Putting the challenge back

Hello everybody!

It has been a while, but I am back!
The past few weeks have been hectic, but great. It involved a lot of moving, beach and meeting new people. It didn't involve much go, but not much is better than none at all, since I managed to squeeze a game in here and there.
Now that things are settling down, I have a bit more time for go. Luckily my study load doesn't seem to be too much (then again, this is only the second week), so that gives more time for go and this blog :)!

Regarding the blog, I mentioned before that I want to give it some new direction. That basically includes putting the challenge back in the Go Challenge!

I want to not only challenge myself, but also you, the reader.
The idea is pretty simple. Every month I will try to come up with a different challenge. These challenges won't  really be focused on increasing your strength or rank, but more on enjoying the game, and they do not have to take up extra time (unless you want them to).

Aside from that I will try to throw some random, fun and short challenges in every now and then. Of course I will do all of these challenges myself, and give updates, but I would love it if you would do the challenges with me, so let me know if you like the idea! And let me know if you have an idea for a challenge, because I only have few, hahaha.

Since March is already well underway, I will start with a monthly challenge in April, but stay tuned for a smaller challenge this week or the next.

Of course, I will also continue the Quote Mania's!

So that's the update for now! I'm looking forward to hear what you think, so leave a comment :)!

BIBA day 4 & 5

I promise I will never promise daily updates ever again.

On Thursday I was off to BIBA around noon, but somehow ended up with Blackie and Thomas in an indoor golf course. Only it's not a course. Quite honestly, it kind of made me think of an advanced Wii. I'm pretty sure I just insulted somebody, but really, it was a room with a computer and on a (non-breakable, flexible) screen was a virtual golf course. They were using real balls and sticks (I don't know the name of those things.They look like hockey sticks, so I call them golf sticks) to hit the balls to the screen. It was interesting.

After that we went out for lunch (Dia had joined by then) and that was also the last lunch with Blackie and Dia, because they were leaving that night for Hawaii, for the BIBA winter camp. Yup, a wintercamp in Hawaii. Poor them.
Anyway, we went back to BIBA after the awesome Korean food, and Blackie helped me out with some of my problems. Then he reviewed a game with us again (no chocolates this time).
I worked on some more problems, and that was actually about it for the day.

Friday wasn't too eventful either, as Blackie and Dia had already left. I replayed a professional game, worked some on my problems and watched the others review their game, and well, that was about it.

Also Friday was my 'official' last day at BIBA, as I was only studying there for one week. I am still staying at Blackie's house for the coming week, but I will mainly be sightseeing, although I might pop by BIBA sometimes.
My overall experience was quite nice. But really, a week is very, very short, and that's a shame. Although I did learn many things, I believe that I am too weak to really profit from it right now. But that's ok. I am having a good time, and I do know that if (when!) I get stronger and if I ever get the opportunity to do something like this for a longer time, I would grab the chance!
And the most important thing of this trip for me is to experience the culture. I did that, and will do it in the coming week too.

So that was it. My week at BIBA. It was a nice and good experience, although not completely over yet. I hope you enjoyed reading about my experiences :).

As for the blog, next week I am moving to Australia, and I have no idea how things will be then. I have some ideas in mind to give the blog some real direction (because face it, right now it's just me blabbering on (which is fine, but gets a bit boring after a while)), but I am not sure when I will have time. Regardless, I promise not to abandon this blog (unlike my 'daily updates', this promise I will keep).

See you soon and thank you for reading :)!

BIBA day 2 & 3

I am sorry, I suck at this daily update thing.

It's time for an update on the second and third day at BIBA :).

On Tuesday I went to the Baduk school a bit before noon, and spend quite some time working on problems. During the afternoon we got a sort of lecture from Blackie. He replayed some pro games and asked  everybody's opinions, gave comments, etc. Actually, most if it was a little hard to understand for weak little me, but it was still very interesting! He also made us guess moves (or changed the situation and then made us guess the best move), and there happened to be chocolate on the table, so whenever somebody got the right answer, they got chocolate. I got some easier questions, and won the great number of 1 chocolate in total. But hey, at least I got some :).
Afterwards I went back to my problems for a bit, and then played another game with Blackie's father. The game was a little more even this time around, although I was still losing, and then I made a few very stupid mistakes in a row, and one pretty big group died a horrible death. I resigned, but then Blackie walked by, took a 2 second glance at the board and said there was still a chance for ko. So we continued, and after an eternity of staring at the board I finally found it. My group came back alive, and miraculously I managed to self-atari it during end-game. No kidding. It was no problem to take it back and just go to counting, and I still lost by quite a few points. So basically I lost this game 3 times. Isn't that just wonderful?
Next time I play him I get two stones, so maybe I'll stand a chance. It was still a very fun game though.

Wednesday both Blackie and Dia had to play in a tournament at the Hanguk Kiwon (Korean baduk association). I really wanted to visit the Kiwon and Jon still had to buy some books there, so we went with them.
Actually, the visit was very short and I don't have too much to write about, since we were a bit late.
The bookshop in the Kiwon is actually hilariously small, but there are a whole lot of books there, it is so full that the lady had to climb over a wall of books the get the ones Jon wanted.
We also walked past the Baduk TV studio, but I didn't really see anything because nobody was there and the lights were turned off. We quickly went for lunch at a nearby restaurant (FYI, Korean food is awesome), where some of the other pro's playing that day were also eating. By that time the games were almost starting already, so we basically ran back to the Kiwon, and were just in time for the games to start.
Me and Jon were then standing in the hallway, where I was very casually (not) staring into the room where the pro's were playing. A girl got out from another room, and looked as us utterly confused. She stared at us for half a minute, turned around to go the playing room, turned back around to look at us, got ready to ask something, shook her head and then left. We're not sure what happened there. Maybe she just thought we were not supposed to be there or thought she knew one of us, but I just arrived two days ago and Jon didn't know her either. Anyway, the situation was very funny and extremely awkward.
We then went back to BIBA, where nothing very special happened.
At night Blackie reviewed some pro games with us again  and gave me some impromptu problems. He also showed us a very funny, infinite problem. I don't exactly remember it, but it involved an under the stones tesuji and some other things, creating an infinite loop of capturing and re-capturing.

So that is what I did the past few days. I apologize for the big amount of boring text and the horrible writing, but I'm tired, so please don't judge me :(.
Anyway, I hope you still enjoy reading about my experiences here.

BIBA day 1.5

Hi everybody!
As I said before, the past few weeks I have been travelling, and pretty much ignored go for a while. While I was in Hong Kong I went to the go association a few times, but not much, because I obviously wanted to see the city. And the two weeks with my parents before that I was too busy relaxing to do some very serious studying aside from a problem here and there. Regardless, Sunday I arrived in Seoul, where I will spent one week at Blackie's Internatiobal Baduk Academy (from henceforth mentioned as BIBA), and one week sightseeing.
I will try to update on what I do everyday, so if you're interested, keep reading :).

Sunday I got picked up at the airport by Blackie (Kim Seungjun 9p) and Diana Koszegi 1p. I was extremely tired, because I my flight was very early and I didn't sleep the night before, nor can I sleep on an airplane. So I was very happy they came all the way to pick me up.
I am staying at Blackie's appartment, together with his family (obviously) and the three other students, Thomas, Jon and Richard. They're all around 4/5 dan (official ranks).

On Sunday itself nothing much happened because I may or may not have fallen asleep after a while. We did have awesome homemade korean food, and I played Catan against Blackie and Diana.

Yesterday we went to the Baduk school, basically a school for kids, and BIBA has a room there. Most of the kids weren't there yet though, because they had school. There was one kid who was playing on the pc in BIBA's room, and they told me he is a Korean insei. I just happened to see that he is 9 dan on Tygem (actually I was kind of staring in awe, but that's irrelevant) (also, he's an insei so I probably shouldn't be surprised about that).

Anyway, on the first day I played 3 games. One against Thomas with 6 stones, which I won by 9 points (which is really not impressive since I started with a sea of my own stones).
One against a very young girl (I'm horrible at guessing ages, so I won't even try), with a 2 stone handicap as black. I also won, by quite a bit this time.
Then I played a game with Blackie's first and last teacher, his father. He is about 1 dan EGF. I played as black, no komi. I resigned, because I was losing by about 20+ points and we were going to eat.
After dinner I got a pretty big set of problems, all basic shapes I should know (but I don't), so I did a few of those. According to the others they're one-second problems, but they take me soooooo long, it's a bit sad, haha.

Anyway, that was my first day. Aside from the horrible freezing cold I really like it so far and we'll see what the rest of the week brings!

(Also, I'm not really a picture person, so I'll try to take some, but it won't be a lot, haha)

(And I wrote this on my phone, so the post might be a little messy, sorry about that.)

Quote Mania 5

Welcome to 'Quote Mania', the series where I take a random quote completely out of context and forcefully relate it to go!
The 5th quote to be discussed is:

'People die if they are killed.'

 It's from the anime Fate/Stay Night. (but I just saw it floating around the internet)

Alright, this is not a serious quote, but it can actually be related to go quite simply. At least, if you replace 'people' with 'stones'. Unless you want to go all nuclear tesuji on people and smash their heads in with a go board, but that is a different story all together.

You see, I know that it's very important to not leave any weak groups on the board. There are like a million (ok, two) proverbs about it, and it's mentioned pretty much everywhere.
Actually, my style of play is quite safe, but sometimes I get a little over confident. Basically I take a big point, believing that my group will life anyway. In the process I leave the group looking like this:

And usually, I am right. The group CAN live. But while I make petty moves doing that, my opponent takes control of the entire board.

Trying to lessen my 'safe-play' is all nice and well, but I shouldn't be taking the wrong approach to it and stop defending. I should defend and then attack, not attack and then defend.


The quote is true, my group will die if it's killed. The issue is that it won't get killed. It will get kicked around, tortured and left near-death. And all in vain, because the game will be lost.




PS. There probably won't be any updates for at least 3 weeks. After that I will go to BIBA and see if I can update from there, and otherwise I'll be back in 5 weeks :).

Exciting and not-so-exciting things!

This is just an update on my personal (go and not go related) life!

My internship in Malaysia is nearing it's end. I have been here for a bit over 4 months now and have had a great time. I got welcomed in the go-community here and met some great people, which is awesome. In that regard, I am a bit sad that I'll be leaving soon. On the other hand there are quite a lot of great things happening soon.

My parents will come over to Malaysia in less than two weeks and we'll travel in Malaysia for two weeks, after which they will return to the Netherlands and I'll be going to Hong Kong for a week of sightseeing.
And, the most awesome next to seeing my parents, after that I am going to study at Blackie's International Baduk Acadamy aka BIBA in South Korea for a week! Which is totally super amazingly awesome, of course!


I'll be in South Korea for two weeks in total, the first week I'll study at BIBA full-time and the second week I will stay at BIBA, but mainly do sightseeing and maybe do some studying if I have time left. I have no idea what to expect, but I am sure it will be a great experience.
Of course, I will let you guys know how it went (but it's still more than a month from now).

And after that I am off to Adelaide, Australia for 5 months of study abroad! Which is also awesome because 1. Australia, 2. summer, 3. Australia, 4. back to studying, 5. I'll get to see kangaroos, 6. summer, and 7. Australia.
Did I mention I like summer? And Australia? Because I do. A lot.

 (Admittedly, I am little scared because, well, it's Australia..)

The only downside is that I don't know how much time I'll have for go. I only have to take 4 courses, but I have no clue how much workload those will be. Also, I had more time for go here because I didn't really have another social life, which was fine, but I'm not planning on doing the same in Adelaide. And as far as I can see online, there isn't much of a go-scene in Adelaide.

Don't worry though, I will still keep playing (even if it won't be that much) and updating this blog. I am determined about not dropping go again, and even if there is only a very small go-scene in Adelaide, I will still look it up.

Regardless, all of this is still far away, and we never know what the future will bring!
For now, I can't wait to see my parents again, to travel and (of course) to study go!

Quote Mania 4

Welcome to 'Quote Mania', the series where I take a random quote completely out of context and forcefully relate it to go!
The 4th quote to be discussed is:

'If you keep running away, it will become a habit.'

Taken from the k-drama Monstar. (Ok, how did this end up in my list? I've never watched Monstar..) 

Although this might not be as relevant for players with different styles, for me this is actually a big problem.
I have been told a few times that my style of play is 'too gentle' and 'not threatening'. Which is true, because I am not a big fan of fighting.
Up until a while ago, I would even actively avoid fights because I didn't feel confident and had no idea on how gain profit from fights. Needless to say, I lost a lot of games because of this.
So, I needed to change that. I have been watching some lectures on attacking, and doing some problems everyday to improve my reading. Most of all, I try to force myself to play more aggressively during games. I made a rule for myself that I have to attack something (unless my opponent is very aggressive) and get into a fight. This might lose me some games I would have otherwise won, but I'm never going to improve if I don't practice. 

But, and this is where today's quote comes into play, it is hard. It happens to me quite often that by the end of the game I realize that I didn't actively attack anything, or that when I got attacked I just ran away, instead facing it head on. I keep running away from a direct confrontation, even when I should be able to get a decent result out of fighting. 
This habit was so 'natural' for me, that I didn't even want to get rid of it, before I realized that it was completely hindering my progress.

Of course, this doesn't only apply to fighting or the lack thereof, but also to other things. (Bad) habits are formed easily, but hard to get rid of. But even then, it is not impossible, and I believe it is important to at least try to get rid of them.

So for now, I will just keep trying to become a more aggressive player and to stop running away. 'Attack and Defense', here I come!