I'll try to explain. First I have to find a lawyer to help me with a potential contract dispute. (Not related to Go Congress.)

If continuing in the upper right or lower right corner, find the move that works best with

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Black to play
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Yilun Yang 7p often delivers a style of lecture where he starts playing a game with himself and asks the audience suggestions for moves. If someone suggests a move that is not optimal, then he explains why and also explains why good moves are good. It seems kind of improvised, but he may have specific topics in mind or a specific type of game that he wants to explain.

BTW, he considers this playable and has himself played it and won against other pros. The important thing is that you have to always think about how to make your existing stones useful.

He told two funny stories. One was that when he was a child he first studied Chinese Chess, but wasn't that good at it. Later he learned go and was able to win local tournaments, even though he knew no joseki. Later on his teacher taught him these two joseki:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W core repetoire
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 1 , . 4 . 3 . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

He kept winning knowing just this, and of course made it to professional. His point is that while Chinese Chess required memorizing a lot of set patterns, he wasn't that good at that, and go doesn't require it.

Another story was that he had a student and sometimes observe the student's games and make suggestions. The student misclicked his first move and put it in some crazy place like the 7-5 and asked Mr. Yang if he should undo, but Mr. Yang said: "No undo! It's okay. Just make this move work."

After the lecture, I told him that while I would like to be able to play in such an imaginative way, I'm kind of addicted to pro games and if I play like that I won't be able to find anything similar to use as comparison. Furthermore, even if I ask dan-level players they will often not have an opinion on who is better in such an exotic position. He told me there is no real difference between 6k and 3d there and 3d won't judge better than I would anyway. Also, that this is mostly a way of thinking and that I may not be able to play like this yet but have to keep improving my reading and understanding.

Interesting. I wonder why I am not 3D, yet, then.

I like his idea of aiming to make your stones work together. This principle probably applies to both standard and non-standard openings.

So maybe his point is that this opening is just as good as a standard one for exercising your ability to make your stones work together?

If so, I kind of agree, but I also see your point that there are fewer pro examples to learn from with this type of opening.

On the other hand, having a pro-level opening doesn't win you the game anyway.

_________________
be immersed

Doing something cool on your day off?

_________________
be immersed

No. I had some errands and family things to attend to. In addition to the aforementioned distraction, I broke my eyeglasses on Day 1 and only today had a chance to take them to an optician, who messed with them for a couple of hours and then gave up. So I'm bringing those back to give to the place I bought them in case they have better luck.

I got to walk through Brookline, where I lived for a short period of time before moving to Washington state. Quaint neighborhoods.

His goal in these lectures is not to teach players to have a "good" opening, but a reasonable opening. That's a decent goal. If you understand what you are doing and your opponent is helpless out of the book, then you have an advantage.

Probably the funniest thing he said was that if you start out playing crazy moves, not only should your opponent's responses look crazy, but your own follow-ups should also be crazy. If you mix crazy and normal, it's no good.

Monday night I missed dinner so I ate at the Sunset Cantina. I should say "ate" with some reservation because I suspect I consumed more calories in beer than in food. Whether this explains my behavior in game 3 is not easy to determine, but it's probably not the best preparation.

Tuesday. That was yesterday. Do I remember yesterday? Let me check my photos.

So sitting in the back of Myungwan Kim's lecture without distance glasses was not working for me. I moved up later.



Hey, it's team relay go, which is kind of a weird rengo / pair go / whatever on steroids. I can't explain, so here is the description from the guide:

"Team Relay Go is played by two teams of players over the course of several rounds. Each team is made up of pairs of players who are led by a captain. During each round, one pair from each team will play a fixed number of moves while the captain reviews the game with the rest of the team in another room. At the end of the round, active players return to the review area and the captains choose another pair to play the next round. At this event, a team of strong players from China will be playing a demo game against top players from America. Shortly after this event starts, tournament directors will host an open, unrated Team Relay Go event that will be accessible to all players. Coaches for the teams will be pro players, but they will NOT play."

I used to do more of that kind practice. The best I got was about 2.5 minutes to count the very end position, and I was often wrong. I tried this game right now. About 35 minutes to get even close to the right number of I try more than 1s. (In this case, 2s.) Even then I was 2 off and I misjudged the winner as I forget to count some points.

Black stones captured: 20
White stones captured: 8
Komi: 6.5
Japanese Rules

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ Count
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . O X X X . . . . . X X X X X O . . |
$$ | . . O O O X . . . . . X . X X O . . . |
$$ | . . . . O X . . . . . . X O O . O O . |
$$ | . . X O X X . . . X . . X O O , O . O |
$$ | . . . O O X X . . . . X O . O . . O . |
$$ | . O . O X . X . . . . X O . . O O . O |
$$ | . X X O X . X X X X O X X O O X . O . |
$$ | O O X O O X O O O X X O . O O O X O . |
$$ | . O O X X X X O O O O O O O X X . X . |
$$ | O X X X . X O X O O O O . . O X X . . |
$$ | O O O X O . O X X X X X O O . . . . . |
$$ | O X X . O . O . . . . X O O X X . . . |
$$ | O O X X X X O . . X O O X X O . O . . |
$$ | . . O O X . O . X O X X X O O . . O . |
$$ | . O O X X X . . . . . . . X X O O . O |
$$ | O . . O O X . O . X . . . . . X X O O |
$$ | . O O O O X . X O O . . . . X . . X O |
$$ | . . . . O X X O . X X . . . . . X . X |
$$ | . . . . O O X . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

In a nutshell, some of the difficultly with 2s is consistency of orientation. The black area in the upper center may be more natural to count as shown. (Actually one may be able to mentally arrange a rectangle in less time, but let's stick with 2s.) The upper right I may count as shown. In the bottom part, challenges appear if I am counting with horizontal pairs as shown. In big territories it's easy for the eyes to shift over one from the last pair counted this way. But if I get halfway through an area and decide I should have counted the other way, then I have to remember where I left off, etc.

(Here, 'h' means half pair. I literally cock my finger to keep track of the parity and if I hit an unmatched point I add one to the count and uncock my finger.)

Even in making this diagram, you can see another possible error that can occur. I'm not even going to correct it, but look carefully.

Well, if counting by 2s doesn't work for you, maybe counting by 1s is the way to go...

In some English go book, I recall the guy saying to compare relative sizes of territory in the middle game rather than getting a precise count. I haven't tried this, but maybe it's simpler?

_________________
be immersed

And keep up the good work with the pictures!

_________________
be immersed

Attack and Defense. It works well unless the game is close.

I don't want to give the impression that I never make positional judgments, because I do. But because I don't get many chances to play long time-limit games, if I don't practice it offline somehow I get pretty rusty.

Oh, I understand. I'm getting a little bit better at counting quickly, but taking even three minutes to count the score is a luxury I can't always afford when playing with fast online time limits. I could look for games with longer time limits, but even if I could find longer games (not at all a certainty) the constraints of life often mean that it's a choice between a fast game or no game at all. One thing that could mitigate this would be to remember my count for different areas of the board and update the total incrementally, but I'm not good at that at the moment. Fortunately, this is something I can improve at with practice.

Okay, I lost my game this morning. I promised myself that if I did I would play an unusual opening next time. It may not be 4-9 but maybe. I have some ideas.

Looking forward to the game record

_________________
be immersed

I don't want to talk about Wednesday. Too many personal things to attend to. If there weren't I would have considered playing in the Die Hard.

While I lost to my opponent, there is the consolation that he said he saw this blog and it motivated him to attend his first Go Congress. In my mind, that's the best kind of loss and a pretty good result!

My game is in the Analysis forum.

Today's featured photo is my lunch. The Street Food selection today was Saag Paneer and Channa Masala with Basmati rice. As Go Congress fare, goes, not too shabby. (Honestly, I'm not one of those people who posts their food. Seriously, if I've met you at Go Congress you can friend me on Facebook and I don't think you'll see much food. Or politics.) But people are sometimes concerned about whether a food plan makes sense for Go Congress. It definitely depends on your preferences or restrictions, but I'm happy this year.



I didn't take other photos today. Maybe after I do my laundry I'll head back over to the Union and take some night shots.

I sat in on the AGF (American Go Foundation) board meeting. I am not a member of the board, but I am a regular donor, and once in a while I like to see how my money (and others' money) is being used. Also, I was trying find out ways to help out. I definitely think it's a worthwhile 501c3 and from what I can tell they are doing a lot of good and not arguing too much about stupid things. (There is a tiny bit of that, but it's inevitable in any group meeting and the important thing is they kept it under control.) I am glad I sat in because there are things I would not have been aware of otherwise. Anyone is welcome, BTW. Expect to hear some interesting things in the AGA e-Journal at some point. They are always looking for new ways to promote go such as funding the summer youth camps and providing equipment to teachers.

I attended Nick Sibicky's session in the Teacher Workshop, titled: "Super-Happy Fun Explosion Mega Hour." Disclaimer: I've watched a couple of his videos and find them kind of grating. They are not, say, my cup of tea, but to each his/her own. Nevertheless, I respect what he has done to promote go and wanted to hear about his experiences at the Seattle Go Center. He made some good points and I definitely agree that the most important thing is to keep people motivated and not worry so much about the specifics of what they learn. In particular, it was interesting to hear that game reviews are the least popular thing he did and had the lowest attendance. He also uses titles to his advantage, and I'm pretty sure the title of this talk was a parody of that point.

Glad to hear that I'm not the only one who doesn't dig Nick's style. (It obviously works for lots of people, so if he reads this I hope he doesn't take it as an insult!) It's a bit surprising to me that a bunch of people who make videos have a bit of an aggressive style (I also have a tough time watching dwyrin), but maybe it shouldn't be - you probably have to be bit of an extrovert to put yourself out there like that. And, as you said, he deserves a lot of credit for the work he's done to promote go.

My game this morning was interesting, but I lost it anyway.



At some point when I was far behind, I went to get some coffee. There were no paper cups, so I rather foolishly used a plastic one. This is the result:



I only burned myself a tiny bit, but of course this is undrinkable.

I attended Mathematical Go Endgame II with Howard Landman and Myungwan Kim 9p. I got a chance to ask Landman some questions before his talk. It was pretty well organized, and I think he will post his slide deck soon. I didn't know about 5/4 eyes before. I'm a bit busy, but I'll have to try the problems later.



I'm updating this blog entry white in the main playing room watching Yilun Yang 7p's live commentary of Round 8 of the master's tournament:

Before CC & dfan, I didn't know others share similar sentiments.
Thanks for the posts.

I won my last game, but I can't say it's a masterpiece. It is more like attacking style gone bad and I was forced to kill to win. See the game.

That leaves me at a 2-4 record. Every aspect of my game needs work, but I guess that is a general truth for almost all players. I would like to find a way to play more regularly.

I look forward to the banquet!