Baduk and Love

This was originally written for the AGHS newsletter. However I had misunderstood what they asked me to write. I did not realize that the AGHS newsletter was intended for younger readers. Anyway, perhaps I will just write this column here. Enjoy.

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Hello, I wanted to introduce myself as this is my first column. My name is Boris, and being a young adult, love is something often on my mind. I am also a shodan go player. Things being as such, the two things find ways to mingle in my head. When Christopher Vu asked me to write for the American Go Honor Society Newsletter, I was not sure what to write. But I decided that I will try to combine Go with the adolescent/young adult fascination with drama. For as long as I can find interesting love/go stories to tell I will tell them. If you have some you wish to share, e-mail me at badukboris@gmail.com

I had my own drama with go, in which I was surely the bad guy. I was with a girl for the larger part of 3 years. While we did have our troubles, it seemed we where fine. I decided to go on a trip for six months to study go at the International Baduk Academy. While six months does not seem like a long time, it was to her. She dreaded my leaving every day. Eventually she began to say things like "you are leaving me for go" Although I refuted this, essentially I was leaving the country to play Go for 6 months, and nothing anyone had to say was going to change this.

One month into my trip we broke up, but it would have likely happened had I stayed. We were already having lots of problems, the trip only acted as a catalyst.

I always compare go to a woman, a woman that teases you. She shows you her leg, dresses up seductively, but never lets you touch. In the same way every time you think you understand something about go, you quickly realize that you don't. Even for Pro players this is so. Just when they think that you figured out all the joseki variations stemming from one move, another is discovered. Perhaps Go only has one lover at time, Lee Se Dol in the past, nowadays it seems to be Gu li. (Maybe she has a thing for men of the Orient :-)?)

Thank you for reading my first story, next time I will bring you a story from a go club in Korea. Till then.

I am Back In New York

So I have been back in New York for a week now, and even though I spent the past 6 months in Korea playing Go, somehow everyday I seem to make it out to the Go Center.

I definitely feel the effect of my stay in Korea. I am able to play as a 1d solidly, and the other day I even won against a 3d in an even game. When I visited the Korean club in flushing, I played as a 6 gup, and had 2 wins 3 losses. Previously i had played as an 8~9 gup.

I am living with my mom for the summer with plans of moving out, and for now I am working as a canvasser, basically a fundraiser, for Environment New York.

I will post some pictures of an epic fireworks show we had this past weekend soon.

Currently Chaelim and Hyangme are teaching at the New York Go Center, and so far they are doing great. Its nice to have youth at the center.

I plan to keep studying so that I can play as 2d by congress.

I will write again when there is something interesting to say.

Thanks for reading all this time guys!