6 years and 7 months since the last The Way to Blackbelt PostSo, I have to admit that it has been a small while since the last post on my study Journal. There is a reason for that. This post would be a small but important revelation, so to speak.
Brief yet long overview of Go Journey, Second TryStarted playing Go in
maybe October 2011, after my
younger brother discovered the Hikaru no Go GBA ROM seemingly at random
, well actually I'm guilty of conservatism. When I was young my dad had to make me get a phone that was different to the one I had before. My brother on the other hand was always the opposite and open to trying new things, and thanks to that go is in my life, so I've been low-key grateful to him all these years but am too shy to say..
First was playing the HnG GBA opponents (a brilliant way to introduce kids into go) and watched show. After a small while downloaded a few go programs. I mainly played Gnugo, Feugo and Aya, but was hesitant to play on-line until April, when I played a few games and found I was around 13 kyu (after a 3k resigned for no reason against me, and I lost all the way to 13k

until I got upset thought I was 20k, and then badly beat one in an even game and felt guilty afterwards).
I even tried to make an insei league with bots, and I would treat different levels of Aya and Dariush each as a player, so there were about 10 to 15 players in two leagues, with me included as a player and maybe even attempting to get my siblings involved And I'd try to. . . play every game out between them in full because I wasn't able to set up interfaces to get any of them to play each other themselves. Of course it wouldn't work out, hahaI would look up to and admire the high kyu players, but never thought I'd be one

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I also would attempt the tsumego on the Hitachi website, but failed half the elementary problems and solving an intermediate was so uncommon that success called for jumping up and down.
I discovered many great Go websites, like GoGameGuru, which made me a fan of commented go games, and learngo.co.uk, and more.
Most of my beginner games, 100+, were saved and many were commented, but I lost the hard drive and need to find it to retrieve them. Didn't play on KGS for a while until late 2013, were I was surprised to find I was about 9k, but then after quickly rising to 6k, I dropped back down to 7k and stayed around there for a year. I've never usually had the chance to play a lot of go, so spend more time studying Go. I made an IGS account in October 2013. I then participated in the Milton Keynes Go tournament, travelling 90 miles, but I would have never dreamed of playing in a go tournament two years ago, as I wasn't used to socializing or doing any events, but I took he challenge, and I'm glad I did
http://britgo.org/results/2014/mk Of course I was the online player the kind lady I was playing had to remind to press their clock! However I regret telling my father when someone said I'm stronger than 8 kyu in a way that may be perceived as braggadocious. I was probably trying to impress him to show I'm achieving something with this, but I should be the kid in Karate kid whos regurgitates extreme situations call for extreme measures. Likewise onee time I was playing a double digit player online and implied to my father essentially that the player was no big deal, and then immedieately regretted it because I knew I was losing but was in denail and then I lost. Those are the only two times I did anything like that but it's still cringe.Now I seem to be improving again after being brave enough to try gtl, and because I don't have mobile access to tsumego, and because direction of play and feel for go is my biggest difficulty, for the past 9 months I would play through pro games commented or uncommented, and Top european players games, commented or uncommented. It's especially exiting to download games from international tournaments like the haunglongshi, LG, Quilong, or my favourite Samsung cup, and replay games of amateurs verses top pros. I even joined the gtl as a reviewer!
Although I might have been the person to accidently kill GTL. I felt even more guilty about it early on Go, with the help of family, has definitely changed me a little.
I made a new account on KGS, after not playing for a short while, and found that I was KGS 4kyu. I remind myself however, that it's just a number in front of a name to measure something that can't really be measured.
Now I aim to get to 1 Dan KGS, (preferably 3 Dan), and I need help. I also want to give back to the Go community by helping weaker players. Hence this Journal

. Commented games mostly played by me would be be here for weaker players to learn and stronger players to criticize my moves. You could also post games here for me and others to comment them

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This has turned out to be a longer post than expected

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Next, I'll post on the Go situation in Britain.
. . .
Of course blackbelt can refer to one dan. But in my go belts system, the black belts all have colour stripes in them until you reach 7 dan, the true 'blackbelt'. So in reality the aim of my study journal was to reach EGF 7 in the far future, pro strength. In any case, the point of the journal is actually the concept of being able understand something at multiple levels of meaning*. I think perhaps that is the true meaning of go, since the simplicity of the rules enables represents having multiple levels of complexity with a simple surface, like life itself. The real reason why I've wanted to become stronger at go isn't to do with personal achievements. I just thought if I did well at go and won things it would inspire my siblings to play go too. AND it would be a good image on the go world. I have a tendency to base my goals on what I think society most needs. I believed my maximum potential, strength, if I was born in Asia and trained in go by pros since a toddler, was about he level of top female pros, so those are who I compared myself to.
NOW, the main reason I haven't posted in a while is that after the 2015 London Open, I started getting the effects of schizophrenia. When I went to the 2017 London Open, there wasn't any point going again since my schizophrenia meant I can't really enjoy things like I use too due to the negative effects of schizophrenia. It also it means my EGF 5 dan by November 11th, 2019 goal went out the window. My communication and writing skills suffered. For reasons I don't understand since I'm a germaphobe, during this time when I caught the common varicella I ended up with benign lymphoma. Fortunately it didn't affect me in any way, so I thought my energy drops whenever I consumed high-glycemic index food was the only only thing to worry about . . .
. . . Until 2019, because in around 2019, things somehow got worse, as I believe there sprang up a virus that has effected the natural world throughout the world, changing food in certain ways. However, that alone wouldn't affect me too badly. BUT I was unlucky enough so that it just happens that if you have even a begin lymphoma, and you have non-organic food, especially those with lectins in it, it would reduce some other your bodies normal functions including messing up your prefrontal cortex, and make your schizophrenia even worse. It's powerful enough to even stop my energy-drop reaction to high-glycemic index foods completely, but it also stops others brain functions and really affects my personality in a negative way. My communication and writing skills suffered even more, which is part of why I started using the pronoun I more, although that's also down to when I read a 3rd edition remake of Ernest Gowers
Plain Words and felt called out for always avoiding using the pronoun I out of politeness. Other than than I find obsession with pronouns silly since they're a fundamentally stupid concept, especially when more than one exists. By definition of what a pronoun is, there should be only one pronoun used for everything if you are to have a pronoun. Let's just say I learnt Schizophrenia, OCD, anxiety and even depression are related in a way not properly understood by mainstream 'psychologists', fortunately I never had traditional anxiety and only milder depression but I can understand how they relate to Schizophrenia and OCD. In fact the reason I haven't just fasted and soled the problem up till now is that I'm anxious about not understanding how this mysterious illness is affecting my brain, but after three years I finally understood while watching しゅごキャラ! to , with my youngest sibling although without permission. The answer turns out to be ridiculous and embarrassing, why am I not surprised. O my mind is imagining me only in possible terms of what I could be imitating, and two, around the same time I learned go I also decided I will never be the one to propose, since I thought it was sexist to expect the male to take initiative. Yep, that's the way I thought then, but somehow it's had an effect on my brain regarding this illness? By essentially imagining the initiative of my 'heart' my go jumped back up from OGS 9 kyu level to OGS 6 kyu level in a day, and it didn't hurt my brain to think anymore For some people funerals are appropriate, but my personality doesn't match moping about me, so since Shugo Chara Doki is what helped solve my big issue, I'll say play their songs at my funeral to incentivise not holding a funeral for me.
This is my highest level yet. Okay, I'm actually less intelligent than when I was 12, and not par for par in age, I mean in absolute terms. BUT, when I was a kid, there was one thing holding me back. You see, I am naturally a kind of person that when I see an expert, I take them as an oracle. The problem is, ironically, that my learning style requires me to think for my self and understanding things on a fundamental level. I hate just memorising without understanding. In fact, while there are people with an active central brain region, I'm the opposite, and have a bad memory because my brain automatically screens everything before it enters my brain. This makes make less vulnerable to fake news compared to most people, but it does make me prone to being an absolute fanboy and mean that if I think I shouldn't bother hoping I can understand anything in go if a pro doesn't tell me directly I can't learn anything. I tried to counter that attitude with the nongshim cup commentaries, I guess, but to no avail. However, than changed with AI--well not really. When AI initially came out in 2016, I was very interested in AI matches between pros, but willfully decided to ignore AI variations and play openings the old way. In short, I was in the traditionalist camp. Yet ironically, the AI style of play was more in line with what I could naturally understand compared to human pros, if only I payed attention. An example I've mentioned before was that I couldn't for the life of me understand why 3-3 invasions couldn't be played early. Settling the position early in that way didn't seem problematic since you still have sente. Recently I've realised I might have a knack for learning from AI in a way different to most others. I don't use AI programs, which almost a complete reversal of when I started go and relied mostly on computer programs, but I'll pull a Shibano and let other people do the work and I'll look at the variations.
1-I'll try to commentate my games with beginners in mind, so they can appreciate go WITHOUT having to necessarily become stronger themselves, while at the same time if I'm blessed to have a stronger player distilled to me a few of their observations, I'm truly grateful when that occurs.
2-I'm devising a theory of personality more nuanced than the simplistic approach of mainstream psychology were scientists seem to be more concerned about propping up there ego and name rather than actual psychology. Indeed I study meta-psychology or maybe logology focusing on psychology, psychologology--the psychology of professional psychology. I don't rate most of the field that much, though. In any case, energy-wise I am an introvert. However when I was younger I always preferred multiplayer games to two-player games. This is because the vertical folding of my prefrontal cortex makes me very interested in complex interactions between multiple peoples competencies, which my brain sees as a more honest representation of a person than there sociopolitical expressions, which by definition of it's meta nature lends itself to being represented dishonestly, however if your prefrontal cortex accumulates in the opposite direction, then this is what your into maybe, and you have the ability t discern the fake from the real. If you have both, your on another level. Anyway, what it means is to me, the very best thing about being stronger. I'm a natural journalist, and the absolute best way to witness history is to be a part of history. So the best way to satisfy my desire to follow the scene o pro-level players is to become a pro-level player myself! Especially being able to understand pro games without commentary. That's the real personal reason
In my concept of a rating system, a
performance 1 dan is about between 3 and 4 EGF dan. Unfortunately, it's too late too try to reach pro level strength, but I can aim for this. But I'm still going to compare my to the standard of two stones from the fourth best human player.
Oh, and because I'm comparing myself to 서봉수 level, feel free to criticize my moves

be as severe as you have to.
Yes I am super nostalgic about everything and prone to hoarding while simultaneously being a germaphobe. Although dogs might think I'm a bigot because I like cats and I always think dogs want to eat me. I'm speciesist and need subconscious bias training to not be scared of dogs. But then I can respond by saying I think ancient egyptians are cooly and are aesthetically similar to Japan and they like cats, where Europeans gave horrific treatment to cats, so I have the right to be biased as it's payback towards Europe, so there. And cats make good go players because they're territorial. Although maybe not because they might get too greedy and give their opponents too much influence influence. Hmm

*Now I think about it, I'm always felt terrible at anything like personal statements or 'why I like things'. I just can't snowflake brag myself to success, sorry. But then I'm able to understand why I like go and explain it, so maybe I'm naturally too reserved for a self-advertising world until the moment I make a concerted effort to be more open.