Uxs
Table of contents |
Personal Info
My real name is Kris.
I'm from Belgium, and I used to be a member of the Go Club in Gent, the city I live in.
Online, I try to play games on DGS and on KGS.
Books I own
I probably have too many...
Theory
- Learn to Play Go (Volume 3 & 4)
Elementary Go Series:
Problems
- Graded Go Problems for Beginners (Volume 1 to 4)
- Get Strong at Invading
- Get Strong at Tesuji
- Get Strong at The Endgame
- Get Strong at Life and Death
- Get Strong at Attacking
Wishlist
- Get Strong at the Opening
- Get Strong at Joseki (Volume 1 to 3)
Maybe later:
When I'm much, much stronger:
Mini progress log
My mini log to track my progress:
- Started playing igowin at the start of 2001, while I was in Athens, officially to study other things than Go.
- Joined KGS at 30 kyu in the beginning of 2002.
- Stopped playing on KGS at about 23 kyu, in april 2002, after about 100 games, mostly rated 19x19, but also some others.
- At about that time, I think I joined the Go club in Gent.
- Joined DGS in december 2003 at 17 kyu. One and a half month later, I have 30 finished games and a rating of about 15 kyu.
- Last weekend on saturday (Januari 31st, 2004), I went to my first tournament: the 2nd Toyota Denso Oza Tournament. I took part in the family event, and finished in 199th place. While not exactly a stellar achievement, it's a start, and I can only improve. Because I only won 1 out of 4 games, I didn't get any prizes for that, but I did win some Go bowls in the lottery afterwards.Since I allready had bowls for my stones, I promptly sold them, so I would've come out with some money left, if only I didn't buy a new book: Invincible - The games of Shusaku. All in all, it was a pleasant experience and I do plan to go to another tournament as soon as a convenient one takes place.
- November 24, 2004. I'm stuck. I've only been playing on DGS and not improving at all. I feel like I keep doing the same moves all the time, more or less playing on autopilot. I should think more, read out more, and not play so automatically. At the same time, I should do more problems, and really should start playing games in real-time again. Turn-based Go is very convenient to play for me, but I guess there's a level of disconnection between playing "wrong" moves and being punished for them. This makes it harder to learn from my mistakes. On top of all that, getting my lazy ass back to the local Go club is a priority too. (axd: shame on you! you don't know the luxury you are enjoying, others don't even have a club (yet) ;-) )
- Oh yeah, I should also try to review some of the games I play, and maybe read another book. So much to do, so little time...
- December 30, 2004. I am playing less on DGS because of a changed work environment. Now to increase the amount of real-time games... I also started to do more problems. Let's hope I see the results of it in the near future.
- New year 2005. After watching 20 episodes of Hikaru No Go, I played some games on KGS.
- Januari 3, 2005. I went to the Go Club, but nobody was there. Not good for my motivation, especially since it's such a long ride to get there.
- Go club gent member 20k?: The club may have changed location since the last time you went, the current location is the "chess café". Anyway I might come monday 10/1, I usually always come, but it's the exam period.
- uxs: It was there. There was some kind of company new year's party going on. No chess boards in sight, let alone a go board.
- Januari 10, 2005. As the weather seems to be fine, I'm going to the Go Club again tonight. Somebody better be there, or I'm gonna be pissed. Last time I tried going, nobody was there and I ended up visiting a friend and watching a documentary about a gay couple in Tel Aviv. I don't really want to repeat that experience.
- Something else: I've been playing on KGS the last few days. Yesterday I lost a game with 10 or so points, but instead of clicking "done" to finalize the score, my opponent resigns. I have no idea why.
- Update: rain ! I'd be soaked if I went now. (I use a bicycle as my primary means of transportation.) So it's a no go...
- Go club gent member 20k:Rain coat and rain trousers,standard equipment for every belgian biker :).Anyway I was there, nobody came, which was my first time that happened to me in the 3-4 months i've been going to the club. I won't be going to the club for the next month(exams, duh).
- uxs: Yeah... maybe if it wasn't so damn far.
- August 9, 2005. I'm too lazy to go to the club, apparently. I'm trying to memorize some of Shusaku's games. Well, one of them. The beginning is easy, did 20 moves just tonight. We'll see how long I can keep it up.
- September 5, 2005. Not long, it seems. I did go to 100 or so moves. I'm going back to the Club tonight. They moved, so it's closer to where I live. (I went last week too, I won 2/2 games, yay.) Also, I subscribed to KGS Plus.
- September 13, 2005. Rank is going up on DGS. I wonder if I can keep it up, and if my KGS rank will follow.
- October 24. I noticed that on KGS, if you put "don't change settings" in a game announcement, almost everyone will change your settings. When I don't put it in, almost nobody changes anything. Also, my rank has gotten a question mark again because I'm winning too much. (/boasting)
- I learned something yesterday. In the accompanying diagram, the black stone is on the 3rd and 4th line, so it's part influence, part territory.
Now I've always had the feeling that a stone like that was aiming to develop more to the right than to the bottom, since its position is more to the right than to the bottom. But what someone explained to me yesterday was that in fact, it's the opposite.
I think the easiest way to explain it is with diagrams:
This is how I thought you were supposed to be developing. It looks awful, and I don't think I actually ever played like this. It's just that while I was playing the 3-4 stone, I was thinking about it like I was going to, except that then I never did.
(Off course, when instead of you play at a, you get a shimari that is aimed at the right. But that's because the stone at a would then be on the 5th line from the top, not because of the initial black stone at 3-4...)
This is how it should be happening.
Like this, it's fairly clear to see that the development in the second diagram is better than in the first. I haven't fully internalized this new knowledge yet, but I think I'm allready seeing a little bit of the effects.
Kinda weird how one can play for that long while being misguided in something that seems fairly basic and fundamental.
- October 31. I've participated in the 20th Brussels Go Tournament. I entered as 12 kyu, and won 4 out of 5 games. I lost one game against a 10 kyu, won another, and won 3 games against 12 kyu players. I got a gift certificate for winning 4 out of 5, and promptly spent it on 2 new books.
- February 12, 2006. Yesterday I went to the European Go Oza Family Tournament. There were about 130 players. I entered as 10 kyu (my official rating), and won 4 out of 4 games, which netted me a cool 100 Euros. (Predictably, I spent half of it on 2 new books right away.) My games were against two 10 kyu players, one 11k, and one 9 k. So I guess that I've now entered the ranks of the single digit kyu players, as long as I stay off internet go servers.
- August, 2008. After a fairly long Go hiatus, I started playing again. I'm also doing some Tsumego. (And in case you were wondering: it's not as easy to win lots of money with internet poker as you'd think or hope.)
Graphs and games
Reference of Terms and Concepts
This was large enough for its own page: TermsAndConcepts.
Favorite pages on SL
- Haeng-ma Tutorial For Beginners: Don't let the title fool you: I think this page is interesting for just about anybody.
- DieterVerhofstadt/Ideas on improvement. Want to improve but don't know how ? Look no further.