Fwiffo
AKA phong AKA Tom Schumm.
<phong@phong.org>
About Me...
I'm fairly new at Go. I started getting into it around April of 2003 on NNGS, but got away from it for too long. I finally got back into things again in late November of 2003. Just as I was really making major progress, I inexplicably disappeared for six months only to appear again in December of 2004. My game is completely destroyed, but perhaps I'll stick to it the next time I start to show improvement.
I am also fwiffo on KGS and NNGS. I have a
personal homepage where I have all kinds of junk. You may recognize the name
Fwiffo from
Star Control II.
(ColJac: Hi there. I certainly do remember Fwiffo from StarCon2?. That was the most awesome game ever invented. Though you certainly chose a cowardly alter-ego, hunam.)
I'm a bit of a collector of hobbies, many computer related. My favorite programming languages are Python, Ruby and Perl. I am a moderator on the
Gentoo Linux forums and a regular on
HydrogenAudio. I used to collect
tarantulas, but lack time for that lately. You can also take a look at my
KGS game archive or my
KGS rating graph. I have a
small collection of problems on goproblems.com.
Subpages
Things to work on
- Follow up on my NewYearsGoResolutions
- Play more, chat less
- Get better at invasion, reduction
- Experiment, espescially with my opening which is the same almost every single game
- Do more problems, study my books
- Read more thoughtfully and thorougly in games and in problems
- Don't worry about rank - just worry about getting stronger
- Learn to count, both the size of moves and overall score
- ??? You tell me...
Specific problems, bad habits
- I see as simple, clear play that works in a given situation and I look for something more complicated that probably won't work.
- I often find myself having a bunch of fun chasing, cutting and poking the eyes out of a opponent's weak, baseless group. This is nice, but frequently I lust too strongly for the kill in situations where I need to fix up my own stones instead. I should take profit (sometimes quite large) in thickness or territory more often and stop trying to kill when my position is tenuous. Sometimes I'll even try to "overkill" a group when just strenghtening my own stones or protecting cutting points is enough to solidify the kill.
- I sometimes get sloppy in yose for whatever reason, then lose the game by only a couple points that I could have gotten easily if I had paid attention.
- I make plays hoping my opponent won't notice what I'm up to. Very, very, very bad.
- I look over several possible plays all over the board, consider which one leads to the most favorable sequence, then proceed to play some other move that I haven't examined at all.
- I bet the game on the big kill. I should be trying to win peaceful games too. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that I've won so many games by killing big recently.
- Trying to protect my moyo from too many directions at once.
- Leaving big points too long, or not spotting them (even when they should be obvious), or underestimating their size.
- I have a very difficult time seeing moves that are required to make ko in situations where it is desirable. I've got lots of problems with ko actually...
- "Experiments" in games often just turn into sloppy play.
- Still missing simple, obvious plays and playing inconsistently. So many of my mistakes are simple carelessness or lazyness more than any lack of skill.
Recent milestones
- 17 kyu, 2003-12-11
- 16 kyu, 2003-12-14
- 15 kyu, 2003-12-20
- 14 kyu, 2004-01-28
- 13 kyu, 2004-03-03 (a couple days later than my goal)
- 12 kyu, 2004-03-15 (much faster than my goal)
- 11 kyu, 2004-03-28 (had to set more aggressive goals as a result.)
- 10 kyu, 2004-04-08 (again had to set more aggressive goals)
- 9 kyu, 2004-04-20 (beat goal by three days)
- Regrettably, on Hiatus from 2004-05 through 2004-12-08
Go goals
- Getting back to where I was will take months...
- Make 15 kyu by Chistmas 2004
- Make 9 kyu by April 1, 2005
- Make Shodan by New Year's, 2006 (Bold!)
Conway's game of life meets Go
I'm going to start putting together some problems/positions based on Conway's game of Life.
![[Diagram]](../../diagrams/2/0f4f8ef3d59a6de124d876bb04ce2541.png)
Death of a Glider
White decides that the ko threat at
is big enough to respond to.
![[Diagram]](../../diagrams/51/0ab1367d2fdae52f78c589e05a4517ab.png)
Death of a Glider (2)
Black is unable to make a living shape. If
is played at
instead, then White plays the vital point at
.
at a also fails.
![[Diagram]](../../diagrams/2/6f75dc6c4ca5be1549f85f5f96e386a3.png)
Spaceships