Life In 19x19

very interesting journal! particularly about how those kids are learning go by fast forward play and fast forward review! makes me want to take the next plane to Korea and check it all out by myself:)

Having tea (and biscuits, how English!) in the temple.



Playing baduk with the Korean guys on Sunday morning. I lost my game, another big fighting game with lots of semeais.



We made paper lotus flower lanterns in the afternoon, here's Thomas making a funny face behind Sai.

On the Sunday evening there was a music concert in front of the temple with a mixture of traditional Korean music and modern like K-pop etc. The Tygem 9 dan monk sang in it, what an all-round awesome guy! (He's also a master at some martial art that I forget the name of -- akito?)





The temple food was pretty basic: rice and seaweed soup and vegetables; no meat . Fortunately we ate out in restaurants most evenings so got some meat then, for example a tasty lamb ribs stew.

As well as the main ornamental temple building there were other buildings for the living areas, canteen, offices and also this baduk room with an expansive library. One day we were playing some games there and then a load of kids came in for a lesson:



The temple was near Seosan, a city south west of Seoul and Sanbon, and we went to another club to play some games and eat pizza and fried chicken. I played a kid (Tygem 5d, often people use Tygem ranks when arranging handicaps for games) who I had beaten as white with no komi by half a point the day before (I was leading comfortably after the opening so played slackly and he caught up a lot from a big yose mistake of mine) and crushed him this time after he played a peep that wasn't really sente and I resisted and broke through a one point jump and killed stuff.

Here's Richard playing the teacher from earlier, he won by 4.5 as black giving no komi.



And Thomas had a very good game against this guy, the 2nd best player in the province, but missed a tesuji and lost some stones in late middlegame and lost by 3.5. The kid I played is on the right.

Making bigger paper lanterns:





We ate a meal monk style in the temple, using 4 bowls (one for rice, one for soup, one for water, one for vegetables) and having to do serve things correctly etc. Sinim (polite title for a monk) could only speak a little English so it was fortunate Augustine was there to translate for us.



Another thing we did in the temple was 108 bows whilst making prayer beads (108 beads, 1 per bow); it was rather tiring and the fidgety thread made it rather hard to concentrate on the meditative soundtrack, but it was a good experience.

Patrick Pitters from Germany who currently is at the same place as you are also posted some photos and his report in the German DGoB forum: Patrick @ BIBA2013

I really enjoy your stories and photos. Thank you very much!

Hi again folks!

Apologies for falling off the internet and not updating my journal, but there is a wonderful reason for it: I fell in love with Sai so spending time with her became a higher priority than updating this blog . I cancelled my trip to Japan to stay with her in Korea; here we are visiting Namdaemun market in Seoul.



As planned I went to the EGC in Poland. I did ok with 6 wins out of 10 in the main tournament to come 38th (and top Brit ahead of Andrew Kay on 5/10 in 58th, see http://egc2013.go.art.pl/EGC2013_main.html) but was a bit disappointed to not beat any 4+ dans until my final game mainly due to being silly in byo yomi (e.g. my first game I had a comfy 20 point lead against Natalia Kovaleva 5d (European Women's Champion) but blundered it away). Then instead of going to the Polish Go Summer Camp I came to Thailand to be with Sai.

If I have time and people are still interested in long-delayed photos/stories/sgfs I may add more stuff later.

I'd take true love over a successful go tournament any day. Congrats, überdude!

I saw your relationship update on FB and so I’d already assumed you wouldn’t update this journal

This is so nice, enjoy the time you have on this planet!

Greetings,
Tom in Germany

Congrats dude.

I came for the Go Learning experience, I stayed for the settlers, fried food, and the love story.

I sort-of expected that, but oh boy - this is refreshing to hear!!!
Love trumps Go any time, and I almost envy you guys!!
In any case - all the best, and congrats!

You make the best choices in life when you follow your heart, dude! My hat off to you, you guys rock!

Here are my games from the EGC. I only played in the main tournament, not the weekend or rapid as there is such a thing as too much Go, and I like to watch the top boards at the weekend and prefer slow games (in fact some of my main tournament games lasted so long they overran with the rapid so my opponent couldn't play in the rapid; the rapid isn't actually that fast with 40 mins main time).

Round 1: Lost to Natalia Kovaleva 5d from Russia. I felt leading when I successfully tenukid to play k5 because my group was alive, and the middlegame went nicely from then on. Move 159 was my first move of byo-yomi and the first step to losing a won game. My original plan was the thick turn at m12 which gives an easy win, but as often happens in byo yomi I turned into an idiot and changed my mind (I wasn't even under time pressure, only spent around 15 seconds of the 1 minutes overtime period), trying to get some sente exchange first to get more time to think when I already knew m12 was the best move and enough for a simple win. o12 should of course be m7, and I knew this at the time but decided to be stupid. Losing h12 was the final nail in my coffin. An annoying loss. Got a review from Blackie; he said I played well until byo yomi. I wondered if o10 should have been connection, he said both ok. But I should have played o14 earlier for an easy win, e.g. instead of e10 which was me trying too hard to keep the white centre group eyeless.



Round 2: Beat Cezary Czernecki 3d of Poland. The opening was the same as the game we played at LSG last year. I made a big mistake in the centre and lost a bunch of stones, but managed to win anyway by living in the top side and then squeezing using the dead stones to make a big lower right corner. p8 was interesting as for his previous move he was going to take a liberty but then changed his mind to descend. I reckoned he wanted to play the t8 as a double sente yose so didn't play there myself as a "mistake" for him to punish as by doing so I got stronger on the outside and was sure I could kill the 3-3 invasion of the lower right corner, and if that was the case I had enough points to win.



Round 3: Lost to Normain Tsai 7d of USA. This was a nice game and didn't mind losing so much as we both played fairly well for our level, just he played a bit better. My main mistakes were letting his centre reduction group catch the 2 stones and not reducing his top left. As I was behind I should have tried to kill his lower left. Got a review from Mitani Tetsuya 7p.

Round 4: beat He Yuewen 3d of China. I got myself into difficult fighting early on but then worked my way back into the game and had a big lead once he didn't defend his group on the left side (though I could have killed it unconditionally instead of ko which was a bit embarrassing). Interestingly Blackie said that n17 should be p7, I thought n15 for n17 was a bad exchange (losing m17 option) as the moyo wasn't so amazing, but with p7 I avoid a weak group and can also make my own moyo on lower side.



Round 5: lost to Koichiro Habu 4d of Poland. I felt uncomfortable going for such a centre moyo strategy, but was happy when he came in rather too deep (IMO) and made an ugly but powerful cut by pushing through a keima (strong move said Ohashi Hirofumi 6p, white should have one point jump). I made a big (50pts) mistake in not ending the game by killing his group inside my moyo with o8 at n8. I didn't take a lunch break and this game started at 10 am and ended around 3:45 pm and my play really deteriorated through hunger/tiredness/headache so I resolved to take a lunch break in my future games. Probably that would have helped against Natalia as well.



Round 6: beat Jerome Bourgeois 2d of France. Making centre territory with large knight's moves was the theme of this game. He just played a bit slackly in allowing my big centre (bad gote joseki choice in lower right, missed key point at p12) though I was also slack once ahead in not playing the d11 shoulder hit. The first game I didn't use byo yomi.

Uberdude wrote:I didn't take a lunch break and this game started at 10 am and ended around 3:45 pm and my play really deteriorated through hunger/tiredness/headache so I resolved to take a lunch break in my future games.

The question of food and drink during tournament play is not an easy one, and everybody is different. Lunch in particular is difficult, because there is seldom time to digest it before play. Bridge great Barry Crane always skipped it, and recommended (demanded) that his partners do so, too. I guess it made him sleepy. I did not have that problem, but, let's face it, the brain runs on glucose. If you can eat healthy so that your glucose level remains fairly constant, great! At bridge tournaments I used to nurse a sugary soft drink, sipping it from time to time. One 16 oz. bottle was fine for several hours of play. OC, it did not stay cold, but . . . .