[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]

StartingPoints
ReferenceSection
About


Paths
BeginnerMoveFunct...

Referenced by
IGS
YiSeTol
TwoLiberties
Boshi
44PointJosekis
Overplay
NetExample7
FloatingStones
TeachingGame
Balance
KGSTutors
AnimeBoston2004Panel
ChadMillerStupidM...
MonkeyJumpProblem...
OneStoneAliveInSeki
RankAndWhatYouKnow
WhatActionsTheSto...
BottleneckTheories
OnlyPlayingBlackN...
DeadStones

Homepages
Cloud122
Hikaru79
KarlKnechtel
Migeru
Pok
Zarlan

 

Alex Weldon
PageType: HomePage    

Canadian 2d amateur. I live in Montreal and play at the McGill? go club Tuesday nights. I also play on KGS as Xopods and Spodox, and give lots of lessons.

March 28, 2004: Spodox has slipped back to 1d KGS (even dropped back to kyu-land after a losing streak, but recovered). However, I just played as a 1d in the Concordia Go Tournament, and got 2nd place. The high point of the tournament, for me, was beating James Sedgewick (6d) with 4 stones in the last round. He was otherwise undefeated. I then lost to him in a rematch to decide 1st. Still, given my performance there, and on KGS recently, I have decided to tentatively claim a rank of 2d CGA. I've been 1d since October, so it's about time I moved up a rank.

April 17, 2004: I'm being premature here, as I still have three games to play tomorrow, but I am too giddily happy not to let the world know of my success. I entered the Toronto Open as a 2d as an experiment. The result from the first day: three games, three 3d opponents (even games with komi), three wins. And here I was thinking I was a weak 2d.

April 18, 2004: Yes, definitely premature. On the second day of the tournament, my first game was vs. a 4d, and I almost beat him, but blundered a large group in yose. That rattled me enough that my play disintegrated and I lost both my remaining games as well. Fortunately, the people I needed to lose lost, and my three wins the first day were enough to carry me through to a 3rd place finish, so all is well.


My strengths, as I see them:

  • Whole board thinking
  • Defensive tesuji/shinogi
  • Turning the tables, and counterattacking an opponent if he attacks too strongly
  • Sabaki
  • Shape
  • Leaving and exploiting aji
  • Determination and finding clever moves to catch up when behind
  • Fighting in the center
  • Very good when taking handicap.

My weaknesses:

  • Killing unreasonable invasions or weak groups that probably should die.
  • Lack of attention, esp. when I'm far ahead (tendancy to blunder)
  • Too confident in my ability to rescue groups in danger. Sometimes tenuki too early and let something die.
  • Impulsiveness and lack of patience, in general
  • A rank-chameleon. If I'm playing a weaker player without handicap, I end up starting to play at their level.
  • The strange properties of the edge and corner mess me up.
  • Less good at reading than others my level.
  • Poor when giving handicap.

My style:

  • Like playing deep invasions, somewhat similar to the Korean style.
  • Dislike any game involving omoyos.
  • Oscillate between a balanced game slightly favouring territory, and a ridiculously territorial weak-groups style.
  • Almost never try to kill anything outright
  • Also getting less hesitant to engage in a complicated fighting
  • Lure the opponent into attacking my seemingly weak groups and aim at a counterattack.
  • Tend to play one hoshi and one komoku in fuseki (e.g. Kobayashi Mk II? or Orthodox fuseki). Starting to play nirensei more frequently now, especially as White.
  • Very quick to tenuki, try to be fleet-footed and take sente
  • Like to abandon stones for aji, when possible.

Pet Peeves:

  • People who only ever play Chinese Fuseki
  • The tsuke-nobi joseki, especially in handicap games
  • The komoku high approach, one space low pincer joseki
  • People who play nonsense moves instead of resigning, in the hopes that you'll blunder
  • The Big Cross? and Great Wall fusekis (I usually win against them, but still, they irritate me)
  • Kyu disease

Floris: You say your one of your qualities is whole board thinking however you also claim to be a greedy player. How can you possibly have good whole board thinking if you invade, invade, invade???

Alex Weldon: Good point. I guess it's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I have good whole board thinking. I have greedy, invasion-prone urges. On a good day, against a worthy adversary, I'm a thoughtful, strategic player, who simply has a stylistic tendency towards territorial play. If I'm in a bad mood, or overconfident against a weaker player, I give into my primal urges and invade impulsively. I'll change that line of my style-description, since it was written during a period when I was in a perpetual bad mood, and playing like that almost every game.

Cloud122: thanks for the reply im usually on when ever mostly early evening to late evening eastern US time maybe we can setup a specific time we can play



This is a copy of the living page "Alex Weldon" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.