Thought, experience and memory from a brain in a jar, one that sometimes has control over a thirty-two-year-old Londonite.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Herne Hill, London, United Kingdom

11 April, 2006

Goban and Breakfast Bowls

I've decided, as I generally start waking up at 6:30 in the morning at this time of year, to open my day with a Go game. The flat is quiet, and I am awake enough to concentrate. However, since the weekend I have been roundly defeated by over a hundred stones a game. I suspect I am going to have to get used to losing.

However, something weird is happening at Kiseido. Because ranks are effectively worked out on a day by day basis by looking at the whole of the playing community, it is possible for your rank to rise without actually playing. Having put the game down between January and April, my rank (still with the ever present question mark of uncertainty) has risen from 29 kyu to 23 kyu. I had decided to play only free games this week as a sort of warm up period, but have decided instead to play rank, just to try and get mine into some kind of order.

And having spent part of my lunchtime looking at the people I have been playing, I can feel a little less doleful about my resounding defeats. They all seem to be players of greater acumen than I, which stands to reason given that they beat me, but knowing what the margin is makes me feel more philosophical in my failures. I think, too, that this has already been in part to blame for my winless rise in the ranks.

What is more, I feel I have taken lessons from my recent games. I'm going to start making better use of the Kiseido server, to. They offer training games and the like, so I may try and get some proper learnin' in.

And I continue to ensnare people into the ways of the game. I've had a couple of 9x9 games with a colleague, and have promised to teach a dear friend of mine. At the moment it may be the only way I can be sure of beating anyone!

Anyhoo, back to work...

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Why not have a look at http://www.britgo.org/
and join the BGA Shodan Challenge?
And join the British Room on KGS.
I am 59 and just taken up the game..and get stuck at the 20kyu KGS invisible barrier.
But they say, 1000 games to Shodan ..so there may be hope for us yet :-)

12:21 pm  

Post a Comment

<< Home