Won my US Open game today by resignation, got off to a bad start, but pulled it out. Afterwards, I played in a simul with Cathy Li 1P, taking 5 stones. Did reasonably well at first, but then epically self destructed.
In the late afternoon, I played some ping pong, before an hour of soccer on a small field. Didn't do so great as keeper....
After dinner, I played in the 13x13 tournament (same format as the 9x9 one yesterday). Somehow wound up in the same group as two 3 dans and three 2 dans, but I beat both the 3 dans consecutively and won 2 out of the other three games to get to the knockout rounds.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
2011 US Go Congress: Start!
The 2011 US Go Congress started today, with something like 500 attendees (Go players, their friends/families, and Go professionals/teachers) gathering at UC Santa Barbara for a week of tournaments, lectures, and other activities.
I drove down with Jay from the Bay Area; this will be my third Congress. I hope to blog each day and take pictures, but we'll see how much energy I have after the US Open rounds each day.
Not much to report the first day, as it's dedicated to getting everyone registered, but there was a 9x9 tournament in the evening as a kind of warm-up for the main event starting tomorrow. (The aforementioned US Open is all 19x19 games, six rounds, one round a day for the next week) It was round-robin tables of six players each, so everyone in each table played five games, and the one with the best win-loss record advances to play the other table winners in knockout rounds throughout this week. I went 4-1, but my loss was against Henry, who also went 4-1 and therefore won the tiebreaker to advance. I'm still happy I played well, and it was pretty fun in any case. Looking forward to tomorrow!
I drove down with Jay from the Bay Area; this will be my third Congress. I hope to blog each day and take pictures, but we'll see how much energy I have after the US Open rounds each day.
Not much to report the first day, as it's dedicated to getting everyone registered, but there was a 9x9 tournament in the evening as a kind of warm-up for the main event starting tomorrow. (The aforementioned US Open is all 19x19 games, six rounds, one round a day for the next week) It was round-robin tables of six players each, so everyone in each table played five games, and the one with the best win-loss record advances to play the other table winners in knockout rounds throughout this week. I went 4-1, but my loss was against Henry, who also went 4-1 and therefore won the tiebreaker to advance. I'm still happy I played well, and it was pretty fun in any case. Looking forward to tomorrow!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Why I Play Go, Part 1
There are enough Go blogs out there that I don't know what to write about specifically, so I'll just start with some posts about how I first began to learn the game.
I first heard of Go by its Chinese name, weiqi, in David Wingrove's Chung Kuo novels (set in a dystopian future where China rules the world). In the summer of 2003, I decided I wanted to learn how to play, and checked out Janice Kim's Learn To Play Go series from the Berkeley library. After reading those four books, I thought I had learned enough to be pretty good. This was before I'd even played a single game. Shortly thereafter I found out about the Berkeley Go Club, and decided to pay them a visit so I could show off my awesome skills.
I'm sure people can guess what happened next.... (hint: Part 2 of this series will be titled "Getting beat down by an 8 year old girl")
I first heard of Go by its Chinese name, weiqi, in David Wingrove's Chung Kuo novels (set in a dystopian future where China rules the world). In the summer of 2003, I decided I wanted to learn how to play, and checked out Janice Kim's Learn To Play Go series from the Berkeley library. After reading those four books, I thought I had learned enough to be pretty good. This was before I'd even played a single game. Shortly thereafter I found out about the Berkeley Go Club, and decided to pay them a visit so I could show off my awesome skills.
I'm sure people can guess what happened next.... (hint: Part 2 of this series will be titled "Getting beat down by an 8 year old girl")
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