DDK Again

The results from the MD Open Tournament have been entered into the AGA Rating System.

I will be playing as a 10 kyu at the Congress, as I expected.

Maryland Open

I attended the Maryland Open on Saturday of last weekend.  Attendance was low this year and it seemed that we were missing the strongest players, and there were not too many weaker players either.

This tournament was my chance to stabilize my rank at a solid 9 kyu before the Congress.  I had dipped close to 10 kyu after the New Jersey Open in February.   Unfortunately, I think I may have pushed myself down into DDK land again.   

I lost all three of my games on Saturday, and I did not play on Sunday.   All of my games were very close.   I lost the first by 4.5.  I lost the second by 0.5, and I lost the third by 2.5.

Guo Juan Group Lessons Are Going Well

I am enjoying my group lessons with Guo Juan and Jennie Shen.  They take turns doing the lessons.

A new feature has been added this semester which I like.   They are asking us to send in our games early enough so they can send them all to us before the lesson.  We receive an sgf file which is a compilation of all the games by Friday.  This way we can look at the games in preparation for the Saturday lesson.  This is really nice because it gives us a chance to think about questions, and also to try to anticipate what the teacher may choose to focus on during the analysis of the various games.  Basically we have been given an additional opportunity to prepare for the lesson beyond the time we spend looking at our own game record, and doing tsumego.

It is obvious through their analysis that Guo Juan and Jennie both look at each game ahead of time to find something to emphasize during review so they can make the best use of the time available for the lesson.

I love my group lessons, but unfortuately life happens.   Next week I have to attend a birthday party, and the following week I will be playing in the Maryland Open Tournament.   Lucky for me I am not the only person who is recording the Group B lessons in video format.   When I come back from my activities I will be able to download the lesson from the link in the lesson room and watch the video.

I highly recommend the Guo Juan group lessons.

Started Guo Juan Group Lessons Again

Yesterday was the first week of a new series of Guo Juan group lessons.   We had a few weeks between sessions, and I am ready to get involved again.  Each member of the B group sent in a game for review so we spent the entire lesson on game review this week.  Next week we will look at tsumego homework problems as well.

I started to slack off on playing a game every day.  I got side tracked the day I came home from visiting my mother and decided not to play a game.   That was a mistake because it made me feel as if I didn't have to keep getting in my game each day.  In fact I have played very little in the past two weeks.  Group lessons will be good for me because it will mean that I must play at least one serious game each week.  That will help me get back into the swing of things.

New Jersey Open

I went 1-4 at the New Jersey Open this year.   For over a year I have tried to record every one of my tournament games.  I have had them reviewed by Yilun Yang as part of my biweekly lessons.  I was hoping to continue this tradition, so  I recorded my first game on Saturday, and started to record my second game as well. However, I was feeling particularly tired, and felt that recording was getting in the way of playing more than it usually does.   I abandoned recording shortly into the second game.  I actually won that game.  It was the only game I played against an opponent I had faced across the board previously, and it was also the only one I was to win in the two days of the tournament.    I ended up simply being outplayed in three instances.  In one instances I lost by a mere 1.5. 

It was an unusual tournament from the standpoint that three out of five of my opponents were female.  Two qualified as women, but one was a very young girl.   It was the young girl to whom I lost by 1.5 in the final round of the tournament.  I suspected she was a Feng Yun student, which was confirmed after we were done with our game.   But I also discovered that she had gone 5-0 in the tournament thanks to my not having handled some of my end game well.   Yet I felt proud to have possibly given her her toughest game at the tournament.   She played one board down from me in the 4th round against another Feng Yun student approximately her own age.   Their game was played at lightning speed, and I had a hard time keeping my eyes from it while I was trying to concentrate on my own game.  During the scoring phase they were having some difficulty adding up the points.   Playing is easy for these little ones, but math can be hard. I handed the boy a piece of paper and a pencil and he added up the areas on the paper.  I can relate.  After a really tough game I don't want to do the math in my head either.

I can say without a doubt that this tournament was the most physically demanding I have ever played.   I ended up in bed and asleep by 8:00 PM on Saturday night, and feeling just as exhausted on Sunday evening.   I attribute part of that to the fact that I am actually using so much more of my time in my games, and not leaving myself with nearly as much time to rest between rounds.   I am going to have to get used to that because as time goes on I use more and more of my time. 

There Is Death In The Dame

Another name for this post might be "Dame Disaster".

I will report on my own results at the NJ Open in another post.  But here I want to tell about the most exciting part of the tournament for me. Perhaps it might be more accurate to say it was the most fascinating part of the tournament for me.   It was fascinating, yet tragic.  After observing this event I felt as if there ought to be a lesson in it, but I don't really think there is.

Two of my go buddies were playing each other, and I was watching the very end of the game. Black seemed to have won the game for sure, by perhaps eight or more points.  There seemed to be agreement that it was over except to fill the dame and move the stones around.  In fact, white seemed tacitly prepared to lose gracefully.   Black played a dame.  White handed over a stone.   Black could have passed, and it would have been over.  But black searched for another dame, and found one.   White was poised to pass another stones, but decided to find that one last elusive dame.   He played a stone.  I froze in terror for black as I saw the damesumari from which there was no escape.   After a pause white said, "I just saw something.".  Black saw it too, and played the move he had to play to minimize his loss, hoping he still had enough to win the game, but knowing in his heart that he did not.

That was yesterday.  These two guys actually have to work together today.  They not only play in the same club.  They also work for the same employer.   Luckily there were no hard feelings, but plenty of sympathy to go around for black yesterday.

The take home lesson here, if there is one, might be "Rich men don't seek dame".

Tuesday Is "Play Like Chas Day"

Monday a week ago I was feeling depressed about my go game and I decided to try to desensitize myself to these bad feelings by playing a large number of games the next day.    I proceeded to play six games quickly that Tuesday.  I lost all six of them, and I definitely played poorly, but I achieved the result of making myself more willing to play without fear in the following days.   I found myself less concerned about playing my required go game for the rest of the week, and less insistent that they be played first think in the morning. "Play Like Chas Day" had been born.  It is named in honor of my friend, Charles Layton, who plays fast and furious, and racks up as many as 30 games in a day, and has over 5,000 games to his credit in his first year of online play.

This week I decided to repeat "Play Like Chas Day" again yesterday.  I had similar results as last time.    I played eleven games this time, and lost all but one of them.   I came away from the experience feeling as if I had played too quickly, not very well, and was not particularly interested in reviewing right away, but I was definitely desensitized.

All but one of my games yesterday was an auto match.  The other was with a friend who I often end up turning away because the timing isn't right when he asks me to play.   Something unusual happened with auto match yesterday. 

If you look at the image you will see all my games from yesterday including seven unfinished games in a row begun in the span of three minutes time.  I kept getting matched with the same 5k player who kept running away from me... very odd.   What was even odder is that after the 2nd time he got matched with me he kept seeking a match.  You would think that if he didn't want to play with me he would have waited until I got a match before he put up another offer.   I guess this goes to show just how few people are actually looking for an auto match.

Knowing Stuff - Bulky Five

Last night a strong player reviewed a game for me, and showed me a number of variations in a corner invasion.  He asked me what I would do if my opponent responded in certain ways... the answer being to exploit cuts.   This prompted me to reflect again on the importance of knowing stuff.   I should know that stuff, and I shouldn't have to stop to think about it or read it.  I should just know it.

I saw the importance of knowing stuff illustrated vividly yesterday afternoon in a game that two of my friends were playing together.   They shall both remain nameless here.

White was way ahead and he won the game easily, but could have won by a landslide if some vital information about the bulky five had been seared into his memory.   White had attacked a black group and reduced it to a bulky five.  There was also a false eye attached to the bulky five, and there a miai situation which insured that the false eye could never be real.    After making the placement on the vital point of the bulky five, white could have used his next move to insure the isolation of the group.  Black would have needed two moves in a row inside the bulky five to make two eyes after the killing placement.   He could never get those two moves in a row.  But rather than insuring the separation, white added a move inside the bulky five.  This was essentially a pass.   Black went on to secure a connection for his formerly dead bulky five shape to another live group.   I imagine that there was wailing and  gnashing of teeth after that.

White was in byo yomi, which of course makes it hard to think clearly.  All the more reason, however, for having as much "stuff" seared into one's memory as possible ...  stuff you don't need to think about, not for a minute, not for even ten seconds.

I had fun watching that game because I saw this situation, and I knew the instant that the second stone went down into the bulky five that it was no better than a pass.   How exciting.  White, by the way, is a great player and gave me a trashing the week before.   So I ask myself, what obvious things do I not know?  What "pass moves" do I make each day because I lack that critical knowledge?  What do I have to think twice about that will steal critical seconds when I am in byo yomi, which is more likely to occur now that I can actually read far enough ahead to start using up my time in the middle game?

I have to do more tsumego, and I have to learn more positions by heart...  L, L+1, L+2.  I have said before that I want to not only know their status, which I do, but know every likely attack, and proper refutation.

I am going to be a go player yet, and knowing stuff is going to help to get me there.