Ketran0

I got bored of the bullet list (the old format of this page). It felt kinda odd, impersonal, I dunno what the word is, but I just didn't like it.

My name is Oliver Yeung, age 15, birthday 3/15/92. If you need an image to attach that to, I'm an abc (American-born-chinese), tall, and with glasses and longish hair that hangs around eye level and partially obstructs my view.

I was first taught go by my dad, who barely knew the rules. I was three at the time, and I played with him only a few times on a small magnetic board. I didn't understand the rules well and I couldn't understand why I lost when I had more captures than him.It had no appeal (not even any fun clicky noises when putting down stones), so I never took it up seriously. I only got interested (sorta) again during a winter retreat with my church. I was in seventh grade at the time. One of the older youth group members had brought a go board (complete with actual stones) and I played with her all day long for the length of the retreat, two days.

Not long afterward, the manga for Hikaru no Go appeared at the my favorite book store (not that I buy any books there. I always go there just to read the manga) and I became interested in go outside of just reacting when I saw it. I bought Charles Matthews's book "Teach Yourself: Go" (I think it's part of a series of self-teaching books) and read it until I could recite the parts I understood back to front. The book worked well for me, although it's rather fast-paced and goes to a very advanced level, now that I reflect on it. I gave it away to one of my friends in hopes that he'd learn how to play and join me.

I started playing online, at first on Yahoo Games. Looking back, it was absofrickinglutely horrible playing there. I'm not sure how I came to KGS. I think it was about when I joined Feng Yun Go school, in April of 2006, maybe learned about it from there. There was a tournament there not long after I joined it, and my rank shot up. My rank kept growing nicely, from 17k initially on KGS to a 9k in September. That was when the ranks on KGS changed and I jumped to 6k, then 5k, then 4k, very quickly.

In November, the semester in FY's was done and I didn't want to go back because of the time and cost, $20 nonrefundable per 2-hour lesson. Each lesson basically consisted of a little bit of teaching beforehand, usually a few problems or a review of a game anyone could bring in. After that, we'd play (this was a fairly big class divided into adanced and beginner sections) and then the teacher would review a game or two.

We paid at the beginning of each semester and if we didn't show up, there was refund. The time it consumed was an issue: 3:30 to 5:30 every saturday. It seemed to coincide with just about everything I could possibly do on weekends. Now that I think about it, I actually skipped the summer semester, playing online constantly instead.

I felt that the lessons weren't quite worth it, both time and money, so I've stopped. I might go back this summer, because if I recall correctly she offered to replace any lessons missed with more lessons in another semester. I only go for monthly AGA rated games now (I like playing with real boards and stones, too).

I've used goproblems.com and add problems for as long as I can remember. This site I've only used more recently, I think since fall '06.

I'm now 1d (April 14th, 2007. Having a 'd' at the end of my rank looks so much cooler :D) KGS and 1K AGA.I've just played a bunch of rated games that I won, though, so my KGS rank will be drifting higher. That's become my strategy for wrestling with the rating system. I used to play rated games all the time, but I found that if I did that my rank would become really, really heavy. If I recall correctly, at one point I won ten games in a row and my rank would not budge. Nowadays, I just play free games and ranked games when I feel like I'll win.

This'll probably grow longer once I feel like typing even more.

Style

I liked the pages senseis has on style. I think I'm more of the moyo-building type, but I hate letting anything live in what I've declared territory (which I use liberally). Lately, I've been using a more territorial style and all-around goodfulness to beat opponents, but I'm still inconsistent. I play stupid moves once in a couple games that lose me the game. Generally, my I think my life and death and middlegame combined are better than most, and this is what gets me my wins. More often than not, I kill massive amounts of stones to win.To illustrate this further, I've extremely rarely had close games, with the huge majority being a large lead and resignition.

I like Takeyima.

My favorite parts of the game are 1st: building enormous moyos and 2nd: killing all those futile invasions inside them.

My endgame, I think, is better than most, although I haven't had much practice (never get there).

My fuseki has improved since I bought "In the beginning". I've especially become more aware of light and heavy stones, as well as strength and weakness and invasions.

My joseki knowledge is right on par with most 10ks.

Positional judgement? What positional judgement?

I like to think that I should play the best move no matter what, and that never changes, so neither should my style. Of course, this could also just be an excuse for my inability to count. For example, in one game I thought I was ahead, only to find out I was behind by 17.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~hwangjun/Go/Takemiya/Takemiya.html