My week in numbers (was "Tiny steps towards shodan")

[Bill Spight]

Quick comment on the latest game.

E-12 to force bad shape. Then push through the small opening to attack the heavy White stones.

[RBerenguel]

20150112 - KGS - blitz (0/1)
20150113
20150114 - KGS - blitz (0/1)
20150115 - KGS - blitz (1/2)
20150116
20150117 - NGA - slow (1/0)
20150118 - KGS - blitz (1/0) - NGA - slow (1/0)

1 slow (2/0), 6 blitz (2/4)

[RBerenguel]

Report of the Barcelona Go Seigen Tournament 2015

Placebo effect?

This year I entered the tournament as 5k. If you've been following my progress, last year I entered as 9 and ended with 3/2, not bad, I have to admit. But last year in NGA's tournament I was entered as 5k on the evaluation of the teachers, ended with a dismal 1/3, and my prospects for Barcelona were gloomy. After all, friends of mine that also play in KGS are roughly my KGS rank and were going to enter as 8k and 10k like last year, no way I could think of playing 5 stones stronger than them!

But well, I didn't feel like downgrading my rank to 7 (IIRC the smallest change is of two stones) and I just decided to weather the storm and if needed lose 5 games. My rank would eventually catch up with my playing.

(L) 1st game, vs 5k Nervous. Of course, I was pretty nervous on my first game, feeling like I was playing 4 stones away of my league. But then, after the game started rolling I picked my pace and felt good about maybe even winning the first game. But, I caught my rhythm too late and ended up losing by ~10-11 points. Now that I checked, this opponent had GoR points of 6k, he told me he was away from go for a long while and picked it up again a year ago or so. Since I didn't know that at the time, I felt very good after the game, even if slightly sour for not winning

(W) 2nd game, vs 5k More relaxed, but facing a somewhat "tougher" opponent. This time I was facing a "5k I knew," a friend of a friend, who has been hovering around 5-6k for a long time (checking GoR, he's now hovering at 6k level points). During the game I was lagging by 10-15 points until by late middlegame I managed to slip a couple threats my opponent didn't see and creating a two step ko worth something like 40 points. With my first threat I created another ko that was worth 20-ish that I was bound to win and hence won by 12 or so in the end. Felt pretty good, even if the game had seen me lagging.

(W) 3rd game, vs 5k Again, I was facing a "long timer 5k," and unheard-of from me, I played a moyo game. Basically he started with a very cosmic-y moyo that I wasn't sure how to invade and I just decided to create a counter-moyo. And well, mine was bigger (like 30 points larger.) Felt good coming back home with a 2/1 day, and just feeling reassured I could play at the 5k level.

(L) 4th game, vs 4k At this moment I had to face the next step, in playing a 4k. And for me this was the best game I played. I ehem, sacrificed a corner (brainfarted and saw a J, not a J+1... even if the stones were already in place) and tenuki-ed. In exchange though I totally ruined a potential framework, so the game was even-ish. Then my opponent turned into early endgame somewhat too soon, but worked to her advantage and got a lead of around 15-20 points, even if board-wise it looked as I was better. I was able to use my slight thickness to invade one of his groups and reduced her lead to 0, and then the game was a back-and-forth endgame game... That I lost by half a point. Felt nice, even if sour by the loss.

(W) 5th game, vs 7k I faced a Romanian 7k, not knowing what to expect, since I didn't know his opponents that well, so... Anything could go. Turned out he was very, very defensive (heh, weird coming from me, I've always been the defensive kind) and I just kept "asking" for more. I won relatively easily by ~15, but I guess he'll improve a lot if he gets on the offensive, had some good moves.

So, all in all I felt pretty good about how the tournament ended.

[RBerenguel]

Since I'm relocating, I had to (finally) count all my go books, and take some more time to write the titles of them. I have 83 books. Woo!

Here you can see a picture of what the box looks like (still has some small space left below the last layers, but no book would fit, and they won't move around so no need to add stuff to it)

IMG_3448.JPG (155.26 KiB) Viewed 5406 times

And here you can find the list of books

Code: Select all

| Title                                                                                           | Author       | Type       | Volumes |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+------------+---------|
| Power/Brilliance                                                                                | Fairbairn    | Commentary |       1 |
| The Profound and Mysterious                                                                     | Cho Hye-yeon | Tsumego    |       4 |
| Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go                                                               | Kageyama     | Theory     |       1 |
| Dictionary of Basic Tesuji                                                                      | Shuko        | Theory     |       4 |
| The Style of LCH                                                                                | Yuan Zhou    | Commentary |       1 |
| Go Seigen Tsumego (gemmiyou go seigen tsumego jitsusen no yomi o kitaeru maikomu igo butsukusu) | Go Seigen    | Tsumego    |       1 |
| Come up to Shodan                                                                               | Rin Kaiho    | Theory     |       1 |
| GGP for Dan Players v7: Opening and Middle Game (1-7 dan)                                       | -            | Probl-Fus  |       1 |
| GGP for Dan Players v3: 300 Joseki Problems (1-3 dan)                                           | -            | Probl-Jos  |       1 |
| Fighting Fundamentals                                                                           | Jasiek       | Theory     |       1 |
| Positional Judgement 1: Territory                                                               | Jasiek       | Theory     |       1 |
| Easy Learning: Joseki                                                                           | Jasiek       | Theory     |       1 |
| Tactical Reading                                                                                | Jasiek       | Theory     |       1 |
| A way of play for the 21st Century                                                              | Go Seigen    | Theory     |       1 |
| Get Strong at the Endgame                                                                       | Bozulich     | Probl-End  |       1 |
| Get Strong at Joseki                                                                            | Bozulich     | Probl-Jos  |       3 |
| Keshi and Uchikomi                                                                              | Iwamoto      | Theory     |       1 |
| 1001 Life and Death Problems                                                                    | Bozulich     | Tsumego    |       1 |
| GGP for Beginners vol 3                                                                         | -            | Probl-Mix  |       1 |
| Ishi no renkaku tore ningu nihiyakunanajiyuu maikomi igo bunko shiri zu                         | -            | Tesuji     |       1 |
| 9x9 Commented Games (Japanese, Vol 2?)                                                          | -            | Commentary |       1 |
| Weiqi Sihuo Xiao Cidian                                                                         | -            | Tsumego    |       1 |
| Yasashii yose sarusuberi kara                                                                   | -            | Probl-End  |       1 |
| Suji no zen aku tore ningu                                                                      | -            | Probl-Suji |       1 |
| (J) GGP for Dan Players 3 Dan Tesuji                                                            | -            | Tesuji     |       1 |
| (J) GGP for Dan Players 3 Dan Tsumego                                                           | -            | Tsumego    |       1 |
| (J) GGP for Dan Players 1 Dan Tsumego                                                           | -            | Tsumego    |       1 |
| Korean Problem books (mixed)                                                                    | -            | Probl-Mix  |       9 |
| Second book of go                                                                               | Bozulich     | Theory     |       1 |
| Improve your Intuition                                                                          | Takagawa     | Theory     |       3 |
| LCH Tesuji                                                                                      | Lee Chang'Ho | Tesuji     |       6 |
| LCH Tsumego                                                                                     | Lee Chang'Ho | Tsumego    |       6 |
| Segoe-Seigen Tesuji                                                                             | Segoe-Seigen | Tesuji     |       3 |
| (C) Commented games of Honinbo Jowa                                                             | -            | Commentary |       1 |
| The Direction of Play                                                                           | Kajiwara     | Theory     |       1 |
| Attack and Defense                                                                              | Ishida       | Theory     |       1 |
| The Endgame                                                                                     | Ogawa        | Theory     |       1 |
| Go for Beginners                                                                                | Iwamoto      | Theory     |       1 |
| In the beginning                                                                                | Ishigure     | Theory     |       1 |
| Tesuji                                                                                          | Davies       | Theory     |       1 |
| Opening Theory Made Easy                                                                        | Hideo        | Theory     |       1 |
| Kamakura                                                                                        | Fairbairn    | Commentary |       1 |
| Korean book, mixed problems                                                                     | -            | Probl-Mix  |       1 |
| Korean book, problems (suji?)                                                                   | -            | Probl-Suji |       1 |
| (C) Go Seigen's Commented Go Games                                                              | -            | Commentary |       8 |
| How to Improve on a 5x5 Board                                                                   | Masaaki      | Probl      |       1 |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+------------+---------|
| Total                                                                                           |              |            |      83 |

[RBerenguel]

It's been long overdue that I wrote a recap of the NGA Summer Camp (SoDesuNe beat me to it, so I just skipped )

As usual it was a great experience. Aside from meeting again all the Finn gang, I got to meet SoDesuNe, a Swiss player (Sasha) that I think is either going to create an account or already has one here and is just a lurker and a fast-improving Norwegian (John-Isak.)

The days were full of go as in the previous years (lecture in the morning, tsumego assignments for when we were free and game in the afternoon.) This year Törmänätor took it easier with the tsumego sets (and also made only A and B sets.) I finished second in the B class competition (behind SoDesuNe, I think 2 points away. He's a great tsumego-er!) and could solve between 40 and 50% of the A class problems given ample time.

Food was excellent (we had a proper, full-on cook this year) and as usual we had plenty of sauna hours and mahjohng afterwards. Finally I managed to understand enough of the game to make some sense of what was going on. Yay!

On Thursday we had an open tournament (MMS-2 handicap, EGF class C.) Here are the results. I managed to win 3 games out of 4. I resigned too early on game 3 (was feeling real good, then died and didn't feel like going on, even if I could have a decent shot at winning... stupid me) and should have lost game 4 (my opponent made several time blunders that costed the game.) I'll post the kifu later (they are on my iPad and it's like 4 metres away from me.) As a gift for getting 3 wins I got the 4-volumes of The Profound and Mysterious, the English translation by the Korean Baduk Association. Excellent prize! A pity they've been sitting on a box for more than a week, luckily they'll be out in less than another.

[RBerenguel]

By the way, an update on my "tsumego life." You may recall I've been doing lots of tsumegos using Anki (with several sets I created myself, for instance, Cho Chikun's elementary, Lee Chang-Ho's Tesuji & Tsumego vols 1, etc.) This set has 2199 cards, of which ~900 are CC elementary and ~800 are CC intermediate (which accounts for the 700 unseen cards I still have.)

Even though I've had the impression of slacking a lot, going long stretches without any tsumego, according to Anki I've only missed 34 days of the previous 267, accounting for 9375 reviews (of which most are in CC elementary, naturally) for an average of 40 reviews per day and 53 hours total study. Which is 13 minutes day: misleading, since I remember having days of 1h or 1h15 and something like 120 reviews due. So, I can still reach a "1 year of tsumego" within 2015, and quite likely pass 10k reviews (and maybe 60 hours of tsumego, too.)

Has it helped my go abilities? Hell yeah. I feel solid EGF 5k, and a year and a half ago (last Barcelona tournament) I was barely solid EGF 8k (it may have something to do with a pool of players around 8k in my EGF area, though.) A year ago I entered the NGA Summer Camp tournament at 5k and lost 3 and won just 1, I felt like a cheat. In February this year I got a 3/2 as 5k on Barcelona, which felt pretty good and this year in Finland I felt good at 5k. I don't play that much on KGS, but last time I did I was wobbling between 3 and 4k, instead of doing it between 4 and 5. I don't focus too much when playing online, if I manage to solve this I guess I can reach 1k within my lifetime.

Keep up your tsumego! It's probably the most cost-effective way to improve your go, aside from playing. But since tsumego can be done anywhere, given any amount of time it's probably more efficient to always have some tsumego of your level close by, always.