Dreams of a Go Player

AWESOME UPDATES - EXTRA LONG ENTRY! Tanoshimi~???

2009-02-09T12:41:00.002-05:00

I applied for Kings Baduk Academy's Baduk scholarship. 10 people are beign selected around the world, a maximum of one per country, to study for free at the Go training center. Everything is covered - tuition, accomodations, food... The only thing they have to pay for is a $200 entrance fee and air fare. Of course, one would want to bring as much money as possible anyway, because it will surely be needed. The duration is 3-7 years, and the goal is to train them to become professionals, with the goal of popularizing baduk around the world. According to the online pdf's, They will also learn Tae Kwon Do and Korean, maybe some other stuff. I WAS CHOSEN! The director is Sung-rae Kim, a Korean pro who's probably most notable for his 'Train Like a Pro' books. I'm studying Train Like a Pro volume 2 at the moment, in fact. "I think you can be the scholarship student", he said, which revelated me to the core. I am really, really excited, though I'm going to miss my friends and family. I am lucky and grateful, and I will train myself to the limit every waking hour, casting fun aside.

Some other stuff I want to say, a big pile of randomness:

Blood+ is a good Anime series. IT has awesome OP themes, such as Season's Call by Hyde.

My Go club, which meets at the Korea Town Korean Go club (649A Bloor St.W, near Christie stn.) Wednesdays at 4pm, is going well. Jeffrey came once. He played a strong player named Mr. Lee, and won the series of games 2-1. The strongest players at this club are all named Mr. Lee. I played someone they claimed to be a 7 Dan named Mr. Yun, but I won with black, Komi included. He thought he was leadign near the end and said he had to go, making clear that his lead was to obig, but I showed him that he was actually losing by 1.5. My friends and I recounted after three times, since that coutn was too rushed, and I was actually winning by 5.5, with nowhere for white to make it up, especially since I was much better than him at Yose for some reason. All in all, he was pretty strong, but not 7 Dan. He played a lot of curiously weak moves throughout the game, even though he seemed strong overall. Strange.

The HSU Team tourney is coming up, I'll be playing on a U of T st. George team. At last, it is being done Hikaru no Go style!

It seems I am finally 4 Dan! I've been getting mostly a 4 Dan's results playign at clubs, and I finally realized that, the slow player that I am, I can only play at this level with soemthing like 1 hour each and byo-yomi. With a lot of thinking time, I can bring out all of my strength, and that is where I can win. I finally realized how strong I am if I have a lot of time, and the number of handicap stoens I can give such and such player is almost irrelevent, I'm just not good at giving handicap and winning - A different game.

Right now, I'm mostly playing on KGS with my BenMantle account. I will continue to use my Alakazam account, but at the moment the rank is pretty crapped up. I played too many fast games and games i nthe middle of the night or when otherwise exhausted. I've come to the conclusion that my playing level in average length games is KGS 3D or even 2D, but with something like 1:00:00 + 1:00x6, I can probably get KGS 4D without a problem. Recently I had a bit of a strength jump again, so that may be way.

One clear but unneeded example of this jump is that I often play a Korean man from the Korean Go club who's a Tygem and CGA 2 Dan, and until a month ago, I would beat him twice out of every three games, sometiems more like 3/5. Just days ago, he and I played some games over 3 of my Go club meetings (I had an extra meetign on a Thursday), and beat him easily 10 times in a row. I feel sorry for him, but I'm glad I've gotten better.

I'll be leaving for Korea in around two months. I won't be able to go to this year's Canadian Open or two Anime North, but obviously it is still awesome that I get to train in Korea. The academy has at least fifteen pros as instructors. My friends are ecstatic for me, too.

Puro ni naru.

Randomness

2008-12-23T16:05:00.003-05:00

Merry Xmas! Two more days! Just kidding, I have nothing to be excited about like I did when I was a kid. I'm hoping I can use this time to make a strength jump in Go, but with holiday obligations all over the place, probably not happening. I started playing on http://online-go.com. I'm really addicted to it. We basically make our moves whenever we want, like mailing them almost. Of course we have time limits, but they're incredibly lenient. I think each time you make a move, you get your time restored by a day. I wouldn't know, since I make my moves immediately out of impatience. I'm in 13 games at once right now, and I paid for my impatience already... I might lose to a Kyu player because of it... But these ones are pretty strong! Go is Go, I can't take anyone lightly, that's just arrogant and stupid. This site uses european ranks, so it makes sense if they're strong. That said, my current 3.4 Dan is likely to drop, since I think I'm only about Canadian 3-Dan (but at least that makes me 4 or 5-Dan in the states ^^)

My first win on the site so far was against a 4.6 Dan, so I'm doing fine even if I lose one or two of these games. Some of my opponents are Dans, one is someone I sort of know (wossname, as he calls himself on countless servers). Naturally, my name on the site is Alakazam! I'd say the main problem between OGS and I is that I don't put my all into my moves. Especially when I'm in many games at once, I get careless. Who am I to think that I can defeat these people with a half-assed effort? If they're trying to win, why should I come out victorious? It all goes back to what I said before - I need to put my all into each game, quality over quantity. I can't deny though that this site is also about fun for me. I played a little on KGS lately, but way less than I used to. I played a few blitz games and was still able to beat 2D+, so I must not be THAT bad at blitz... I had to go somewhere, so I was doing it for fun, but it would be nice to be able to play faster.

Watched Rosario + Vampire recently....bleh.... I'm still watching it, and it's not bad, but not a top anime. Still keeping up with Naruto, Bleach and Gundam 00 S2. Naruto Manga is really good right now, it's at some really intense parts. I watched the released eps of One Outs. Not bad for an anime about baseball. I'm typing up all my poems and all my story ideas and stuff... I'm finally going to integrate creative writing between my studying Go and being a LAZY ass Otaku.

I didn't know I had so many poems. Maybe I'll post them sometime. I'm hesitant for obvious reasons. My brother, who has pretty much no interest in Go (so sad T__T) is practicing guitar a lot. I practiced guitar for like two weeks, but I had to cut it out of my life because I had too many hobbies, especially some obvious ones that need a lot of attention. I got good at strumming quickly, and came up with some cool songs. It's possible that I had some potential there. I come from a family of musicians, and I have a nturally good sense of rhythm and music in general, but anyway it's not my thing as much as Go and writing are. He finally surpassed me at guitar, he's really going at it. What's weird is that he and I are admittedly very similar people, especially with our Otaku-ness. When I look at a chord chart, all I see are Go diagrams. If he asks me about one of the chords, I'll say something like, "black has bad shape" or "this is quite the Joseki deviation." Man, I'm listening to my brother's ipod right now and all I can say is...L'arc en Ciel...mania...Bebe!

Lately I've been a bit worse...at Go I mean. I think I'm going through another improvement transitional stage wherein you get worse before you get better. Yeah, let's go with that. I'm hoping it's that. Hehe....heh.... .....ugh.... I hope one of my Xmas presents is $80 bucks so I can get my security license, lol. I get to start working as soon as I get it, although it looks like I gotta' wait 'till after Xmas when I get back from my aunt's house in Niagara, and the training is like two weeks I think.

Ja na

Wai~

2008-12-08T13:05:00.000-05:00

I just remembered! It's called Nabari no O! XD

Things To Do

2008-12-08T12:59:00.004-05:00

-Get a job: Kind of a fundamental requirement for travelling to Korea. You know, money? Yeah...
-Buy: That book on Sabaki...
-Finish: Gettin' these credits at this alternative high school...and then be done witth it! 8 days 'till Xmas break, wai~
-Catch up in my courses...been slacking lately, though I probably have 80-90 in each of them so no worries.
-Stop eating McDonalds. Yeah... If I get to school really early, I can get a Lunch Voucher, wai~
-Need to turn things up a knotch in the Go department. Gonna' study harder, i.e. focus on the tedious stuff like life and death. Yeah...

I can't remember what that series is called! The Ninja thing with the character named Yoite who dies. If I can remember my games to the end now, why can't I remember the name of a series I finished and liked in the last two months...

Wow, long time since the last post...

2008-12-07T12:49:00.002-05:00

Man, It's been a month since my last post, time flies... I definitely won't remember all the noteworthy things that happened to me recently, but I can blabber on for at least a few minutes.

Right now I'm very satisfied with the way I think logically and philosophically. I don't remember being like this before I started playing Go, and my ability to reason is also very different now. Another chang I've experienced is that I feel indifferent about things. It almost feels as though I could die in some accident and I wouldn't care too much. That's a bit of an overstatement. I can't describe it, or rather, I'd have to think a while in order to articulate my words properly to explain it, but I feel a lot wiser now, I have a whole new perspective on life, and I've improved at looking at myself from different perspectives. Go is interesting indeed. I can go asfar as saying, "Go is life". This is because the way one plays Go symbolizes aspects of their life and themselves, and a game of Go is like the course of life.

I've been referring to someone I know by the name 'Tassadar', but let us change that to 'Zeratul'.
Zeratul showed and explained to me the very interesting method of using Chinese characters to tell my fortune, so to speak. What he identified about me made perfect sense, and when I got him to check my brother, about whom he knows little, it was still accurate. There were a bunch of other interesting things about what the symbols indicated, and it was really interesting the way the elements, the days, months, years, weeks all connected, and how the elements related to each other in terms of fortune telling. I'm actually being sold on this, and that's hard to do with me. I don't yet believe in other furtune telling methods necessarily though, just this one for now. Nonetheless it's fun and interesting.

I defeated Zeratul in an even game! Then another day he beat me by 15 or something....shit...just kidding! Obviously he's still way strogner than me, that 6-Dan. It's cool that I beat him, especially since he didn't get killed or anythign anywhere, but it will be years before I can take him down for real. At least I know I'm getting somewhere.

I got a new phone! I upgraded my Motorola v3t to a Sony Ericsson, a pretty new model. I think it's called a "Walkman", but nonetheless it says that o nthe phone, and has a good music playing program called 'Walkman'. I was actually confused at first, because it has another one called 'Rogers Music Player'. I was using that, and it wouldn't play my M4A files. I couldn't figure out how to convert them to MP3 so i was annoyed that I only had a few songs working. Then I found the superior Walkman program as soon as I actually started exploring my phone, and I was no longer a sad panda.

I watched Rosario + Vampire and I'm currently keeping up with season 2 ("Capu 2") in addition to naruto, Bleach etc. The series isn't that good, but I like the Capu2 ending Trinity Cross by Nana Mizuki, especially with the Ending video that goes with it. It's basically just vampiric Akashiya-chan walking...shouldn't be that interesting, but she's a cool character, and Trinity Cross has a vampiric feel to it ^^

Since I only have a 512MB memory card now, I had to delete al lthe songs I didn't really listen to much.

...Not a single english song remained...

KGS Accounts

2008-11-06T14:18:00.002-05:00

Oh, almost forgot! I made a bunch of KGS accounts, because I can! Here is a list of my accounts:

Important:

Alakazam
Nabooru
Crimz
BenMantle
GodofGo
Charmander

1 secret account

Other:

Hitsugaya
BestMove
LiXingke
Influence
Territory
WayofGo
Iight (appears as 'light')*
Ownage
TheBox
iaS
AshKetchum
Din
CoolMove

Expired accounts:

Koseito (first ever)
Chinop
Hyouga
TheRaven
Crimz
Crimzn
Can't remember the others

My current main accounts are Alakazam, Nabooru and Charmander. Most of my accounts aren't ranked.

My Go At The Moment

2008-11-06T13:44:00.002-05:00

Hisashiburi da ne!
ひさしぶりいだね！

Still haven't gotten a job, but today I'll do a bit of searching online...probably to no avail because I fail at that. Songs of the week: Hakanaka mo towa no kanashi (Gundam 00 season 2 OP) by Uverworld, and Velonica (Bleach OP 9) by Aqua Timez. I'm hoping my increasingly unlikely theory about Naruto possessing a Kekkei Genkai (Bloodline Limit) of the Whirlpool country from his mother becomes true. This is based on the far-progressed Manga of course, not the lagging Anime. I watched almost twenty episodes of Welcome to the NHK (Nihon Hikikomori Kyokai)
日本ひきこもり協会 I also watched GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka) which wasn't bad, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting...It's been a while since my last entry da ne. I watched one episode of Ga-Rei Zero but it didn't look like something I would like. Of course I'm watching Gundam 00 S2 as well.

My Go has taken another smal lstep up. I'm moer confident in my play now, and in my reading, and my concept has been fortified. I'm progressing o nthe road to becoming a great player da ze!
山葵!

I started posting on the International Baduk Academy (IBA) forum on their new website
http://baduk-academy.com/forum

I'm going to do some problems using my book 'Train Like a Pro 2' now so...Ja ne~
じゃね

...............-_-

2008-10-05T19:14:00.002-04:00

Still totally off schedule. I haven't gone job hunting or submitted that job application to PizzaPizza yet. A played two games against KGS 3-Dans that made me feel like they are stronger than me. Other times, I play them and feel the opposite, but these two were really bad... I'm still trying to find my way of stones. I tried returning to my old Shusaku style opening, but it's not working for me. next, I'm going to try a more influence based way. I figure if I can prevent myself from being overwhelmed by influence and perhaps control the game with my own, my opponent won't really be able to beat me on territory alone since I'm good at taking that. I was also thinking of trying 3-4 and 4-5 as an opening. 4-5 would start me off with some extra influence, and 3-4 would allow me some territory. I'm also fond of the one-space low pincer against a high approach, and I learned a few new variations. Naruto is pretty dramatic right now, pretty sad that Asuma died. They based the videos of the newest Opening and Ending themes, Closer and Long Kiss Goodbye on how Asuma died, it's so sad. Not like I didn't see it coming, I also read the Manga, which is far ahead. I won't post the game I used for my newest Baduk Legend video on Youtube, sicne you can see it there, but I will post a game. It will be entitled 'October 08'. My club has become active again and the show is pretty okay. Last time Hai, Taras and two friends and Ben Hakala came. Taras and his friends will be taking lessons from me, and I gave my first lesson to Zac already. I have a total of 5 students now.

Baduk Legend

2008-10-01T21:20:00.002-04:00

After a really long period, I have finally added a new Baduk Legend video to Youtube. It's called BADUK LEGEND RETURNS - KGS 3-DAN. Incidentally, my KGS rank just fell to 2D again. It keeps jumping around at the border between the two, but recently I've foolishly done things like, playing rated games at 5 in the morning while I haven't slept, and I hurt my rank a lot by losing repeatedly like that. I posted the graph. I mostly play in person anyway, so I don't really care. However, I'm going to try hard to get it back to 3-Dan and then leave it alone. I aim to reduce my KGS playing frequency to nearly zero games a week. Quality over quantity my friends.

What is Go to you?

2008-09-28T22:08:00.003-04:00

I've started to realize that theory is not just some trivial aspect that adds dimension or personality to your game. It's just like the technical skills you teach yourself such as attack moves, Joseki variations, life and death etc. Most of us never stopped to think about what our Go philosophy is, I think we just assumed that everyone has their own way, and it develops on its own as they learn. I never put too much time into thinking about this stuff. I thought about the meaning behind different openings, or about how "territorial" or "influencial" my play is, but it's not enough. To some people, Go is about killing groups. To others, it's about winning through peaceful play. To some it may be about balance. A friend of mine opened my eyes with some words of wisdom the other day. This friend, whom I'll refer to as Zeratul, thinks of Go as the course of life, and in a respect, considers Go his life. This is the deepest type of Go philosophy I've heard of so far, and for someone who really has their life together, it's no wonder he is strong at Go. At the moment, I probably have a Go philosophy that's just too sketchy or vague to put into words, or one that I haven't fully unmasked yet. I must find that way of Go soon, for it is the key to a greater understanding and an increase in consistency of play. I should probably choose an opening that I like that represents my way of Go the best, and use that opening for every game. By doing this, I can further improve the consistency of my play by learning to play the same move eery time I'm faced with a particular position. As it stands, I feel as though I'd play a different move on a position I played on yesterday. Is this creative? Not really. it's true that Go has a great scope for possibility, but in the majority of cases, my scope is not correctly narrow enough. As I type this, the only way I've thought of for myself is a way of balance. This way would of course lead me to play a stronger game, but I fear this is a way shared by everyone beyond a certain strength level, and too far from the kind of way I should by hypothesizing. Personality and life experience plays a large role in one's Go. Zeratul convinced me that the very fact of traveling to Korea, for example, would change my entire paradigm of the world, since I've been in the same place my whole life. It would thusly change my Go as well. Playing a fighting style goes against my personality. Playing a territorial, peaceful style compliments my personality. If we were to play by our personalities alone, we wouln't be able to play as well. So we all have to go against our own personalities as we begin to adapt to the challenges of increasingly stronger players. But how much? For me, it's quite a lot. Recently I've been playign an influencial style of Go that relies on fighting. I believe this is a direct way of improving my greatest weakness, and sicne I'm relatively good at taking territory and calculating values, my opponent probably wouldn't be able to win on territorial moves alone. Zeratul believes that the natural flow of Go is just the same as the natural flow of life. Another thing I've decided to extract from this is that moves in Go should be treated like decisions in life. Along with this sense of meaning would come the responsibility to make every move count, and especially to play every move correctly and carefully, rather than play moves hoping they'll work or knowing that they don't.

I played in a tournament recently at CPAC Go club. I was 2-2 in A division. I defeated a 6-Dan in an even game with Komi (due to a 10+ point endgame mistake) and a 2-Dan, and lost to a 3-Dan and a 5-Dan. That 5-Dan was..."mimi", president of UofT St. George Go club.

I'm thinking 20 difficult Go problems per day is reasonable. There are only so many problems available... 5 pro game reviews a day, as much Go reading as possible I guess, and at least two games a week, but no more than 5 or so. I need to play a lot less, and maybe not online at all. When I do play, I need to Go all out. Afterward, I should review for longer than I played. I should play or learn from stronger players at every chance. I should avoid playing weaker players at every chance. I should do some easy problems during my spare time in addition to the 20 hard ones each day. I think this method would keep my sharp enough not to miss the easy stuff when I play. I should record and store my games, too, especially if i use the same opening every time. A method I just thought of is to look at games of mine or someone else's and create my own problems out of positions within.

Just finished watching Code Geass second (final) season. It was great! Great ending da ze~!

Applying for a job at PizzaPizza !

Playing as a KGS 3D

2008-09-11T01:38:00.004-04:00

Played some more games today. Today wasn't a good day, I lost a few. I lost to the same 4D twice (no handi of course ;p), though I did defeat a 5D with two stones by 9.5, and a 1D giving two stones. If I can win some, and most importantly, win against a 3D, I'll be able to accept my new strength and maintain my ratign as well :D

I will post my KGS Rank Graph's as updates, and Here's a link to my playing stats with game records.

http://kgs.gosquares.net/index.rhtml.en?id=alakazam&id2=&ty=2008&tm=9

Name Changes

2008-09-08T22:45:00.002-04:00

Changing my blog name from 'iaS', to my good old nick 'Crimz'.

As I have mentioned, my new KGS is Alakazam, 3D. I fear it will fall to 2D if I don't play (or of course if I lose). I played some games today, but for some reason I ended up only playing free ones. I've decided to hurry up and get a job, and go to IBA in Seoul after the next Canadian Open, which is supposedly in Toronto.

I'll upload two game pictures sets. One is a game against a KGS 1D - surprisingly easy after getting better at the tournament. It was 20 second blitz. Another I'll put up is an opening with two stones against a KGS [-], supposedly 4D or higher. He escaped, and when I looked at his games list it was obvious that I just played a chronic escaper. I think I was doing well though.

I've been reading my Go books a lot lately. I'm doing life and death problems more than I ever have, which is not saying much. My life and death prowess is so crap. I had sushi!!!1 SUSHI~~~ AAAHH SaShImI!!!!1112

Back

2008-09-03T23:03:00.004-04:00

I came back from Quebec last night. Hai Cheng nicely offered me a drive since the Subway was closed, so I took it. He's a 5-Dan from the CPAC Go club I go to on Saturdays. My record in the Canadian open was 4 W 2 L in the lower Dan division. I registered as 2-Dan in order to win a lot, since I usually do the opposite, over estimating my rank so I can play strong players. I lost the first game really stupidly. My opponent played a Ko threat which forces me to make a second eye for my huge dragon, and I played the wrong move. I played a move that reduces his liberties whilst increasing my eye space so that I could get lots of Ko threats, since the shape would have given my lots of them there. The Ko was worth at least 40 points. My dragon died... I played really hard and brought it down to a 10 point difference, but I had to resign near counting. The other game I lost was when I got caught up in the speed of this kid who played all of his moves instantly, Benson Lai. The game lasted something like five minutes! I got killed and resigned. I played him later in one-colour Go and won, but anyway he turned out to be a really polite kid, so I had no regrets. The second day, I was really myself. I had calmed down by playing my friends in our room, and won all of the 8 games, casual or tournament, that I played the next day. I defeated Patrick (5D), but he was in a really depressed mood because of his game and it was barely even a game. I also beat Micheal (6D), but the first half of the game was a two-person simul. Amira (1D) and I took second place in the Pair Go tournament. Man, she really likes starting fights. We defeated a 2K - 8K pair and a 2D - 4D pair, but lost in the finals to Micheal (6D) and Irene Sha (4D). Quebec was really nice, it looked amazing and had lots of old, cool looking buildings and historical monuments. Toronto smells like garbage like never before. I roomed with Peter Fung (5K), Micheal Liang (6D), Patrick Lung (5D), and Ron McKenzie (1D). The other room, filled with our other friends, was Mr. Fan (7D), Jeffrey Fung (6D), Hai Cheng (5D) and Jeff Meng (5D).

I made a new account on KGS called Alakazam. I was surprised this account wasn't taken. I got KGS 3D somehow, but I'm sure if I keep playing it will probably drop to 2D. Hopefully it won't drop lower than that.

I'm back

2008-08-24T19:21:00.002-04:00

Haven't posted in quite a while. I'm sick at the moment. Some updates...

Need a job pretty bad so I can start saving for IBA, managed to beat Jeffrey with 3 stones again, and with many other similar feats, it seems I may really have reached AGA 3rd Dan. I'll upload a few games when I feel better. I have 5 students now, though none of them have really started up with me yet - I've only done one lesson. Next weekend I'll be going to the Canadian Open Go Tournament 2008 in Quebec! Really excited! I'd better get well by then. I'm going with Jeffrey and some of his friends. Did a little dating lately, which is rare for me, since I'm a busy guy. I haven't really been looking for a girlfriend or caring about that stuff for quite some time now, since I have other things to worry about. Okay well, I'll start blogging more soon. I also plan to add a few new "Baduk Legend" videos to Youtube, at long last. I'm having trouble finding a screen recording program for my brother's Mac.

Poke-update

2008-08-02T20:58:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm definitely not going to play often at all. Pokemon, that is... Just on Subway and stuff... But here's one update I gotta' make. The team i posted earlier pales in comparison to this one. A speedy veteran team!

Jolteon - Super fast special sweeper with physical attack potential... Takes out flyers, for one...

Gengar - Speedy special sweeper, anti-earthquake swapper, able to use many elements.

Tauros - Basically no weaknesses with Zen Headbutt and Earthquake... A fast physical sweeper

Starmie - Fast with pretty good Sp. Atk. Another multi element user who's useful for Rapid Spin

Arcanine - A quick Physical sweeper who can also use specials. Kills dragons with Dragon Pulse and pings weak foes with ExtremeSpeed.

Aerodactyl - Super-fast Physical sweeper and flyer. What else to say.

We'll see...

Haven't posted for a while

2008-08-02T05:07:00.002-04:00

Well now, I've been busy lately with moving and I haven't played much Go lately. I'm moving to a new apartment on the same street on which I'm already situated, so it's not really a big deal, but now I'll have a basement and a porch. My Go club, which is growing nicely, will be better at this location! I can make the whole basement a Go area, with Anime wall scrolls and such as decoration. It's also an ideal party place for me and my friends. To be honest though, I'd most like to have Go parties :D A group of Dan players discussing situations with each other and playing games, perhaps practice for what it will be like at the IBA. I have lots of weird ideas like this. I also imagined myself and two others forming a team that challenges clubs and such to three-board team matches, all of us high-Dan players of course :) I was recently messaged on Facebook by Adrian Petrescu, a lower-Dan player whom I played in a high school - university team tournament two years ago. That time, I was much weaker than him and somehow won by an endgame fluke. The next year I got to play him again, I was one of the organizers of that tournament. This time I was considerably stronger than him. My advantage was obvious for the whole game, but for some reason I started being stupid and two large areas of mine died... But I was still in the game! I still wasn't losing! Then I died in yet another area, so I resigned... Ugh...! I can't wait to play him again, he said he might come to my house to play while he's in Toronto. He goes to the same university as my brother, U of Waterloo.

I saw Dark Knight today... Awesome! Sugoi! Heath Ledger was really great! Best Joker ever!

I think I'm going to start writing again... In this time while I'm saving up for the IBA, it's not a problem if I spend some time on my writing. I've realized that replaying pro games, for example, really doesn't help me improve very quickly. If I spend too many hours a day focused on Go, I won't be able to try my best for such an extended period, so I should just do a more quality/quantity oriented training. If I play stronger and same-level players at every chance, go to Go clubs often, view KGS Plus lectures and do lots of Tsumego (Go problems), that's probably all I need. I'll probably embarrass myself at the IBA if I don't increase my Tsumego prowess, which is almost non-existent. Speaking of which, my name is on the list of future students for the IBA! I'm glad it's on there, for I feel slightly reassured.

Quick Update

2008-07-21T00:33:00.003-04:00

Added a playlist to the blog, from Imeem. It contains anime songs. I made an account on online-go.com called Dreamer and on dragongoserver.net called SaiCan. I also play a bit on Facebook. My name on Facebook right now is Ramik Sohzey (for fun, it's the name of a character I made up in one of my stories) but the search should still work with 'Ben Mantle'. I don't feel like talking about the game I just posted (called Recent KGS Game) because I've already reviewed it myself and I'm lazy and busy. It was a pretty well-played game on my part I think. Heh, I had gotten back from a party and was tipsy, playing at 4'something am to boot. I finally got my report card in the mail. 70.6 average. I really took a big fall at the end, I think one of my teachers screwed up my mark for both of her classes, and I also didn't do some assignments at the end of the year. i wanted to start summer so I said "screw it!". I passed all my courses and my lowest mark was 63. I got 89 in night school Japanese, but that wasn't on the day school report card. I found out that I missed Korean summer school... I thought it started in August for some reason, which means I need to take night school when the school year starts. At least I saved myself from six hours a day of school during one month this summer. I'm going to be a student of Monarch Collegiate now, in order to do just half a year. i hope my PC data drive at Riverdale C. I. doesn't get cleaned out... I'm going to pop in next year to try to get my stuff off of it. Later!

Games

2008-07-21T00:21:00.001-04:00

Photobucket Album

Pokerus

2008-07-19T01:06:00.004-04:00

I woke up really late today, though I did go to bed at dawn for some reason. My brother turns 21 tomorrow (today). Nijyuuichi sai de omedatou! I didn't do any Go today. Usually I at least do a few problems or learn a few Joseki variations, but today I did nothing at all. Yesterday I saw the movie Wanted with my friend Robb, whom I hadn't seen in a long time. It was bloody, and the bullets were magically able to circle around. What have I been doing in the last few hours? Eating Rolo ice cream, drinking Coke, sitting idly, watching Zero no Tsukaima season two (episode 9 how sad...), and... Da-danana~~~ ...thinking of a pokemon team to create... Is that nerdy or what? I've been bored, and since I could find neither the charging cable for my brother's Nintendo DS to play Pokemon Diamond nor the charging cable for his SP to play Zelda: Oracle of Ages, I'm thinking of a team I'll make when I become able to play. I can't help but want to continue playing every new game that comes out in the Pokemon and Zelda franchises... If I play this version now, I'll be able to trade them to future Pokemon versions. I like to make thigns more fun by playing like a gym leader... That is, playing with a theme team! This tiem I'll do rock! Or rather, mineral? Rock, steel and ground types. Most gym leaders or trainers of either of those themes usually has some of the others mixed in. I'm such a nerd, but here's my unrefined, initial team idea:

Metagross (Steel/Psychic)
Ability: Prevents stat change of Metagross by opponent
Adamant Nature (+ Atk - Sp. Atk)
EVP: 255 Atk, 155 Sp. Def, 100 HP
Moves: Earthquake, Explosion, Hammer Arm, Meteor Mash

Aerodactyl (Rock/Flying)
Choice Ability: Pressure (Lowers enemy Power Points)
Jolly Nature (+ Spd - Sp. Atk)
EVP: 255 Spd, 255 Atk
Moves: Iron Head, Thunder Fang, Fire Fang, Giga Impact

Bronzong (Steel/Psychic)
Choice Ability: Levitate (Ground attacks miss)
Sassy Nature (+ Sp. Def - Spd)
EVP: 200 Sp. Atk, 200 Def, 110 Sp. Def
Moves: Psychic, Stealth Rock, Charge Beam, Earthquake

Rhyperior (Rock/Ground)
Choice Ability: Solid Rock (Super effective moves do half the damage to Rhyperior)
Brave Nature (+ Atk - Spd)
EVP: 255 Atk, 255 HP
Moves: Mega Horn, Avalanche, Rock Wrecker, Earthquake

Tyranitar (Rock/Dark)
Ability: Sandstorm starts upon release
Sassy Nature (+ Sp. Def, - Spd)
EVP: 80 Sp. Def, 210 Def, 200 Atk, 20 HP
Moves: Avalanche, Earthquake, Thunder Fang, Return

Empoleon (Steel/Water)
Ability: Raises water moves' power in a pinch
Bold Nature (+ Def - Atk)
EVP: 255 Def, 80 Sp. Def, 175 Sp. Atk
Moves: Grass Knot, Surf, Ice Beam, Hidden Power (Ground)

Anyways, thinking this up took only fifteen minutes so whatever. Most of the values were decided on randomly, with no calculations or anything.
My character will probably be named Rocky. I prefer to play as the female protagonist, since she looks okay, and not like some painter dude wearing a burret... The best I could come up with for her is simply calling her Diamond, which works... Or Crystal, either suits the theme, but I feel that would be too generic. None of the relevent Japanese words sounded good either...

Goplayer@rocketmail.com, cause I'm a Rocket Man!

2008-07-18T03:07:00.003-04:00

I'm glad that I got this address before anyone else. I played some more games with Peter when he came over, this time it was at least six games. I've realized that I'm awful at Life and Death. In addition to my psychological walls which prevent me from playing with all of my strength, I am sucking at ze living and ze killing. I'm starting to get better at motivating myself, just by thinking. For one, I'm at least a decade behind most aspiring professional players. Most of them are pro before they're 18. I'm almost 19 and I'm not even a high-Dan amateur player yet. I have to try harder, harder, harder, harder, Harder! Go is supposed to be my life now, or that's something I have to make reality. Perhaps I should say "My Go supports me", or maybe I've watched a little too much Hikaru no Go. Those who try overly hard are the ones who become great, who become successful. If I don't want to end up working at a movie theatre or a Mcdonalds in the future, I'd better get a move on. I wonder if being a teenager or a young adult is when we all think about the future most. I've heard that before, that's all. Is knowing what to do next and how to succeed in life what being an adult is about, or requires? I used to think I knew what I was doing, but I admit that I am lost. I carry but four things with me along this road. One is my current situation - My home and family, my friends, my getaways, my current abilities and the rest, but these are some things I'm continually trying to improve on, as if I'm seeking some kind of nirvana within myself. Another is the desire to work a job I like, but still make a pretty good living. In other words, I don't want to live under pressure. I also carry with me the ability to work extremely hard at the things I love, whatever they may be at the time. Also the ability to try my best when I'm in a pinch. Hobbies, for example, easily become my life. Last but not least, I have a passion for Go that motivates me additionally. My Go is not like any of my other hobbies in the fact that I will never stop playing, and I will never stop being able to improve and to enjoy it. It's different from my Pokemon, my trading card games, my Hockey, my martial arts, my body building, my guitar, my writing... I am enveloped in the world of Go now, so I must become a pro. I must say though, writing is far above everything else to me besides Go, so I aim to end up enjoying both writing and Go. Anime and Manga are more things that I will definitely stay involved with for a long, long time. Year after year I've always asked myself, am I that much less down to earth than everyone else? Everyone around me seems so cynical. It pains me for some reason, it's as if I pity them for wanting to live average Joe lives. It's the same feeling I get when I see people my age without any promising hobbies who just play MMORPGs and other video games, dedicating hundreds of hours to something they're just going to quit indefinitely before moving onto another, a hobby with no fruit to bear. It's probably wrong of me to be like this, and I'm not really any different. I feel like the main character in some Anime where all the people around get killed and then mass-revived over and over in repetitive oblivion, no more than pawns. If I were to actually believe something like that, I would be really arrogant as hell wouldn't I. I don't really think like that, I just don't want to be a pawn.

Hisashiburi da ne~

2008-07-16T01:32:00.003-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted. I've been pretty 'blah' lately and haven't had much energy or motivation for Go or for anything. The one part I haven't been lagging in is Joseki. I lost the last couple games I played on KGS as iaS, though they were close and fairly well played. I really do need a teacher, though I can't afford one and need to save up for Seoul. On that note, I should go job hunting soon. I forgot to move the compost bins in the parking lots in my neighbourhood, which I get paid to do once per week. As punishment, I had to take all the disgusting stuff out by hand and bag it, then transport it across the neighbourhood by wheel barrow. I won't lie - it was more disgusting than anything I will ever experience again in my whole life. Disgusting juices spilled from the bag and soaked through my gloves, bags filled with unidentifyable curry-coloured sludge spilled all over the place, especially when they bags were untied and upside down in the bin. My hand went into heaps of maggots! MAGGOTS! My nose is basically ruined, too. I had a long shower afterward, and washed my hands with all kinds of soap a million times, but I still smell a little, though it may be that the stench (if only that word could possibly represent it) is stuck in my nose. I won't say anything more about that, but it's basically the bulk of my day. I recently watched all of Fate/Stay Night and Kenichi, both were great. I'm currently watching Zero no Tsukaima season one. It's okay... Watchable at least. I will upload some games of Go soon. In terms of practice, I've realized that life and death is more important than I've given it credit for, and I really need to work on it. Even though that's the case, I'm working on Joseki right now. I'm close to learning all the Joseki variations contained within Ishida Yoshio's Joseki Dictionaries! Once I finish learning them all, I'll be confident in playing all sorts of moves. If I were to put in order from best to worst my Go attributes, they would be like this: Joseki, Endgame and Mokusan (counting), Fuseki, Tesuji, Life and Death, Fighting, Midgame. I'm not sure if I forgot any. Most of those I'd say are pretty close to each other, or in other words I'm well-rounded, but my Joseki is far above the others, since I find it easier to sit in front of a Goban memorizing variaitons than, for example, improving midgame through playing and reviewing and obscure methods such as those. As soon as I finish learning Joseki, I'm going to put most of my efforts on life and death and really Go at it for a long, long time. Reading ability is everything, after all.

The Black Box Fuseki!

2008-07-09T01:31:00.002-04:00

I have invented a new Fuseki that seems to be successful despite its grave irregularity. I have posted a picture of the Fuseki on the right, scroll to find it. I realize that it's not so easy for me if my opponent takes 3-4 points rather than foolishly taking star points, but it has proven fine regardless. On KGS I made a new account called TheBox as soon as this idea suddenly popped into my head. I quickly got to KGS 1-Dan, which is more than I can say about my regular account, iaS. It's totally true that this may have been played before, but it would be nice if, given this Fuseki's future success, it be iconic of me. So far I have 8 wins and 1 loss using this Fuseki, the one loss was from a terrible blunder. If anyone comes over to play Go at my house tomorrow, I'll definitely play this way. If it's Peter, I'll take black and just give him 30 or so Komi. I must play black to use this Fuseki. I wonder if I can come up with a similar idea for white... There's always omitting the fourth center play, and I doubt a giant triangle would be effective. Could 3-3 + five-space high extension + six-space extension the other way and a large knight's move into the center from that stone, closest to the other extension be any good for white? Black gets three corners and another move, but white gets this Moyo unless black fights well. I'm thinking of lots of strange things now! Anyway, I'll upload some Black Box games soon. Peace out!

Free Chinese Go Stones!

2008-07-07T19:24:00.002-04:00

I played in the youth tournament this Sunday. The two people who hosted it, the same people who run the Chinese Go school in the CPAC building, are Colin Zheng and Xiandong Zheng, 1-Dan and 8-Dan. I was wondering why they weren't coming to the club that much anymore, and their own one was the culprit. Each player played four games, and I was 3 wins and 1 loss. I lost to Patrick Lung, a 13 year-old Go player I've known for a while. He's someone who's a bit of a rival to me. When I first started coming to CPAC Go club, I was a double-digit Kyu and he was 1-Dan. I got to 1-Dan when he got to 2-Dan, so I thought i was going to surpass him, but it's proving really difficult. Even Jeffrey, a strong 6-Dan complimented Patrick's new strength, and he doesn't do that much ^^ He said Patrick was strong enough to play him evenly. When he said that, I a felt as though I had fallen far behind in those six months of no Go, but after playing him yesterday, I've realized that he's still far from Jeffrey. I was even winning at one point during the game, he said he might resign, but I ended up losing largely due to time pressure and, more significantly, due to a strange sequence of idiocies I played in the center. Because those mistakes in the center were so strange, I probably won't remember them, so I'll only be able to upload up to then as long as I remember. Patrick... He wasn't even supposed to be in that tournament. I mean, I wasn't even supposed to be in that tournament because I'm above 1-Dan. Of course he took first place, there was no one even as strong as me there, so how could he not lose. But congratulations to him it is! He's a good player and has a lot of potential. Man, I need a teacher... I'll take advantage of Jeffrey's generousity some more from now on. I'll play him every Saturday!

Speaking of Saturday, I played two games. Both games were against this 3-Dan guy that I played on another occasion. On that occasion, he took territory really quickly and I was struggling to make something out of all my strength and influence. Somehow, the game was fine for me later, but I ended up making a horrible mistake later and resigned. This time, he beat me again. I played a really stupid sequence and lost points for no reason. It's the one where you push down your opponent's territory, and they block on the second line, then you attach to one side of that stone, they atari, you atari from the other side, they capture, and you kill the corner stones by Damezumari. I mistook the shape, I really should have read it through even if it's a memory move. Actually, I should always read things through and not play by memory ever! Even though the game was not one-sided yet, I lost too much confidence. I started a severe attack in the center on a stone he tried to reduce my Moyo with. In the end, I lost out more and made many more mistakes. I continued playing because I ended up with a lot of influence and a Moyo, but I ended up resigning. I challenged him to a rematch and won one-sidedly. I was able to play like myself by playing the moves I believe in rather than what I remember to be "correct", which by the way is a foolish notion for Go. I'm not sure if I can remember the games from Saturday, but I may and if I do I'll upload them. I'll also upload two of the games from Sunday if I can remember them. One will be versus Patrick, the other Amira, a 1-Dan Chinese girl younger than Patrick whom I've played many times and at different locations, such as Toronto Go Club. I may have referred to her as "Emera" mistakenly somewhere in one of my posts. She played better in this game than in any other game against me, though I still won by 21.5 as white. She has beaten me once with a two-stone handicap, though it was because of an obvious mistake. She has a fun personality for an 11 year-old and she's surprisingly sharp in regard to Go. In my opinion she's excellent at Tesuji, though she's pretty good at life and death too. She needs improve at late midgame, but especially at endgame. I've gained a lot of points in those games during the endgame. I haven't seen her fighting enough yet to comment on it. At the restaurant after the meeting on Saturday, Jeffrey and I talked about Go as usual. Here are some things we talked about:

-"Correct" doesn't really exist in Go. Since no one can ever read out all the variations of everything on the board, no one can know if they are playing the best move.

-"Strength at Go" is different from "Ability to win a game of Go", and the latter is something I lack compared to the former.

-I need to work on the psychological aspects of Go, such as trying my best to win, playing the game and not the player, reading rather than remembering, looking only at the stones regardless of what's around me and who my opponent is, not playing sequences that I play even knowing that they don't work, and having faith in myself instead of thinking about what someone else would say is correct.

Dreaming is living. I think that such things define humanity

2008-07-03T21:02:00.004-04:00

It's been over a week since I've played any Dan level players, so I won't bother uploading any of the games, especially since they were particularly weird ^^

I'm looking forward to this Saturday, for the usual reasons. I might participate in a little youth tournament on Sunday. It's in the same building as the CPAC Go club but on the third floor on Sunday morning. I'm not sure if they took my advice of signing my up as a 1-Dan so that I could be in the up-to-1-Dan youth tournament rather than the free tournament, but it should be fine regardless. If I do play as a 1-Dan, I can't afford to lose. I'll almost surely be the strongest there. There's no handicap in this tournament, another reason why I wanna' be in the youth division ^^

Yesterday I played four or five games with my friend Peter, a player with a weird style who's interested in lessons as well. I don't think I'm quite strong enough to be a teacher for him, though there's plenty he could learn from me for sure. His unstable playing strength ranges from 2-Kyu to 7, so he's probably around 3 or 4-Kyu in my opinion. All of our games were messy. I made a lot of mistakes. Since I met him around a year ago, I always make tons of mistakes against him and can't play even one normal game. It's something about him, and he agrees. Anyway, one of the games was actually kind of close, I only won by 13.5 Moku. Just the other day I beat him by 40.5 after taking off a reverse Komi of 40 for him, that's how unstable his play is... Kind of like me, though I prefer to resign when I know I've lost. I never resign too early or when I still have a chance, but I never lose by more than 8 points if I do play until the end. I believe counting as well as endgame are my best attributes at Go, though you can probably only tell if I play a slow, well-thought game. Next time I play Peter at my house, I'll tell him to play a really long, single game with me. Maybe there's something we can use to set two hours each for each other. I need to keep going! Keep improving! I refuse to stop now that I've finally started growing again, so I'll play Jeffrey on Saturday, if even just him and then some weaker players. It's not that I like easy games, it's that I enjoy those games in a different way, perhaps from a passionate teacher point of view. It probably gives me the chance to teach myself how to punish mistakes, too.

Man... All I want to do... ...Is play Go. Sit in a well-cooled room and play Go with people, or sit there learning Joseki variations, solving Tsumego and replaying games with a stern but passionate face for hours and hours.... It probably ties into how I love to be alone. Having GO players around is great, but sometimes it's not SO great. The weaker players can't talk about the game on the same level, it's as if we're talking about different games, or they're saying stuff about play that's untrue or overly trivial, things that we like to talk about and use to make Go even more interesting, but won't help us improve fast at all. Stronger players can also be unpleasant because few of your ideas get past their speculation, and they're always trying to make you more serious about things. Sometimes their advice is 100% hypocritical too. This is all rarely the case though, since anything can be annoying to us when we're in a certain mood.

The most recent variations I've been teaching myself are far approach variations, and all of the known variations of the 4-4 attachment to a 3-4 corner after playing low approach move that's attacked with a far pincer, especially the two-space high. I realized that it's usually not great for the corner player to nobi on 3-5 when 3-3, although more complex, is better in most cases. It's not so good to let the opponent settle in Sente.

Sore nara, mata ne.

Everything Changes

2008-06-29T01:45:00.002-04:00

Listening to: Music Is My Thing and other Hikaru no Go OST.

Well firstly, here is the official list of definite students and club members for the club I've initiated in my house, which will be taking place once or twice per week besides private lessons.

Students:

Mike 8K

Zak 5K

Peter 3-7K? o_O

Peter is a friend of mine who I see at Go clubs. I met him at York U Go club.

Zak is someone I played against in my first ever tournament, the Toronto Open 2006. I lost big time :) Mike is someone whom I've yet to meet. Apparently he's a school teacher that's going to create a Go club within his school, that's great.

Current Club Members:

Mike, Zak, Peter, Taras, Andrew, Allen and myself :)

We have yet to do any lessons or meetings

How it all began...

I believe I was in the 11th grade. It was around the end of the year, and I was at the Anime club at my school, which was then hosted by Tsz Hong, and supervised by the our good friend Mr. Hackl - best teacher ever. He continued to supervise for us year after year. The year after was by the way hosted by my best friend Allen Chang, and this year I was the president. He was the vice president this year, and last year it was vice-versa. Allen is one of the best players at my school, though still a relative beginner. He was around 18-Kyu, though he's learned from me a little up until now and is around 14-Kyu. Apparently his dad is 3-Dan, I'd like to play him. So I was in a club meeting, I think they were watching an Anime called Grenadier, though maybe it was Hellsing. They were playing Go. I can't remember if it was one of those blue garbage bag board thingies or a super-thing wooden or cardboard one, but it was a cheap set and the stones were tiny. They were sticking to their fingers, and the board was constantly getting messed up since they weren't playing the stones like Go players do. I honestly thought it looked like an M'n'M war. The game was so complicated I didn't even know where to look, or what was going on. After a few months, summer passed, and my friend, Malcolm, told me to watch Hikaru no Go. I refused, saying stuff like, "Nah, I refuse to watch another Anime about a game such as that. It's probably like Yu-Gi-Oh..." He told me to watch it on two other occasions over an MSN Messenger chat, and I finally gave in. I watched it and decided I was right! It IS like Yu-Gi-Oh! A Ghost that lurks within the main character's existence, a game, two-coloured hair, a world class player whom the main character defeats on his first try using the spirit - It's the same! ...No, no it is not. Hikaru no Go is very. very different and it really, really rox. To the day, I've watched Hikaru no go six times the whole way through. So I watched Hikaru no Go, and then I found the KGS website. I clicked the 'Learn To Play Go' link and did those super-easy problems, such as, "How many liberties does this group have." I then created an account called Koseito and started looking for opponents. Though I believe I probably got the translation completely wrong, I created that name with the meaning "Little Mage" or "Little Wizard" in mind. I went on to use that for the name of the main character in one of my stories, Kaji Koseito. At that time I was going to call story Awakened - I'm too lazy right now to get into the story, though I can say just this at least - the characters use abilities called 'Awakenings'. On that note, my most previous email address was awakenmygo@hotmail.com. Anyways the first person I ever played was the user Donclaboni. He taught me a lot after the game even though he was only 16-Kyu. Right now, his KGS account is ranked at 1-Kyu, so he actually improved a lot. I played him a few times before my six month quit period, I won twice and he won once. Anyway a user named Aleksander I believe, or maybe it was a random person, told me about Toronto Go Club. I clicked the link and started going to that club soon after. I learned a lot there, and went there a great deal since I wasn't really doing my homework for school :p They met on Wednesdays and Sundays back then - Now it's just Sundays. They've moved locations twice since then, now they're at The Artful Dodger, a pub on Isabella street. They meet Sundays from one to five. Aleksander was giving free lectures back then, and continued for a while. I usually attended them. I met Aleks in person, too. Oh and yes, that's how he spells it. His last name is Saiyan! I was like WOW and stuff... What an awesome last name. If he became a top pro, they'd definitely call him Super Saiyan :p His first name starts with an 'A', hence his email being 'asaiyan' ^^ Anyways, I got stronger at the club and online. I had a person online by the name Tjoonz that was better than me and I viewed him as a rival, though he wasn't as serious about the game as me so I passed him by soon enough. When school came around, or rather, when my friends discovered that I had started playing, they decided they'd like to play me. Allen and I made a bet - If I win, I can address him as Allen-chan, as if he's a girl or something, and if he wins he can call me Ben-bozu, which is a type of insult I believe. I used to know what it literally meant, but I don't care enough to look it up. I won fairly easily, but I didn't call him Allen-chan except for the very next day :p I beat everyone else at school too. Well, almost everyone. There was one person who I had yet to meet - Brian. He was around 5-Kyu! Even later in the year, he could still give me nine stones of handicap. Brian was a rival to me, though he didn't see me as one at all. I must say that he was a rather obnoxious guy. He would respond to my compliment with an insult when, for example, I'd say he was a good player. I thought it was pretty traverse. I went to my first tournament, the Toronto Open Go Tournament 2006. Someone from Toronto Go Club, a 1-Dan whom I still fully remember but haven't seen in ages, complimented me. He said to my aunt, who happened to work in the building wherein we held our meetings, that I was talented, though I think he was just being nice. He said I was around 10-Kyu, but I had serious doubts about that. Based on that comment I registered for the tournament as a 14-Kyu. I lost all six games T__T. For the record, my opponents were using their KGS rankings, which were at that time really unflattering! And My last three opponents were a 10-Kyu, a 5-Kyu and a 2-Dan :( I felt really down, in fact, I didn't even try in my game against Mario, the 2-Dan, not that I could have won anyway. Ah, see!? This is what I'm talking about... Heh, since I haven't played in any other CGA-sanctioned tournaments, my official rank is still 14-Kyu XD Well anyway, Aleks introduced me to Jeffrey Fung, a 6-Dan friend of his offering lessons. He charged $20 for three hours, a good price. I couldn't really afford it, since I didn't have a job or an allowance. Well, I did have this little once-a-week, half-hour job, which I still have now. I transport 24 of those large, wheeled recycling bins up a hill and do the same with a giant pile of cardboard. I get paid for two hours at $12 per hour. The pay is good, though it's only that long. Now, I have an additional job with the compost bins, ten of them. I get paid for one hour for that. Anyway I started taking lessons from Jeffrey, though it was a drag that he lived so far away, out in Scarborough, I think it was Ellesmere and Morningside or something like that. Around this time, I was playing online a fair bit. I downloaded a program called SmartGo and spent an entire day in front of the computer doing the Go problems in it. I went from KGS 18-Kyu to 13-Kyu in one day because of my increased strength at problem solving, especially life and death. That day there was something about the air and the general weather that made me love what I was doing. it's the same feeling the first episodes of Hikaru no Go give me. The fresh spring air, I associate it with that memory now. I reminisce once a year and it makes me glad that I'm playing Go. Even the feeling of practicing by myself, memorizing Joseki variations from Ishida Yoshio's Joseki dictionaries or replaying pro games while it's raining and/or thundering, and the feeling of the stones when they're cold makes me continue playing. I recognize the coming of spring as the anniversary of my Go. Go has prevailed as my number one escape from reality, too. There have been many a time when I've gone through hard times either with school, at home, with my then existing social life (lol) or with life itself, and so I played Go. I won't lie though, I wasn't hard working at all compared to people who are trying to become pro, people who know how hard it is. I had heard all about how hard it is to become a professional Go player, especially for someone in my extensively disadvantageous circumstances. I said to myself, "I don't care what people say, I'm improving quickly and I love Go, so I can do it." I'll admit that one of the causes of my recent six month quit period was giving into doubt, though I also needed to start actually getting a high school credit or two. At least now I can say to myself, "I know all about what it takes to become a pro and what I have to do. I've heard all the synicism there is on the matter and I've continued to dream. I've experienced and surpassed all doubt, and I will become a professional player. Then I can dream about something else, since I'll already be living that one." And I fully understand that pros don't make much, I have backup though. Aleks introduced me to the CPAC Go club, a Chinese Go club with quite a few high-Dan players. I played a Chinese guy one year younger than me named Kieth. He was about 3-Kyu. He gave me four stones and it was still murder. I eventually caught up to him and passed him by. He quit Go around that time T__T I've been to around five or six tournaments so far, mostly little ones. I believe the best I've done is three wins and two losses. Jeffrey always told me to over estimate my rank at tournaments. I took something like 10-15 lessons from Jeffrey, and then he went to Vancouver. After that he moved to Markham, so now I can only see him at CPAC Go club. He still plays me whenever I ask, and we continue to go to a nearby Chinese restaurant after every meeting. I've made many friends playing Go. Some that I didn't mention are Murry (1-Dan), Lisa (1-Dan), Robert (1-Dan), Mr. Hung (3-Dan) and surely a lot more that I'm forgetting at the moment, quite unforgivably. Well I can't forget Yoshi. She's a friend of mine I met at Anime North. She passed the Japanese pro exam this year!!! She isn't so fond of the game for various reasons, or rather, she has other plans for her life, so she isn't an active pro right now, in fact she's here in Toronto. I haven't played her, but she did finally say she'd play me sometime, so we'll see :)

I really want to play Aleks! I haven't played him since I was a beginner! He knew he was my goal, I told him straight on, and he was anticipating the day when we'd play an even game, but we never did. Hopefully I'll get to play him soon. I'm scared of screwing up in my game against him, that would suck. I'm definitely going to try my best, I absolutely can't lose that game! I must also prove to Jeffrey that I have surpassed or at least caught up yo Aleks! Because Jeffrey is my current goal and rival.

Random Stuff

2008-06-28T01:59:00.003-04:00

Listening to: Labyrinth (Kenshin OST), Mezameru Yasei

So in my game against James, move 14 was questionable, since I can D13. I planned for everything that happened though. I won the game because of my territory-gaining attack on the white stones here. I knew that white would get the double approach, but I could settle perfectly fine and in probably Sente. I could then gain further advantage in the ongoing fight by getting extra moves there. I hadn't spent a single handicap yet.

38 - An obvious but really good Nozoki. It really helped me out later as well.

42 - Very questionable

48 - Very bad. I played this on instinct because of the shape here, but under whole board cirucumstances, this move only helps white connect. I could have simply extended and let him deal with it himself.

52 - Why not connect my endangered stone back to its friends? That would separate the two unsettled white groups.

59 - After observing variations, this move seems to be suicide in this situation. I knew how to kill, but I didn't believe in myself. I shouldn't cower just because he's a 6-Dan.

80 - I missed N 14 or something similar...

102 - I don't see any problems with my shape. After getting that sequence a little earlier that connects my black with the wall, a worthless exchange, I should at least play Q 11 right now.

The game was played to the very end, but I couldn't remember the exact order of moves so I didn't bother.

Pokemon! Those games have always been the bomb! There are 493 Pokemon, and I hear there will be over 600 with the coming of Pokemon Platinum version. Too bad I can't play it... Gotta become a pro.

Lord of the Rings was such a great trilogy, though I hated how they randomly got ghosts to win the war for them by floating around and bumping into things. Beverly Hills Ninja and Fearless were also great.

My schedule lately has been so backwards. People are looking at my Facebook posts going "HAH!? 5 am again?" and yeah. Ahem. I've been waiting so patiently... It is finally Saturday! CPAC Go club, and that awesome restaurant! If I can comfortably defeat Jeffrey at four stones, I'm promoting myself to 3-Dan.

I don't know if you know this, but I'm a total Anime and Manga fan. I like Bleach, Naruto, Code Geass, .Hack//Sign, DNAngel, Death Note, Hikaru no Go, Beck, Rurouni Kenshin, Samurai Champloo, Suzuka and many more, and I'm usually up to date with what I'm watching.

I'm also a writer, though I don't like posting my material on the internet too often. There are some things, such as a few poems I've submitted to contests and such that I can post comfortably, so maybe I'll post a few sometime. I'm a new writer though... I always loved writing stories as a kid and loved fantasy fiction, and yes, I've come up with stories that I'll talk about sometime. I started getting more seriously into writing only just this year, though I'm out of it now whilst focusing on Baduk. I've come up with nearly 10 ideas that I wish to turn into Anime one day, and I'm really confident about every one of them. There's one that I've gotten more than three seasons into already! In my head... I've written and typed tons and tons of the ideas and stuff for that story, though I haven't finished any actual chapters. I wrote a few, but I wasn't happy with them.

My next post will contain at least one game from tonight, and more importantly, the story of when I started Go, all the way up until now.

Go is a beautiful version of war.

Getting Better I Guess

2008-06-27T02:59:00.005-04:00

So, I've been considering promoting myself to 3-Dan recently. When I play with at least an hour of time and think well, I can generally defeat KGS 2-Dans. I've also been winning most of the games in which I've been given handicap, and overall I've made some definite improvement recently. We'll see though... My KGS rank is still only 1K, after all. Quite strange. It's true that I almost always lose my KGS games either on time or a goof up, not really because of skill. The only players on there whom I have accepted as stronger than me are the 3+Dans, I think I'm just as strong as the KGS 2-Dans. I was invited to a certain 6-Dan's house for Go on Thursday nights (not Jeffrey, but James). We played two games and reviewed them in depth, as well as that of Chris and Frank, who were also there (the same Frank from Toronto Go club). Frank got himself into a pickle in his game. That happens to him a lot, but he won. Chris wanted to kill a dragon and let it into his territory in order to kill it, but it didn't quite work out. I won the first game against James, at four stones, by 28.5 moku. We played an even game after and I resigned in the late midgame due to a modest but crucial lack of points and potential points. He said that I'm stronger than 2-Dan for sure, that made my day :) If I play like a 3-Dan on Saturday, for example, beating Jeffrey comfortably with a four stone handicap, I'll promote myself to 3-Dan. And don't get me wrong - My goal is to become as strong as a pro! Actually, it's to become a pro... We'll see.

I'll make a vow to anyone who's following this blog....

Actually two...

No, three!!

No, two... ...

Three it is!

1. By April 1, 2009 I'll be 5-Dan!!!!

2. I will have saved up enough money to join the IBA in Seoul for more than a year!!!

2. When I finish my study of Go in Korea or, since I may travel around, when I finish my study of Go in Asia in the two years or so after I leave, I'll be as strong as a pro! 8-Dan or such!!! Or in other words, I guess just as strong as someone taking the pro exam who'd pass or do well!!!!!

Yoshi! I'll do it, it's a promise to myself! Ikuzo!!!!1113

Interesting Games, and "Me, a teacher? Well yes!"

2008-06-24T20:38:00.004-04:00

I played a few more games on KGS, two wins and a loss. I'll post the two wins :) The loss was a total collapse. I was desperate the entire game. I made life in weird places, but I still didn't have enough points not to resign. One of the better games was another one of my games against KGS 2-Kyu's. For some reason I always opt to give them a two-stone handicap, and I almost always win. I played an invasion Tesuji in the endgame that sealed the win and I won by 7.5 Moku. The game is on the right and entitled 'Invasion Tesuji - Strong Yose'. The other game was against a KGS 1-Kyu and is entitled 'Bad Start But Still Won'.

After having an email dispatched about giving lessons and having people come play at my house, I've already gotten emails from two people who are interested in both private lessons and casual meets, and a friend of mine, Andrew (4-Dan) who also wants to come over to play. This is great! I'm only charging $10 for up to four hours for the private lessons. Depending on how things go, I may need to raise it to $15, but I'm confident they'd still want to continue.

Interesting Handicap Game

2008-06-24T07:26:00.002-04:00

I stayed up all night because I slept really late yesterday. I played a game giving a KGS 2-Kyu two stones of handicap. It was an odd game for me because I have very little experience with Moyo strategy, and I made some obvious mistakes. Because I played this at five in the morning, I even almost lost my sure win. How? My opponent's dragon was killed, but I didn't realize that my own wasn't connected. If I was more awake, I'd simply connect it while he was fooling around with his dead group and that would be that. Anyway, I won by resignation. I'm posting the game because it was fun and intense. We played with an hour each, but I used up most of it in the first fifty moves. The game is entitled "Messy and Fun".

My Wekeend Games

2008-06-24T02:59:00.005-04:00

Discovered my cousin Dave on Facebook, whom I haven't met before. He's really good at singing and guitar, like wow.

I'm starting to think that lower-Dan professional games are at least as good for someone like me to be replaying as title matches and classic pro games. They seem to be more full of intriguing techniques and easy-to-recognize thinking patterns, with stuff that just doesn't seem to happen in title matches. Even if the ideas aren't always good, they're a helpful thing for a lower Dan amateur like me to be exposed to, though both kinds of games are helpful. I enjoy replaying pro games, a method of study widely recommended to students of the game, but I should spend more time on problems than I do. I think I've made some slight improvement recently, which is refreshing. If I can improve my self control, that is, stopping myself from making fluke mistakes and playing sequences that I already know are failures, and also not adhering to the rank of my opponent in the way I play, then I'm already 3-Dan, or back to 3-Dan. It's hard to explain, but in addition to having easily won most of the recent games in which I've been given handicap, I feel as though I have some playing strength built up that I'm not letting myself use. It doesn't seem to be a matter of skill, it's some kind of psychological barrier I've been struggling with. I think I'm about 3 or even 4-Dan with better self-control. We'll see... Yeah, I'd like to be at least 4-Dan by the time I leave for South Korea. Well, I'm a slow player who enjoys long, deep games rather than fruitless fast ones. I'm also really unstable - I haven't been playing long but shot up fairly fast, so I have to think longer to play at my true level, and my instinct is otherwise terrible, causing me to lose more games the faster I play. In tournaments, I've played more or less my level, since they've given at least forty minutes per play, but I definitely play my best with at least an hour and 5 x 1:00 Byo-yomi.

On Sunday I played the 1-Dan 11 year-old girl, Emera, as I usually have in the recently passed weekends. Because I lost giving her two stones last week, I merely took white yesterday. To be honest, even after the game last week, I'm pretty sure I can give her two stones. If I really push myself, maybe even three, but I'm not going to go that far. Anyone can just say that, but doing so is much harder. I think two stones isn't hard though, two stones makes it no more than an even game. The reason I doubt I could do three is because she's pretty sharp with Tesuji and such - she obviously does more Go problems than me, and I suspect that she has a clearer mind. Ah, what potential... The game we played on Sunday was pretty one-sided. Something stupid happened though. Near the end, she played the type of move that, if responded to, has no pros or cons. In other words, it's a move one would usually save for use as a Ko threat, or otherwise not play until the end. So I ignored it, and she proceeded to turn my real eye into a fake one, killing a white area worth 35-50 points... I was really frustrated with myself for letting such a stupid thing happen, but I still won by 1.5... Arigatou Kamisama~~

I forgot to record any of the games, but I'll try to remember right now and then convert them to pictures and post them up. Even if I can remember (which I usually can these days :D) I probably won't upload more than 100 moves, since it usually gets less and less interesting after that and the process of creating the pictures and getting them on here is a bit tedious. I played a teaching game with a beginner, then played two games against an older Chinese man named Jack. He's 3 or 4-Dan, supposedly, and he backed up that claim by defeating Frank, the 1-Dan president of the Toronto Go Club, giving a three-stone handicap. The game was a massacre that ended in resignation. I figured he'd be mad strong, but somehow he's around my level. I knew I had gotten a bit stronger than Frank, and it's been a little while since I did, so maybe I've made some further improvements, but I never expected to win. He told me not to place any handicap, so I simply took black and proceeded to win by resignation. I played the opening, well, the first twenty moves or so, exceedingly well. I played a poor Nozoki and started to fall apart when the fight spread to the upper right, and I fell apart in many ways later on, but the game was clearly mine. I made a lot of mistakes in the next game though and lost by 10.5 with Komi.

Me vs. Jack 1A:

In the bottom right, I think it would have been best for me to play like in the diagram entitled 'Ben vs. Jack 1 Corner Demo' and follow up by playing A or B in the diagram. I also considered sacrificing the corner, since it doesn't seem so very big.

1B:

My central escape method is questionable. It gives me a fighting advantage on the white floating in the center and still leaves great Aji at the top, but it seems to give white too much potential territory up there in my opinion. I should just get out the simple way rather than inducing white to cut me.

The corner enclosure of 63 is, in those circumstances, not modest enough. I should play at the 3-3 of the corner or something like that.

I ended up killing the central white

I wasn't thinking when I played 67, I just knew that I'd probably need to make eye shape literally after white finishes robbing me of my corner. It's no good though after white peeps twice like he did. For white to ignore 81 is ludicrous unless he wants to give it up for something really big, but he obviously didn't realize what would happen until it was too late. i think 81 is good. Although insignificant in effect, it takes white's potential eye shape there in Sente and doesn't cause black any loss of points, so it becomes slightly easier to attack white.

Because it can be used as a Ko threat and isn't urgent anyway, I should probably wait a while before playing it.

Go clubs

2008-06-22T01:57:00.002-04:00

So I went to the CPAC (Chinese Professionals Association of Canada) Go club today, like I do every Saturday. I brought my friend Shez. It took a while to get there, and when we got there I played a simul. against him and my other friend Tony. They are both more or less beginner; Shez is somewhere around 16-Kyu, and Tony is around 8-10. After that, I played against Jeffrey, my ex-teacher. He's a 6-Dan. Yeah..... I replayed Sai vs. Touya Meijin for him, and showed him an idea I came up with in the upper right corner instead of playing move 181, then we went over a game I played on KGS yesterday. We went to eat after at the Chinese restaurant Jeffrey and I always go to after club, but this time Shez and Joel were there too. We fooled around on Jeffrey's magnet Go board while we were there, in fact Joel and I played a game. Joel's a KGS 2k, so it's not uninteresting, though both the times I've played him weren't very hard, but I like playing him, it's just something about his moves that I like - not that they're necessarily good or bad, just that they make me think about situations I'm not used to thinking about, or never expected would occur.

I'm trying to start a Go club at my house. I requested for my friend Frank to put it in his Go News emails, and I made a Facebook group called 'A new Go club... Ben's house!'. I invite Toronto Go players to come over and play Go, and I also advertised private lessons - $10 for up to four hours. Players of any level can come and play, and I'd like it to become a well known Go club with many members, which meets once or twice a week.

Me and my Go

2008-06-20T04:43:00.003-04:00

There are so many things I'd like to say to anyone who's reading this, but instead I'll reveal facts about me and my shenanigans little by little. Right now I'll talk about my most recent KGS game and my thoughts about the International Baduk Academy. Well, the game for today is posted up and entitled 'Killed', with five parts (250 moves) shown. I played it against a KGS 1D as black. To start off, my Keima in the top right doesn't seem right. It fully secures the corner, but I think it shows the wrong spirit of Go. I think I should at least make an Ogeima and accept the weaknesses as a possible exchange. My attack on the central white was a bit poor. After white got to play a Hiraki to settle the white group on the left, it was too bad that I couldn't get more in the center. I obviously missed a sequence. Now, the fight on the left... Accepting a small corner after the double Hane is probably wrong, so I probably played right. After this exchange, I think I still have an interesting move at 6-2 later, and after white takes this corner, I can attack the upper white. 89 Lost me the game, there's no reason why I can't accept a small Sente reduction after I claim the white stones and area in the top left. Sacrificing the Joseki stones is probably fine, my profit in this area is large. I'm not sure if it's actually better than pushing under white with my Joseki stones, then coming back to turn the fake eye into a real one. White would still need to get safety in this area, so I'd at least get Sente. I just wasn't thinking... I set the clock to 40:00 + 5 x 00:50, but I didn't use it at all, and I didn't think at all, especially on the left, so I lost. I also feel as though I played wrong with the upper left corner stones as well as the fighting in the central area that soon arose.

IBA - I'm pretty excited. After finishing another half year of high school and saving up some money (!!!) I plan to travel to Seoul and join the academy sometime around early 2009 - Perhaps early March. These are some things I'm asking myself:

-Is it really an ideal environment for becoming as strong as a pro as fast as possible?

-Are the words "For all you who dreamed of becoming pro, this is the place" true and well founded?

-How does life work in the academy? eg: Rooms, laundry, etc.

-Are there enough strong players and/or enough lessons to make it worth making this life choice? Because I'm putting off college for this, and I really do need to improve as fast as possible to even have a 1% chance of becoming a pro, from what I've heard...

At least I can rest a little assured - There's a 1P (Diana) on the members list, and professor Li Kibong is a KGS 8D. I recently chatted him up on KGS and found out some important things, though I didn't ask the above mentioned concerns.

Tanoshimi da ze!!!11

Tsukareru...

2008-06-19T21:00:00.002-04:00

Tired... I went to school and carried home all of the stuff from my locker in a garbage bag. The office gave it to me and told me to do that because it was apparently the last chance before they'd cut my lock. The continents were four Go sets, text books, more than 5 binders, a chess set (which I won at a Go tournament :s), a poker set, and more... It was almost half an hour of walking carrying that and a knapsack full of similar heavy stuff.

I played one game today online. I was doing pretty well until I overplayed and fell apart astronomically. I'll load it up later tonight. For now... Sai vs. Touya Meijin! But in all actuality, Yoda Norimoto vs. Rin Kaiho.

Videos

2008-06-19T01:18:00.003-04:00

I added a few videos. They're videos I created by taking a game of mine from KGS and opening it with GlGo (or whatever that computer Go program on the IGS Pandanet site is) or recording a game I played at a club, autoplaying it while I have music playing in another window and capturing it with a screen recorder. I uploaded these videos (I think there are ten to the day) under my Youtube account GoWeiQiBadukIgo (my new one is BadukPro). These aren't from all that long ago. Ignoring my six month quit period, these videos are all three to five months old. I'm a lot stronger now though! I laugh at my moves from all ten of these videos now. The playing level from then to now is a difference of, what seems to be, at least three stones. Despite that, I was at least 1-Kyu when I made these, which is stifling. I'm not saying the moves look 1-Kyu or 1-Dan, but at that time I was KGS 1-2 Kyu, and I won enough games on KGS and in real life against players of such level to call myself the same. It's pretty confusing though, since I'm still not willing to call myself more than 2-Dan right now, and my KGS account is STILL 1-Kyu (though I don't use it much). Despite this all, I would destroy that not-so-old me if we played a game!! MUAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111

.....yeah... ... ...get to 3-dan already... ...1

Moving

2008-06-18T16:30:00.002-04:00

We're preparing for an inspection in my apartment so we can move - good riddens! Anyway, I've been looking at a few games by lower Dan pros, especially new ones. Shei Imin, Diana Koszegi and more. I saw Diana's game on http://koreabaduk.blogspot.com, which is the link for the blog of the academy I'm planning on joining. Speaking of which, I really need to save up big time! Her game really impressed me. Her first game as a pro, taking down a professional 8-Dan. Her moves impressed me as well, there was a great deal of reading behind each of her methods, and she made the game look easy. I refuse to believe that I can't become a pro... If I practice and study to my limit and improve quick, it should be possible! On that note, I need to try harder...

I probably won't have time to play today, but that's fine. I'm feeing decently confident at the moment, having broken my losing streak in the best of ways, so it's probably best for me to just do lots and lots of Go problems.

More Games Yet

2008-06-18T13:56:00.003-04:00

This is the final game, another game against Korean Dude, and yes, I don't know his name. We speak through our moves alone. I thought what I did at the bottom was interesting. Just so no one is mistaken, I didn't blunder at the bottom. I wanted white to capture those stones to build me my wall. My moyo ended up overwhelmingly huge :) My play in the upper left was unforgivably bad.

More Games

2008-06-18T13:49:00.005-04:00

The green game from yesterday called 'Me vs. Mr. Chang' is one of the two games I played against him yesterday. I won the first game as well by 4.5 Moku, but the opening was so dull and peaceful that I didn't want to post it. In this game, white is clearly winning despite the handicap. What looks like a vulnerable white group in the center is probably more like a nice wall. I'm not sure how I ended up gaining so many points that he resigned. I wasn't sure if 94 should have been around 95, and I should have attacked the left white, rather than helping it connect. That's my take, anyways.

Tuesday

2008-06-18T13:41:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I played a few games yesterday, all with two-stone handicaps. AAhhhh, I keep sleeping in late. At this rate, I'm going to fail my leadership course if I don't hand in those thingies! And I may not get that first aid certification. Anyways, The first Kifu picture, the pink one, is against Korean Dude again. I believe this opening for black is quite good, white is at a large disadvantage. I won this game by more than twenty Moku.

Well Played

2008-06-17T05:00:00.002-04:00

I played two interesting games today. The first was against Reborned again. An interesting fight happened right off the bat and began to spread across the board, but I won the fight in a decisive way, ending the game. Anyway, the game I'm posting was against a KGS 1D. I think it was interesting and I played well. Due to time pressure, I could have played a little better of course, and in the later parts, my moves became really rushed, but anyway, I won by resignation. I had a lot of fun with both of the games I played today. Tomorrow, I'm going to focus on Go problems, and play at a Korean Go club I go to. I'll post at least two games tomorrow.

Unproductive

2008-06-16T01:04:00.004-04:00

Woke up extra late today. Did some laundry... Bleh! I played one game on KGS, a pretty fun one actually. My opponent and I chatted a little, he's a 15 year-old American who wants to become really strong, just like me. It's nice knowing there's others like me out there, and he said that he too is interested in training in Korea, after looking at my user info. By the way, I really am I slow player! He offered to add 5 minutes to my time and I accepted. The game is posted. Click the pics to enlarge.

I figured out how to colour the Kifu pictures, pretty cool. My first example of such is the game described above, iaS (me) vs. Reborned, both KGS accounts are 1K. Just so you don't know, all the games I've posted until now have myself as black, and all my wins, though I will start posting losses soon.

Review:

After 5 moves, I feel good about the opening :)

8: Usually not considered good, since white usually plays the cross cut or Nobi. It's perfectly okay though, and I'm only repeating the words of strong players and Joseki dictionaries. In my own experience, I still don't like to play black here.

10: I've seen this in many pro games, especially Chinese games, but somehow I don't think it's right i the circumstance. I feel like I can settle more easily now, even if white seems to be developing a little more quickly.

I dislike both 12 and connecting in the corner for white, so I think the hanging connection after 9 would have been better.

I didn't even think about white cutting in my lower right corner.

77: I definitely think protecting the cut in the corner would have been better than this. Black is clearly winning this game, but little did he know he was about to fall apart. White gained the advantage later (according to me), but it became even after that. Black then gained a small lead, just before white's dragon was killed.

99: Should obviously be a jump. I just didn't want the white there to strength with a peep or wedge. i should also play a Kosumi, threating to connect to the bottom left, too. Man, I really wanted to get in a Keima to the right of 96.

I was aiming for a Tesuji at the 6-14 coordinate but never got around to it. At the end, if white had made himself live, I was aiming to play the first like Atari in the upper left and prepare to push and cut. After that, 9-14 to capture two stones and also put my attachment from earlier, slightly to the right, into action.

The review

2008-06-15T18:48:00.003-04:00

We couldn't finish the game because club ended, but I didn't play very well. I should try my best and think no matter who i'm facing. That's a lesson I'm aware of and still haven't mastered.

11 is wrong. Joseki is one to the right.

26 - an strong, offensive way of taking territory. 28 - vital point.

32 - Ladder breaker

35 - If he had gone through with playing a Hane here instead, it could get messy, with no benefit for black.

42 - My direction is off a bit. It seem okay, but actually I should just jump into the bottom left corner right away, then seal off my own with an Iron Pillar in the top right I think.

44 - Strange. If I aim at this, I shouldn't approach that side in the first place. 46 is a bad follow up.

49 - Should be at 50, taking a favourable result.

51 - Very little purpose.

I should seal the upper right corner and fight it out in the center instead. White can live without too much difficulty. After black invaded the 3-3 in the top right, I should double-Hane.

I helped my friend with a few parts, but all in all he played well for what I expect of his level. I played a little worse than my level.

2008-06-14T15:57:00.000-04:00

Today is Saturday. Kyou wa doyoubi desu. Therefor, I'm going to the chinese (CPAC) Go club. Dakara boku wa chuugoku no igobu e ikimasu. I got out of bed at like three in the afternoon, I feel so ...bleh! I finally broke my losing streak on KGS, but the person escaped in the endgame. I gained the advantage quickly in the opening and kept a lead. A strange fight happened and I killed a group, so I was going to win by about 25 points. It would have been nice to actually get a win... My rank graph is taking some hard blows. Okay! Hopefully I'll play well at the Go club. I'll post all the games I play tonight when I get home. Maybe this time we'll leave the restaurant before the subway closes! :) Just for the fun of it, I'll also upload the display pic I'm using on KGS, and the one I wanted to use but couldn't proportion properly. I screen capped it from someone's Anime Music Video and cut it out in paint.

Makemashita...

2008-06-13T01:17:00.000-04:00

In the last few days, I just can't seem to win on KGS, or rather I'm on a losing streak. There's this Korean Go club I go to in my city. I went today and played three games against stronger players. Like the other day, the smoke was a bit out of control, but that doesn't matter to me as much as it probably should. The first game, against the owner Mr. Kim, I took black like usual. I played a good game, almost free of obvious mistakes. Most of my mistakes were very minor, for example, I played a move to attempt a kill on a sealed side group, more just to see how he'd respond, but I wasn't thinking and it made me lose 1 point there. Wouldn't you know it, I lost by 0.5 after the 6.5 komi. I played a game against a higher dan player with two stones. The opening was daring and interesting but, how should I put it... I wasn't trying to win. For some reason I was just going through the motions, psychologically defeated for some reason. I sacrificed large groups that could have been saved and played carelessly. I gained some points back in the endgame and lost by 6.5. I played him again and it was strange... I dominated the game, taking or invading four corners with a large side and a central territory. When my opponent's influence was becoming a danger, I played a modest central reduction play in the middle, only 3 spaces from an ally. I ended up winning by 18.5, though I lost out in the endgame because of my own confidence. It's strange how easy the second game was, and the first game didn't impress me much either. It's strange that Mr. Kim said two stones wouldn't be enough. Anyway, I have four or five straight losses on KGS. Just when I was on a long winning streak and my rank was about to hit 1D again (having dropped drastically from a losing streak in addition to a bewildering loss to a 3K), I start a losing streak... I've been studying hard lately, too... I'm starting to doubt whether I'm improving at all, whether I'm ever going to surpass 2-Dan... It's a real shock to me, cause so many people have given me the ol' blushy cheeks about my progress. I've hit the biggest wall yet. The game entitled "Me vs. (4D?) Korean Dude" is from today. Click images to enlarge. This game is not finished though, I'm just going to try to remember the important parts and post it up.

82 + 84: Poorly played peeps. All they do is strengthen my opponent and allow them to play moves they couldn't before, especially 84.

My life and death obviously needs more work, because I didn't think my top group was in danger. Without calculating, I figured it would be a Seki at best.

Game Reviews

2008-06-11T15:44:00.000-04:00

I actually started playing Go around the beginning of April, 2006. Throughout the first year, there were two occasions in which I played no Go for extended periods. The first was a month-long period wherein I was hooked on video games such as Pokemon Diamond (lol), the second was a two month period in which I was fed up with Go. My most recent and hopefully last break was a recent period of six straight months without any Go at all, save for a few teaching games with beginners at school. I had decided to focus on school for a while, and I didn't want to play now and then because I couldn't bare to watch my game weaken. Recently I showed my friend to a Korean Go club I used to play at on our way back from an Anime North staff meeting. I played a game and realized how much I love Go and that I must start playing again. As a result of the neglect of my Go studies, I was noticeably weaker than before. I don't believe in the saying that one doesn't become weaker at Go from not playing, I've experienced the opposite at least twice. I'm back on my feet now though, and although it feels like I've been around 2-Dan forever, I'm still fairly satisfied with my progress.

I used to have a Go teacher. After I had played Go for a month or two and was approaching the single digit Kyu levels, I played in the 2006 Toronto Open Go Tournament. Heh, I signed up as a 14-Kyu, since I'd strangely been told that I was "talented" and "around 10-Kyu", but I lost all six games. For the record, my opponents were playing with their KGS ranks, which at that time differed from the "real life ranks" by a considerable amount, especially in the double digit Kyus. I played a couple good games though, one of which I had a lot of fun with when I played an intriguing Tengen move in the mid-game, which seemed to serve several purposes effectively at that time. After the tournament I was introduced to Jeffrey, a 6-Dan U of T student who gave lessons. I started going to his apartment for lessons soon after the tournament, and it was very rewarding. He charged $20 for three hours, though we often went for four. He focused a lot on life and death, and used simple and easy to understand logic to show me my wrongs. At that time I was also introduced to Joseki, and I knew around ten variations, whereas now I probably know something like five hundred, though it doesn't show... I took lessons from him for at least eight months, though things often came up and somehow we ended up having less than twenty lessons. Each lesson was valuable, and I always felt satisfied during the long trip home despite the ensuing headache. Jeffrey is a good teacher because he's really easy to understand. He makes effective use of humour when necessary, and doesn't sugarcoat anything. If your moves are stupid, he'll say so, and it's this kind of thing that keeps you serious about your moves. It also makes it that much more uplifting when the occasion finally comes that he compliments your moves. The other thing that makes him a good teacher is that when you're with him in a Go club, he'll play games with you and review your games for you like nothing, and give you good advice.

Since he moved, I still see him at the chinese Go club we go to but we've discontinued the lessons. I've been doing what I can to teach myself. I have over twenty Go books (though only a select few have been put to extended use so far) and I play online a little, though I greatly prefer to play in person. I became able to replay the games I've played, even if I played them the day before, so I can review my own games. Better yet, my most recently gained ability is replaying my games in my head and reviewing like that, if, for example I'm out somewhere and have a few minutes to kill. When I tried to do that in the past, it was too hard to keep the imaginary board intact, or the stones on one part of the board would vanish when I move my focus somewhere else ^^ Anyway, I review most games I play nowadays, if even a little, but it isn't helping very much, since there aren't many new things I can learn from myself...

On to the review! The game called iaS (me) vs. Gotoukuni, the most recent game I've played on KGS. To be honest, my KGS rank right now is only 1K, though it seems it will go back to 1D with another win or two. On the other hand, my OroBaduk rank is 1D and one win away from 2D. My opponent is a KGS 1K, Gotoukuni.

::::BY THE WAY, CLICKING THE PICTURES WILL BRING THEM UP MUCH LARGER::::

Review:

Funny these first few moves should happen, since I had just finished replaying some Lee Changho games. I'll comment in such a way that lower level players, even 20-Kyus, can learn a thing or two. I've always believed that lower Dan games are better study material for double digit Kyus than high-Dan or pro games.

5-15: A basic Joseki. 6, the two-space high pincer, is often played as a one-space low pincer instead, which leaves less weakness after 15, though both are popular and good.

16: Seems to be the wrong direction. 16 at 17 or another area of the board seems more natural. Black 17, with just the corner in mind, is correct as it lowers the value of the bottom side. The next few moves leaves white with a vulnerable group in the lower right, even after white plays a two-space extension on the third line there after. Black is satisfied here.

22, 23, 24, 29 and 30 form a basic Joseki. Black made a two space extension instead of taking the corner first in order to put pressure on the lower right white group. After white responds on the right side, black doesn't have to take the corner and has the option of pincering the upper right white instead, after checking white's responses in the upper left. Black probably could have also made a longer, fiercer extension on the right, preventing white from getting a two-space extension. After 26, black has Sente, no weaknesses, and still has second-line plays under white's stones there to gouge out white's eye space

35: I'd rather not let white create a giant wall, especially since I'd probably take the 3-3 point at the end, securing the entire corner but ending in Gote. If this happened, white's influence would give him control of the game and compliment the bottom, leaving black with an extremely territorial board. If white extended out of atari, I'd connect to the corner and get a better, higher position than with the other way. If white took the corner, I'd get a strong shape on the outside. Not only would I balance out the division of territory and influence and still lead in territory, I'd still have plenty of potential in the upper left corner.

36: White 36 is just awful. After black captures, white still has to connect and ends in Gote. It's almost as bad as giving black a free move. If you rearrange the moves it's as if white simply played the correct move one to the left of 36, black captured the stone (a must), and white played at 36 for some reason. With this, all black has to do is avoid major mistakes and the game is won.

47: This push allows for at least three forcing moves after, but nonetheless I'm not sure if it's necessary. Black can play the Nozoki of 49 regardless, but not 53, so I'm really not sure.

81: I think it's an interesting forcing move with walling sequences in mind, though I'm not sure if it would be considered a good move.

84, 87, 90, 93: Taking Ko

94: This Ko threat is probably not big enough. It's hard for black to start an effective attack on the bottom white area that would justify this capture. One can imagine black making multiple Atari plays in the lower left and escaping, possibly splitting the white groups and/or leaving them without ample eye space, but the Ko at the top was really big and could not be given up.

105: Black's worst move of the game. This move is actually not necessary, the three white stones can't be saved with one more move. Besides the time pressure, my thinking was that I shouldn't allow white to take the corner through forcing me to capture in Damezumari, also allowing me to initiate an attack here later, but even with 105 white can take the corner through the same means or a Keima anyway, so I just lost a lot of points by giving up Sente. In my right mind I would have done the Nobi to claim the upper right corner, attack the right side, escape at the bottom or better yet, take the corner with a second line jump diagonally to the upper left of 104, which would also initiate a possible attack there.

127: Now that I look at it, this move would have been much better as a Hane to the left of 126.

139: An unnecessary loss of a Ko threat.

180: Splendid, though the throw-in first should probably not be played as it feeds black and isn't necessary at the moment.

202: This is probably the hot spot, more valuable than my central gains. Had I played a black stone above 202 before white got here, it's possible depending on the next moves that white may be be squeezed at the top and have to play for life inside his territory. Even without those circumstances, this would have been a bigger place.

222: Just bad. This is just a neutral point.

I think it was an interesting and good game, especially for an online one. This is my take on the game, hope it was enjoyable.

Hello

2008-06-11T01:13:00.001-04:00

Hello all, my name is Ben. I'm an 18 year-old Go player from Toronto. I love Go and I wish to become a professional player. now you must be thinking, "Ugh... Not another one of these ignorant, hopeless dreamers that think they can become a pro... You're already too old to be an Insei, and to weak to become a pro in the near future, so do yourself a favour and go to university already." Well, I know all about what it takes to become a professional player and I still won't back down. There are instances where westerners have been granted professional status without taking the pro exam, or allowed to take it or become Insei at ages beyond the usual restrictions, and I'm going to exploit those possibilities. I've been playing for 17 months now and I'm about 2 or maybe 3-Dan, though countries vary :) I play on KGS as a 1D, though I think that translates to an AGA 2D, but I'm not sure. To be honest, amateur rankings are trivial to me, but I'm like everyone else in the sense that I see rank-ups as satisfying reward for hard work. It's important that we don't get discouraged just because our improvement has slowed at the lower Dan levels! Or anywhere else for that matter. I'm sure It'll pick up the pace when I finish high school. By the way, I don't plan on going straight to post-secondary school (though I've already taken an extra year...), I'm planning on traveling to Seoul, South Korea to join the International Baduk Academy! Oh Yeah! I have to save up big time, but I'm really excited. Tanoshimi da ze!