As I’m traveling abroad the later half of September, I’ve been forced to play all of my September AYD games in the first two weeks of the month. This made me a bit apprehensive since that meant I wouldn’t get to enjoy appropriately spaced out reviews to gain insights to bring to the following rounds. So it was a bit of a surprise that I went 5-0 for the very first time tonight in League G.

While I’ll refrain from saying this means I making progress, I can say I’m taking my last AYD report card very much to heart. I’ve more or less kept to faster games on Foxy or WBaduk and easy tsumego problems. Outside of tsumego, book study has dwindled down to reviewing games, and currently I’m playing through Shusaku games (Ota Yuzo Sanjunbango again) as well as Lee Chang-ho (against his teacher Cho Hun-hyun). The only thing I haven’t done for lack of time is go over In-seong’s local technique lectures.

Looking back, I see now that my first season of AYD was mostly about cleaning out some DDK habits and learning how to make a stable game. My first report card identified an aggressive style so I think I tried to overcompensate. The problem in the second season was that instead of finding a balance, I became an passive player. Being passive doesn’t generally lead to good results, and by the end of my third AYD season, I’d become a pessimistic player. I unreasonably believed that if I didn’t come out of the opening with the lead, I couldn’t win the game. I would agonize over the opening and then be left with no time for critical middlegame judgements.

Playing fast games has forced me to trust my instincts, and, as In-seong predicted, they more often than not serve me well. I feel now that the middlegame and endgame provide ample opportunities to turn the tide.

I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for Go for the remainder of September as I’ll be pretty busy with work. I did buy another Go set for my travels, the Yellow Mountain Imports bamboo 0.8 inch goban with single convex Yunzi stones plus bowls. Hopefully I can convince some co-workers in Copenhagen to pick up this beautiful game over lunch.