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.

Summer holidays! new training plan? and free lessons for you

Dear readers,

Thanks for commenting on my blog!!! My original plan was to make more posts at the same time and then spread some news about some updates, but it took a while before the second post.
Anyways I was pretty busy again with 4 university entrance exams and I finally graduated from high-school!

Now I'm on my summerholidays and I don't have a slightest idea what am I going to be doing since I was a bit too lazy to find a job... +I was kinda busy until now :)
I will be going to EGC2011 in Bordeaux, that's for sure. Though I'm not that sure how I will live there since at the moment the balance on my bank account is close to 0€. I bought the plane tickets and have a free accomodation with friends. I hope everything goes well.

Now I have nearly 3 months of summerholidays before I start at university (if I get in that is), So I was thinking that since I don't have a job I could finally start training Go again!!! I've been playing actively on kgs the last 7 weeks and I noticed another major flaw in my game - Reading.... Probably that problem I mentioned in the last post has something to do with my reading skills. It seems like my mind is very fond of patterns, which I imitate with more or less with good results, but they are not enough to beat all 6-8d players on kgs. My strenght in this game is definetly my strategical planning and understanding quite well  the theory behind this game, but when it comes to more intense fighting and middle game flow, I lack very much. I think this is what is stopping me from rising to 6dan -7dan level in europe (I'm 5d now). It's a huge cap, but nevertheless fixable with loads of practice and motivation. Last autumn I was trying hard to reach 6dan level, but I gave up; It was too difficult. Now I'm ready to try again; 6dan, here I come!!!

As for last posts comments, thank you for commenting I will be trying my best to answer them.

How do you replay professional games?
-I usually replay only the first 100 moves of any professional game, since the game is usually more or less decided by then. After I've replayed a game once I replay it again from my memory. You might need to lay down the game more times before you can memorize the game, but don't give up! It's very rewarding once you master it.

Could you sometimes write posts about your time in S.Korea?
- Sure thing. I could try to make one general post about Baduk in korea and then another one of my experiences. Thanks for the idea!

Another thing is about the promotional campaign of this blog =)
Special offer: Free teaching lesson with me for all who share my blog in their facebook!!!
Send an e-mail to me and prove ur sharement. In addition there is a counter at the bottom of the page for shares on facebook. The special offer is for the first 5 people!!! So be fast :)

Keep commenting for questions new ideas. Perhaps best comments could even be rewarded!

Stay tuned! See you!!!

Hero's comeback

Hey!, I'm back.

It's been a while since I last posted in my blog, but nevertheless it's nice to start again. I was having some break from Go. It was probably very good since I managed to get some great inspiration from other hobbies and more importantly finnish my high-school!

Enough with the chit-chat let's start...

I started playing again less than 2 weeks ago and ofcourse I had to start from a bit lower since I was rusty. So I played on kgs a while as 5d and now I'm back to 6dan - more or less my old strenght, probably still not quite.




 I was at the Go-club the other day and some strong dude just wooped my ass!!!(btw, he was being an asshole)
I remembered while pondering about that match afterwords that before my break I was at a point where I should start working on improving my Go-style.
I don't know how to explain it, if you've read my older posts I might've mentioned how I can't realease my moyo-magistic style often. In other words I play very boring and so not like my style. My openings are dry and unnecessarily passive. I need some more bouncy action more suitable for my natural style. Another problem with my old style (finnish championship games) was that inorder for my opening to work, I needed enough 4th line stones + opponent must not have many strong groups - I fooled Tenba 6d pretty good with that strategy at first, but after all against weaker or smart players the style is somewhat barren.

If you have read Tenba's blog and remember his metaphor about him having the sword and me the gun, that description is probably pretty close. But that damn gun aint working!!!  It doesn't work if I give my opponent time to play hide and seek.

I usually play simple openings which give me mediocore positions, but often avoid complications way too much, giving my opponents unnecessary advantage which I later have to overcome with great difficulty.






I've come to the conclusion that my road to becoming a strong player was still at a great developing stage after coming from S.korea. The most important thing I still lacked was attitude and speciality. I've copied the wrong elements from korean professional games for my style. My basics are too firmly rooted at the moment (my natural style is being dulled by amateur baduk), so I intend to think outside the box from now on and instead of playing "best moves" I'll look for some Awesome moves!!! I'm gonna flip every stone on the go board to find what I want!!!!
Take a look at this next guy, he is not going to play hide and seek with his pray, he is just there to kill the animal and go back home with his pray! That's what my Go-style is going to look like soon!!!





Inorder for this 1st operation of "Assu's Crazy Go School" to work out I've been looking at some pro games with intense area swapping in the opening and use of thickness in action in  the middle game.
My most viewed players at the moment are:

Kang yutaek
Lee Changho
Lee Yonggu
Kim Jiseok
Heo yongho
Hong Seongji
Peng Quan
Chen yaoye
+ others

from the kgs-scene I've chosen Artem92 as my muse. His style is somewhat similar to mine, though ofcourse he already has mastered his style, and has not earned his egf 7dan for being a joke.

Please support me by cheering me! thanks for reading my blog!
Stay tuned for Go-lectures! coming soon!

Helsinki Casual & september update

Hey!

My tournament last weekend went brilliantly and I won the 1st place!!! + 100€!!!
From which 40€ is left after paying some of my debts and buying food -.-*.
Well anyways I'm really happy that I won Hki Casual for the 2nd year in a row + I got a bit tired of eating just rice/potatoes and canned beans last week =), So I'm rich now yey!.

Now to the main plan... I managed to level up to ~2437 Gors, which is far from my 9 month-goal, but it's a start. I realized that the Gor-system is actually pretty tough & It's not so easy to launch up your Gors just like that.
Losing even 1 game in a tournament can change your overall result into a negative one. Therefore the winning percentage in a tournament should be 80-100%, where 80% is usually not enough. This gave me a new aspect for my tournament games
- Every game is equally important!

I will have a small break from training Go until my history matriculation exams (1st October)are over, But after that I will start another really intense training period, which should last until my next tournament ~7 weeks later.
After mid-November I will have 4-5 important tournaments almost in a row. The results of those tournaments will show what kind of possibilities I have for reaching the top.