That special day is almost here!

I'm of course talking about the December 27th English release of Hikaru No Go on DVD!


What?


Experimenting with the Nirensei and Sanrensei

I think it was back in August that yoyoma had introduced me to the Chinese opening and explained how this formation gave a little more balance than the sanrensei. The latter used to be my usual opening.

Having acquired a little more confidence, I've been dabbling again with the both the nirensei and, when the situation warrants it, the sanrensei. I'm trying to get a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the star-point corner positions in relation to neighboring stones. I've adopted some of Barry Phease's advice to me and am studying the joseki related to approaches to the star-point stones as I need them (like the tsukenobi).


Finding my friends again on IGS

As most of you know, I play a lot on Kiseido Go Server these days because I like how its client is well-suited to reviewing games. I played on Pandanet (aka IGS) in my first month-and-a half. I remember meeting Zero9090 there for the first time back in July.

When my old homebuilt PC crashed back in August, I lost all of my saved IGS games and, most regrettably, my list of friends and contacts. This week, I've been occasionally playing on IGS to bring my rank there on par with my rank on KGS. I'm still 22k on IGS.

In the process, I've been running into old friends who play more frequently, or exclusively, on that server. It was nice to again meet bernix from Austria and Tlina from France over the past couple of days; and even nicer that they remembered me!


Vigilance in yose

If I had a dime for every game that I blundered in yose (endgame moves), ... well, I might at least be able to buy another book from Kiseido or Yutopian.

W-F12 would have been better than W-A12.

In my game (SGF link) with Bomberman (18k), White surprised me by ignoring a potential threat to a cluster of stones to the left. This allowed me to bring two large dead groups suddenly back to life and forced the game to an end.

I was probably ahead by only 0.5 moku before W-A12 but was probably still subject to a territorial reduction in the bottom right corner.

This game reminded me about that discussion on rec.games.go on when a beginner should resign. It's hard to answer because beginners develop their area skills to different degrees. This goes back to Ikuro Ishigure's introductory comments to In The Beginning. Professionals play consistently strong in their middlegames and endgames and can recognize when it is impossible to make-up for a bad opening. Thus they sometimes resign earlier in the game.

Among lower-kyu amateurs, it's a different story. Unless a game is blatantly lost, playing on might not be unreasonable.