December 2012
Why I don't write in German? I seriously should.
I played a lot of Sunjang Baduk the last month, still don't understand much about it. To think of it, it is scary how much I rely on templates (opening patterns, middle game patterns, standard moves) in my play and how little understanding I have when I play a not-in-the-book game.
November 2012
I found this interesting: "Shadow dancing occurs when two "players" -- both of whom know what is going on -- jockey for strategic advantage. That is why it called dancing. And everyone is pretending that they aren't doing anything that isn't innocent." ( http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/shadow_dancing.htm) Imho, this concept applies well to the positional struggles in high level play.
September 2012
Around my level there are many players who draw strength mainly from will power, and their game is very rigid. They show plenty of fighting spirit, always play the strongest resistance (even where it doesn't work), but they really do lack flexibility. And I start to see the old me in them. "This is a bold invasion, which you are trying.", "This really shouldn't work." etc. - it now happens things like this are said to me, when I used to be the person saying it. My problem on the other hand changed from rigidly sticking to my plans to not getting the compensation I imagined for giving way. Complications never end.
August 2012
Bad habit spotted: stubbornness after badly timed moves. Basically when I played a move intended as sente that wasn't sente, I instantly follow up to prove it was sente, even when it wasn't. The bad timing of the initial move is of course the main problem, but it is no good to throw away a still playable game after one mistake because I don't want to admit it.
I need to stop ranting. Should play more instead.
July 2012
Playing go without reading is like walking around blindfolded. How many pointless moves did I play because I wasn't sure about the status of a group? Each time I can't tell the status of a group this is a lost move. I really start to appreciate how much tsumego would help my play, I really should start now. In a tournament game against a 4 dan I recognised that a good part of the difference between us were my wasted moves because of status insecurity. Although the 5 dan problems I won in the same tournament are likely too hard to be much of a remedy to this problem.
What is the meaning of these numbers: http://gtl.xmp.net/reviews/by_date ? Is "western" go declining or do people just use different outlets nowadays? GTL had never more than a small share in the total of the games reviewed in English language to be sure, but probably they are the most public ones. As little changed in the terms or way GTL is working a drop by more than 50% since 2005 looks rather large. Unlike SL numbers there are no special wiki-factors (existing pages, no easy contributions left etc.) complicating the issue.
I wonder if godiscussions and L19 have taken the place of the GTL. They may not produce equally deep reviews in all cases, but they're easier and faster. In general, there is also the shiny and new factor. Surely some people have tired of the GTL, while there is no longer any wow factor to bring people in. --Hyperpape
Well, it never had a big share to begin with, but the only accessible public one. There must be thousands of reviews on KGS, IGS etc. weekly, Guo Juan alone does probably as much reviews as are on GTL per month. The L19 board has 600+ topics over three years, that equals less than 20 per month. What tired me was the request to provide questions myself, as I indeed am happy to listen what the reviewer thinks is the major issue not to distract from that with my own thoughts and doubts. Though I understand that you don't want to have people randomly dropping off their blitz games.
Should a concept nobody needs or a ruleset nobody uses be given my name one day? Oh vanity! (Or is it just the love programmers have for silly acronyms.)
Regarding "status insecurity" it isn't only me... Even professionals make similar mistakes. (Yamashita Keigo in the Nongshim cup via Wang Jiankun/Guo Juan game review.)
June 2012
One of the most frustrating issues (even worse than all rule discussions together, which at least I manage to ignore) is the utter lack of logic in the arguments of otherwise reasonable go players as soon as the topic is women and go. Just today I suffered that discussion on Lifein19x19, but we had our share on Sensei's Library as well. (see: Discrimination in Go, Gender Discrimination in Go, Playing Strength And Gender)
Another sad event is the silent death of igolocal.com. Great idea, mediocre feedback, ugly death. The problem is the utility would have been at the margins - e.g. the odd dozen arab players that lack teaching, material, opponents - but the community that would have made it viable is of course the mass of players elsewhere. Just sad. In the end http://playgo.to/iwtg/en did more for the international spread of the game than all other online initiatives together and it was made by just one guy.
I spent my spare time during the last nine month more for playing Battle for Wesnoth than Go. But improving in B4W I started to think increasingly in concepts taken or related to Go. Especially concepts concerning efficiency adapt surprisingly well to an altogether different context. I fancy the idea that I might have learned something for Go too.
May 2012
I play Go since about August 2006. For a long time this meant I was the recent beginner in town, the one who started late and made astonishing progress or so. For some years now, this isn't the case anymore. While taking Guo Juan's group class in 2010 and 2011 I learnt a lot from the teachers and I am finally a kind of shodan right now (even better in some systems), but lately I felt very strongly that it isn't the lack of knowledge that keeps me back from further progress but lack of determination (as in doing tsumego, or in fact seriously reading in the games before the move and acting on the result). I am not unhappy with what I know and can achieve on the board, but the shodan-achievement syndrome got me, I probably am not trying enough anymore or too rarely do so.
It slowly dawns on me how damn important reading is. It is no good to walk around the board without a clue about the status of your groups, I guess this is what makes amateur go so exciting, often there is an unsettled group on the board and who recognises this first wins. The board really gets smaller. There aren't "so many" possibilities anymore to make moves, but still plenty of possibilities to make mistakes. But while I concede all this, I still don't bring myself to study tsumego. One in a while is all fine, but studying them seriously... hmm.
During all these years I have been writing a lot on SL. Generic database entries for professionals, tournament results, formatting, WME'ing. And while I felt that this isn't a help to me personally, this might be very useful to the world at large. This sense of purpose is pretty much lost now, looking back Joseki Choice is probably the rare example of something actually useful I added to the english-language go beginner reading list while the rest was maintenance work and special interest stuff. On a second thought: I guess I had some other bright moments here, shouldn't edit when frustrated.