Life In 19x19

I find a bit odd, to be honest. I would probably just extend once more to D8 and then look to build up the bottom by attacking the two stones.

Interesting game with a tactically challenging end

*blows off dust* It’s been a while since i posted here and that is for a reason. My go-motivation is on a long-time low again.

China Cup
Just after the last post was the china cup in Berlin. It was my second tournament i entered as a 1k and with a 3-3 i was quite satisfied.
Since it has been over month since the tournament i don’t remember much from it, so i can’t give a longer report - sorry

After the tournament, things became slow again. I assume i had played so much in march that i burnt myself out a bit, at least with go. Never been so much in the mood for playing or studying. And this lack also showed itself in the game results.
In April i played 3-8 (this includes the 6 games from the china cup), a winning percentage of 27,5%. In may i have played even less, including a game for Nakade (private league) and the Bundesliga (team league) i played a total of 4 games so far. Standing at 1-3 currently.

It seems to be a viscous cycle. I lack game experience, so i make stupid mistakes and loose games and because i loose so much i don’t have the motivation to play more games (which would be the only thing that could help me improve).

My year goal of 250 games i can probably not reach anymore. Already 40% of the days are passed and i played only 20% of the required games so far. Even with the go-camp i doubt that i will reach that goal.

Preperations for the big trip to japan in a month are going underway, but go-wise i don’t know what to expect. I hope i can break the cycle till then.

Ok.. what the hell is wrong with me? I just played this game and lost terrible.

Two ideas:

begs for a splitting move, in my opinion.

seems to play right into Black's hands. I would try living in there immediately (C11?).

Well, take my opinion with a grain of salt, obviously... but maybe at something like C9 or D10 so you can make one eye along the side, instead?

The 3-3 invasion before played well into his plan, though, so maybe playing on the right side before hand would be better?

feels like an overplay to me. Maybe something like k18 would have been better?

So i'm reactivating this thread. *vacuums dust*

Two years is a long time. If you read the last page you will see that i did a lot go-related stuff in 2014 and beginning of 2015. I kept track of how many games i played and was a member of yunguseng. The payoff from all that was ranking up to 1k.
The downside however was that i did too much go. After the go camp in osaka in summer 2015 i stopped playing go. Playing go wasn't fun anymore and i did the obvious thing, i stopped playing. Now i was still member of our Bundesliga team and i played the occasional game and also participated in a handfull of tournaments but that's about it.
In fact i was so fed up with the game, that i didn't know if i were ever going to enjoy it again.

Then came this years EGC in Oberhof. Since the EGC moved to germany it was obvious to my my wife and i that we would attend. Looking back on my history with the game these past two years i was a bit scared how i would handle such a big go-event but in the end everything turned out fine.

The congress itself wasn't such a great success, i played 3-7 in the main tournament and 0-4 in the weekend (i skipped one round). But still some things make me very happy about it.
First of all, playing go is fun again . I want to play and maybe even read the occasional book, but no strict study schedule like in 2014. This also showed in the number of games i played, i think i played more games these last two weeks, than i played in the last two years before the congress.

Second i played most of my later games in the main tournament against stronger players, usually 1ds. And in nearly all games i felt good about my play, even getting a lead during the opening/early middle game. Even though i blew it somewhere later and lost the games, people with a rating in the 2000 - 2100 range aren't scary anymore - i'm confident i can beat them.
Actually the last game in the main tournament was my strongest opponent a japanese 2d with a 2079 rating. And i only lost that game by 1 point (well 2 since he defended at the end where it wasn't necessary).

So what can you expect in this thread? Certainly no regularity, i'm terrible with that. Instead i will probably treat it as some kind of go diary or blog, posting interesseting stuff about my game.
Maybe i will reach 1d at some point, maybe i won't, but i will have fun along the way.