European Go Congress

Its a bit late, but here is my European go congress report.


European Go Congress Main Tournament/and results.
A lot of people have been asking me why I went to the EGC instead of the AGC, my main reason was because I wanted to see my friends from Korea. Also I wanted an excuse to travel in europe this summer.



I got off the airplane, and got to the bus. I had somehow not counted on needing money and had nothing in my pocket. Luckily I was able to trade a 3/4 empty bottle of Grappa for a bus ticket.



I found the congress site pretty easily, it was the source of all the elderly japanese people wandering about. Actually this was quite amusing, I imagine, for the locals. Suddenly the City of Tampere had a drastic increase of Japanese. I wonder what sort of ideas they had...



The congress was held at the Aleksantari school. I arrived and registered without a problem. I could not really find what to do so I just started talking to some german people. I was lucky to find a very interesting person. He had just biked from germany through Scandinavia and then taken a ferry to finland and biked the rest of the way to congress. He was also a 2d go player, and a geo-cacher, in fact for teh past 2 years i believe he finds at least one cache a day.



I spent the day hanging out with him, I found my first cache, and went swimming in a nice big Finnish lake. Also I was very surprised to eat one of the best donuts I have ever tasted.





Here are the "results"

• I played as a 1 kyu in the tournament. I had an ok result of 5 wins 5 losses. But I was not satisfied since i won 4 games the first week and only one the second.


• In the weekend tournament I did very poorly, I only won 1 game out of 5.


• My pair go partner, Kim Chaelim, and I got to the top 8, but we lost a very close game in the quarter finals.


• The team I played on in the football tournament got 4th place.

In general I was surprised after the first week that I was able to get 4 wins. I expected to not be able to hold my 1kyu level so well. The weekend tournament dissapointed me, but i blamed that on too much partying and poor sleeping conditions. I thought that my winning streak would start again after my win on the first day of the second week, but I ended up losing the last 4 games. To be honest, I was pretty disapointed with myself in losing the last game. I had a really good opening, yet somehow in the endgame my level suddenly dropped back down to 30kyu. I played Ko's I didn't need, missed ataris and didn't defend after blocking on the first line.

Overall I am satisfied with my 5-5 result, but I think I could have done better.

(Photo by EuroGoTv)

A New Adventure

I haven't been writing anything itneresting for quite some time now, but Its that time again!! I am packing my bag and heading off; first to Germany, then Finland for the European Go Congress and then...I am not sure.

I will be updating frequently, so please come by and read from time to time.

Shodan

Hey..

So last week I decide to check my AGA rating and I am very pleasantly surprised find out I am 1.48 dan. I didn't notice at what point it happened, but apparently I am now officially a Dan player. It must have been from the last tournament I played/directed, though I thought that I had registered as 1kyu.

Though I am still but a mere 2kyu on kgs, its nice to know that I don't have to go to japan to call myself a dan player anymore woot woot.

Jokes aside though, In case all the kyu players are wondering, when I look at the board, I still have no clue whats going on...I can just sort of read out naturally occurring life and death problems now that's all.

Thoughts on KGS Insei League

This post is a little late, but it has to be done.

Last month I decided to play as much go as I could have, because I knew that I would soon (currently) be in school. I should probably mention my goal of shodan by euro congress, more specifically KGS shodan. Anyway to help motivate myself to play and study I joined Dinerschtien's league.

I managed to play 12 games in the league, another 25 or so on KGS and another 30 or so in person. While its not exactly as much as I could have, its still about 2 games a day. I did not utilize all of the resources of the league as I could have, but I did play the minimum required amount of games, and I did watch 3 or 4 lectures by Alex.

I found the lectures very interesting, and by far the best part of the league, the sgf game reviews were not as helpful. The main point of the league was motivation to play and it definitley did that for me. I was able to play much more seriously than I could previously, and I managed to bring my KGS level from almost 5kyu to the cusp of 2kyu. I might not have actually become stronger per-se but I learned a bit of self control.

The league would definitely benefit from having sections based on Time zones. Not having opponents who slept and worked at similar hours to me was by far the greatest inconvenience.

My school has started now and I noticed that between work, school, and Karate there is very little time for Go. As sad as this is I promise, (If you guys care at all ^^) that I will play at least one game a week so as not to forget the rules.

Oh and of course life and death on the train.

League Game #9 vs.TD282

It feels like I a getting stronger. Or maybe I am just starting to understand the Chinese opening. For the past month every time I played black I used chinese opening.

League Game #8 vs Grumbles

Easy win...

League Game #7 vs Vlom

Hard fought game, but Vlom, he played better.

Bamboo joint

Nakamura Kaicho gives us short lectures after our meditation sessions.

Today he talked about the Bamboo Joint "setsu"
Bamboo joint is the foundation or, the core of the otherwise hollow bamboo grass. Without it the grass would not be as strong and resilient and would just break when the wind blew hard.

What this means to us as karate-ka and as people is that you have to have a strong core of discipline, so that when faced with hardships you can stay standing and be flexible and resilient.

Also the bamboo joint is a rather strong shape in go isn't it?

OSU!

League Game #6 vs MZ500

This was a very close, and tough game for me.

In the beginning I was doing well but for some reason I played c7 at move 65, and made the game at least twice as hard as it had to be...

I got lucky when my opponent left a weakness at D13, After that I managed to stay ahead

League Game#5 VS Imagine

I played this game rather well I think, but I found it rather boring. I did not push very hard. In the end I only won by a relatively small margin. I should be more careful in end game, even If I am ahead....

League Game #4 VS MZ500

This game I played a bit better than the others, but I lost to my greed in the end. (please note I am now 3K)

League Game #3 vs.TD282

Another win, this time due to luck...

League Game #2 VS Grumbles

Even though I won, I cannot say it was satisfying, I played some really bad moves...

To my blog readers I pose a question

I know that I have been getting quite a few hits on my blog, even at times when I wasn't writing. So I am curious, who is reading it?

Please post a response to the question who are you?

Also, on a side note, I am up to 3k now on KGS, about a year ago I think I was 3k as well, but i dropped down to 5k since then, and worked back up. :)) 7 wins in-a-row

Karaoke at the New York Go Center

As fun as Go is on its own, sometimes we like to take a break from go, and sing a little.

This Tuesday we went out to Karaoke.

Just some pictures, Enjoy :)

VS. Illya Shikshin 4 stones League Simul 1

This is the first game I played against the teachers, I have included some basic commentary.

I am pretty happy with how the game started but I made a few mistakes in the middle, mostly shape related.

All comments are welcome

League Game 1 vs. Vlom

This is my first league game played at 5 in the morning. I played too quickly in the begining and ended up behind a lot. Though I tried to catch up, I failed to. It was a fun and Bloody game. Enjoy and comments are welcome

I am a Baduk-ka

Laziness, sloth, procrastination, slowly growing in width, difficulty concentrating for long times, lower endurance -- these are things that I have been feeling progressively more and more. It did not help that I started smoking. In lieu of New Years, or perhaps coincidentally reaching my threshold then, I decided to start fixing myself. I was getting smarter (maybe not) learning emotionally, getting better at go, but my body was slowly deteriorating. I was quite tired of this, so I set out to find a place to practice martial arts.

Just a little history, I have practiced martial arts since I was about 4 years old, I started out in Tae Kwan Do, and then I did shotokan for a few years, and most recently I practiced Goju Ryu. I was almost always doing something, but In Sophomore year of high school, something dreadful yet wonderful happened. I discovered Manga, and shortly thereafter Go. My life changed forever, and this and that and here I am. I attempted to start something in Korea, but aside from meeting a TaeKwondo 9d who used to be a bodyguard for Princess Diana, and being offered free lessons by him, and also being friends with a Muy Thai "4d" (although I wasn't really aware they had a rating system), I failed. I had opportunities, but I didn't take them. Well now I had a little break from school due to problems with my financial aid, so I decided to make the most of my time, and do something.

So I set out to find a school which suited my needs. I was considering taking Muy Thai, I rather enjoyed the one lesson my friend gave me back in Korea. Unfortunately it is difficult to find a gym that I could afford, and that was in any convinient location. After eliminating other potential choices, such as Daitoryu Aikijiujutsu, Aikido, and Kyokushin Karate, I settled on the Seido Juku style of Karate.

The deciding factors were: The grandmaster of the style teaches at the school, there are several classes daily at different times, 300 bucks for first 3 months.

Since I have started, about 2 weeks ago, I have felt so much better in everything. Even in Go, I have been able to concentrate more, and I have just generally been playing better. My teacher, VIncent Liu, told me that I am strong enough that I just have to learn right now how to concentrate and I should go up a few stones. I think I might be getting it.

One of the great things about the Karate dojo is the meditation classes. I am really enjoying the meditation, its been helping me renormalize my breathing since I quit smoking, but also the lectures that Kaicho (grandmaster) gives after meditation. You are Karate-ka, always, belt doesn't matter, Karate-ka always pushing, always trying be good, to do good, to be better.

I am a Baduk-ka.



(pun on Baduk and Budo-ka, Budo-ka means martial artist in Japanese, Baduk is Korean for Go.)

Breakfast's Insei League!

A few weeks ago Alexander Dinerschtien announced the opening of the "KGS Insei League"

It is basicly an online league/tournament/study group that imitates the style of the Korean younguseng (insei) leagues held by the Hanguk Kiwon (Korean Go Association)

Participants of the league will be broken up into several groups where they play games against themselves and the teachers.

This league starts in the New Year. It will cost $95 USD to participate each month.

There will be prizes as well, to give aditional incentive for the players.

A group: 1-place: 200$, 2-place: 100$, 3-place: 50$

B, C, D groups: 1-place: 100$, 2-place: 50$

Currently there are 40 people registered.

At the end of the year the person with the best record gets $1000 grant money to study in Korea.

Full information is here

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Honestly, I really recommend this league for anyone who wants to get better at go quickly, its not by any means a shortcut, as far as I know there are none, but its a the best way to improve that i know of. If you couple it with daily life and death of course.

Though its fun, this will be a time consuming league, prepare to devote a lot of your time to this if you seriously want to get the most benefit from it. It costs close to a hundred bucks but its a great deal. You will be getting your games reviewed by a Professional player/Go instructor as well as light commentary on your league games, teaching games, and audio lectures.

This is how we studied when i was in Korea, this is how the younguseng study. Pro's are a little different, but what they play can be called a whole other game...

Please go check it out, email backpast@gmail.com for more details

The Go Students

The New York Go Center has undergone many changes recently. Primarily Vincent Liu has become the full time host. I am not sure if this is the main reason, but many more people have started to show up. I came to the center today and about 10 people came to play and study go. It is quite nice to have some really young kids playing at the center. There is one 5 year old Japanese boy who aspires to be a professional. His name is Ken-chan, perhaps he will be pro one day, but for now he has to learn to sit through a 45 minute lesson on life and death ^^.

Vincent (Yong Xin) Liu 6d

There are also two young kids who have been under Vincent's tutelage since this March, have been getting quite good. Well at least at life and death. They are able to solve some of the more difficult problems already. The two brothers are 4, and 8 years old.

Also, the main reason for this post, I am taking a photography class and wanted to share my first printed photograph. It is of the two brothers.

Camera: Nikon SLR; Film Tri-X kodak 400 iso.

Exposure 30@1.8 printed on fiber paper. Click on image to view full size