Round 4 getting started

Day 3 didn’t go as well as the previous two days. I lost both in the Open Round as well in a self-pair game later in the afternoon. In both cases, it came down to a lack of game experience as In-seong likes to say. I’ll get to lack of game experience in a bit. Even though my condition was poor, today was probably the most fun day I had at the Congress so far. Particularly the AYD social gathering in the evening where I finally got to put faces to KGS handles I’ve been playing for years.

Again the day started off with less restful sleep than I would have liked, but I powered through with a large cup of coffee. I had white, and the game went well for me until a life and death blunder. Without a doubt, I deserved to lose this game and commended my opponent on their patient play. They certainly had the thing I am missing - game experience.

I got lunch and talked to some Go friends. One was Andrew McGowan, a jazz piano player who I used to see at NYC area tournaments. He was playing at 1K and doing quite well in the Open.

After lunch, I played a game with Kacey Saff another AYDer. It ended in a 0.5 loss for me. We seemed pretty evenly matched, it was an active game that ended with the board well divided.

I got some delicious BBQ for dinner, and after a break I went to observe some games in the Assembly Hall. After chatting with some folks, I observed the 9x9 tournament for about 45 minutes. I don’t play much 9x9 anymore, but observing the games was reminder how fun it can be - so much life and death practice!

I then headed over to the Dakota Cabin for the AYD social gathering. After a quick 3D game review, everybody relaxed and chatted. I got to meet so many of my past opponents face to face, Gurujeet Khalsa, Mark Rubinstein, John Gipson, Frank Brown and many others. AYDers are such an enthusiastic group and our shared appreciation for In-seong’s school was palpable.

Of course, the topic of game experience came up. In-seong noted that a common obstacle for improvement is not realizing that AYD is medicine, not a regular diet. In addition to medicine, the students have to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. This is game experience - regular, consistent play.

Sure over the past 6 years I’ve played hundreds of game. But on average, I don’t play much more than the required fives games a month in AYD. And my tournament results so far are a direct reflection of this gap in my Go.

As a point of comparison, about four years ago I established a strong routine around music practice - guitar and piano. Now I simply can’t think of a letting a day go by without practicing for less than 45 minutes. If I let some time pass by without practicing out of necessity (like being at Go Congress), when I return, I really feel the missed time in my fingers. Sure some things might sound ok, but overall there is a lack of smooth consistency given by regular practice. Of course, this passes but you can’t expect the first few days of practice coming back from a break to sound very good.

So why don’t I exercise Go more? Often when I login to KGS or IGS, I watch some games, and then promptly come up with excuses not to play. One problem of course is simply time. An hour or more needs to be alloted. But now that In-seong has said fast games are fine, that’s not much of an excuse. Of course, ladder anxiety factors into this - but this is of course completely backwards. If you exercise, you improve! Not immediately, not tomorrow, maybe not even in six months, maybe not even two years. But as In-seong sez, you will have muscles, and those muscles will be backed up by theory and technique gathered from slower games and regular lessons. Eventually you will see results.

If you don’t exercise, nothing much is going to happen. Lessons aren’t going to help. One hilarious In-seong description of my game is that I’m like a 7 year old who knows kung-fu. Against a cold-blooded street fighter with big muscles, I’m bound to lose.

With these thoughts in mind, I played two fast IGS games (5 minutes for 25 moves) last night after the AYD gathering. Neither lasted longer than 25 minutes. In the first game (against 2 stone handicap) I won on time - even though I was losing on the board. In the second, I was on the verge of playing the winning move to live and sail towards a 20+ point victory when my opponent resigned.

Were these high quality games? No. Did the results really matter? No. But they were good exercise.

Getting a proper routine going takes effort but it’s mostly about momentum. After Congress I’d like to experiment with playing one 20-25 minutes game in the morning with a cup of coffee, and one in the evening - the goal being that letting a week go by without at least 5 very fast games should feel as impossible as letting a day go by without picking up the guitar and reading some music.