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Journal of an American Go Player
Journal Of An American Go Player Welcome to Naustin's Journal Page 5/17/04--Thanks to Anonymous for the suggestion to insert blank lines to break up the text and hopefully make it more readable. I'm thinking tonight more about the idea of what it takes to win. I think as I said in the last entry alot of times I don't seem to want to win. Tonight I sat there looked at a move that was clearly a bad move, no subtlety involved and played it anyway. It wasn't a mouse mistake or clicko either. I have been reading a book about Erwin Rommel. Something that sticks out especially from his first world war career was his sheer determination. He would pull these incredible feats of repeatedly without sleeping or eating for days subjecting himself to extremes of temparature. He just had something inside determination or whatever, I see it in the friend I wrote about last week. That patience care and effort. I wonder if that is something that can be gained with effort or whether it's some sort of psychological issue or whether you just have to be born with it. I wonder if there should be something you are fighting for. Not in any literal sense maybe, or maybe so. Maybe just pride. Perhaps I should give up the game of go. 5/10/04--The subject today is bad beats. You know what I'm talking about. The losses that make you angry. The ones that hurt bad enough to make you want to cry. Having spent hours playing a game tonight that I started quite well only to have a blunder in the middle game fighting allow my opponent to win by about 30 points I feel I am well prepared to talk about this a little bit. I tell you I honestly felt like telling him I never wanted to play go with him again. Especialy because he was pissed because I narrowly avoided him taking a huge group of mine. ...It seems to me there are a variety of such losses. First there's the ones where I make a mistake in the very very endgame but it's one that costs me a group or something. Secondly there are the ones where I fight my heart out only to realize it wasn't good enough and no matter how hard I search my memory I can't figure out how I could have played it better and there seems no hope for improvement. Thirdly there are ones like this one where it is very back and forth and yet in the end I believe I am winning only to find out it wasn't as good as it looked. Lastly there are the humiliating ones where from the beginning my opponent has sente and the game rapidly becomes so lopsided I begin to make bad mistakes just out of dejection. ...It seems these are all times when I have to learn to toughen up. I feel I have gotten alot better at not letting a hard turn make me give up on a game. The same thing needs to be true for go. I play go because I enjoy the strategy. I like the game itself. I think it is important to remember that if all I like is winning then this is probably not the game for me. It's also a lesson in endurance and focus. I think I lose to this guy alot because in some ways he just wants it more. He sits there and thinks things through. I am good at the overall strategy of the game. Using different parts of the board to achieve an effect in a local situation and setting up an intitial position which is good. Tonight was a case in point. I had him running a whole lot from the begginning on. I was forcing him alot and keeping him small. Then in the process of chasing a group out into the center I got careless. I don't know whether it is arrogance or laziness though I know I am guilty of both. I notice that I eyeball situations alot without actually reading them out. It's kind of a cycle. I don't read because I'm not good at it and I don't get any better because I don't practice. That's laziness I guess. If I want to get better I have to build up the skills it takes to be better. Interestingly enough it seems that these are valuable skills in and of themselves. Focus, patience, thoroughness, determination. This is part of why I believe this game has spiritual value. I was thinking today though of a woman I like. I have just started talking to her alittle in a personal sense. The idea of sabaki came to mind. You have to play light, especially to begin with. Many other metaphors are possible to express the same idea. I have been working in a restaurant the last couple of days and I realized the same idea can be expressed in terms of a meal. In a meal you start with light flavors and work up to heavier things. You don't come right out with a chicken in thick cream sauce. Anyway maybe I am straying from the point alittle. Basically I am taking this opportunity to renew my determination to get better at the game of go but also to relax and enjoy it as much as possible. 4/09/04--I'm not quite sure what it is about this game that inspires the creation of journals. I have seen several people here at SL create these types of pages to record their progress or lives as Go players. I myself started a journal (at home) last year when in desperation about my future I set out to become a professional. Let me tell you a couple chapters into James Davies "Life and Death" and I had serious doubts about my prospects. Anyway, glancing at Holigor's Log today inspired me to think about putting up a page here under the same title I gave to my home journal. .... I think the topic of blocks, or bottle necks at various kyu strengths is a topic that it is interesting for kyu players to read about. This is something I have some experience with. Last year I experienced a block at about 15k KGS. It was not a very long lasting one. I would say that it was due to internal forces. By that I just mean by some lack of understanding on my part. I say this because I spent some time researching openings and I came up with a sequence for my first three moves as black. First a star point and then an ikken tobi shimari on one of the other adjacent corners oriented so the line of the stones points toward a third corner and the height of the stones toward my hoshi stone. I went on a winning streak. I was playing and studying alot at that time. My focus particularly into the first few weeks of this new year was great. .... This idea of focus seems to be another important aspect of the situation but also seems to have to do with external forces. I am at a wall now around 11k KGS. It seems to have more to do with the fact that I returned to school this January. I don't have nearly the time or energy to devote to the game that I did last year. When I play it's not nearly at the same intensity it was earlier in quantity or quality. There are definitely some conceptual points about the game I could understand better and the lack of which holds me back but I feel as if I can make some good progress when school lets out for the summer. .... So this is my recomendation for those who are experiencing these sorts of blocks. Look at external factors. You may just have to accept that you have higher priorities than Go right now and that as a result you are going to have to accept a certain amount of stagnation in your game. Also look at things like sugar, caffeine, or for smokers nicotene consumption. Do these things affect your ability to concentrate effectively? When you have done all you can about that I would recomend looking at some key area of the game you just don't understand as well as you would like. Pick something that seems interesting. I often seem to get more out of following up on my interests than by studying what someone else tells me I need to even if they are dead on in their criticism or advice. Study that thing until you can say you have a substantially different understanding of that topic and how it relates to the game as a whole. This is a copy of the living page "Journal of an American Go Player" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |