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About
Referenced by SabakiGoClub/Hous... SabakiGoClub/Club...
Homepages Adante
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Sigh
PageType: HomePage
Hi! I'm an 18 year old Engineering student from Melbourne, Australia. I'm often on KGS playing with the username "sigh". I used to play with the username "adantz", but the rank on that account was taking waaaay too long to rise, hence the change.
I'm also an avid reader of Sensei's Library, although I haven't contributed much (that may or may not change in the future[1] ;). Apparently I'm already shodan in AGA (Australian Go Assosiation) ranking, but I'm 2k on KGS ... hopefully shodan sometime soon ^_^
Recently, at a tournement, I met 4 people. These 4 people were the last people I would expect to have learnt something from, because they each showed different shades of ignorance, arrogance, norrow mindedness, rudeness, incompetance, and a strong desire to win by any means. I realised that i never wanted to become like them, not even close. I started playing Go for fun, I want it to stay that way. I want to get stronger, winning games is irrelevent. And again, I want to have fun, I don't want to force myself to study something i don't want to, or play Go when i don't feel like it. I think this is the most important lesson I've learnt in the time I've been playing Go. For this I thank those 4 people, so I only wish for them to spend half of eterity in the firey pits of hell.
Goals
- Get as strong as I can
- Enjoy the journey
My Timeline
- Jul 2002 -- A friend lent me the Hikaru No Go manga. Before this I had no idea what Go was. I read it and, of course, enjoyed it very much ;). Go looked like an interesting game... one I might like to learn. I tried to convince some of my freinds (the ones who'd read Hikaru no Go) only to be met with vague responses.
- Dec 2002 -- Ok, none of my freinds were going to start playing Go in the immediate future, so I decided to start by myself. I did some tutorials on the net, then created the account "adantz" on KGS. I played only about 4 games that month.
- 1st Jan 2003 -- Made a new years resolution to start learning Go seriouly. Played 3 games that day.. I've never looked back :)
- 28th May 2003 -- Suddenly 10k after the adjustment of the ranks on KGS. 10k was a goal of mine for a long time, but it kinda made getting to 10k less exciting due to the fact that I just immediatly got promoted, rather than earning it through a game. Ah well :)
- 26th Nov 2003 -- Yay... Finally 5k, but my rank was rising too slow for my liking, so I started playing rated with the account "sigh".
- 26th - 28th Nov 2003 -- After lucky wins against a 4k, 3k, 2k, 1k... and two expected losses against a 1d and a 3d in rated games, KGS decided I warrented a solid 1d rank (no ?). I had now become whatever the opposite of a sandbagger is. [2]
- 2nd Dec 2003 -- After many losses (and a few wins) my rank reached 3k, where it settled down.
- 9th Dec 2003 -- Made this page :). Also dissapointed to learn that Adante has declared that he is quitting Go. He was one of the people I was aiming to catch up to :(
- 21st Dec 2003 -- Found out Adante has started Go again :) ... he then bugged me to change my page -__-".
Things I like:
- Fighting: I'm the kind of player who, when given the option of a peaceful alternative and a complicated one, will pick the complicated one 9 times out of 10. This also arises from the fact that I'm sometimes too greedy and as a result in my games big groups die, be it mine or my opponent's.
- Blitz: I love fast games. It's fun to play almost entirely on intuition and also to see how fast you can read out a situation. [3]
- Strange Fuseki: It's fun to deviate from the conventional style you see in most games, and still manage to play out an interesting game. I wish I had the courage to play strange openings more often, but I welcome it when an opponent plays something unorthadox... it give me (and my opponent) a chance to test how well we really know this game.[4]
I suppose the three points above revolve around one thing... I love to play in positions where deep reading is very hard, and intuition counts for everything. Also, in these positions most mistakes are common, even unavoidable (at least at my level)... but most importantly non-lethal, there's usually plenty of chance to recover.
- Tsumego: Due to my love of fighting, these problems appear in nearly all my games... how to live or kill, connect or cut, make or take away an eye.
- Teaching: Of course I like to learn new things, I welcome any advice from stronger (or even weaker[5]) players. I also like to teach, as it has the added bonus of clarifing and organising ideas in my own mind.[6] Unfortunatly I don't get to play teaching games as often as I would like to, and I will aim to change this in the future. But I am always happy to spend a couple of minutes with you if you want a some point clarified, in as much as a 3k can explain it.
Things I don't like:
- People who play slow: I have a short attention span, I get bored easily, so I like the game to progress at a nice pace. Yes, complicated situations arise, that require time to think, and I don't mind it when my opponents stops for a minute and thinks. When every move is taking that long, I start to get frustrated.
- Winning/Losing on time: This may seem contrary to my love of blitz games and my dislike of people who play slow, but it's true. I like fast time setting purely for the reason that it forces both players to play fast. However, if my opponent is running short of time and it's an interesting game, or i can see why they used so much time then I will happily grant more time. However if my opponent is clearly disregarding the time settings and is boring me to tears I'll take that win in an instant, just to finish the game.
- Mistakes: Silly ones... ones that are at least 10 stones below my level. I used to make them often, i suppose because I play fast. Now I don't make them so much. It's annoying knowing that you screwed up an interesting game through pure stupidity, and lack of concentration. I'm sometimes dissapointed if my opponent makes such a mistake, especially in a fun fight that could potentially decide the game.
[1] Mostly due to the fact that when I think up something to say, I realise 2 seconds later that it was completely stupid. So then I'm reluctant to post anything. This happens when I kibitz in games too, except I realise my stupidity after pressing enter. I give you a typical conversation:
- sigh: p16 kills
- sigh: hmmm... no
- sigh: wait... yes
- sigh: ignore me, i'm stupid
This may or may not be interrupted by other people :S
[2] Me and eat (another user on KGS) coined the term Hindenburger, due to the fact that your rank goes up high, and you get destroyed (in games) ^_^
Although, it might be more akin to the Titanic, setting off all high and mighty with a shiny new dan rank, but getting pummeled down to the depths by the seeminly invincible iceberg that are the collective powers of these strong players.
[3] Funny thing is that, even in normal games, I tend to play fast. Even with the extra time, I don't really know how to use it. Maybe it's a bad habit, but it's just the way I play.
[4] This was a game I played recently... it was very fun, these games are the reason I play Go, both of us playing creative moves, yet still trying our best to win:
![[Diagram]](../../diagrams/22/a80ee73cdc2938b66c1f508844ee689f.png) | Soclatotle v sigh |
In this game I was black... I played tengen first move in the hope of playing mirror go for a while. White's 2nd move was an attachment onto my tengen stone... there goes my mirror go strategy :)
The game proceeded to become one giant fight, with not much time at all to relax. Doubtless there were a million mistakes in this game, but that doesn't take away from the fun.
The here is a link to the full SGF file.
[5] Just because I have a higher rank doesn't nessisarilly mean I'm stronger. Even if I am stronger, I doubt this is the case for every aspect of the game, especially for people 1 or 2 ranks below me.
[6] Maybe if I tell other people about not being greedy, big points first and not creating bad shape enough times, it might eventually stick in my head :)
This is a copy of the living page
"Sigh" at
Sensei's Library.
2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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