Keeping a mental note on liberties
I had been re-reading Chapter Seven of The Second Book of Go and trying to keep mental notes of my groups' liberties during matches. I've been mostly successful and attribute my last two wins on Internet Go Server (IGS) partly to regularly comparing the liberties of my groups against those of my opponents.
It's yet another brain-task that's needed for greater success in this game. Small wonder that many of us enjoy Go for the mental challenge.
It had been suggested to me that I should start getting into the practice of roughly estimating my territory as I play; and that this practice is a lot easier than it sounds. I might have to increase my match time settings if I want to try it in my games.
6th Cho Chikun Judan Cup
The 6th Cho Chikun Judan Cup began on the 20th and will continue through August 31st. This is a 43-day online IGS marathon to play as many games as possible while maintaining a 30% winning ratio of their games.
Perhaps by next year my job responsibilities will have changed enough that I might be able to participate in this event.
Fuseki Quiz 14/20
Black to play. I chose A since any White responsestill yields a good amount of corner territory.
Scoring of last weekend's Fuseki Quiz 13/20
(Jump to the last quiz!)
- A = 6
- B = 2
- C = 4
- D = 8
- E = 10, White can disrupt Black's plans for making territory in the upper right by playing R15. If Black gets to play P10, then White will have a hard time reducing this area. After White 5 in Diagram 1, if Black plays A, the sequence of White B, Black C and White D will follow.
Diagram 1In Other News: The long slow battle to restore Hetch Hetchy
An odd name, Hetch Hetchy is; but this place is a rival to Yosemite Valley. The only trouble is that it's been dammed-in and buried under water since 1923. Environmental Defense has been working on a campaign to restore the valley and recently had one minor success.
Hetch Hetchy before the dam
Hetch Hetchy today
Rendition of a restored Hetch HetchyA completed study has now shown that restoring the valley is feasible and would not impact the Bay Area's water supply. The cost, however, could range from $3-10 billion and, understandibly, that has not drawn much enthusiasm from even some of the state's most pro-environmental lawmakers.
The tufas of Mono LakeStill, Californians showed that we had the will to restore Mono Lake (the remains of what was once an inland sea). Reclaiming Hetch Hetchy would restore an even greater natural jewel to the state.
posted by ChiyoDad @ 6:08 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Guh. Speaking as a Bay Area resident..
About Hetch Hetchy- Frankly, I think having a good water and power supply is much more important and practical than having a pretty place to camp. Especially in this weather. :/
Hope you're staying cool!
Yes, I can understand the reservations about this project. Even as an environmentalist, I tend to be a fiscal conservative so I also think about all the other environmental initiatives that could be served by $3-10 billion.
The good part of the feasibility study is that it did show that alternatives could be found for routing the Tuolumne River and replacing the generated energy.
This has been about a 20-year effort to date and I don't think that action will be taken within the next decade. Still, if the right moment comes, this feasibility study will be used to move forward with the valley's restoration.
About Counting Liberties/Territory.
I'm by no means a good go player but one of my friends (5 kyu-ish) taught me a great trick on counting territory. If you count in threes you can really count up the space quite quickly. That has helped my alot in learning when to invade, and when to defend.
Who suggested it to you? I started counting seriously about two weeks ago and it has made a massive, massive difference in my play. I wish I started at 20 kyu. I went 3-1 in the last AGA tournament I was in and I owe 2 of my three wins to counting (the third was just punishing overplay). I probably could have went 4-0 but even counting doesn't tell you where, exactly, to play... ^^
I did not know how to play from 'E' in that fuseki quiz. Yet another tactic I will have to experiment with.
"Go is hard." Cho U
A series of tutoring .sgf files can be found here:
http://stevefawthrop.goplayer.info/
That said, just count in groups of anything about 2, really. I've a friend who counts in 4's, tetris-style.
My first thought when looking at the quiz was E. It's big, and it sets up for an invasion just below. The followup invasion could be big, since neither side of that group is really strong.
The lower left corner is something you wanna get into, but there are a lot of moves around there. Even if he puts up another stone in the area a big extention along the bottom from your right side should be managable.
Wish me luck! Tomorrow (Sat, 7/29) I'm going to my first Go tournament - Minnjin. It's listed in the AGA e-journal, but I don't think there's a web page. I'm a little worried - not that I won't play well, but since I have NO IDEA of my strength that I'll end up in an inappropriate group.
-A
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