Why, hello!

Again, it's been way too long. After a bit of a hiatus, I'm back and playing go with a vengeance. The past few days have seen me playing around 10 games per day online in addition to studying the game with the help of some books I recently purchased from Kiseido. The two I'm reading now are:

Basic Techniques of Go

Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol. 2

After reading the first chapter of BTOG and studying the first 100 problems or so in GGPFB, I played what I feel are probably the two best games I've come up with so far. I still have problems in the endgame where my mind shuts off, thinking the game is over and won, only to watch my opponent flail around and grab a seki or fill in all dame and then kill a large group that had no business dying as I pass away my moves. I actually lost 3 games this week where I was up by more than 25 points but turned my brain off within the last 5 moves to lose. Perhaps if I lose a few more like this I'll pay more attention. :)

On a fun note, last night yoyoma goaded me into playing ChiyoDad (22k at the time vs my 18k) in a 4 stone handicap match and it was a blast. I have never played with so many observers (the ChiyoMob) and the game was definitely tense, with many long thoughtful pauses. In the end, despite the fact that I think I played pretty well, he ended up winning by a nice 20+ point margin due to the fact that I just did not make headway into a large territory he built up on the left side of the board. I think I may try to play more handicap games as white in the coming days because it certainly makes me think harder about big points and territory values.




On another fun note, I won two auctions on eBay for Hikaru No Go toys. :) As I was explaining to ChiyoDad the other day, these are ostensibly for my kids, but I really wanted to play with them, myself!




My daughter enjoys watching Hikaru and perhaps these toys will help her and my infant son get more interested in playing go. I need someone to play with me on a real board!