One week until the European Go Congress 2011

Hi folks.

I got some good news and some bad news. Bad news is that it seems like I didn't get a study place to the universities I applied to ;__; ... Big shock. Well it didn't come out as a complete suprise, but still... what am I going to do now :3?
-I'll probably look for a job and start saving up money!!!
Someone might think I've made a major screw up, but I think maybe it's a blessing that my university studies get delayed by a year. In fact I could learn something about life, save some money and improve my Go.



The good news is that I survived the impact of the "bad" news and came up with some other plans. In addition I've been doing pretty well in my summer hobbies, which are this year bouldering and Go.

I just started out following a new training schedule which goes roughly like this:

Monday: bouldering
Tuesday: Go-training
Wednesday: bouldering
Thursday: Go-training
Friday: bouldering
Saturday and Sunday: Go-training + free time

Here is how the shaolin monks train!

It's a loose schedule to help me keep focused for training Go. I'm hoping to make a good record in EGC this year. Also I intend to keep myself in good shape physically. As some legendary Go-master has said "physical training is also a part of one's playing strenght and tournament endurance".

And here is how I train.

I was thinking I could photoshop this picture and put a huge waterfall and some rainforest on the background to make it look higher :-). Too bad my photoshop skills are quite limited. If someone wants to do it for me I'd appreciate it!

Anyways as you can see from the picture bouldering requiers lots of arm strenght and good climbing technique. I started bouldering maybe 3 weeks ago and now i've started to go climbing 3x a week. I also bought a pair of climbing shoes for 69€. They are pretty cool!

The Idea in bouldering is actually quite similar to solving Go-problems. There are different coloured routes called "puzzles". The routes are also graded based on difficulty with numbers from 4-9?. Currently I've climbed some 5's. Solving these puzzles requiree some planning before hand, good technique and the determinance of a great Go-master! :).


Alright, next I'll give you some insight on my Go-training time.
Recently I started studying Kong Jie's games. He is a Chinese 9dan player who holds several international titles and has occationally been #1 in chinese ranking. In fact we have some things in common. We both like to lose games to weaker players!!! ,but when the time is right, we kick ass against all the top dogs!

Having seen all his official games from 2011-2010, I've come to the conclusion that I love his style. He is a master of Life and Death and has an "All round style", meaning that he is very flexible and does not play only territorywise. His typical game starts with a framework, continues with him attacking his opponent brilliantly, then making some furikawaries and winning/ losing the game.
I've gotten some pretty good pointers from his games and recently I've been OWNING on kgs. Let's hope this keeps up.

October update!!! (22nd of October)

Hey guys ( yes, now it seems there are 2 followers, grrrreat!) :)

I got through my matriculation exams and it went pretty fairly.
The goverment of finland was very nice to decide to give me some monthly student grant of 95€/month, so I will won't be so broke anymore :].
I love nemo-fishies!!! *-*




I've been quite bored since there has not been almost any go-tournaments and it's difficult to keep up with the crazy practice for almost 1 month in a row. Next tournaments in 1 month still eh...




19th of November to 29th of November I will be on a competition trip in germany, I hope to do my best in the Go-tournaments there. After I come back to finland I'll have KAC and SM tournaments (korean prime-ministers cup, finnish championship), so alltogether 4 weekends of go-tournaments in a row!

I've been in the insei-league this month as well, though it seems like I won't be getting any prize money, because other students are so passive in playing games, but the teaching games I play against Dinerstein and "insane"Hwang are very useful. Actually It's still a mystery to me how I am all of a sudden getting weekly teaching games from 2 strong players o.0, since I'm not paying anything! (though I'm working for Dinerstein a bit).

And it seems like Dinerstein found out what is my natural style o.0!!! for couple of weeks I had been wondering why is my fuseki so crappy. Dinerstein commented after our game that my fuseki was infact crappy, but he even managed to find out why! He's indeed a genious!
It seems like I was trying to play territorial style in fuseki which doesn't suit me at all, because I'm not so good in endgame. The solution is to play my own natural style of framework games, which suit me better, because I'm good in fighting!

So it seems like I'll be testing mini-chinese and chinese openings from now on!

I've been practicing L&D so I guess fighting style is better for me then... I've noticed that I can sometimes read up to 20 moves! how cool is that :) (though I suck at everything else,hehe)
Here is an example from my reading in a game with 2d vs. 4dan players.
See if you can read this out. (In the game white should've sacrificed his group with the kosumi-tsuke (my suggestion) in the center, see if you can help white to win the game after black kills those white stones (black to play and lose (less than 10 moves)))



Recently I've been having these problems to fall asleep...
So actually I solved most of the L&D problems 2AM-5AM, when I can't fall asleep...