The funny thing in Go is that, no matter how good you are, you will always face periods where you just can’t seem to win a game. There was a famous football-coach who said the following:

On the field anyone will taste humiliation once or twice while playing. A player that never suffered from it doesn’t exist. But the first-class players as a tribute to all their efforts will quickly stand up.

The average players will stand up after a while and the losers, will keep lying down on the ground.

[Darells Royal Letter]

I think this fits the problem pretty well. If one imagines just how unimportant Go really is to us. Professional players are under constant pressure, always being forced to evolve as their livelihood depends on it. What more is it to us than just a passtime that holds no meaning to either our wellbeing or anything else.

Later today I went to Zürich to visit a Manga-shop (Jeeg) and to my great pleasure found the latest volume of Hikaru no Go in one of the shelves. Volume 21, the one in which the representatives for the Hokuto Cup are chosen. I couldn’t wait to read it and so on my way home I unwrapped the manga and read it on the train home.  It’s hard to explain why, but whenever I’m in a slump, reading Hikaru no Go will help me pull myself together and keep going. Even though the story is pure fiction, seeing how Hikaru struggles for respect and acknowledgement is a great motivation. It also makes think back to my very first visits at a go club when I didn’t even know that something as taisha existed ^^

The lesson learned is:

Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward, towrard finding the answer.

VincentV:  How did you get the idea to draw those caricatures?
cherisse:  Those caricatures are mostly experiments you’ll notice that i use various styles depending on who im drawing too
VincentV:  Do you have a favorite amongst them?
cherisse: i like leechangho the most, though many liked the cho u style
VincentV: alright thx a lot

More drawings of her can be found at her website at deviantArt.

Round 4:  Thomas Koller (1k), again a player I knew from the Go Club Zürich. In fact the pairing programs try to avoid getting pair-ups with two people from the same club. However, even though I mainly play at the Go Club Zürich, I’m still a member of the Go Club Winterthur, so I always end up playing the guys from Zürich -_-

Anyway, the game was really enjoyable. For the first time in the tournament I managed to play a decent opening and secure a lead straight from the beginning. However I slacked off in the middlegame, allowing my opponent to secure a large center moyo. By separating 4 of his groups in the center and killing 2 of them, the game got relatively close again.  The endgame was well played by Thomas and I didn’t get to secure too many spots. I won by 1.5 points.

Round 5: This is where things started to get really ugly. At this time I was at 2-2, so this game would determine whether  my wins or losses would prevail. I was a little shocked when I found out my opponent was Brian Kleiner (3d). It’s a bad habit, but I kind of get intimidated by people that outrank me by over 2 ranks. Again I tried to make a decent opening. However I was too hasty and greedy, which led to a fight that spread all over the board, or rather a dragon of mine being chased, trying to get a second eye. If it lived, the gme was mine. If not, I was screwed. Sink or swim. Basically I was completely in the my opponents sphere of influence and tried out every cutting point and every ko in order to somehow enable the dragon to live. After having lost 2 semeais and 2 large groups, there was no way I could have as far as even thought about winning anymore. Eventually I resigned.

Despite only having won 2 games, the tournament was great fun and the location was well chosen. I didn’t attend the prize-ceremony as I had business to do, but to my great pleasure Stefan Lange (4d) had won the tournament, followed by Lorenz Trippel (1d), Josef Renner (2d) and Sébastien Koch (2d). Unfortunately I only managed to come in 12th. I’ll make sure to post the table with the final results as soon as it has been uploaded to swissgo.

After having catched my train at 11.30 am I gave Thomas (the organiser of the tournament) a call to make sure I was on the list in case i didn’t find the location in time. The first round was scheduled at 1.00 pm, so I panicked a little when I (at 1.05 pm) arrived in Wollishofen and the Jugi (location where the tournament is being held) was nowhere to be seen. Later a friendly old lady showed me the way, still I was 15 mintues late. Once I had arrived, the thing that first caught my eye was that nobody was playing. I wondered what was going on and asked Lorenz, who replied that the printer didn’t work and they didn’t have internet access to fix the problem. So the first round pairings were written by hand.

Round 1: My first opponent was Norman Frenzel (2k) from Basel. I hadn’t played any tournaments in nearly a year, so the atmosphere was kind of intimidating at first. The opening went well, as well as the middlepart of the game. I felt i was in control and was confident to manage a good result in this game… that was right before I made a rash decision which led to one group being killed ^^ Still, the game was close and I decided to keep on playing. After counting it appeared that I had won by 6.5 points.  So after having written down and handed over the results, I went outside to get some fresh air. A couple of minutes later my opponent comes out and asks me to have a look at the game as he had miscalculated my territory and I had in fact 10 points less. I was like

Basically I had now lost by 3.5 points… counting is a bitch -_-  So much for round one

Round 2: This one was against an opponent I knew well, Dan Burkolter (2k) from Zürich. I used to play him quite frequently back when I visited the Go club every week. However since my 6 month break he had become considerably stronger and  I didn’t feel very confident, additionaly I was still frustrated from the strange pseudo-loss I had experienced in the first round. So I decided to play blitz ^^ The opening was a mess, I let him secure a huge top, while I barely had any points to begin with. This changed when he decided to invade one of my positions. His group died, leaving my positions strengthened and ready to attack. Eventually he resigned, basically I just got lucky in this one.

The next round wasn’t played until 8.00 pm, so I had a little more than 2 hours to waste.  I guessed getting some food would be a good idea, so I searched for a decent restaurant nearby. The only one I found was a Pizzeria which I could have only barely afforded, so I grabed the next streetcar and was on my way to McDonalds… then however I thought Burger King might be better… or should I go to the Spaghetti Factory? To cut a long story short, I ended up in:

Chicken Strips with Curly Fries and hot sauce, nothing wrong with that   Stuffed and content as I were, I then returned to the tournament location (a 20 minutes ride) where Josef lectured me on good cuisine and expressed his reluctance towards certain other restaurants ^^.

Round 3: Sad, so sad. My opponent this time was Jonas Jermann (1d) from Zürich. I don’t like to admit it, but he’s kind of like my black sheep. I can’t seem to figure out a decent strategy to counter his go and the games always end up in a total mess. In this game it wasn’t any different. You can’t really say there was much of a Fuseki as move 15 already started a huge fight that spread out all over the board, not in my favor though. I lost two big groups and staked out a huge shaky moyo in order to maintain something like a territorial balance. The good news was that I even managed to transform most of it into territory, it even became close. However the initial loss was too big and it was too late to turn the tables, so I ended up with another loss.

Not much to say here, just:

And now I’ll try to catch some sleep in order not to suck too bad tomorrow. Wish me luck

The Enclave Blitz Division

The Blitz Division is getting ready to start up

Rules

The games must be public, unranked 19×19 games handicaps optional, maximum of nine stones.

The tournament is single-elimination, first loss prevents you from getting a prize.

The games will be scheduled by the players so that times are flexible and convenient for both of them. After being given an opponent, the player should contact him/her and schedule a game to be played within 24 hours. If there is a problem scheduling a game or contacting your opponent, or if you need more time, just email us and we will try to devise a solution.

Default settings will be 1 minute of main time with 3 10 sec byo-yomi periods, Japanese scoring, 6.5 komi for even games, and normal handicaps in the form of extra stones.

None of the defaults can be changed with or without the discretion of the players, even if both players consent. A reduction in handicap stones can occur with 10 points of reverse komi per stone (given at the consent of both players).

The use of an undo is left up to the opponent’s discretion. Anybody suspected of abuse may be disqualified from this and future Enclave tournaments.

When the game is finished, immediately send the results to blitz@kgsenclave.com

In the event that a player is unresponsive after a reasonable period of time, we may have to issue a loss by default.

If any problems arise, please contact the administration either in person (Ricky1) or by e-mail at:

blitz@kgsenclave.com

Registration

Registration is now open!

To register, a player must send an email to blitz@kgsenclave.com with the following information:

1. KGS Username, one with a solid rank
2. Current rank
3. GMT Timezone
4. Any definite time concerns (meetings on a game day, work, etc.)
5. Your name

Prizes

Sebastian Rieche, Korean 4d, is providing a game with review and answered questions for the winner. A goban will be awarded to one player from a random drawing.

Current Pairings

We haven’t started yet! Give me a break!

Final Four

Coming soon!

Tournament Bracket

Coming soon!

The tournament bracket will be kept as current as possible, and updated at least once daily.

Feel free to print the bracket and track wins and losses by hand if you wish.

Previous Winners

* Tirno [1d]
* djifmaster [6k]
* cynewulf [1k]
* mike2096 [6k]
* floss [5k]

3 days aren’t nearly enough time to study new stuff that will actually be settled in your memory and completely understood until the day of the tournament. So I’ve come to the following conclusion. I will play a best-out-of-10. So if i manage to win at least 6 out of 10 games, I will participate at the tournament. If on the other hand my win-loss-ratio happens to be worse than that, I will focus on my studies instead. Additionally I’ll try to review as many as possible out of the played games. If you have any hints or comments, they’re appreciated ^^

Current status: 2 W – 0 L

Anyway here’s the first game!

The second game almost ended in a disaster. I was lucky to pull out a win on this one.

Many Kifu of recent tournaments can be found on EidoGos “games-section”. However if you want to run a pattern-search through a certain collection, you will have to download a program with the respective function (like Drago or Stonebase). So here are, for you dear reader , compiled a bunch of useful gamecollection at your service. If you know any other collections, please don’t hesitate and post them in the comments!

• Stonebase Game Collection: more than 160 MB of games!  However most of the players Name are written in Chinese.
• Cho Chikun Collection: Cho Chikun is a japanese 9p, formerly entitled “the devil”. His games are said to be very educational.
• Hikaru no Go Collection: Most of the Kifu from the games played in Hikaru no Go.

If you have a Go site or blog,you are welcome to join the rating:
top361.com

It’s possible to vote/write reviews for rating members.
There are 2 separate section: Go Blogs and Go Websites.

I plan to announce some awards very soon for owners of the most popular websites and blogs.

What do you think about my new project? I have 9 Go-related websites now

I think the idea is pretty decent. So far no up-to-date collection of blogs and go-sites exist. Anyway, if you happen to know good sites or write some on your own, make sure to add them to the list.

P.S.: I really do hate how wordpress handles javascripts -_-

UPDATE: Alright, just got home. The evening was really memorable and a lot of fun. Li Yues teaching style is easily comprehendible, especially as she states and illustrates very clearly why certain moves are good or bad. I’ve tried to include most of the information she gave in the SGF and I think I recorded pretty much all major variations.

Unfortunately I had to leave pretty early and didn’t get to see the results of all of the simultaneous games. However there was one situation that caught my eye. In one of the games the following situation appeared on the board. How does White deal with the situation after the marked black stone has been played?