I just had one again and I can not hope to put it into words. Its when I get the chance to apply something that I recently learned from a book or a pro game or elsewhere.

This time it was a weak point in a certain shape from a by countsheep commented game between Huang Longshi and Jiang Tianyuan that is available on youtube for free. Its the move after the minute 09:00 in the linked video (which is part 3 of 4).

In my game this (according to my reading) let me get a fot back into the game.

Just had to share this ^^

If I'm allowed to share one of my most special moments:

At a tournament weekend I got a quite good first day. At the place where I would be going to sleep I played a game for fun against a 1d. I think I was something around 3k and never had beaten a 1d before. I did a quite big reading mistake and had to resign in this match. He said something like "Well I guess that is your difference to a dan" To clarify: He didn't say it arrogantly but more for fun and we all smiled about it(It really sounded like a parody of Hikaru no Go's Ogata when he says "You lost because I'm above you" ). The next day we looked at the pairings and found out that we were going to play each other. Remembering the game and words of yesterday I was fired up to play a good game. And I really found a weak point in his stones which I was able to attack. It became a large battle and I was reading very carefully to not make mistakes like the evening before. I killed some of his stones and made a lot of profit while attacking the others and I think you can imagine how happy I felt when I heard somethink like "Well done, I resign" from him

Of course, everyone is, I certainly didn't make a thread just for myself.

My first ever win against a dan player - yesterday! Beat a strong 2d who works with me he said I didn't do anything particularly wrong all game, just a couple of moves where he said I could've done something slightly better which was really awesome to hear since if I'd won by luck in some sense rather than playing good moves I would've felt cheated of the win. Coincidentally also it was exactly one year since I started playing go (well, a few hours less as I started in the evening on 14th Feb 2011). I'm rather nervously experimenting with claiming to be 1d at the moment after some of topazg's wise words along the lines of "ranks on a site are arbitrary, not necessarily a 'true' and objective strength" having won 24 of my last 25 games on KGS as a ~2-3k player . The rating inertia on there is pretty squicky.

So for me, my 'special moments' were beating my first dan player and becoming 1d in a year . I've got some really kind messages the past day or two from friends since they know how hard I've worked with go, and it all just was a lovely end to my first year. Someone very dear to me cried when I called them and told them how grateful I am for having always believed in me and for giving me the knowledge that whatever I want, if I work hard enough, I can achieve. Was quite a touching moment!

But on a less achievement-based level - throughout the year I've had some pretty awesome moments. Go is filled with a plethora of really amazing people and even when the boards are put to one side, it is the people who ultimately keep you coming back for more. Even if I never played again, I would be grateful and contented in knowing that I've met some of the greatest people of my life just out of coincidence through playing an ancient board game from Asia. That's pretty damn cool. I would enjoy playing go if I didn't know anyone else who played, simply because I think it's a cool game, but having such good people involved makes it really that much better ^_^ .

Maybe in another year's time I'll have something else to say here.