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Fwiffo
PageType: HomePage
Keywords: People
AKA phong AKA Tom Schumm. 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 and have finally worked out the rust and am starting to get stronger (or, somewhat less weak at least).
I am also fwiffo on KGS and NNGS. I have a (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 The Robot
I run a robot, GnuGoCVS, on KGS. It's automatically compiled from the latest GNU Go CVS sources each night at 3am Eastern time. The robot also has a If the nightly compile succeeds, the robot will reboot itself, hopefully when it's not in the middle of a game. Because no GTP message is necessarily sent to indicate that a game has ended, the only way it can be sure that it's not in the middle of a game is to reboot right before a new game starts. This means that if you're the first person to play the robot after a new compile, it'll probably disappear and the game request will be canceled. Unless something goes horribly wrong, I should reappear with a new game offer in a few seconds. If it fails to reappear within a minute or two it means that something has gone horribly wrong and it won't be fixed until I notice its mangled corpse lying on my desk. Also, because it contains the latest patches from the CVS repository, there is the potential that the robot might be suddenly unstable or weak on occasion. It does misbehave in a few peculiar ways currently... If the robot recieved a free-placement handicap and the game is adjourned, sometimes it won't be able to resume the game. Also, it can sometimes take a very, very long time to mark dead stones (particuarly if there are a lot of dead groups or big dead dragons). Sometimes restarting the robot fixes that. Leave a KGS message for me if the robot seems to crash or do anything else weird, or even if it makes any particularly terrible moves (they can be turned into test cases that might be used to improve future versions of GNU Go). Blog...2004-04-20Finally 9 kyu. Took about the same amount of time as the last several promotions, but felt harder this time. Seems like I've been playing really poorly and lost some games that were just sloppyness. Most of the games I've won have been pretty sloppy too. Either way, my avatar is quite out of date - I'm going to go for a big redesign this time to celebrate my single digit status. Hopefully now that games are getting harder with my rank catching up, I'll also start playing more disciplined. I think if I can stay focused and careful throughout a game and not get sloppy, impatient or too bloodthirsty, I'll be playing at a 6-7 kyu level soon. 2004-04-10I've made 10 kyu officially now... I only have 13 days to make 9k, which should be easy. A strong player suggested that if I make 9k in 13 days, I should have loftier goals than 3k by Christmas. So, now the goal is Shodan by New Year's Day, 2005. It seems like a stretch, but not an inhuman task. 2004-04-03Hmm, I've got a strange problem. I'm clearly way underranked (I've been playing about the strength of 8k, but I'm only ranked at 11k). There's a 5k I play on occasion who would beat me with 6 stones only a few weeks ago, who I clobbered taking four stones recently - probably 2-3 is about right. I've played a couple good games against a 2d taking 9 stones (lost one by 10.5 and won one by 15.5). I can't improve my rank fast enough - players near my actual strength won't play ranked games against me in an even game. I'm getting really sloppy because all my ranked games (either even against a person of 10-11k, or 8-9k with a handicap) are too easy - I'm winning them all even if I don't play my best. I guess the solution is to just keep playing until my rank catches up. Unfortunately, I think playing easy games is going to hurt my progress. Also, I find it odd that I am clearly not stuck at the common 11k plateau, but was stuck at a plateau around 14k. It took me two and a half months to advance from 15 to 13k, and now I'm blowing though ranks faster than the ranking system can keep up. I can't identify anything that's caused my rapid improvement, but I'll just enjoy the ride - I don't think I'll be able to get used to losing again.
2004-03-2811 kyu already... Gotta rethink my goals. I actually think I'm still underranked because I've been winning all my games against similarly ranked players pretty easily, even when I've played quite sloppily. 2004-03-1512 kyu on the Ides of March. I played today's game poorly to start, but I was given an opportunity and made a massive kill to win. I've been winning almost all my games against players near my rank, so I think I've been under-ranked for a while - we'll see how things go over the next few weeks. I'm thinking I need to tighten my short term goals - 11 kyu by my birthday is conservative. 2004-03-03Finally made 13k for real today. Several people tell me I'm more like 8-9k, but I don't buy that. Sure my rank is lagging behind my improvement, but I don't think I could really match a 9k on even terms. On the other hand, I don't think a 9k could give me four stones either. Made a new avatar to celebrate... I'd like to get a better drawing of Fwiffo - maybe get an upgrade to a Black Spathi Squadron ship - especially if this persue and attack style I've picked up lately continues to serve me well. I've gotten a bit reckless in my ranked games lately because my rank has been lagging. I've gotten lucky in a couple where I don't think I deserved to win, but pulled the game out of my butt in the end with something lucky (like a huge kill that I got because my opponent missed something.) I need to play stronger people to get my concentration back. Things to work on
Specific problems/habits I need to fix
Things I think I might actually be good at (for my rank)
Recent milestones
Go goals
Conway's game of life meets GoI'm going to start putting together some problems/positions based on Conway's game of Life.
White decides that the ko threat at
Black is unable to make a living shape. If
This is a copy of the living page "Fwiffo" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |