Well, it's been over a year since I posted here. And with good reason, I didn't spend much time with Go on my mind the past year.
Now, I found myself in a place where things are hectic around me and inside my head, and I felt I could benefit a lot from the discipline I had when I used to study & play Go. So I found myself drawn back into this adventure.
The aim, however, seems to be the activity on itself.
Here are some of the things I've been doing:
- Replaying Pro Games: it soothes me. When I feel stressed, from work for example, replaying a pro game on a real goban really calmes me. When I do replay pro games, they are usually, if not always, Japanese games from a while back. Ishida, Shusaku, Takemiya... I really hope I can find a physical copy of the games of Shuei one day. I mostly use books that have commentary because I love reading insights into these games. I don't understand most of what's going on otherwise, obviously.
Also, I often use these Pro games to do some excercises. Like in the middle of the game, I could stop and then just practice counting. Or read out a particular cut. The pro's don't cut, so it must not work, but why doesn't it work? Try to figure that out.
- L&D: it helps bring discipline in my life. And it's a fun, engaging activity. It's puzzle after puzzle and I find myself really enjoying them. Sometimes I spend minutes on a puzzle, just trying to read out as many variations as I can, even when some moves are obvious fails, I like to see how well I can read them out.
- Watching Go content: For me, the lore and history of Go is perhaps even the most appealing aspect of the game. I'm a sucker for these things and in Go, I can get lost in all the stories and anecdotes. I've been reading and watching videos about Lee Sedol's retirement games, about his Go career, about Shusaku's life, about Cho Chikun's weird way of playing, his mumbling and creativity... I love learning about these things. I love to know that there are stories behind (brilliant) moves. That's also the reason that AI Go doesn't interest me one bit. Sure, they play Go at a higher level than ever, but I don't care about that. It's about the stories, the human element, the emotions. It's about how the Go board is an expression of these personalities, and not about the best possible play.
- Re-re-re-visiting Tesuji by James Davies. Now that I've gotten a lot of distance from my own Go playing, I realize what my biggest weakness was/is. It's tesuji and reading (ingame). I'm okay (well, relatively to my own skills of course) with big board thinking, strategy, endgame, opening. But I'm bad at tactics, at local fights, at tesuji.
I think Dwyrin's Back to Basics series was also a bad influence for that. OF course, it's a great Go series and I do recomment it, and still follow it, but you can take the wrong message from it. His saying you "don't need to read" to play strong is not black & white. It's just like I would say that to a beginner, but I can immediately see some things working and others not, while for that beginner it's important to figure it out. So, sure, dwyrin doesn't need to read to play a 1 dan easily and win, by simply his basic way of playing. But only because he subconsciously reads out a lot during playing.
Anyway, I haven't really gone back to playing games myself (except in class to teach the kids and with a friend who wants to learn), and I'm not sure yet how I'll do it. I really dislike online playing, but I won't have much choice. Maybe I'll go back to playing less but reviewing every game instead of trying to play a lot. Because my aim is not necessarily to gain in rank (I wouldn't mind, of course), but I do want to become a better player. (or, rather, I want to understand the game better)
Right now I dropped a few stones in rank after this year off. I'm probably 10 kyu on OGS. But honestly, I don't really care. If I do start playing again, I just want to find my own creative way of doing it again. I'd rather play free and remain 10 kyu forever, than get back to 6-7 kyu and get stuck again, feeling uninspired and scared to lose.
So we'll see. Anyway, good to be back at Go. I think you can never really leave it behind
PS. Probably the most important thing. No, I haven't watched Hikaru No Go again, but I probably will soon :p