Emotions can make you four stones wweaker. Be optimistic if you want to be strong!

If you play a very bad move, you may get angry or feel depressed.  
If you have a tendency to become like that, then you have a very hard time turning around a game.

In fact, the more angry or depressed you become, the more you make a bigger mistake, and you lose more stones. Then you will get even more angry or depressed, and you will make a even bigger mistake. It’s a vicious cycle.

If you do that, you will never learn anything from that kind of emotional game.

Believe me. I’ve experienced it many times when I was an apprentice.

In my case I tried to study at least 10 hours, often 15 hours every day, Monday through Sunday, for 365 days without going to high school. Then I lost often for almost 3 years. Can you imagine how angry and depressed I was?

If you think you made a terrible mistake and lost a game, feel free to resign a game. Then watch a movie, walk outside, or do anything to refresh your mind. If you think you calm down, then you can review your game. If you don’t want to review it, then study a Go book.

Your main goal is to become strong. So don’t let your emotions control you. You have to manage yourself to control your emotions.

People who don’t care about their mistakes and / or people who are optimistic, tend to have a higher winning ratio in general. So it’s important for you not to get angry or depressed.

My first Go teacher was really good. He taught me that when he played a mistake, he naturally got mad at himself. But then he closed his eyes and counted 10 seconds. Then he often calmed down. When he opened his eyes, he could often find a move to minimize the loss or find a move to turn around a bad situation.

So you might want to write that down, put the note on your computer before a game, and when you make a big mistake, you should read it, close your eyes, and count 10.

Also you should keep in mind the following:

1. Regardless of how strong you become, you will always experience making a mistake or a flop. We are all humans, so we all make mistakes. So you might want to live with that. Even top pros make a serious blunder. A top pro couldn’t resign a game and resulted in 35 point loss. Pros usually resign a game when they are losing 10 points or so. So counting a 35-point loss was such a shame. I guess this pro really lost his mind during a game. In fact, he did it more than once. Later he never lost his mind during a game and won more than 50 titles.

2. You may think you make mistakes more than your opponent, but that may not be true. Your opponent also makes lots of mistakes, maybe more than you do. But people tend to feel that you always make mistakes more than an opponent. When I look at my students’ games, their opponents often make more mistakes or bigger mistakes. But I don’t pay much attention to it because they are not my students.

3. You may think that you made a mistake, but it can often be a good move. I have had experience like this many times. I thought I really played badly. But when my first Go teacher reviewed it, he told me that my moves were good. When I review my students’ games, the moves they thought were bad, were not necessarily bad. Some moves are good. So be optimistic.

A state of mind can make you two stones weaker very easily, sometimes four stones weaker. I’ve experienced it many times. So the psychological effect is really big.

As long as you’re my students, I’ll help you. So be optimistic. So be optimistic, then you may very well increase your winning ratio.

via Go, Igo, Weiqi, Baduk. Kaz’s original Igo-advice & fundamentals of Igo http://ift.tt/1qw4sBP

August 01, 2014 at 02:58PM

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Euro Go Congress Updates

Ilya Shikshin, the only European with a perfect score after the first three rounds of the 58th MLily-WeiqiTV European Go Congress Main Event, lost to Chen Wang in the fourth round. Wang and Yulin Tong top the field with four wins each. Click here for latest results  and here for game records.

In other EGC news, the complete European Go Federation board was re-elected during the EGF General Meeting. “During the meeting Catalin Taranu stepped back from his candidacy for president, so no election was necessary/possible because of no alternatives,” reports EGF President Martin Stiassny. Guests at the meeting included Mr. Yamashiro 9P, Nihon Kiin VP, Yuki Shigeno 2P, IGF Advisor in Tokyo and Hajin Lee 3P, IGF General Secretary. At the 6-hour meeting, delegates from 29 countries granted observer status for Iceland and South Africa and made “some important constitutional changes,” Stiassny said. No decision was reached on the 2018 European Congress.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1rV1wmY

If you think my problems are too easy, I need to explain why I give easy problems.

Those Go players who are very passionate and eager to learn new things tend to overlook the importance of solving easy problems. Many of them think they know that stuff (some of them did say “I know this, so I don’t need them. Give me something more worthwhile” ), so they think that solving easy problems is a waste of time, and they try to solve hard problems.

So some people think that some of my problems are too easy and dissatisfactory. I hope you don’t feel that way. But if you do, then I’d like to explain why I do that.

First it takes time to learn new things.

Learning one tesuji can often take a month. “I know this problem” is not good enough. You have to be able to do that in your real game regardless of how complicated a situation is. Even if you’re drunk, you should be able to play that without thinking. (I’m not suggesting that you should get drunk and play Go. You shouldn’t. ) If you didn’t play that in my lesson or in your game, that means you lack basics. If you think my problems are easy, I have to ask you to be patient. If you cannot patiently solve easy problems, you will not be able to solve harder problems. I could give you a 6dan problem relating to a tesuji, but you won’t learn it because of the following reason.

Second you have to learn things step by step.

I know most Go teachers teach 6dan tesuji or pro level tesuji to kyu players, even 15 kyu or 20 kyu players. But that’s not a good way to teach. In fact, it’s impossible to learn a 6dan tesuji and to be able to play 6dan moves continously without learning 4 kyu tesuji, 1 dan tesuji, 3 dan tesuji, and 5 dan tesuji. You have to learn these things step by step. You also improve the ability to read many moves.

If you’re a 6dan, I expect you to learn at least 20 moves easily. I also expect you to know lots of 6dan tesuji and shapes. If you cannot read 20 moves easily, and if you do not know 6dan tesuji and shapes, you cannot see a danger ahead of you. Then it’s really dangerous to try a 6dan tesuji. It’s like flying a jumbo jet even though you just started learning how to fly..

I explained the importance of learning things step by step on my blog; http://ift.tt/1q5h6Mq

The other day, I was commenting on a 4dan student in his mid-20s, who started playing Go at the age of 16. He is much, much stronger than most of my Go students. But he made some mistakes about not hitting the head of the two stones. He knows “hitting the head of the two stones”, and he knows how important this tesuji is. Yet, he couldn’t see them in two of his games in the middle of a game. In the first game a situation was rather simple, and in the second game a situation was very complicated.

People often don’t see an important tesuji especially when there are many stones and things are very complicated. Even if you’re a 4 dan or a 5dan players, it’s still not easy.


Why?

Answer: They haven’t practiced basic problems a lot.

How are they able to see that?

Answer: Learning basic problems once or twice is not good enough You have to solve them repeatedly with regard to that tesuji. Then they can try harder problems and solve them repeatedly.

( I sometimes suggest an opening in which that tesuji comes up often. But this doesn’t work for all tesuji. But the fact is that the more he plays that tesuji in a real game, the more easily the tesuji will become part of him. )

Only then will they recognize a particular tesuji even in a complicated situation.

I can present a 6dan tesuji, but that will only be harmful to you. So I won’t do that.

But you don’t have to learn 4dan or 6dan tesuji if you want to become a 1dan or 2dan.

via Go, Igo, Weiqi, Baduk. Kaz’s original Igo-advice & fundamentals of Igo http://ift.tt/1oTaUVL

August 01, 2014 at 08:38AM

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J

US Go Congress A Week Away

Eight days of go in the city that never sleeps is just over a week away at the upcoming US Go Congress at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. There’s still time to register for the biggest go event in North American, which starts on Saturday, August 9, with nearly 500 already signed up. The schedule includes both rated – such as the US Open and continuous Self-Paired — and unrated (9×9, 13×13, Lightning, etc) tournaments, lectures and simuls with professional go players and more. Click here for the latest day-by-day schedule. “We now offer an optional meal plan in the form of vouchers to use at the nearby Café R,” reports Congress Director Matthew Hershberger. “Each voucher is worth $11 and we sell them in groups of 3 for $31.” Click here for more details on these and other costs.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1xHaB0N

The Power Report: Cho Chikun Wins 73rd Title; Meijin League; Kono’s Winning Streak Ends At 19; Iyama Catches Up In Gosei Title Match; Kisei Leagues; Obituary: Sasaki Tadashi

by John Power, EJ Japan Correspondent

Cho Chikun Wins 73rd Title:
The final of the fourth Igo Masters Cup was held at the Nihon Ki-in in Ichigaya, Tokyo, on July 12. Taking black, 25th Honinbo Cho Chikun (right) defeated Kobayashi Satoru 9P by 6.5 points to win this title for the second time. This is Cho’s 73rd title, so he extends his Japanese record. Incidentally, this was the 59th game between these two; Cho now has a lead of one over Kobayashi.

Meijin League: Kono Rin (left) won his seventh-round game, so he stays in a tie for second with Cho U 9P. Kono and Cho play each other in the final round, so, if Yamashita loses, the winner will meet him in a play-off to decide the challenger.
(July 11) Kono Rin 9P (B) beat Ryu Shikun 9P by resig.; Murakawa Daisuke 7P (W) beat Yuki Satoshi 9P by resignation.

Kono’s Winning Streak Ends At 19: A loss, to Murakawa Daisuke 7P, in the quarterfinals of the 62nd Oza tournament on July 17 was Kono Rin’s first since mid-April. His record of 19 successive wins is the best winning streak so far this year.

Iyama Catches Up In Gosei Title Match: In the second game of the 39th Gosei title match, played in the Hokkoku Newspaper Hall in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, on 20 July, Iyama Yuta (B) defeated Kono Rin 9P by resignation after 151 moves. This gave him revenge for his loss of the first game in 129 moves. Kono perhaps lost the game because of pessimistic positional judgement:  he believed that the result of the first big fight was unfavorable for him — the players following the game disagreed — so he made a deeper invasion than he would have otherwise. Iyama attacked aggressively and killed a large group. The third game will be played on August 11.
By the way, I need to correct a mistake I made in my report on the first game. I wrote that Kono suffered straight losses last year, but I was confusing this title match with the 2012 Tengen title match, which Kono did lose 0-3. In the 2013 Gosei, he won the first two games, then lost the next three.

Kisei Leagues: The first third-round game in the A League was played on July 11. Hane Naoki 9P (W) beat Ichiriki Ryo 7P by resig. This was Hane’s first win after two losses. Ichiriki drops to 0-3; he is having a tough initiation in league play. On July 17, Yamashiro Hiroshi 9P (W) beat Takao Shinji Judan by resignation. More games played on July 24 clarified the lead. In the A League, Yamashita Keigo 9P (W) beat Kono Rin 9P by resignation. Kono (2-1) suffered his first loss, so Yamashita (3-0) is the sole undefeated player. In the B League, Murakawa Daisuke 7P (B) beat Yuki Satoshi by resignation. Yoda Norimoto 9P (B) (2-1) beat Kobayashi Satoru 9P (2-1) by 1.5 points, so Murakawa (3-0) is the sole undefeated player. It looks as if we might see a replay of last year’s play-off between Yamashita and Murakawa. The latter’s continued success shows that he is close to joining the top group of tournament players in Japan.

Obituary: Sasaki Tadashi
Sasaki Tadashi 8P died of acute leukemia on July 20. Born on May 28, 1963, Sasaki (right) was a disciple of Sakata Eio, 23rd Honinbo. He became 1-dan in 1980 and reached 8-dan in 2001. Sasaki was very active as a teacher and was well known in Japan. He was also working on a biography of his teacher. According to an obituary article in Go Weekly by his friend the go journalist Akiyama Kenji, Sasaki had suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage two years ago; ironically, he was visiting a hospital at the time, so he got prompt treatment. Recently he held a party to celebrate his complete recovery. At such parties, guests are usually given a little present, and Sasaki’s showed his sense of humor, being a hand towel with a picture of a spider’s web on it. He was planning to take a group of disciples to the US Go Congress this year. Akiyama wrote that he first met Sasaki 40 years ago when he was in elementary school. Sasaki introduced himself by handing over a name card detailing his position as an insei. Akiyama thought that this was a bit over the top for an elementary-school pupil, but there was a good reason for it. When returning home late from insei games or watching professional games, Sasaki would often be stopped by policemen and scolded for being out so late, so the name card was his defense. photo by Brian Allen

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1ociQwc

What Do You Think?

An education program for middle level players…an educational library on the web site for members only… a rewards program. These are some of the ideas Central Region Director Bob Gilman is looking for feedback on in preparation for a special session at the upcoming US Go Congress to discuss ideas for overall development of the organization. Read more about these ideas and comment here.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1ociPIA

David Cho 2D Wins MGA Tourney

David Cho 2D topped a field of 30 players at the Massachusetts Go Association’s annual Skip Ascheim Memorial Go Tournament on July 13th. The winners were David Cho 2D (at right in photo at left), who took first place with a 4-0 record; Pete Schumer 2k (at left in photo at left) was second, also scoring 4-0; Brandan Williams 20k (at left in photo at right), and Alex Linden 11k, both 4-0, tied for third. “Wang Ma 7D said he would be glad to play games online with fellow members of the Massachusetts Go Association,” says Tournament Director Eva Casey.  Reach him at doctormawang@126.com. photos by Eva Casey; click here for tourney photos.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1oIr5VI

McCormick Elementary Students Learn Go (And Math)

Students at McCormick Elementary, in Chicago, IL, had the opportunity recently to learn to play go from Xinming Simon Guo 5D, a licensed math teacher and founder of the GoAndMath Academy. “Students were playing a simple game during the class, blissfully unaware that they were also working on math skills as they put every stone on the board and counted the result at the end of the game,” Guo told the E-Journal.

At McCormick, 99.5% of the students are hispanic, 50% of whom are English Language Learners. The go class is part of the Chinese Artists-In-Residency Program, co-sponsored by Confucius Institute in Chicago (CIC) and GoAndMath Academy. The Chinese language teachers at McCormick, Ms. Yeh and Ms. Huang, heard about the go program during the professional workshop organized by CIC last year. “Go is an ideal tool to achieve the goal of our Chinese curriculum–to enhance students’ understanding of Chinese culture, and reinforce their learning of language skills,” says Guo. “During the entire 2013-2014 school year, the go program offered more than 130 learning sections to more than 4500 students in Chicago public schools,”  said Jane Lu, the director of CIC and coordinator of CPS Chinese World Language Program.

“Go is not just a simple game,” says Guo. “Research by GoAndMath Academy reveals that there exists a hidden natural connection between math and go. Students can experience math concepts without even noticing them. More specifically, go helps students develop number sense, and three domains in Common Core standards: Counting and Cardinality; Operations and Algebraic Thinking; and Number and Operations in Base Ten. GoAndMath Academy designed the educational go program, which is appropriate for Pre-K through eighth grade, is aligned with the common core standards, and can be played with peers in school or around the world. This fantastic game combines math, science, art, and competition, as well as ancient oriental philosophy and culture. Go requires the highest level of critical thinking. It cultivates the abilities of observing, reflecting, imagining, reasoning, innovating, and decision-making,” says Guo.
– Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor.  Photo: Guo demonstrates the secrets of holding the go stone.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1s0l4ET

Go Classified: Go World & Go Review Collections

Go World: Complete Print Collection for Sale: All 129 issues, most in mint condition. Best offer over $1000 plus shipping, or pick them up at the Congress. Write to roylaird@gmail.com.
Go Review Print Collection for Sale: More than 100 issues of Go World‘s predecessor, an English-language monthly published by the Nihon Kiin. The first attempt ever to explain the finer points of the game in English. Starting with issue #1, this collection contains all issues  through 1972 (except for 1964 and two 1968 issues). Quarterlies from 1975 to 1977 also included. Good condition. Best offer over $500 plus shipping, or pick them up at the Congress. Write to roylaird@gmail.com.

via American Go E-Journal http://ift.tt/1s0l33I