Code of the Samurai

Dear friends,

It's finally christmas time^^, Merry Xmas btw :).
So what's up with my life? -Well I haven't been doing much... After my trip to germany I haven't really studied Go nor done nearly anything at school....

I've been going through a mental process with thinking about my life and my doings. It all started about a week ago, a sempai from my karate club borrowed me two books, because I had asked her to borrow me some english language literature. The other book was "cry, the beloved country" (which I still haven't read) and another book called "Code of the Samurai". The latter book was written by a japanese confucian scholar and a military scientist, Taira Shigesuke, who lived (1639-1730).

"Code of the Samurai" was originally written for novice knights of the new era ("Pax Tokugawa", (1600-1950)). It provides practical and moral instructions for warriors. The introduction of the book also says that the things and principles in this book are essential in understanding the modern-day Japanese civilization realistically.

To be honest... I didn't have much expectacions about this book since it's 300 years old :), but suprisingly I found it intriguing. As I was reading through the book, somehow I could relate to the moral lessons given by this book. Especially I loved the "voice" of this book, it seemed kind but also strong in opinion. It had "strong mind", in it.


 

Before going any further, let me give you my opinion about the modern society. I think nowadays people's mind's are weaker than they were before. I mean, I see a lot of people being depressed and mentally unstable. Well, at least in finland the depression ratings are quite high. I know many people with mental problems and depression. I've heard about suicides, cutting wrists and that kinda stuff in my own life^^

Could the reason be that nowadays we are becoming more individuals, than a part of a group? We are raised more freely ,than let's say 50 years ago and taught to think by ourselves and do whatever we like. I feel however that without principles and guidance this sandbox game is chaotic. I kind of found myself looking for a direction from bushido ( ="Way of the Warrior"), which is applied all japanese martial arts. By the way I have a brown belt in karate.

So back to this book now. Let me share with you, a sample from the book Code of the Samurai:

"Laziness
As mentioned in the first chapter, for a knight who has an overlord, life is here today, uncertain tomorrow. Therefore he realizes every day that he has this one day to serve, so he does not become bored and does not neglet any of his duties. Because he does every task that very day, it stands to reason that he does not overlook anything or forget anything.
In contrast to this, when you think you will be on the job forever, then trouble starts. You get bored, so you become inattentive and lazy. You begin neglecting even urgent matters, to say nothing of less pressing affairs, putting them off to the next day or claiming that they've already been arranged, or fobbing them off on colleagues or flunkies. Since no one takes personal responsibility for taking care of them, tasks pile up and there is nothing but snafus. These are all mistakes that come from counting on having time in the future. You should be most wary of this.--"

After reading this chapter I realized that this is what I've been doing all along!!!
I have been neglecting my school work because it's "easy" and "boring" and I feel like I'm too old for high-school, so now I actually have 9 courses to do during my christmas holidays, because I've been thinking that I will have time later and then things just never get done. The sample text I gave u there continued with an example and after that he called me a moron >:), and I liked that.
Oh btw if you got disturbed by that word "overlord", just think he's ur boss, mom,dad or god :) (god here o/, though I don't really think too much about religion...). I liked this book because it used strong words such as "moron", "foolishness" and "stupidity". Somehow it made me realize that guy is pretty smart =), and that was 300 years ago!

This book gave me also some material for dealing in a real life situation I got into yesterday. I was at the go-club and there was some really bizarre person... Well this guy was 1 dan and he was talking like he was a 9 dan professional... and around the board some 4d, 2d, 1d and 3k players were listening when he was just talking about how the board position was. He somehow refused to consider other people's opinions and just laughed at them... How terrible is that! I guess he must be really stronger than 1d, since most of the stuff he said were correct too, but I don't think it's fair to laugh at other people's judgement just because they are weaker. I actually didn't follow "the code of the samurai", but I really should have -.-' As the long debate we had afterwards was meaningless... He was just talking himself in the bag all the time without believing that and I couldn't really express myself well. I tried to induce him with even a slight bit of modesty but it was useless, though he said that I'm good at rapping :). So lesson learned just leave people like that be and walk away^^.
One sempai who was listening as well actually handled that situation pretty well. He just said "Is this candid camera?" with a funny facial expression which made us all laugh :).

I definitely still have to think more about this bushido stuff...

Drop me some comments please. What do you think about this kind of stuff? do you have your own philosophies you've applied in your own lives? please share :). I'll be posting next post hopefully soon with a similar subject. Till' then C'ya!

Korean Ambassador's Cup 2010, Helsinki

Hey folks,

sorry for updating pictures so slowly on the last post...
Anyways the past week went with mostly playing Star Craft 2... I mean OOPS Go! Well to be honest after my trip to germany I started losing all hope of becoming a strong player. Insane Hwang and everyone else just kicked the crap out of me :(.

 (Insane Hwang 7 dan vs. the human punching bag from finland, source: eurogotv)



So this weekend 4.-5. of December there was the 2nd most important Go-tournament of the year, I'd say, the Korean Ambassadors Cup. This tournament has been held for just few years so far, so the tournament is quite new. Recently the Korean embassy has been sponsoring this tournament with soft drinks and nice trophies. The winner of this tournament gets a free-trip as the representative of Finland in Korean Prime-minister's Cup in South-Korea, all flights and hotels included. Other finalist get's 200€ and the 3rd place get's 100€

I've been actually having really bad luck in this tournament ever since it started. The 1st year (2007?) I wanted to take part, I was kicked out of the tournament for being late... My cellphone had died and I thought if I make it 15 minutes before the round it's no problem, The tournament organicer/referee was a monster and didn't want to let me play, on top of that I was told to "shut the fuck up". :'( (I was 16 years old then, and was late because I was talking to my mom about her alcohol problem...)

In 2008 I was in korea and could not take part. And last year (2009) my result was a complete disaster, I lost against 1d's and 3d's etc and decided not to come the next day :(.

This year I was trying not to stress too much about it. As mentioned previously, I had decided to not take Go so seriously anymore since I don't have enough skill as a go-player. For the whole tournament I was trying just not to lose so much. Well, I woke up about 2 hours before the tournament started, but accidentally fell right back to sleep after turning off my alarm clock!!! I woke up 1 hour later from my nap and realized I was late. I had a "holy-crap"-reaction, I quickly put some clothes on and ran 1 km, to a bus stop with more connections. I didn't have time to shower :/, but my last shower was in the previous afternoon, so it wasn't really that bad. I made some calls from the metro and got registered through a friend.

The first round I played against Arto Meijin, who is known as the drunken Go-master of Koivukylä. He plays with 1dan rank and often drinks a lot. If you happen to meet him, offer him a game and bet a free drink on the game. He always accepts! He is the master of smooth talk and he is cool. When asked if he would choose a hot girls tits or Christian Pop's Go-rating points (which are ~2700), he chose Pop's Gors! What a man!!!
 

(here is a picture of Arto. He's usually not available for a game at this stage anymore)



Oops, I got side tracked. Anyways, I beat him, but it wasn't too easy, but by the endgame It was over

My second game was against Lauri Paatero a nice 4d chap from my Go-club. I've beaten him many times, but he was in pretty good shape this time. He managed to get a favourable opening and I was fighting for the whole middle game agressively to get something. Lauri had done some insane trick and lived inside my huuuge corner territory with 1st line connections and eyes. luckily I managed to change the surrounding positions and killed that group as the consequence of multiattacking 2 groups simultaniously.

My 3rd game was against Matti siivola 5d. He is an old fox and has played Go for more than 30 years, I think. The opening was favourable for me, but then I started overplaying a bit. After I was behind I did some insane tricks and just killed 2 bunches of his stones. I thought I had completely won that game and didn't even bother to concentrate that well anymore. I thought if I just answer all his endgame moves, I will win... After we counted the score He had 0,5 points more than me...damnit!!! I got tricked :/

4th Game was against Janne Määttä, a young 4 dan player from Oulu. He is a bit older than me I think, so he must be around ~20+yo. The game was pretty peaceful, but it was an intense psychological war all the way to the points counting. When we counted the score, I was relieved that I won by 1,5 points as white!!!

 (Janne Määttä, left)


This was the end of saturday, I qualified to the 8 players cup with 3-1 wins... damn that 1 loss...
After the day I was just wondering how I am going to lose at the cup stage and then I won't get any prizes :/, though  I tried to make myself remember that I didn't have any goals for this tournament in the first place. Tien 6 dan is just so much stronger than me and he has a completely different thinking for Go, while I'm still struggleling with 4d and 5d players... I was guessing that I probably won't be having any success at this tournament either, so I was hoping for an easy pairing on sunday.

On sunday I was up early and arrived at the scene just on time. On my way there I was wondering about being so weak and hoping for an easy pairing, "damn, why do I think like this..."" I've lost already before I even play..." "It's up to me if I get a good result and not the pairing!!!"

Recently I've been wondering about my style, which seems to have been a big mystery even for me. In this tournament I wanted to play my own style and have as great games as I had in EGC 2009 in Groeningen, the legendary games of awesomeness (even Catalin Taranu 5p remembered that 1 year-old game of mine against Dinerstein.). My natural style is somewhat Moyo-magistic with lots of creativeness in attacking.

 ( Me playing Go)



Sunday 5th round I was playing against my friend Tuomas Hella, he is a really nice guy, about 21 years old, 4dan. Suprisingly, I managed to unleash my style ! :) The game turned out to be a really exciting one. By middle game my positions just looked so good that I just looked at the whole Go-board amazed and satisfied, "Wau, this is Go". However after getting into byo-yomi we both started making mistakes, I did kind of more mistakes because I was leading comfortably. I managed to lose my lead with the help of bad management. In the end Tuomas had a spot to just make an endgame reduction and win the game, but he didn't take it and I won by 1,5 points again, phew.

 (Tuomas Hella 4dan and his cat)



Next game (round 6) was against probably the strongest player in the tournament, Antti Törmänen 6 dan. His insight and dedication for Go is somewhat amazing. He analyses the positions and moves on the go-board extremely well and in detail!, while I for example play more by feeling. His strong insight in Go provides him with a stable playing level, while I often play crappy and good mixed (Antti told me after my 7th round game that Jeffchang egf 6dan, thinks that I play like a Chinese street-fighter) :))).

 (Antti Törmänen, 6dan at egc 2010, his blog: http://gooften.net/ )



Anyways In this game I got black and already on the 6th move, Ten played a strange move. "Can you play like that?", I blurbed out of my mouth. In my oppinion, it wasn't that good. I created a fusion-chinese with a 5-4,3-5-shimari, it was set to be Assu magistico special opening :). I was pretty afraid for the whole game. I'm not too secure as a person, especially after taking that much beating in germany the weeks before :P. So I was just trying to play careful, but somehow I still managed to unleash my natural style for the 2nd and last time in this tournament!
The opening seemed really balanced after a while, I was a bit worried because white played so fast-paced opening, rushing for territory and strong positions. I invaded his bottom side and then. The sequence he played just basically dropped my jaw. I got a nice ponnuki and with that I had created a HUUUGEEEEEE moyo!!! At this point I felt the Assu-drenalins kick in and Bang! it was time to Gear UP!!!!
Somekind of fighting occured in the surroundings of my moyo, but I managed to deal it really well.

In the endgame with the help of my 4 completely dead stones, I managed  to spot a flash of an insane sequence. In a blink of an eye Antti was faced with a strange atari inside his territory. "This is the kind of move that wins airplane tickets to Korea", said someone on the game-broadcast at kgs. The result was a big dent in whites territory.

In the end we counted the score. Black won by 7,5 points. Against everyone's expectasions I won! YUHUUU :). Indeed a suprise for me as well^^.
The Final game was against Matti Siivola 5 dan, who had gotten a slightly easier pairing and thus reached the finals. I had a horrible opening against him, For the first time in my life I felt like, I just wanna jump out of the window. My play in the opening was so bad at the completely wrong place, pls, just not in the finals!!! However after a while I started concentrating normally and our level difference kicked in. By the end many expectators gathered to watch how I won by 52,5 points.

Soon there was a prize giving ceremony and the Korean ambassador gave out the trophies for the 3 best players. I was the star of that tournament... it was so nice... I've never really won anything in my entire Go-career... *Happy!~* =)

 (from left to right: Matti 5 dan, me 5 dan, Antti 6 dan, Vesa Laatikainen 5 dan)




Just when I thought that my hundreds of hours of study in the last months had gone to waste something like this happens. o.0. I felt so dumb after Germany, not improving at all. Now that I look at it my gors have gone from 2400->2460 in 6 months. So there has been some improvement. I played 2 games I can be proud of. I hope I can play this well in the future as well.

Can someone explain to me? I don't understand anything about anything? I'm such an idiot :)

Good night~