River of Stars

Well, I found out the necessity of getting a good night’s sleep before competing. I stayed up too late, and my US Open game was a disaster. It was pretty much over before it began; I just wasn’t motivated and played speed Go without thinking. The game got into fighting and I held out for a while, but my opponent just wound up with too much territory and won by 17.5 points.

I took a nap afterwards, and played soccer in the afternoon with a few other Congress attendees. That was fun, although I got sort of dizzy and had to retire early.

Takemiya-sensei did live commentary on the final match of the Ing Cup in the evening. Feng Yun, 9-dan, got an early advantage in the opening because of a slack move by Yilun Yang, 7-dan, and Takemiya said she would probably win. However, she played incredibly aggressive moves, and a complicated fight broke out. Eventually she did win, killing most of Yang’s groups, but Takemiya-sensei said it wasn’t really necessary to play that way. Of course, it was cool seeing what a 9-dan can do when motivated. Yilun Yang hung on for a long time, even after the real fighting was done. That showed real spirit and determination, but it might have been more gracious to resign. Anyway, I guess it’s something only the person who’s playing can decide.

Lost my US Open game today. I was playing black, and the opening got into fighting pretty quickly. My groups were settled fairly quickly, but my attacks didn’t get me enough and I lost by 2.5 points.

In the evening, I played a simul against Xuefen Lin, professional 1-dan, taking four stones. The beginning was OK, but I invaded her side territory because I thought she had too much territory, and my group died.

Went 3-1 in the Die Hard tournament today. My opponent in the first round fell behind in the opening by not using his thickness to attack, but started a complicated fight in the middle game. Somehow I survived and killed his group, which gave me enough points to win.

My second round opponent also didn’t use thickness properly, and ignored my threat to his corner. After I cut his position apart, a large group died and he resigned.

I lost the third round by playing too conservatively. For most of the game, I was on the defensive and wound up letting him get too much territory. Even so, it might have been close enough to count, but I made two large mistakes in the endgame and resigned.

My last game was against Herb Doughty, one of the people who taught me to play in the Berkeley Go Club. I think my playing style resembles his a great deal, since I played more games against him than anyone else. He’s extremely aggressive, which works well against beginners who get intimidated, but it tends to backfire against stronger opponents. Almost all of his groups on the board died in our game.

The tournament as a whole was really fun, although extremely tiring. My reading and fighting ability has gotten a lot better; however, it’s still my weakest area and handicaps me in higher-level games. I tend to rely on my whole-board judgment in the opening to set up a good position and reduce the need for complicated fighting. If I want to win in the next rounds, I’ll need to be able to play strongly even from a disadvantageous opening.

Got a second win against a guy from Japan. I greeted him in Japanese, which I think surprised him a little. The game was sort of peaceful; nothing died or was even really in any danger. Because he played some slow moves, I was able to dictate the pace the entire time and invaded his framework easily. After that, since I had more territory, I secured my groups instead of attacking his. In the endgame, I hit him with some contact plays to hinder his development in the corners/sides and fix any remaining weaknesses. He had 7.5 points komi playing as white, but I counted a 3-5 point lead for black even with that, so I figured I would be OK.

The final score was 85 to 51.5 (My counting skills need a little work, apparently )

Later in the evening, there was a lecture by Takemiya Masaki, a famous 9-dan professional from Japan. It was sort of abstract and rambling, although still interesting. He said people have moves they come up with first and prefer to play, but they second-guess themselves and play other moves because they are afraid to lose. Maybe that’s true, but it’s not how I think about it while playing. Go is just a board game; in the end, winning or losing doesn’t matter at all. Yet doing my absolute best to win is what makes Go fun and interesting for me, and allows me to learn from any game, regardless of the result. I think about my moves in order to find the ones on the shortest path to victory, and assume my opponent is doing the same. I usually can’t see clearly if they work beforehand, but I play them anyway. Even if I’m not particularly skilled, I still believe in my own abilities.

Tomorrow I’ll be playing in the Die Hard tournament, instead of taking the day off. The last US Open rounds will be a lot harder, since people with winning records in the same rank bracket will begin playing each other, and I want to get in as many games as possible to prepare. I’m looking forward to challenging the stronger players.

Won my first actual US Open game today. My opponent had black and played two 3-3 points, so I played 3-5 and 3-4 to aim at making the game my influence versus his solid territory. He played right into my strategy by entering the corner and getting pressed low, and then getting attacked on the other side while I took profit. I was planning on letting his group live small and pressing down on his other corners, but he made a mistake and the group died. After his attempts to escape failed, I thought he would resign…. Then he invaded my other territory! I was getting a little annoyed at this point, since the dead group alone was enough for me to win, so I played safe containment moves around the invasion to avoid complications. Bizarrely, he switched to playing on the other side before securing life, and I killed the invasion too. Normally, I try to be polite in matches, and asking your opponent to resign is incredibly rude and usually unjustifiable, but I was getting tired and the game really was done at that point. I just said, “Uh, I think that’s it”, and he finally resigned. Since he was pretty old, I felt kind of bad. Oh well, I guess.

Later in the day, I played against Cho Hye-Yeon, a professional 7-dan from Korea, in an 8 on 1 simul. I would have liked to play with a low handicap, but I thought that might be insulting to her, so I took six stones. It still wasn’t enough for me even to last into the endgame. I didn’t self-destruct the way I did in the first simul I played; in fact, I probably was at my very best. (which is a little depressing) She just kept taking profit and reducing my territory before utterly destroying my framework in the last part of the game. Afterwards, she showed me a few simple things I could have done differently, which was nice.

In the evening, Maeda-sensei did a live commentary on the Ing Cup match between Mingjiu Jiang and an 8-dan amateur. There were a lot of interesting points, but one notable one was about winning margins. According to him, winning by a half point is better than winning by a hundred, or twenty, or ten. Winning by large amounts just means your opponent screwed up badly. If it’s a very close game, it means both sides played well, but the winner still played that little bit better and can feel good about their own skill, rather than saying, “Oh, I only won because my opponent hallucinated.” This might apply to my game today, except that I was confident I could have won even without his big mistake, so I don’t know.

I got a bye in the US Open today, because I was paired with someone who’s not even here at the Congress! That was a little annoying, but I’m still feeling vaguely jet-lagged, so maybe it was for the best. There’s still five rounds left, after all. I attended a life and death lecture by Maeda-sensei in the afternoon, and then played in a 6 person simul with Jennie Shen, professional 2-dan, in the evening. The simul game went really badly, since I was nervous and played way too aggressively. After my group was surrounded, I fought hard, but got crushed and had to resign early.