I Missed a Goose Tesuji

Goose Tesuji is a term coined by Clossius (Shawn Ray), one of my teachers. It often results from filling dame, but it can actually be any weakness, especially near the end of the game.

In a recent NAOL game, with a long time Go Congress opponent, I totally missed a move that would have resulted in the capture of 11 stones minimally. It would have resulted in an even larger loss if my opponent had failed to step back, as necessary.

Take the time to see if you can find the first move for black in this board position. White had just passed, so it is black's turn.

You can check your answer by looking at the these two variations in the game record.

Click on the link below to find the above mentioned variations. Feel free to leave comments and variations of your own for both players while you are there.

NAOL Game

I consider myself lucky to have not needed this goose in order to win this game. However, it would have been nice to have at least seen it.  My intuition was drawing me to the area. I wanted to make something work, but I couldn't.  I saw the last remaining dame, which threatened a capture, but the threat was obvious and easily protected against.  My opponent made the proper response, and we moved on to scoring.

  

I failed to see that the proper move was from the inside rather than the outside. I hope to be able to see such problems in the future.  With that in mind, I headed over to Tsumego Dragon, and loaded up every Vital Wedge problem available to me.  There are 61 of them, and they range in difficulty from Level 0 to Level 3.

I did all 61 problems and only missed about four or five of them on the first try.

If you are interested in how the term Goose Tesuji came to be, you might enjoy this video:

The Story of the Goose Tesuji

Now for the report of my week of Go Activities:

Last week was a moderately active week for go activities. I put in over 17 hours. I did manage to get in a bit of time on my Internet Go School Spaced Repetition problems. I missed one day and am down to 12 vacation days. I have to be more vigilant.

My Return to Go Activity Tracking

For the past three weeks I have returned to tracking the time I spend on go using the IOS app "Now Then".  When I attended the U.S. Go Congress in 2024, in Portland, I had stopped tracking, as I do at every Congress.  I find it too annoying to track at a Congress. After returning home, I decided to take a break from tracking altogether for a while.  Unfortunately, I found that this pretty much put an end to blogging for me. After that I stopped tracking, I blogged seldom, and intermittently.

It wan't that I had nothing to say, but I found that reporting on my go activities was the trigger that prompted me to post.  When I did post, I often had more to say, but my trigger was gone, so the posts ended.  Therefore, I am here again with my finger on that familiar trigger, posting my beach balls and my activity lists for the world to see.

It was a busy week for go activities.  My week runs from Friday to Thursday because my lessons with Clossius fall on Fridays.  I did not have a lesson with Clossius last week. He was meeting with friends for a fun filled go weekend, so my usual Friday afternoon slot was unavailable.

Last week I spent over 23 hours on Go Activities.  My top activity was attending BenKyo Baduk's Invasion Workshop. It was a great workshop with good attendance. I look forward to more workshops with Ben.

I created an entirely new Twitch category for my friend Patrick, who has been an inspiration to me. He streams most of his league games, and if I am not doing something else at the time he is streaming, I enjoy watching.

I was shocked this morning to discover that I did not have any time devoted to Guo Juan's Internet Go School on my beach ball, so I logged on to see that I had missed quite a few days, and had lost quite a few vacation days as a result.  It is easy to forget to do my minimal number of problems if I am busy with other go activities. I had made a resolution last year to build my IGS vacation days back up to 70, and I had achieved that goal.  However, forgetfulness had chipped away at those days to a dangerous extent, and I must do better.

I am down to 17 vacation days, and I do not want to risk my 2491 days in a row. I'll lose that number if I run out of vacation days.  I have multiple reminders on my calendar to do my problems, but the reminders are easy to overlook. At my best, I finish all due problems every day. This earns me bonus points.  My recent forgetfulness has brought me to 953 problems due. Bonus points are not important now.  Building up vacation days is what is important.

I have a two hour lesson with Clossius coming up, which is not going to be live streamed.  I've got nine games that he can review for me.

The games that have not been reviewed since January 14h are available for Clossius to review. I'm saving my Go Magic League game for BenKyo Baduk to review.  That is a Lesson which I will share with my opponent, as I am encouraging him to join BenKyo League.

Here is a better view of the games available for review.  If there is no name in the right column the game has yet to be reviewed.

I might return to streaming my lessons with Clossius, but I'm currently feeling a bit self conscious, and prefer to keep them private for now.

Next week I will be back with another Go Activity report, and perhaps more thoughts to share.

Progress on Yunguseng Dojang Game Review

In my last post I mentioned that I am listening to all 212 of my reviews from my five years in the American Yunguseng Dojang, starting from my earliest games. I wanted to report on my progress so far.

I've created a spreadsheet which will eventually house OGS links and AI Sensei links to all of my AYD games.  I've copied information over from my AYD profile page to create my spreadsheet.  

The profile page lists all of my games in this fashion:

I needed to copy the text from the profile page onto a spreadsheet of my own because I am adding columns for OGS links and the AI Sensei links. To make the sheet more easily navigable, I separated the cycles from each other with white space and copied the names of the columns for each segment. I added the names of seasons and cycles to each segment to more easily zero in on specific games.

My plan is to watch all of the reviews one time before making any problems in AI Sensei, but that plan might change.  Part of what I need to do as I fill in my spreadsheet is to download sgf files from the AYD site, upload them to my SGF Library on OGS, and then add those games to AI Sensei.  

I've actually watched the reviews from my first two seasons of AYD, but I have only uploaded the links for the first season so far. Starting in 2021 the OGS links should be available to copy from my games spreadsheet. I did not keep a games spreadsheet until when I started to take lessons with Clossius. I devised my games spreadsheet as a means for Clossius to launch games for review regardless of where those games had been played.

Below is part of my games spreadsheet.

It isn't the most impressive week, but it is what it is.

I've been enjoying watching the reviews again.  This activity has replaced some of the time I had been spending on Netflix, and it is surely better for me than watching Netflix. I think I must be stronger than I was at the time that I played these games because I am understanding the reviews better than I did when I first watched them. I really hope that creating problems will help to reinforce what I should be learning from each review.

Watching all 212 reviews and turning them into problems is going to be a very long process. I'm not sure that it is the most efficient use of my time, but I am having fun with it so far, and I find myself oddly obsessed with completing this task. Regardless of how long it takes I am going to complete this task. Failure is not an option.

Thinking of Returning to the Yunguseng Dojang

 First of all let me say I'm back to blogging!

It's been about a year since I have consistently blogged. I stopped blogging when I stopped keeping track of the amount of time I spent on various go activities. I took a break from that at the 2024 U.S. Go Congress, as I always do. For some reason I didn't get back to keeping track of my go activities after the Congress. That disrupted the flow of my blogging, and brought it to a screeching halt. 

Recently I have begun to think about the way I structure my go study, specifically how I learn from my go lessons and reviews. As a result, I have decided to begin blogging again and to share my my go journey.

I spent five years studying with In-seong Hwang in his American Yunguseng Dojang, which I will call AYD moving forward. A year ago I decided to take a break, but I am considering coming back. One of the things I want to do before returning is to rewatch the game review videos that were done over the course of those five years.

It looks like I have 212 games to review based on my game graph below from my profile on the AYD web site.

I decided to start my listening from the oldest to the newest reviews.

When I was in AYD there were three seasons per year with three cycles each, yielding 15 games per season and 45 games per year. That changed at the time that I left. There are now two seasons per year with four cycles each, yielding 40 games per year.

I actually think I would prefer the new format since it eliminates the weekend game from each cycle. Those games were often difficult to schedule.

Below you can see my first cycle of games. 

The little black square ballon shows that I have recorded notes for the video.

Hovering over the little black square balloon at the end of each list shows the notes that I have included about the contents of the video. Those notes are visible only to me, and I generally use the comments to indicate the time stamp for the beginning of each review, and also the length of my own review. Sometimes I write a few notes below the time stamp, but I am actually considering creating Evernote files for my reviews. I am also planning to create problems in AI Sensei to reinforce In-seong's comments about my games.

This morning I listened to all five of my reviews from Season 25 Cycle 1.

It was certainly a walk down memory lane. During that cycle I was in the same group as Ragnarr, who has become a good go friend of mine. He is now AGA 2d compared to my AGA 9k. During the first cycle I played him and lost by only 9.5 points in an even game. He is now giving me nine stones. How things have changed.

One of the nice things about being a member of AYD is that even after you leave the league, you still have access to your own game reviews, and also to the reviews of the members of your group who happen to be reviewed at the same time as you. All of the games reviewed at the same time are in one video.

Below you can see what it looks like when I click on the 5th round of Cycle 1. The video itself is at the top, and the individual games are listed below that. You then see a box where you can type comments about the video which are visible only to yourself. Every time you add comments you click the update button to preserve your comments. They will be there the next time you open the review.

My plan is to first simply watch my 212 reviews and put in the time stamps for them. That way I can easily find them again. I ought to have 225 reviews, but I apparently had a number of wins by forfeit during the course of the five years. After I have watched my reviews I am planning to watch them again while creating problems within AI Sensei. The use of AI Sensei problems for lesson review is something that I am very interested in, and that is a future blog post of its own.

My estimated time of arrival back to AYD is probably September of 2026. That will have given me two years off and nearly a year to study the five years I spent learning from In-seong.

I do highly recommend AYD. In-seong allows students to begin at 12k. My suggestion, however, is probably 9k as the best minimal level to begin while getting the best value from the reviews. I feel that 5k might be the best minimal level to get the most value from the lectures. I always felt that the lectures were over my head, but I was okay with that. I was there for the reviews, and it will be for the reviews that I will eventually return.

By the way, In-seong had me pegged from the first game. He really knows his students. The best advice he gave me was to not only look to my stones and my weaknesses, but to also look to my opponent's stones and their weaknesses. I've been trying all along to do that, but I never quite managed to improve as I should have. Perhaps going over the material again will help. Reinforcing it with problems in AI Sensei surely ought to help. I'd really like to return to AYD, especially with the new improved schedule that puts review times earlier in the day, but I am hoping not to be a disappointment to In-seong when I do return. I believe that looking back on the five years is important before I return.

2024 U.S. Go Congress

 

Above is a photo of a gathering of most of the BenKyo League members who attended the Go Congress this year.  We had 12 members in attendance which is about 1/3 of our currently active membership. We gathered for a photo before heading off to the Midtown Beer Garden for an outdoor dinner together Tuesday evening.

It has been nearly a month since I have posted. During the time since then I was busy preparing for the U.S. Go Congress, then attending it, and eventually recovering from it. I'm ready to resume posting now.

Today's post will be a summary of the U.S. Go Congress from my point of view.

The Portland Congress was my 21st Go Congress, unless you count the two virtual Congresses of 2020 and 2021.  If so, it was my 23rd Go Congress.

My first Congress was in Lancaster PA in 1997. It was the 13th U.S. Go Congress with a shirt designed by my teacher, Yilun Yang.  Since then I have missed exactly a handful of Congresses, five to be exact. They are crossed off below.

It was nice to see old friends again at the Congress and I think I must know at least 25% of the people in attendance from having met them at previous Congresses.  I knew quite a few of the members of my 9k band.

During the Congress I never bother to keep track of the specifics of the amount of time spend on my various Go Activities, so there will be no colorful beachball today, nor a list of activities with their percentages.  I found not recording the details of my activities to be refreshing, and have decided to discontinue doing so for the time being.  

I did not take full advantage of the Congress activities.  

I could have played in the Senior Tournament and also the Women's Tournament, but did not participate in either.  It was my feeling that one serious game per day would be enough for me.

I did play in the Open, and I ended up with a record of 3/3. 

I recorded all of my games in SmartGo One.  I did a pretty good job of it considering that I only do it at the Go Congress once a year.  I messed up one of my games and had to stop recording, but my opponent provided me with the record.

I wasn't thrilled with losing my first game, which was close. I made up for it by winning the next two games. 

My second game of the Open was a BenKyo League pair up which I was lucky to win because I played loosely with a weak group, and did not get punished for it. 

My third game was a 3.5 win.

I lost my fourth game to an 8k and won my fifth game with an 8k giving me a record of 3/2 going into the final game of the Open.  It took the pressure off because I felt that 3/3 would be a respectable record.  The competition was really tough this year. And being 0.14 points away from 10k didn't really help. I was probably at a disadvantage in my games even against other 9k players since I was much closer to 10k than to 8k.

In my final game I was paired with a 9k with a record of 4/1. I lost that game and my opponent went on to win 3rd place in the 9k band. The winners of the band has records of 6-0, and 5-1, so competition was fierce at the 9k level.

I uploaded all of my Open games into my SGF Library on OGS so I could add them to my games spreadsheet.

Clossius, in my most recent two hour lesson, reviewed my first three Open games.  He will review the last three Open games in my next lesson on August 2nd. I spent at least the first 15 minutes of my lesson just talking about the Congress.  Anyone who is interested can watch my lesson. The lesson was streamed live.  Anyone who would like to watch my lesson next week can tune in to the Clossius Twitch Stream at 2:00 PM EDT on Friday, August 2nd.  My lessons with Clossius are always publicly streamed, and they are usually on alternate Fridays.

I did participate in one event besides the Open.  I was a popular opponent in the Baum Tournament which involves children playing people who are at least 40 years older than themselves.  My gray hair was a beacon to the children.  I was approached often and ended up playing six games, and I have the twenty dollar bill to prove it.

I am fourth from the left in the top row holding up my prize money.  Above are all of the participants in the Baum Tournament who won prizes.  All you had to do was play five games, and if you were as old as me, you did not need to seek out the children. They sought you out. I knew Leonard Baum because he was local to me, and he is greatly missed.  It is nice that there is an event to honor him at the Congress.

For me the highlight of the Go Congress was playing Pair Go with Ben Mantle AKA BenKyo Baduk.  Ben is one of the three teachers I take lessons with.  We were going to play Pair Go Last year but I came down with Covid before the event, and Ben had to find another partner.  This year we did play and won one of our games.  We played black in both of our games which was great because it gave us the chance to use the Points Lover opening.  We lost the first game by a mere 2 points and we were ahead on the board by 10 points in our second game, so we won that game.  Our performance was particularly impressive because the time controls for Pair Go were changed to 30 minutes absolute.  Given that Ben is often in overtime quickly in his games he and I both knew that absolute time was going to be a challenge.  He assured me that he had it under control, and that I could actually take more time than usual on my moves.  He was right because we were always ahead of our opponents on time.

One consequence of being at the Go Congress was that I got behind on my Spaced Repetition Problems for the Internet Go School. I tried to remember to do the minimal number of problems per day to avoid using vacation days, but I ended up using a vacation day because I was forgetful. That was the day following Pair Go, so I was especially tired.

On the way home from the Congress in the air I caught up on my backlog of problems.  I chipped away at them until they were all finished.

Let's talk about Covid. 

I caught Covid at the Congress in 2023 and 2022, so avoiding Covid this year was a priority for me.  Last year I missed half of the Congress banished to my dorm room (rightfully so). In 2022 I merely came home with it and missed none of the Congress. 

This year I wore a mask indoors at all times except those few occasions when I dared to eat indoors.  I did not give in to the temptation be go maskless because most others were going maskless.  I did that last year, and I knew the cost of doing so. I had learned my lesson.

I ate outdoors as much as possible as part of my Anti Covid Plan, but it became too inconvenient and too socially isolating to do it at all time.  So I did eat breakfast in the hotel after the first couple of days, and I did attend the banquet on the last day. It was convenient though to have the park available right  behind the Student Union as a place I could carry a sandwich to to eat outdoors.

I tested for Covid when I got home and was negative, although I did catch what we were referring to as the crud. It felt lousy but it didn't feel like Covid.  At no time did my temperature even get as high as 98.6, and I never had a sore throat, which was the first sign of Covid the two times that I had it.  

The Covid Policy at the Congress did not require masks, and only suggested the wearing of masks after a case of Covid was identified. I realize that requiring masks indoors is hard to enforce, but I'd like to see people wearing masks at least during their Open games, and perhaps other games.  Game play is the longest period of time when people are in close proximity to other people indoors.  Maybe masks in lectures would be good as well.

Since it has been a while since I posted I will add a list of the games I played since my last post.

I had a really good week right before the Congress. All wins :-)

More than 30 games in less than a month.

Not too shabby.

Celebrating Six Consecutive Months as the BKL Hand of God

 

I have mentioned the BenKyo League title of The Hand of God previously.  I took an interest in competing for the title in January of this year, and have managed to win it for six consecutive months.  My achievement earned some notice in the BenKyo League monthly Magazine which you can see below.

I've earned the title a total of eight times, and am now sitting at the top of the list of holders of that title.  The history of title holders is maintained in the Hall of Fame channel of BenKyo League where Title Holders and Main League Prize Winners are recorded for posterity.

I'll have a challenge holding my title in the month of July because I will be away at the U.S. Go Congress the 13th through the 21st.  I am trying to get ahead on points for the Title Tournament before I head out for the Congress.

Now for my uusal Go Activities content:

It was a moderately active week with Spaced Repetition Problems from the Internet Go School coming in as the top activity.

It was a slow week for Live Play with only eight games being played.

Getting More Active in the Internet Go School

First of all let me admit to having been lazy with blogging this month.  I won't try to catch up with a week by week description of my Go Activity. Rather I will just pick up from here.

My special topic for this week is my participation in the Internet Go School. I've been active in the Internet Go School to varying degrees since its inception.  For the past year or so the number of problems I was doing on a regular basis had dropped, and I decided about a month ago to pick up the pace.

My Go Activities this week reflect the work I have been doing to up my game at the Internet Go School.

The orange slice of the chart above represents over six hours of time devoted to the completion of Spaced Repetition Problems in the Internet Go School.

My efforts have placed me at number four on the Leaderboard for the week.

It isn't a small matter to even get in the top ten of the Leaderboard on a regular basis, so it felt good to be number four, if only for a short time.

I have managed to add back problems from the Basic Course on a gradual basis in the past year by rewatching lectures, and adding back problem sets a few at a time.  I have added back all of the problems from the Most Basic section and from the Basics: Step-by-step section.  I still need to add back some problems from the remaining sections of the Basic Course.

I have made progress on building up my vacation days which had dropped below 20 at one point, and I am getting close to 2,000 days in a row of study with the Internet Go School.

I highly recommend Guo Juan's Internet Go School.

I had the pleasure recently of playing two games across the board with a good friend of mine who stopped in on his way home from a trip to Boston with his father.  Those two games are at the top of my list of games for the week.

It was a busy week with 12 games played.  All but the two games played across the board were BenKyo League Title Tournament games.

Speaking of BenKyo League, I had a particularly good month in May winning titles in the Title Tournament.  I have commemorated the event with a partial screen capture of my roles in BKL.  There are other roles cut off below.

The roles of The Hand of God through The Phoenix are titles from the BKL Title Tournament.

I was given the role of BenKyo Ambuzzsawdor because I am known for my promotion of the BenKyo League.