[DGS] Rematch, and progress

B+Resign; 6.5 deom [덤;komi]

So I had a rematch with someone who I’ve played about three months ago; back then it was only the 3rd game I finished on DGS. That particular game I had played with a 4 stone handicap as black, and lost by resignation. So, when he joined my even game, I was quite excited to see how much I had caught up to them. Turns out that I definitely caught up the 4 handicap stones in those months; though this isn’t that hard, at the high geup [급; kyu] levels ranks are very volatile. Anyway, my opponent resigned at move 98, when I had a clear advantage in influence in the rest of the board.

Personally, I would have played on; I’m not entirely sure that they had lost this game by this point, the upper side might have more Black influence, but white could definitely pull off at least the 3-3 invasion in the right corner, and also work to create territory by trying to isolate some of the stones; the influence on the top does looks a bit thin. The middle White territory, if he defends at J6 to solidify it, and the side is larger than Black’s in the bottom, despite the dead white stones there. Also the right corner is quite big for White. I think it could have easily been a close game… Actually I would love to play this out with someone, though I’m not sure on how to go about it online… I guess we’d have to play out the sequence of moves up to 98 and then start play… Any takers?

For reference, the game we played three months ago is here. In that game I resigned during the middle game; I still think that there is no way I could have won that game.

Dragon Round-Robin 2015

So I’ve entered the Dragon Round-Robin  2015 Tournament – 19×19 – DDK Division; it consists of several rounds, with the first one seeing the 247 participants divided up in 27 pools. Pool 3, where I ended up, looks as follows:

Name	ID	Rank
FIRAT ASAR	Enigmight	10k (+46%)
a space	apollospace	11k (+36%)
Aimé CARON	stonerider	12k (-9%)
selbstlaut	selbstlaut	13k (-19%)
Adam Brown	Hylidae	15k (+9%)
Benjamin Hillier	CaptainSumo	16k (-22%)
W. Spencer Clark I	DoubleU	18k (-25%)
HeJin Kim	yearsago	20k (-5%)
Hanspeter Schmid	hanspi	25k (+36%)

As you can see, clearly the odds will be ever in someone else’s favour. I mean, there are 2 stones between me and the next higher ranked person, and 10 between me and the top player in the pool (if only it was a swimming pool). Though I didn’t think I’d have a chance of winning when I entered; I find that tournaments on DGS or OGS are just good ways of getting serious games. Also, the timeframe is often perfect for me, fast paced but still correspondence. The settings for this is Canadian, 1 day main time and 14 days with 14 stones; this is quite fast, a lot more so than the games in the ladder, but in order to get this tourney finished, I guess it makes sense… otherwise it would be the Dragon Round-Robin 2015-until-the-better-part-of-FOREVER. My aim is to just see how high I can get in the pool, only the top player of the pool moves on to the second round, so no chance I’d make that; but we’ll see how it goes.

Reflections on the status quo, and moving into 2015

As my leave is ending, and I am returning to the office today for another year of stress and travel, I am happy to inform you all that, as usual, I barely did any of the things I was planning for my holiday in terms of baduk related study… Nothing out of the ordinary for me, I’m always full of great plans that make me feel good; besides, I live in Cape Town… this place is just not conducive to serious study efforts over the holidays.

But to start of the year, let’s see how I ratings are looking:

Server	Rank	Ranked games
Real-life (SAGA)	19k	7 wins | 4 loss
KGS	20k	9 wins | 10 loses
IGS	17k?	5 wins | 6 loses
OGS	20k	11 wins | 8 loses
DGS	20k	19 wins | 23 loses

Overall, I’ve managed to move from 23k to 19k in about 6-7 months of playing, which isn’t all too bad. But I think my major obstacle is two-fold: not enough life and death problems, and not enough games. I played a teaching game with a 3d at the club the other day, and he remarked that my opening is very good, and my early middle game as well; where I lose is in my tendency to run away from fights. In high handicap games that usually works (up to a point), but for the most part I run from fights due to my frequent disasters in reading things out and failing to notice snap backs. In terms of not playing enough, while I play a lot on turn based servers, I think I need to get over my live online game phobia, and bring my IGS and KGS accounts back to life. One dan level member at the local club suggested that I actually play online with the board in front of me, and play – for the opening and first part of the middle game – the moves on the board as they happen online; this would maybe alleviate my tendency to lose focus of when I’m staring at the screen of death (also known as a computer screen).

I would love to make a new years resolution here, but if I do, then I pretty much assure myself of not doing those exact things… I basically need something to motivate me in doing more baduk study, and I’m out of ideas…

On wine, baduk, and a bit of shogi

W+11.5; 9H & 0.5 deom [덤, komi]

I learned a new lesson, don’t play baduk after going to a series of wine farms and consuming wine under the guise of tasting… Basically, it is a recipe for defeat. I played this game at a Korean restaurant (aptly named “Soju”… for my favourite poison when I lived in Seoul) with 10k Master; the game was the end of a day filled with wine and food. To be honest, I didn’t do half bad; I was a head by around 15-20 jib [집, moku] for most of the middle game, until I made a fatal mistake. If you look at the enclosed space of 10 jib in the middle of the bottom side, that was a capture, after 10k Master skillfully distracted me by playing in one liberty at a time while we were messing about elsewhere. The 9 white stones intruding into my territory ended up there, after my very alive group went suicidal… Or, which is a better way of putting it, I accidentally threw it under the bus… A snap back was set up, and I failed to see it in time… The shift was 29 jib, and suddenly my lead was far gone. As it was at the end of the middle game, there wasn’t much opportunity to make a come back, and I lost by 11.5 jib. The picture here was take after we removed dead stones, I forgot to do it immediately, so it isn’t that accurate a reflection of the end position…

The loss cost me about 600 rating points on the SAGA system, which took away all my advancement from the previous games I had played; I’m still 3 losses or so away from demotion, but it means I have to get a win in the next few games to stay at 19k.

The point of no return (also known as the point where I got checkmated by my traitor of a pawn… it even got promoted to general by the enemy)

Off topic, I did enjoy a try at shogi during the day; one of 10k Master’s friends is a shogi player (probably the only one in South Africa) and is proselytising severely. Shogi is probably the most complex chess variant there is, and has a steep learning curve, steeper than Western chess or janggi [장기, Korean chess]. Basically, every piece can promote, and every piece captured can be dropped back on the board as one of your own… Those two added components make it as alien from Western chess as Stratego, which by the way is probably my second favourite strategy board game. Western chess used to take third place, but I think I love the complexity of shogi, it makes Western chess feel so simple and bland. I might try it out online a bit when I have the time (someday… someday).

A baduk kinda day

On of the Cape Town club members invite people over for a day of pizza and baduk, or go as he calls it, since it has been about two weeks since we had a decent club evening. So five of us converged just outside Cape Town – to me tableview is outside Cape Town – for a few games.

B+35.5; 9H, 0.5 dum [덤; komi]

I played this game against a 10k, and won; it’s been a few weeks since I played over the board and it was great holding actual stones in my hand, rather than clicking on a screen. The game started fairly usual, with a 9 stone handicap to even out the game, and 0.5 dum [덤; komi]. We got into a fight in the lower area, and I nearly succeeded in killing his two groups until I made a tragic mistake, with him getting a snapback; instead of playing, I defended, and sacrificed four stones, rather than 5. But if you look at the lonely throw-in on the bottom of the board, well, basically all the white stones around it were dead the moment I made that throw-in. However, when he managed to capture the four stones (the four empty spaces up and to the right, shaped like that one idiotic tetris stone) it rose from the dead like a very much alive zombie. It was a mistake, because I could have easily saved them, I just didn’t think things through… In the end I still won the game, and got 500 points on the SAGA rating system; not enough for a promotion, but one more win will do that.

Afterwards I played a game against a 2d, and on the board I lost… naturally… severely… I don’t have a shot of the last position, but took a photo of the count. He won by over 80 points, though considering the rank difference it isn’t that bad a loss actually. Or at least, I keep telling myself that. Though if you calculate a reverse dum based on rank difference, it would be about 109.5 points, and then the difference in my favour would be similar to the earlier game. In part perhaps this is an indication of the amount of stones I’m under-ranked right now on the system, though that should correct itself in a few more games.

W+a whole lot…