Game review

The following correspondence game was one of the most intense games I've played. Probably because my opponent was a friend of mine, whom I used to play quite frequently, but haven't done so in a couple of months. He started playing with me about a year and a half ago, so a nice competitive rivalry has taken place. Even though I believe he has long surpassed my level, I felt quite happy of making the game a game worth enjoying. In fact, I never had so much fun while losing so badly at the same time! Notice that the game took only 4 days, although almost all moves took place on one night. I was so focused and expectant for his next move that it was like playing a live game. Unfortunately my little daughter was quite upset with me that night for not paying her a deserved attention.

 The game was unrated because my friend is not a frequent DGS player, so his ranking is unreal. He is actually 5kyu in KGS.

Below is the game. I haven't made an exhaustive analysis. Remember you can follow the variations by clicking on the letters that appear on the board.

Game review

Along my previous posts I've laughed pretty much about myself and my silly mistakes, but this time, I want to show a nice tesuji I played that not only made me win a game in which I was loosing bad, but left my opponent so pissed off that instead of resigning he let himself lose by timeout. I can hardly believe it worked, honestly I didn't have it all read out, but I knew that I had to exploit the aji of my surrounding stones. Check it out below. The sequence starts at move 180 on the lower left.

Game Review

The following correspondence game was played at DGS a few weeks ago. It's funny because I thought I was taking the lead comfortably, ignoring the fact that a huge group of mine was dead. By the time I realized I immediately resigned. How did it get killed? Overconfidence. I ignored many threats thinking it was still alive, until I blew it with an incorrect move. Well well, too bad because my prospects for the game were quite good I believe.

See the game below, notice the white left group by move 164.

New Equipment

A few weeks ago, I finally made the decision and gifted myself a fine set of go bowls and a 2.4" shin kaya single piece go board. REALLY beautiful!

Although I expected to hear a harder CLAC when placing a stone, it felt quite soft... but hey, it's probably me not placing the stones properly!

Additionally, I bought a sample pack of slate and shell stones, to be able to compare them with the ones I already had. I must admit that the slate stones deceived me a bit, or maybe it's the glass stones I already have that are so beautiful, that they don't make a difference with the slate ones. In fact, I didn't toss them in the bowl with the rest fearing I couldn't tell them apart.

I don't think paying a lot more for these stones is really worth the money. Although if the shell stones were sold apart from the slate stones, then I would think of buying shell stones.

I bought them at GoGameGuru, and guess what, I paid with bitcoins! I was having trouble paying with my Visa credit card for some unknown reason. To my surprise, they accepted bitcoins so now I have two reasons to celebrate: my new go equipment and my first purchase with bitcoins.

Clic here for a great review of the bowls.

Go Seigen Birthday Pack

Yesterday I received 4 books from Slate & Shell. I don't know when I'll have the time to read them, but I couldn't resist the offer: they where half the price!

This is the offer from the webpage:

In commemoration of Go Seigen’s 100th birthday, Slate & Shell is offering John Fairbairn’s excellent set of books on Go Seigen at a 50% discount. The books cover Go’s biography and the historical situation in depth, and his significance as the greatest player of the 20th century, as well as providing detailed commentaries on many of his most famous games. Kamakura is about the ten game match with Kitani Minoru which is one of the greatest matches of all time. This book also covers Go’s early history and the beginning of his career in Japan. 9 Dan Showdown covers the ten game matches between the first two 9 dans in go history: Go and Fujisawa Kuranosuke. Final Summit is about Go’s ten game match with Takagawa Kaku, another giant of twentieth century go in Japan. Old Fuseki vs New Fuseki is about the revolution in thinking about the opening that was a major part of Go’s impact. This book is by far the fullest discussion of the issues around this revolution in go thinking that is available in English. It also includes Go’s famous game with Honinbo Shusai when, as an audacious teenager, he played the diagonal pattern of the 4-4 point, the center point, and the 3-3 point as his opening moves. - 

Watching

I was looking at my cellphone thinking about my next move. On the screen was the go board.
Suddenly my 4 year old daughter approached me and asked (in spanish):

- "¿Papi, podés jugar sólo por mirar la pantalla?"

Which translates to

-"Daddy, can you play by just looking at the screen?"

I laughed, put down my cellphone and gave her a huge kiss.

To post or not to post

I'm back! Well, no, not really. Having two kids is a very demanding and time consuming enterprise, and my awaited time for studying Go is long gone. Anyway, my enthusiasm is still high, so I hope to at least make an appearance over here every once in a while.

These past months I've only been playing correspondence games at DGS, at most 8 simultaneously, specifically the maximum amount of allowed matches for the ladder tournament: I can challenge four people and get challenged by other four.

Fortunately, and contrary to my belief, I kept on improving: from 10kyu in March (my last post) to 7kyu DGS. It's quite interesting to remark that I'm playing much more relaxed and confident to try out new things. I'm not worried about playing the joseki's properly, and relying a lot on intuition. Maybe it's because not investing time to study relieves me from the pressure of amortizing the investment, who knows.

If you never heard about the ladder tournament, I recommend it! It works like this:
Once it starts it can go on forever, new participants start at the bottom of the table. You can challenge players that are N positions above you. If you win, you climb above the defeated opponent. Games are even (without handicap), without regards to rank, although they are rated.

I like it very much because it's a good opportunity for playing against much stronger players (and weaker ones also).

I'm currently in position 147 out of 645, although at this stage I honestly don't care about it (as long as I'm above my friend aurelito), what matters (if anything matters at all) is the rank, and having fun of course. Check out the table here.