Live from Congress!

This morning I can say that I played my first real game of Go. I guess some of that information I've been soaking up this week is beginning to kick in. My Open opponent this morning was the same as my self-pair match on Tuesday, still with a 9 stone handicap. On that day he won by 113 points. Today's match the difference was around 53 points (I don't remember exactly). He even mentioned how I played much better. Of course still made enough silly DDK errors to cost me the game. I was down to a about a minute of main time when we finished the board, he still had about 30 minutes.

Instead of reacting to moves I was really beginning to at least try to think the moves through. Which way to defend, which groups to defend, which to sacrifice, etc. Made a world of difference. Still lousy at trying to read out variations but that will come with practice. I did manage to secure all four corners but lost territory on the sides to my opponent and later made a mess of some center influence I had and ended up losing some of that. In our quick review after the match, I found out I also missed several Ko battles. I manage to keep a paper recording of my game so as soon as I can get it loaded into SmartGo I'll post it over in the Game Analysis forum.

And another L19 sighting, ran into Joaz Banbeck just before the start of the Open matches this morning. It was his insistence that I record my game today and all of my games so I can review them.

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"Play confidently. Make the best of mistakes."
- Janice Kim, Learn to Play Go Vol. 1

This afternoon I thought I would try to be a good AGA member and attend some of the meetings scheduled for today. I missed the first couple of meetings, but I made the point of making to the 3:00 meeting that was addressing growing membership, retaining members, etc. I figured here I was a new player and new member so I would go see if at least they wanted to pick my brain.

The good news, another L19 sighting with rubin427 attending the meeting. The bad news, he and I made up two-thirds of the audience. So there we are, myself, rubin427, another gentleman (who actually belonged to the same club as Allan Abramson) and AGA President Allan Abramson. I personally was disappointed in the turnout and I know Allan was.

In a nutshell, one of the big issues was how can the AGA serve it's remote members (like myself and rubin427) who don't live close to a chapter club and who would have problems trying to get over the board games, especially rated games. The subject of AGA on-line ratings came up and Allan did say it was being explored. I really stressed this point especially from my perspective of showing up for Congress and playing in the Open without an official AGA rating. Other issues that came up was the voting structure for directors, ways to add value to an AGA membership so more people would be willing to join, and on-line tournaments.

Honestly, although our group was small, the opportunity to meet the the President of the association was quite cool. How many times does the membership of any kind of national group get to have a close conversation with their president?

After the meeting rubin427 and I met up and he gave me a partial game review of my game earlier and then we went through some corner plays.

And then I corrected my Go-addict mistake and met my wife for dinner.

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"Play confidently. Make the best of mistakes."
- Janice Kim, Learn to Play Go Vol. 1

Well, last day. Walking in the door this morning I ran into daniel_the_smith and he asked if I wanted a warm-up game. It quickly turned into a teaching session on some corner work and it was quite helpful. My last Open match today was against a 17K with me of course getting a 9 stone handicap. It resulted in a 30 stone loss for me which represents another improvement for me. I recorded this one on paper and once I get it loaded into sgf format I'll post it.

After lunch I went to the game analysis room being hosted by Xuefen Li. It was really interesting to hear the pro go through the games being presented by others. And while I've heard of people memorizing games, this is the first time I've seen it in action when a 4D player replayed about the first 60 opening moves from his game this morning all from memory. It was cool to watch that.

The main event of the afternoon was a pair Go match between four of the pros. In was Myungwan Kim and Cathy Li against Ryo Maeda and Xuefen Lin. Conducted as a fun game, it was held in the main playing room with players, commentators, and audience all together. The highlight though was the running commentary of Seong-Yong Kim from South Korea. I can see why he is so well known now. He would stop the action every so often and ask each of the players questions such as what were you thinking? Is your partner any good?, etc. He even had Myungwan Kim doing push-ups on stage. A good time was had by all.

During the day I did manage to grab some autographs on my fan (I had learned it is somewhat of a tradition). Autographs gathered included Yasumasa Hane 9P, Cathy Li 1P, Myungwan Kim 8P, Xuefen Lin 1P, Mingjiu Jiang 7P, and Ryo Maeda 6P. I tried to get Seong-Yong Kim's autograph but he vanished pretty quickly after the pair Go match.

So, all in all, for someone who barely knew his way around the board in the beginning going to Congress was a blast. I do have more confidence in my playing now and the help and guidance I received was immeasurable. Special kudos to daniel_the_smith and rubin427 for the teaching moments and game review. And while a lot of the lectures and game analysis were still over my head I found myself picking up little snippets of knowledge that I used in my matches and hopefully in my future matches.

There was one thing I wanted to comment on. During the week I've had game reviews and teaching moments with 14-17Ks, 7-8K, and a 1D. Up until now I hadn't really understood the difference between the different levels but working with people at three distinct levels has enabled me to catch a glimpse of that difference. And it's amazing. It was like they were looking at different boards but it was the same game. The items and concepts they commented on were significantly different. And I know now what it will take to advance.

So where to go now? Well more real-time games on KGS. I also have a load of new books to go through. I just know the journey is just beginning but now I'm ready to start.

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"Play confidently. Make the best of mistakes."
- Janice Kim, Learn to Play Go Vol. 1

glad to hear you had so much fun. I really enjoyed reading your stories. It made me miss not being there even more.

Keep at it, and don't give up! I look forward to seeing you as a rival in the future.

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be immersed

Based on the helpfulness, the "young" and the rank - I would guess maybe Karoline Burrall...

And we have a winner! Yes, it was Karoline.

_________________
"Play confidently. Make the best of mistakes."
- Janice Kim, Learn to Play Go Vol. 1