking forward to a more enjoyable quarter (last quarter only my CSE142 professor was excellent, the rest didn't satisfy).

A few nights ago I played an interesting game against 'Violence'. I do not quite know his or her identity, but I have often seen Violence kibitzing in games and recently was impressed by his/her teaching in the KTL, very thorough and humorous as well. Based on my observation, Violence seems to be well acquainted with Eric, Cherry, Michael, and the gang.

What really got to me about this game was a specific corner sequence that was played that led to a result that was so terrible for me I couldn't help but laugh to myself over what I was exactly doing:

White approaches high two-space with 2, Black tenuki's, White attaches.

Up to 6 is normal. Now, White has a choice. White can play 'a' or 'b', but it's important that Black responds properly by White's choice! If White plays 'a', Black 'x'; White 'b', Black 'y'. If Black gets confused and mixes it up (like I did), the result is devastating. From now on, I will call this the 'light switch joseki' because it reminds me of the unusual lighting system in my home where I must trigger 2 of 4 switches in the right combination in different rooms to turn on different lights in the kitchen; very confusing, just like this joseki :)....

'a-y' pitfall (almost in-game, best way for Black after mismatch). In game, 4 was a bamboo joint, allowing White to hane on it to let me crawl even more on the second line, whee~!

Continuation part 1.

Violence: You must be this strong to enter...

Continuation part 2.

...Capsule: the 2nd line adventure ride.

Referring back to my 2nd post on using a joseki dictionary during your game (by the way, I was very surprised by the fantastic response on my first poll! Thanks everyone for voting, I will post up a new weekly poll :D), had I used it I could have not fallen into this joseki blunder. However, I am confident that had I done so I wouldn't remember this joseki after a few days. Because of the humorous in-game kibitzing as well as the severity of Black's loss and consulting a dictionary only after the game, now I need not worry about ever forgetting this joseki for a very long time.

Because of my recent change in attitude on ranks, I will once again postpone my upcoming post of opinion on a particular Go player that is well known both on the Go server and in the US. I am sorry for not keeping my word, I hope my readers will forgive me. I have only blogged for less than a month and I am still new to this, so I apologize for my newbiness.

Results of the 1st week poll:

Do you use a joseki dictionary during an online game?

Frequently. (7 - 10 / 10): 6 (10%)
Sometimes. (4 - 6 / 10): 4 (6%)
Rarely. (1 - 3 / 10): 12 (20%)
Never. (0 / 10): 37 (62%)

Thanks for reading!

New foreigner pro?! Unsatisfied tourney success :(. Back to school. Oza soon!

2008-01-06T21:54:00.000-08:00

Wow, pretty sad how time flies so fast. My winter break is all gone, and now back to school I go. Yesterday I packed up with much grief, realizing that I had to move back to the dorms and go through that process in life that's supposedly important in life, 'education'...

Yesterday with Won I visited Tyler's house where Jang Bi was staying. We played some Go, some board games ('Wise and Otherwise', it was hilarious), and Jang Bi cooked us some overdone steaks hahaha...it wasn't too bad though, and at least it was cheap! I stayed at their place since they live in Seattle and to drive back to Tacoma and back up to Seattle to move in my dorm was obviously pointless.

Even though Jang Bi is an ESL student, he had no problem playing this word game with me and friends. Indeed, a 9-dan at Go and diligent English studying :). Click on pic to learn about the game.

Today I visited the Seattle Go Center and played in their monthly ratings tournament. I hadn't played in their monthly tournaments in a VERY long time. Also, it was my 2nd tournament I entered as an AGA 5d (my first was the Cotsen Open, which I did quite tragically in but had a great time nonetheless).

Tournament: Seattle Go Center Monthly Ratings
Time Settings: 45:00/5:00 - 25 stones (Canadian)

Game 1: Me (W) -vs- Don W. 2d (B) - H3 - W+Time
Impression: I had played Don many times in even games by his request so I was quite familiar with his strength. I had never lost to him :p. I was very confident that I could win this game because, though I hadn't played him with 3 stones before, my good friend, who is also a madman for purchasing a $1200 ticket to Korea to visit a middle-school crush he had over 10 years ago (I would give out his KGS screen name here so people can torture him but I am afraid many of his real-life friends including myself have flamed and taunted him enough about it...), Eddie AGA 4d has beaten him fairly often in H3 games, and I have a 16-6 record against Eddie (online) in even-0.5 komi games, so I wasn't too worried.

Gameplay: I started out with a 6-3 opening and tried to play a speedy and light opening. It seems he was quite fond of the tsuke nobi (attach'n'extend) joseki, playing it 3 times with his 3 handi stones rofl...

Again?! ...-_-;

I followed the normal joseki twice, but getting absolutely sick of it when he did it the 3rd time, I decided to try a hamete (trick play) that I hadn't used in a while but figured it was better than being boring and going through the same routine once more. Nothing exciting came out of it, but I was happy with the result, stealing his corner and later overconcentrating his stones by gaining a side.

White 6 is the trick move (in-game it's flipped). White 6 at 'a' is normal variation (not just 'a' though), but had already happened twice in our game, so it was too boring. I had last used this when I was around AGA 1d...

The best way for both.

Though I had won by time, because he lost a gigantic center group, he was down by over 20 points and the game was nearing its end so a comeback wasn't possible. Unfortunately, I was not satisfied with this game because I hallucinated near the end and thought this worked:

Brb going back to 20k, this was definitely top 5 most embarrassing Go moment for me. Hey Nakano, I feel you!

It was embarrassing because a 5d Korean professor I am friendly with had just entered the playing room to watch my game along with a few others when I had just played out the sequence. Unfortunately, I couldn't control my mouth and some inappropriate words had slipped followed by my blaming on a lacking breakfast and then ensuing laughter by everyone by my foolish play with my face quite red, it was excellent...but I wasn't worried because the damage was small and my lead was much too large...I was surprised he didn't resign, but regardless of whether it was by time or by resignation, a win is a win :D.

Game 2: Me (W) vs Daniel T. 2k (B) - H6 - W+15.5
Impression: I was VERY worried about this game, because a few months ago I had played Daniel somewhat frequently and had about a 50% win ratio in H5 games. I had never played him in an H6 game, and was afraid that the handicap was just too great. Also, I had recently tracked him on KGS, and he is [1k], so I had to take up the challenge as a [6d] in a sense...frightening.

Gameplay: Soft, soft, soft. I remembered that when I played him a few months back his play was just too passive. It was exactly the same for this game. I found myself rapidly catching up, but not from big kills and such, but simply from Black's slightly-under-par sequences or over-defensive plays. In the beginning I played an opening I normally use in H9 games for some reason that I do not know, but it seemed to work fairly well.

A common H9 pattern.

Though I hadn't killed any large group or established giant moyos, the game was slightly to my favor at the end. I had counted and found myself ahead by about 2 - 3 points, but wasn't quite sure. Regardless, as we were filling out dame points, he filled out all of the liberties of a gigantic corner group that reeked of some bad aji. I wasn't quite sure if it was possible, but I figured that as long as he made a move for every time I make mine, I wouldn't lose anything, so I dove in. Needless to say, the operation was a success, I had eaten 4 stones and gained roughly about 12 points, clinching my victory.

Game 3: Me (W) vs Won K. 3d (B) - H2 - W+Res
Impression: I knew that this would be the hardest game for me. Won doesn't update his rank very frequently, but actually we play even games and he has a better record! It astounds me because excluding the many games I had lost against him simply from bad screw-ups, it is hard to understand why I lose to him. It drives me crazy!! To top it off, he was on a 4-win streak against me, some of them which he took W! Indeed, the pressure was on, as we were both 2-0 in the tourney.

Gameplay: Sooo embarassing ;(. Premature corner invasion, stones losing meaning, playing by feeling rather than reading...all of these sins I had committed. Also, both of us made an incredible oversight in a fight that makes me facepalm myself every time I think about it:

In the game, Black played 'a' after White 2, after which I played on top of Black 1, Black connects with his 5 stones, and then I occupy where the marked Black stone is, capturing 3 Black stones. Had Black played there first, White's entire group dies, so White 2 is a fatal mistake that I got away with. Truly, I am an idiot.

It was just magnificent when Won, the Korean professor, and I were going over the game afterwards and we had just caught this move, we were stunned silent for a solid minute xD. Ah, no matter how much I improve, it never ceases to amaze me how these things can be overlooked.

After the tournament, Won, Tyler, and I went and had pho for dinner. It was clear Won was upset about the loss because it was the first time I had beaten him with H2 and it cleared the 4-win streak he had against me. Nonetheless, we went along (reasonably) well and had a good time. Me? I felt like a million bucks :)...until I realized I had none on me when I forgot my wallet at Tyler's house, so after we ate and said bye to Won, Tyler and I headed back to his place. Jang Bi was just surfing when he finds out that Diana Koszegi has just been awarded a 2p certificate! If my information is correct, she is a strong Hungarian girl that is studying Go in Korea. Like Dinerchtein and Shikshina, her promotion was a special case that has happened every 3 years with these 3 players. Perhaps it is a pattern, but anyways, congratulations to Diana for becoming a pro. Information can be found here, but it is in Korean.

And now it is 3: Diana Koszegi!

PS: Regardless of my 3-0 performance, I am too embarrassed to put up SGFs of the games because self-post-analysis just revealed too many mistakes and overplays (I am so terrible at handicap games...), so only diagrams for now hehe. Hopefully I will play a cleaner Go when I go to the Oza and have kifus that are worth at least a few seconds of your time.

Thanks for reading!

PS2: Next post will be what I promised in the first post :).

Kogo's, the Go steroid.

2008-01-04T00:06:00.000-08:00

If only…

I am sure many Go players have heard of Kogo's Joseki Dictionary. It is a nice online joseki dictionary that is viewable with most SGF readers. As much as I hate to admit it, it's a wonderful and valuable tool, and I would recommend it to all Go players. However, what's been bothering me for quite some time now is the plain and obvious fact that Go players on servers such as KGS or IGS are using this dictionary (and other dictionaries like Ishida's) not before or after they play, but WHILE they are playing. They are therefore not just using it, they are abusing it. Come on, am I supposed to believe that both kyu players playing each other online coincidentally knew that 52-move variation of the taisha?

Of course, I'm quite the hypocrite in calling out all Kogo abusers out on this post and wagging my finger at them because I have also committed the sin of using a dictionary during gameplay. Many, many times. Recently though, I have fought against the temptation. It is very difficult! Perhaps this is to some degree how a smoker must feel trying to quit cold turkey (and unfortunately, there is no Go patch :(). Every time I get a game, I feel lost in the opening. No longer do I have my courage to dive and try out a new line of joseki because I am afraid of making some huge blunder that will cripple me into the middle game. I have removed a shortcut link to Drago which I use strictly for Kogo's as it is oh so easy to just fire it up from the start menu and plug the joseki in your game into Kogo's in seconds (as well as SmartGo hehe, sorry Anders. Don’t worry, I still use it for post-game analysis :P).

Warning: Kogo abusers, this could be you someday. How embarrassing.

So why just recently? Why haven't I tried to quit the habit years ago? Well, I did not realize that Kogo's was something like a Go steroid. Short-term, it may be helpful, but in the long run it will do me (and you!) more harm than good. Do you think that all of those josekis I copy-pasta'd into my KGS go games are still in my head? I do not remember them because it wasn't my intention to learn from the habit, but only to win, even though if someone were to confront me about this in reality I would say the very opposite. But I know deep down in my heart that that is not true. It gave me a confidence boost or high in Go, something like the sense of pleasure a smoker must get when smoking a cigarette after a few smoke-free days. Even if your intention is right, it will only be a matter of time before you start getting dependent on it and before long you can’t find yourself closing Kogo’s like me.

Also, think about it, do you think you would learn a joseki better by just punching them in during your games or trying to play out a joseki sequence strictly by reading, screwing up, and THEN consulting the dictionary? I think the latter is best, and actually has worked quite well for me to some extent. Even if I don’t play them for 100 games, some are still in my head! Cho Seok-bin once told me that he remembers some joseki all the way from childhood because he would repetitively play the sequences out over and over again until he knew he could never forget it. Tis one of many ways to succeed in long-term joseki knowledge.

So are you one of the Kogo abusers? The new year has just arrived, so I offer a challenge, to go through 2008 without using a dictionary during your games. If you wish to consult Kogo’s before or after games, transfer the SGF to another computer where you won’t play Go, or store it into a deep-rooted folder so that it would take enough of an effort for you to decide not to use it during your games. Perhaps you are an Ishida abuser? Don’t leave your dictionary so close to you, place it in a bookshelf far away from your reach! Do whatever it takes to resist the urge. I am confident that, in the long run, it will help you in your Go journey as it has for mine.

PS: Also, as a side-note, I should remind you that Kogo’s, while it is a great tool and all, is far from perfect. It has many blemishes and errors, and only contains incomplete data from Ishida’s. It doesn’t have the more recent josekis that are being played in the pro circuit. If you are an abuser, it is too easy to simply assume a move that isn’t mentioned in Kogo’s as a joseki mistake when it is just that new move invented by Lee Sedol a few months ago ;). I once considered modifying Kogo’s to include the newer or less known joseki lines from my Korean joseki dictionaries or from recent pro games, but rather than removing the rust from the nail, perhaps it is better to remove the nail from my foot altogether =).

Thanks for reading!

PS2: I have decided to postpone my post on the particular person that I brought up on GoDiscussions because I am afraid that many readers may take offense to it, since he is a very well-known and popular person, and what I will say about him is not positive, though not quite harsh words as well. Anyways, expect the post very, very soon.

A new year, a new start.

2008-01-02T14:14:00.000-08:00

I've decided to try and give blogging a try because it bothers me oh so greatly to have so many thoughts pent up in my head and yet not be able to convey it onto something. Thoughts on Go, college life, friends, other interests, I'll post here. But I'll try to keep it towards Go because it is probably something I can talk most about with ease and comfort. I'll talk about interesting events and games that come up on KGS, my thoughts and opinions on a wide range of topics from ranks to joseki to particular Go players to bad beats. A lot of things to talk about indeed. I'll try my best to post at least once a week. It's painful to acknowledge, but college is indeed more important than Go :(. Nonetheless, I'll make sure that this blog is active for quite some time, and hopefully many will enjoy my thoughts :).

This blog is rated PG-13 due to perhaps some explicit language that will probably arise when I vent on bad beats and such :D. However, I will try my best to keep this from happening and keep this blog as family-friendly as possible.

Thanks for reading!