Life In 19x19

Could be - I play on IGS and to me at least it seems the ranks get a little stronger after 5-6 in Japan. Also Friday's and weekends. Or it could just be me - if you think your opponent will be harder - then they often will.

Getting my groove back

Brief update - I'm still alive and playing go. For one brief week late last year I even managed to crack 1k on dgs. But then alas I went away over Christmas and my iPod died. I spent a while getting a replacement and timed out on a bunch of matches in the meantime ...

Ps - because I didn't see anyone else mention it - YouTube
Eg:
https://m.youtube.com/user/nicksibicky

dmpeyton wrote:By the way, I appreciate the offers but I won't be taking any lessons from anyone because I'm not big on wasting other people's time. Thanks though!

Ugh...still frustrated.

Post a game - I suspect that most people here enjoy giving reviews - particularly if you are keen to improve at the game.

An unusual game in that I didn't win or loose by more than 20 points. I think I got tripped up by trying to be too clever.
(;GM[1]FF[4]SZ[19]AP[SmartGo Kifu:4.0]CA[UTF-8]
GN[haruru - S2W]
PW[haruru]WR[6k+]
PB[S2W]BR[6k+]
DT[2015/11/05]
KM[6.5]
RE[W+3.5]
RU[Japanese]CH[1];B[pd];W[dp];B[qp];W[dc ...

Yup - and 6k on igs. I don't play much on wbaduk though and tend to play there late at night.

Well it's been a while since I've posted here - and rather than wait for the perfect game to share I thought I'd dive back in with the sort of dross that is a bit more representative of the games that I've been playing recently.

Rank
Despite not posting I've still been playing fairly regularly ...

Hubris
A most unspectacular game on my behalf - and on the behalf of my opponent. Summed up by my last move.

Moral of the story: Count

(;GM[1]FF[4]SZ[19]AP[SmartGo Kifu:4.0]CA[UTF-8]
GN[gtm631 - S2W]
PW[gtm631]WR[6k+]
PB[S2W]BR[6k+]
DT[2015/10/27]
KM[6.5]
RE[W+0.5]
RU[Japanese];B[pd];W[dp ...

Some thoughts on the second game
(;GM[1]FF[4]SZ[19]AP[SmartGo Kifu:4.0]CA[UTF-8]
GN[2015-10-15b]
PW[Sparky314]WR[7k]
PB[gost]BR[8k]
DT[2015-10-15]
PC[The KGS Go Server at m]
KM[0.5]
RE[W+5.50]
RU[Japanese]ST[2]
TM[600.0]OT[5x20 byo-yomi]
C[This game pushed me to 6k, but let's review.]CH[1];B[dc ...

If your anchor players (e.g. Zen) could play enough games on the go server, then I speculate that eventually the ranking algorithm wouldn't matter. It would be an interesting mathematical challenge to figure out how much "enough" is and how "long" eventually is, for any given server and it's ...

And some thoughts on the igs game:
(;GM[1]FF[4]SZ[19]AP[SmartGo Kifu:3.8]CA[UTF-8]
GN[2015-09-17a]
PW[Earo]WR[12k+]
PB[sparky314]BR[12k+]
DT[2015-09-17]
PC[IGS-PandaNet]
KM[6.5]
RE[W+0.5]ST[1]CH[1];B[pp];W[dd];B[qd];W[dp];B[oc]
(;W[jd]
C[$$ only 1 pro game played this way]
(;B[fq];W[eq ...

Here are some thoughts:

(;GM[1]FF[4]SZ[19]AP[SmartGo Kifu:3.8]CA[UTF-8]
GN[2015-09-28a]
PW[jga]WR[4k]
PB[Sparky314]BR[7k]
DT[2015-09-28]
PC[The KGS Go Server at m]
HA[3]
KM[0.5]
RE[B+2.50]
RU[Japanese]ST[2]
TM[600.0]OT[5x20 byo-yomi]
AB[pd][dp][pp]
C[Sparky314 [7k\]: Hi GG
jga [4k\]: Hello
]CH ...

Here are some thoughts (@@ is me):

(;GM[1]FF[4]SZ[19]AP[SmartGo Kifu:3.5.1]CA[UTF-8]
GN[2015-05-26a]
PW[Villain]
PB[SerDiuK]
RU[Japanese]ST[2]CH[1];B[pd];W[dp];B[qp];W[dd];B[oq]
(;W[dj]
C[@@ this seems a little unusual]
(;B[fq]
C[@@ Smart go only has two pro games that play here];W[dn ...

I'm slipping in and out of 6k at the moment - currently on my way out again but taking a little longer than last time with 4 wins and 5 losses. Naively i had thought that as I got stronger the encounters with 10,000+ gamers would decrease but sadly the opposite seems to be true. Ahh well when they ...

1. What made you interested in the Go?
I was shown the game in my early 20s - I liked it quite a bit then but couldn't find anyone to play against. It only took me 15 years to look on the internet. I am a little slow at times.

2. How much time you spent daily on Go?
Too much/not enough. I try to ...