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Voor Go initiaties in de regio Gent, ga naar deze pagina


Hello, world!

lost in space...
ice bear

I'm Alexander Duytschaever, aka "Alex", born in Gent in 1967. After having spent thirteen years as a [ext] Fighter Controller, I quit the Belgian Air Force and started a career as Software Developer in the [ext] ATM domain. [ext] BGF member since January 2004, currently performing at the local Go club in Gent.

I learned about Go some time in the 80'ies in Gent when I stumbled over a book written by Leon Vie, which activated my fascination for Go's black and white patterns.

I remember I tried to introduce Go (probably in the late 80') in a Shogi club (Richard Verkouille) that met in some cafe (forgot the name - it's a shop now) not far from the Botermarkt/Belfortstraat, without much success however. Although I remember having played the game with a school friend (David, 1983?), a few years later I moved to the other side of the country and had the occasion to really start discovering Go together with a former colleague, Christophe. Later I got Internet and we first tried the ASCII interface of NNGS - a rather unsatisfactory way to play - until DGS (June 2003) and later KGS came in sight. In 2005 I completed a kind of loop and joined the Go club in Gent.

Go is intimately woven into my daily life in several ways, my Go club is a source of joy as well as pain...

Currently I try to make Go more known in my vicinity. I try to understand how to successfully teach the rules to newcomers, even if - to be honest - I haven't seen but very few of those come back (but at least I try, heh). It is my point of view that Occidental Go players should devote at least some effort in (actively) promoting Go, rather than just (passively) enjoying it (I call this an egoistic attitude) and leaving it to newcomers to discover the game: unlike chess, Go is far less known in my part of this world, so it deserves more visibility.

Another area that interests me is the apparent beauty of the game hiding less elegant aspects (such as: why do we need all those rulesets). I need to solve the conflicting feelings I keep struggling with whenever I promote Go and refer to the elegance and simplicity of the rules ...

Feel free to browse collected Go walls at [ext] http://users.pandora.be/dual/go/walls.

I can be reached at *gmail at alexander.duytschaever@*com

More links at [ext] http://del.icio.us/axd/go

This page is becoming way too big - there's a persistent smell of [ext] http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?WikiSquatting, seems to me...


Some links

Great Quotes
[ext] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCeoKq4S9w4
nice video on YouTube
Handicap For Smaller Board Sizes
nice to know what handicap to use on smaller boards
RGG FAQ
things you always wanted to ask
[ext] http://www.ymimports.com/
alternative?

Interesting home pages

Dieter Verhofstadt
anchorman of our club
holosys
Chris Lawrence made some [ext] gorgeous pics of his freshly acquired Go set
Buitenland
Flower
drew my attention because of rules matters (don't go here if you're new to Go ;-)

Some more or less useless graphs...

[ext] Send me a message on DGS! and we can start a game; or check my user ID ([ext] axd)

Before http://www.dragongoserver.net/ratingpng.php?uid=3209&startyear=2003&startmonth=8&endyear=2004&endmonth=12&size=200.png

The transition between Aug 2003 and Jun 2004 is what I more or less expected when I entered DGS as a 30k (I was not certain about my strength; until then, a player from Leuven had rated me around 15kyu after one game). In about a year I reached my actual strength, probably frustrating some players on DGS :-( I recommend DGS newcomers to play several unrated games with selected opponents before deciding on a rank.


As from 2005 http://www.dragongoserver.net/ratingpng.php?uid=3209&startyear=2004&startmonth=12&size=500.png

Possible correlations to make the DGS graph a bit more interesting...

 2004 12 downward peak, still to investigate; the only thing I can see,
         is that I played a lot as White and often ended with resigns.
 2005 08 joined club in Gent
 2006 09 Stormy weather approaching - a low is wandering around...
 2006 10 My life is in turmoil. This morning something in me said that
         my go player might die. God I wish I could forget.
         Soaring over the abyss...
 2006 10 I think I successfully crossed the abyss.
         but it feels like I'm sliding back.
 2006 10 Definitely. I don't know when I will start playing again.
         Go left the building, all that remains is in ruin.
 2006 11 Thanks Frederik for pulling me back.
 2007 04 Another low - again those /Memories
 2007 07 Back in business...


% |<[My KGS rating is not really representative, I don't play often there for the moment - almost never lately.|http://www.gokgs.com/servlet/graph/axd-en_US.png]
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% KGS archive: [axd|http://www.gokgs.com/gameArchives.jsp?user=axd]
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