Studying Weiqi in China

Final Post

2006-08-15T16:40:00.000-04:00

This is my last entry for the blog. I'm finally home after a long but uneventful trip. My arms and shoulders are sore from carrying, pushing and pulling all those books I bought. I seem to be doing ok as far as jet lag goes (I stayed up for pretty much the whole trip and then just slept when I arrived at my brother's place around 11:30 pm), but now I'm feeling kinda sick today. I haven't really had any time for Go since I've been back because I've been busy trying to get everything together for my visa application for England. There's so much to do before I leave.

Here are some pictures from our last day at the center. This first one is Zhang Pei Pei and Xie Er Hao playing "Guess the Next Move in the Pro Game". While we were playing this, I started doing "eeny meeny miny mo". Zhang Pei Pei loved it and made me say it every time afterwards. She even got Walther to do it a few times. I wrote it down for her on the back of her kifu book.

On the right, Xie Er Hao hiding.

For our last day, I requested to play Zhang Pei Pei again. As usual, I resigned quickly. Until just a few days earlier, whenever she played as black, she would play as if she was playing white: she'd take territory in different places all over the board. Also, she tended to play a bit slowly and wait for her opponent's mistake. Then she'd pounce on it and attack. Yan Laoshi told her that she couldn't do this against stronger players though, because they wouldn't make that mistake she's waiting for and she'd just get behind. She listens to Yan Laoshi, so in my game, when she got black she played the low Chinese opening. Playing me is easy for her, but since she was trying to get her stones to cooperate, Yan Laoshi was able to demonstrate that she got a lot more territory this way. Here, Walther is trying his luck against her in the afternoon. On the right, I'm getting crushed by Xie Er Hao.

Walther brought a lot of candy with him from the U.S., so we gave out candy to the kids on our last day just before we left. Earlier, I gave Zhang Pei Pei a necklace of mine and she gave me a little stuffed animal dog, on the tag of which she had written her name and the date. She had a matching one and had me write my name and the date on hers. We exchanged email addresses and birthdays before I left. I got an email from her when I got home, but all it said was "hello". I wrote back but haven't gotten a reply yet.

I will miss Yan Laoshi and his family and all the kids at the center. I think I've really learned a lot and, more importantly, I've acquired a better idea of how to study and learn Weiqi so that I can continue to improve.

Time for some Oscar-style gratitude: thank you first and foremost to Yan Laoshi for being such a great teacher and spending so much time with us; thank you to his wife Li a yi for welcoming us and making us feel comfortable; thank you to Yan Sen (their son) and Li Zi (Li a yi's nephew) for keeping us entertained; thank you to Liu yi for all the wonderful food; thank you to Li Chen (Liu yi's daughter) for helping me to learn some Chinese and providing some extra English reading materials; thank you to all the kids at the center for playing with us and teaching us; thank you to all the other teachers at the center for the same; thank you to my fellow students Romain, Siu and Walther for making this first year with Yan Laoshi an excellent one and for studying and learning with me; thank you to Siu and Walther for translating so much for me; thank you to Rich (my first Go teacher) for his continued support; and finally a big huge thank you to Guo Juan for giving us this amazing opportunity!

Last Day

2006-08-11T20:18:00.000-04:00

Today is our last day at the center. I told this to Zhang Pei Pei yesterday; she pretended to wipe tears from her cheeks. She didn't really believe that we would both leave. Walther too? Her mom seemed even more concerned that we were leaving. (Her mom's English is quite good, though she doesn't say much.) I think she just didn't really think about it. We've become closest to Zhang Pei Pei, who entertains us during lunch. Being a girl, she has a slightly better chance at becoming a pro than the other kids at the center who are about her level. I hope that at least both she and Xie Er Hao become pros, so that we can track their progress.

Yesterday I went 1-1 again. I lost to Mah Din Rui after a bad move in our running fight. He pounced on the opportunity to take advantage and I never got a chance to come back. In the afternoon, I played a kid who seems to be a bit older and who we think has played online a lot. I think he is much weaker than most of the kids in the C group. Even though I attacked him from the wrong direction, I won by over 30 points.

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/becci_mahdinrui081106.sgf

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/kid_becci081106.sgf

We seem to be experiencing the remnants of Siu's typhoon. Yesterday evening the sky turned a frightening yellow-orange color (which looked an equally scary purple through our blue windows in the living room). We didn't really get too much of a storm though. Now it's just raining really hard.

almost done

2006-08-11T10:49:00.000-04:00

So, it's almost time to leave. I feel very sad, of course, but I also feel pretty satisfied with the go I've learned. Over two months, I may have advanced only 1 stone or so, but I feel like it is a very large stone. I feel like I'm beginning to understand how the game should be played, this is the first time I've felt anything like an advanced player. I'm afraid to lose this feeling, so I think that I will continue to have lessons from a professional teacher.

Of course, it would be nice to advance faster, but in terms of sheer knowledge, I don't think I could have learned much more. I feel like many of the right principles are in place now so that I can try to play a good game, but every game I play I see a new variation where I'm not quite sure what to do. How many more of these variations do I need to collect before I become another stone stronger? Well, I shouldn't be in a hurry anyways, I only have a couple of stones left to advance in my lifetime.

Yan laoshi had an interesting analogy the other day. Imagine that the go school is filled with students (of course) looking for the door to leave. Some students who are clever, like Liu Jia Yi and Zhang Ling Feng in the C group, know where the door is, but on the way out somehow manage to bump into the wall instead. When these kids are serious, they play well, but they often play without thinking. Other kids may be told day after day where the door is, but they still cannot find the door. These kids are also unable to correct their mistakes.

Isn't that game othello?

2006-08-11T10:29:00.000-04:00

Here's the promised post on games using a go board and stones that are not quite go.

Here, the kids are betting on the next move in pro games. Li Di Wang, the kid who played in the dan promotion tournament (in the blue tank) is winning by a lot.

A lot of games involve flicking stones.

Another variation on flicking stones (like marbles). The rules for this one seem to be rather complicated.

Othello. It's not just because we wanted to get a picture of Othello, I've actually seen it quite a few times at the go center.

Games from Yesterday

2006-08-10T20:28:00.000-04:00

Here are my two games from yesterday. The first I resigned early after a slew of bad mistakes. In the second, my opponent made some mistakes. Yan Laoshi said my endgame was good (though it's not properly recorded here). Later, when reviewing it, he said it was an easy win. He said I need to play stronger in some places and take more advantage of my opponent's weaknesses. He also said that I tend to play better with black. I'm sure this is true, but at least I don't feel totally uncomfortable with white, as I did when I got here.

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/becci_zhanglinfeng081006.sgf

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/liangqian_becci081006.sgf

Weiqi Shi Jue

2006-08-09T19:06:00.000-04:00

We have been memorizing the 10 Weiqi proverbs (I think "proverbs" is more appropriate than "commandments") in Chinese. We get quizzed often. Here they are in Chinese (I hope my attempt at the tone symbols is ok):

1. bù dé tān shèng
2. rù jiè yì huǎn
3. gōng bǐ gù wǒ (that's supposed to be a 3rd tone over the i)
4. qì zǐ zhēng xiān
5. shě xiǎo jiù dà (those are 4th tones over the u and the a)
6. féng wēi xū qì
7. shèn wù qīng sù
8. dòng xū xiāng yìng (4th tone over the o)
9. bǐ qiáng zì bǎo
10. shì gū qǔ hé

Right now, I pretty much have them all memorized, but for most of them I still can't remember what they mean. So now I'm going back and memorizing what they mean, both the literal translation (four words that give a general gist of the meaning) and what they actually refer to in terms of Weiqi. Since I started memorizing them in increasing order, I'm trying to memorize the meanings the other way, so as to learn the last ones as well as I know the first few.

10. shì = power; gū = alone/weak; qǔ hé = safe (sometimes two characters are lumped together to give one meaning). The idea here is that if your group is weak and alone, you shouldn't try to run, but just live.

9. bǐ = somebody else; qiáng = strong; zì = myself; bǎo = protect. Siu's translator said that this means when you are playing a strong opponent, remember to protect yourself, but it seems to me that it should be when your opponent is strong (i.e., has strong groups near yours), you should protect yourself.

8. dòng = move; xū = should; xiāng yìng = cooperation. Siu's translator (this is translating Yan Laoshi's explanations, but his translator was not a Weiqi player) said, "as in philosophy, we should consider the static state and dynamic state". The other day, Yan Laoshi used this proverb in jest, trying to get Li a yi (who was taking too long getting ready to go) to leave with him ("we go together" sort of thing). This makes me think that this proverb might really be referring to the idea that when you have to run, you should get your opponent to run with you.

7. shèn = careful/care for; wù = no/can't; qīng sù = too fast. We should be careful and not be so anxious; similar to 6.

6. féng = meet; wēi = dangerous; xū = should; qì = sacrifice. This should be pretty obvious. Through Siu's translator, we are told that if you are weak, you have to give up your plan to attack.

5. shě = throw away; xiǎo = small; jiù = save; dà = big. This, too, is straightforward: give up the small to save the big. Or, play the big points and not the small points.

4. qì = sacrifice; zǐ = stones; zhēng = fight; xiān = first. (I think Walther said that "fight first" refers to sente.) This is about playing lightly--if you want to move quickly, you don't want to be carrying a lot of baggage.

3. gōng = attack; bǐ = somebody else; gù = look after/careful; wǒ = me. We thought before that this meant that if you want to fight you have to protect yourself first, but this came up in a game review and we realized that it really means (or maybe also means?) that you should attack in order to protect yourself.

2. rù = enter; jiè = place; yì = should; huǎn = slow. This is the "look before you leap" proverb: if you want to invade, you should check out the surroundings first.

1. bù dé = no/don't; tān = greedy; shèng = win. If you're winning, don't be greedy.

Perhaps Walther or Siu or Guo Juan can comment further on what the meanings really are.

Game with Yan Laoshi (Perhaps the last?)

2006-08-08T21:08:00.000-04:00

I think Yan Laoshi said that we would go over more fuseki stuff today, so our games with him yesterday may have been our last. I won this game by the smallest of margins, but not really. I should have lost. If nothing else, I had a problem in the endgame that should have cost me 4 points, but he didn't play it. At one point I almost resigned because I had not one, but two nearly dead groups (we're not dead yet!). Overall it wasn't bad though. Unfortunately, my memory fails me, so there are a few places where I have passes in the game record. I believe it's just a matter of having the order wrong, but I couldn't figure it out.

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/yanlaoshi_becci080806.sgf

This may sound stupid, but Yan Laoshi mentioned some advice about dame points the other day. He said that when you fill your dame the first thing you should do is fix any problems you have. You can fill in the other dame afterwards. Not only that, but, like playing endgame moves, you should fix your biggest problems first and fix subsequent problems in decreasing order of points.

More (old) pictures from Huang Hua Lo

2006-08-07T20:49:00.000-04:00

Since the computer & internet connection seem to be running a bit faster these days (knock on wood), I thought I'd post a few of Li a yi's pictures from our trip a while back to Huang Hua Lo, the most famous building in Wuhan. So here are some pictures of us standing in front of the various attractions.

This is at the top of the tower.

There was artwork on display (or gift shops) inside each level of the tower.

Li a yi and I in front of a big bell.

Li a yi and the mothers of Yan Sen's friends.

Less than one week left

2006-08-06T21:12:00.000-04:00

We leave a week from yesterday morning. We have a few days at home and then only three more days at the center. It will be sad to leave the center and all those kids for the last time.

Li a yi bought us plane tickets from Wuhan to Shanghai (our flight to the U.S. leaves from Shanghai). Unfortunately, this flight takes us to a different airport in Shanghai than the one from which we are leaving. A friend of Walther's dad is scheduled to pick us up and bring us to the other airport. Hopefully that will all go smoothly.

Siu finally made it home after being stuck in Hong Kong for two extra days due to a typhoon. We were nervous for him because he was scheduled to depart on the last day that his visa was good. It ended up not being a problem because he was in Hong Kong instead of the main part of China.

Walther and I ordered kaya boards to bring home with us. They finally arrived yesterday after being sent to the wrong part of Wuhan, but it was quite a fiasco. One of the boards is beautiful and the other is smaller and painted yellow. It's awful. But the one that is really nice has a really big dent gouged out of one of the edges from some mishap in shipping. Both have a couple of smaller dents on the top. Yan Laoshi and Li a yi were furious. They called the company and kept grabbing the phone from each other to yell at them some more. Li a yi said she will call again today. They said they are going to send two new boards and Li a yi and Yan Laoshi promised that they'll be here before we leave if someone has to drive them here. They said this is why people in China don't like to order things online or over the phone. I would think that if you're going to try to pull something like this, you don't send one nice board and one bad board and also that you wouldn't try to pull this on the local 7 dan pro. I sure wouldn't have enjoyed being on the other end of that phone call.

Yesterday I got a much needed break in the morning while Yan Laoshi reviewed the C group games from the day before. I lost the only game I played yesterday--a big group died. In retrospect, I might have been able to save it, but I think my opponent would have obtained enough points in forcing me to live to win easily.

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/becci_kid080606.sgf

Only one game yesterday

2006-08-05T20:20:00.000-04:00

As if to make up for my three games the day before, I only played one game yesterday. It took all morning and most of the afternoon. My opponent was playing as slowly as I do. I won the game, but I had a lot of mistakes and direction problems. In this game I played two moves that were half way between the two goals I wanted to accomplish. This is bad because then you don't end up accomplishing either goal. If you want to do something, just do it.

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/gongyun_becci080506.sgf

Last night Xie Er Hao came by again. Apparently he comes every week in the evening to have Yan Laoshi review a game for him. Yan Laoshi spends more time on Xie Er Hao than on other students because he really has a chance to go far.

Three Games

2006-08-04T20:22:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I played three games at the center because I got a ridiculously bad result early on in my game against Mah Din Rui (the tortoise) and resigned. The other two games I won, but there are still plenty of mistakes from which to learn.

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/zhanglinfeng_becci080406.sgf

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/becci_mahdinrui080406.sgf

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/kid_becci080406.sgf

Food Favorites

2006-08-04T19:29:00.000-04:00

The other night at dinner, Walther and I were asked if we had any food requests for our last few days here. We weren't allowed to say "everything's okay" -- a phrase I've found useful. I wasn't prepared for the question so we first decided that we'd think about it. Then I requested fish balls and Walther requested pork ribs. Both were delivered promptly last night. So I requested dumplings again sometime before we go.

I also remembered to ask them to teach me how to make ru ga mian (hot and dry noodles). They were really happy about this, because they all love ru ga mian, which they call the "hamburger of Wuhan". Li a yi said that whenever Yan Laoshi goes away, the first thing he eats when he gets back to Wuhan is always ru ga mian.

a game

2006-08-04T09:11:00.000-04:00

Finally, another one of my games up. This one is against Xie Er Hao, the strong 7 year old. We've matched most of the kids we know at the go center to an animal, and Xie Er Hao is a groundhog. If you've seen the videos Becci posted, then we also have a pig and a tortoise.

Xie Er Hao is obviously pretty strong: he won 3 games at the preliminary to the dan promotion tournament (5 games out of 8 are required to move on). But most of his strength is in fighting, he often doesn't bother to "survey the lay of the land," as Yan laoshi puts it. He doesn't really care what's strong or weak, or where is the best place to play. He often relies on his power to get him out of trouble.

20060804-walther-XieErHao.sgf

Stormy Weather

2006-08-03T19:23:00.000-04:00

The night before last we had a huge thunderstorm. Walther, with his ear plugs in, slept through it, but it kept me up, which is impressive because I'm a pretty heavy sleeper and with our windows closed and air conditioner on, most outside noise gets muted. The thunder was like cannon firing in our bedroom and the lightening was practically constant. It lasted pretty much all night.

On Wednesday we went to the bank to get money. Walther brought cash to be converted to RMB and I had several options to try to get money. Unfortunately, I didn't think to bring my passport with me, so they wouldn't do anything for me. So yesterday morning we went back to the bank with my passport on the way to the center. I tried my check card, but they wouldn't take that at all. Then I tried my regular visa credit card, which Siu said I shouldn't have a problem with (he was unable to use his non-visa European bank card but they said visa would be okay). They agreed that this was actually a credit card, but said that it wasn't approved. They suggested calling first the credit card company, so perhaps it's a theft protection issue. We left because it was getting late.

We had to take a different route to the center because we went out of our way to go to the bank. This route was along the river and, after the storm, part of the road was flooded. We drove along the far edge through the water and many people were driving up on the side walk. We then got stuck in more traffic and ended up being about half an hour late to the center.

During lunch we tried another bank because I had some cash and travelers checks with me, so we thought that might work instead. The teller told me to sign the travelers checks, which I did, but unfortunately I also filled in the "pay to the order of" part. If I didn't fill that in, there would be no problem, but now they'd have to be sent back to the U.S. and it would take a month to get the money. Thankfully, Yan Laoshi got them to do this, so the money will get to him eventually. After endless paper work, we finally got some cash for all of our efforts and got back to the center only a little bit late for our afternoon games.

I played horribly yesterday. I couldn't read to save my life. I hope this doesn't keep up. My afternoon game was reviewed by Chen Laoshi (the teacher for the C group, who is about 5 dan) and then reviewed again at home later by Yan Laoshi. Here are both reviews (separately) so that you can see the difference between the two. I find that usually the variations they give are pretty much the same, but the difference is often in what they emphasize.

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/xiangqian_becci080306.sgf

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/xiangqian_becci080306_chen.sgf

For a Limited Time Only

2006-08-02T19:46:00.000-04:00

We took a few videos of the kids at the center. Perhaps it's just because we have gotten to know and adore these kids, but we can watch these short clips over and over. Hopefully it will give you some idea of the personality of a couple of them. My brother has graciously agreed to host them for a couple of weeks, so check them out while you can. You can find them here:

http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/users/mtorrey/becci/

Besides being amused by the videos themselves, it's great fun to watch the videos with other Weiqi players. They have a tendency to comment on what's happening on the board instead of the squirming kids.

Another Game with Yan Laoshi

2006-08-02T07:37:00.000-04:00

Walther and I played Yan Laoshi again this afternoon。 I think this was my best game against him in a while。 I lost by only one stone，or two points。 I played a few slow moves and missed some opportunities，but mostly my game was pretty good。 I even had a winning position, but then lost five points in the end game and so lost the game. I'm pretty happy with it though, because I think my endgame, while still needing work, is much improved since I came here.

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/yanlaoshi_becci080206.sgf

comments on the 5

2006-08-02T05:38:00.000-04:00

For the kids at the go school, Yan laoshi mainly emphasises correcting mistakes. When he asks them, "what is your greatest weakness?" they already know to answer, "We don't correct our mistakes."

I think that #5 can also be translated as something about knowing your character, because your character will affect how you play on the board. This might manifest itself as a certain style, such as attacking or territorial.

I'm not sure that students come from all over China, but certainly from many parts of southern China (I would guess that in the north, all the students go to Beijing). Yang Su Yi Ting came here for the last year, and he's from Yunnan. With the start of the new school year coming up, we might get to meet some kids coming here for the next year.

Yan laoshi certainly does have a way with the kids. Li Hao went to the dan promotion tournament, and decided that he was very satisfied with the teaching he got at the go school. Some of the strong local kids, like Xie Er Hao and Li Hao, will come around to Yan laoshi's place every now and then in the evening to talk about weiqi.

5 Steps to Improving at Weiqi

2006-08-01T19:37:00.000-04:00

Yan Laoshi has been harping on the 5 things one needs to do to improve at Weiqi. The first two are things outside oneself, and the latter three are all things you have to do on your own.

1. Teacher. He's not saying this just for job security. You really need to have someone who can help you understand what's going on on the board and who can point out your mistakes.

2. Strong Opponents. You need to play people at least your own strength and hopefully a little bit stronger.

3. Fundamentals. This category includes tsume-go and tesuji, basic shapes, and learning things like fuseki and joseki and basic theories.

4. Correcting Mistakes. Yan Laoshi emphasizes the need to correct one's mistakes in order to improve. Simply learning new stuff is not enough.

5. Improving Oneself. You need to be a good person. Your personality comes out on the Weiqi board and Yan Laoshi believes that you need to have a big heart to truly play well.

This last step is something that is unusual of Yan Laoshi. Many Weiqi teachers, especially in the big schools, don't spend time on this sort of thing. Yan Laoshi has great relationships with his students. He is really their friend and mentor and not just their teacher. Li a yi said that many students will come from all over the country, away from their families for months or even a year at a time (and they're at most 11 years old) to study with Yan Laoshi.

Siu's Last Day

2006-07-31T22:51:00.000-04:00

We took Siu to the airport this morning. It was sad to see him go. Perhaps he'll add his comments to our blog entries when he gets back. I look forward to seeing him in Amsterdam when I visit Guo Juan while I'm living in London.

Last night Li Hao (one of the kids from the center) and his parents invited us out to dinner because he wanted to see Siu again before we left. They took us to a really fancy restaurant and we had some excelllent food. We came back to the house afterwards so that Li Hao could give Siu his parting gift: half of a Go game, to be completed when they meet again.

We played Yan Laoshi again yesterday. I felt better about this game with him than I have about the past couple of games I've played against him. We started in the morning, which I think is better for me than when we play in the afternoon, but we all try so hard against him and think for so long that the games drag on and we wear ourselves out. After a couple of hours, my energy started flagging and my moves got worse. We took a break for lunch and I got a bit of a second wind, but I missed a big opportunity and ended up with a big group which could only live in ko (at least the way I played it). He had way too many ko threats, and I had none that were worth so much, so I resigned.

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/yanlaoshi_becci073106.sgf

update

2006-07-30T21:49:00.000-04:00

This week I lost almost all of my games. I'm not sure exactly why, although I don't feel very sharp lately. I keep on building up good positions, but then playing one move in completely wrong direction, so that it becomes a wasted move. One reason might be that I'm finally getting tired from playing 4 days a week at the center. Another might be that we haven't been doing a whole lot of tsumego lately. Last week was also pretty hard because we spent our 3 days "off" doing a big review of past games, playing difficults games with Yan Laoshi, and then hiking around Dong Hu.

This week I've also played a lot of games with positions that are unfamiliar to me. I had spent much of the previous couple weeks playing with or against the Kobayashi opening, and especially against the C group kids, I didn't see too many different variations (or they just decided to make a huge overplay). Against the B group kids, they first obviously make fewer mistakes, but they also will turn the game into something unfamiliar for me since they know a lot more variations. This way, even if I get a good position, I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I think that the games I played in the last week are going to be very useful for the future for me to look back and see what some of my mistakes in fundamentals are.

For some reason, my games in the last week are also very long. Twice, I've had to have a games sealed for lunch, and my games tend to run the longest out of the whole A and B groups. I don't know whether this is because of unfamiliar positions and new variations, or just that I'm thinking too long about the wrong things.

Yan laoshi hasn't given any lectures on principles of play for quite a while, but I think that's because the flow of our games is getting better, and he can just point out mistakes in principles here and there during game review. Sometimes he'll say that the idea is right, but that the calculation is not good enough.

Siu is leaving tomorrow. It will be a little lonelier here, since I talked a lot with Siu about Go and about how he runs his club. He is the president of the Groningen go club in Holland, and I've been asking him a lot of questions about how they do tournaments and activities. I hope that we can keep discussing this stuff in the future, and maybe fit in some studying for go. He improved a lot while he was here, and he's going to surprise a lot of people back in Holland.

Departure

2006-07-30T19:41:00.000-04:00

Siu leaves us tomorrow, so yesterday was his last day at the center. It was sad to watch him take leave of the kids. We hope that our stay here has had a positive effect on them. Siu said that when he first got here, none of the kids wrote comments from their game reviews in their kifus (something that we always do for when we go back and review our games later). Now some of them do. I guess Yan Laoshi also said that after seeing us improving faster than the kids, the teachers are thinking about what they can change at the center to increase the pace of the kids' progress.

Yesterday morning I got to play Xie Er Hao (the 7 year old). I resigned, but I think it was actually a pretty good game. Yan Laoshi didn't have too many comments. I made a couple of slow moves, and then lost basically because my calculation wasn't strong enough. I have to do more problems. In the afternoon, I lost by just a bit but my game was much worse. It was a good game for me to play though, because my opponent played two 3-3 points for his fuseki. I always have trouble facing 3-3 points, because I never know what to do about them. I think I'll feel more confident about it from now on. Here are the games:

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/xieerhao_becci073006.sgf

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/kid_becci073006.sgf

More pictures of the kids:

Yang Sui Ting (on the left) noticed that Siu was about to take a picture of him, so he sat up straight and proper. Usually (and at that time) he's slouching and leaning his head on his hand.

Advantages of Being Vegetarian

2006-07-29T19:54:00.000-04:00

My vegetarianism here may not be strict, but there are some advantages.

Chicken feet.

Frog's legs. If it weren't for fear of offending our hosts, you might have seen some videos of dancing cooked frogs. As you may be able to make out from the picture, the frogs are served basically whole, so they looked like little people and seemed to us to make great action figures.

Not pictured here, but also (in my opinion) falling under the category of advantages of being a vegetarian are pig's brains and intestines.

Breakfast

2006-07-29T19:33:00.000-04:00

Walther has been posting many pictures from dinner, but what about breakfast?

Usually we eat noodles for breakfast. When we eat at home, the noodles are usually served in broth, with some greens for me and some meat also for everyone else. If there are appropriate leftovers from dinner (mushrooms, say), these might be thrown in.

In these pictures, you also see a small bowl of pickled cabbage and peppers as a side dish. With our breakfast, we'll usually drink yogurt (pictured above), soy milk or this slightly sweet and ever so yummy split green lentil soup served cold. It's supposed to reduce your body temperature, a much appreciated side effect in the heat of Wuhan.

In the upper left corner of this picture, there is also a bowl of little bread rolls. These are very dense and difficult to eat when one has already consumed a large bowl of noodles and a couple of practically deep-fried eggs. Fortunately, they don't get the bread very often. Sometimes, they get larger bread rolls which often have some meat filling.

As mentioned above, they've taken to frying eggs for us for breakfast when we eat at home. I think this is Romain's fault, because he ate these when he sometimes wouldn't eat the noodles. At first, I think we all appreciated the change in pace, but now it's just really heavy.

Occasionally, instead of noodles, we'll get these little balls of rice dough stuffed with sweet sesame paste and served in a thin broth. I really like these a lot.

The breakfast pictures here are all from home, but we eat out for breakfast quite a bit. When we eat out, the most common breakfast is ru ga mian (hot and dry noodles), which is noodles with sesame paste. I love this. The boys will sometimes get beef with noodles or liver with noodles instead and sometimes I have noodles with fish broth. If Yan Sen is with us, we might get dumplings also (these have meat in them so I don't eat them).

Occasionally Yan Laoshi cooks for us (usually breakfast), and I finally got up the nerve to take a picture of him in his apron. The photo is a bit dark, but the kids at the center got a kick out of it when they saw it on Siu's camera.

Pictures from East Lake

2006-07-28T20:13:00.000-04:00

This is before Yan Laoshi got splashed and moved to the other side of the boat. The photo on the right is of a more traditional boat that we passed on our way.

This is a bridge that I really liked. The boats dropped us off near this bridge. On the right, Liu yi and Li a yi climbing stairs to one of the temples.

These pictures are from the top of the set of stairs above. Underneath this pavillion there was a little room, open on both sides, where we found the chanting monks.

The guy on the far left (with Walther posing in front) is featured in another statue as a baby being protected by a tiger (apparently he was raised by a tiger).

Drowning Soldiers

2006-07-27T20:21:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Yan Laoshi was talking to us about a game in the morning between Xie Er Hao (the 7 year old boy wonder who beat Jin Jing 2p (then 1p) even) and Zhang Pei Pei (the girl in the B group). He was telling us that if your enemy sends foot soldiers into the sea to fight against your ship, you should keep them swimming for as long as possible to wear them out and make the battle easier to win. When he first started talking about this, I hadn't seen the game and, though the theory makes sense, I didn't really see what he meant as it applies to Weiqi. In the evening, he showed us the game and explained the situation. Walther recorded it all in sgf so here it is:

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/zhangpeipei_xieerhao072706.sgf

Yan Laoshi also talked last night about different ways to deal with the san ren sei and styles of play in general. He had noticed that all of us have a tendency to take influence and that it can be difficult to use it well to get enough points out of it. Here are some comments and suggestions he gave us (also recorded by Walther).

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/sanrensei_072706.sgf

In one of my games, I had played a 3-4 point, my opponent played a one space high approach, and I played a 2 space high pincer. He then did a keima from his pincered stone. I had no idea what to do, so I attached underneath and pulled back. But this is not right--I should have cut. It gets a bit complicated though, so Yan Laoshi brought home a book today that has some variations. Here they are:

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/3-4_onespacehigh_twospacehigh_keima.sgf

The biggest excitement at the center today is that Siu beat Xie Er Hao!! Someday when Xie Er Hao is a famous pro, Siu will be able to say that he beat him.

Technical Difficulties

2006-07-27T19:34:00.000-04:00

We're experiencing some fairly severe virus and spyware trouble on our computer at the moment. As a result, blog entries may be less frequent. I'll try to keep posting though.

East Lake

2006-07-26T20:27:00.000-04:00

East Lake takes up a pretty large portion of our part of Wuhan. Yesterday we went to visit the lake. We were told that it's the largest lake in China, but we didn't really believe them. They added some qualifier about it being the largest lake without an outlet to the sea. When we checked the map at home, it looked like there really aren't any very large lakes in China, so maybe it is true.

There are roads that run out into the lake on what might otherwise be islands. We took one of these out to a park and then took boats out to a little mountain. We climbed many stairs to a couple of temples, one of which had a small room with some monks chanting from scrolls. I didn't dare to take a picture of them though. I asked Li Chen if I could and she seemed doubtful. We wandered around the park gazing at (and taking pictures in front of) some statues commemorating ancient heroes. It was nice to get out and get a bit of exercise. The weather was a bit cooler too, with a nice breeze so that it was actually comfortable to be outside.

I learned to say, "This afternoon we walked really far around East Lake" in Chinese.

While hiking over the mountain back towards the car, we passed a plaque that told a story about how in 1999, a big white cloud rose up from the lake and destroyed 700 trees on the mountain. It said that some people later explained this phenomenon with some meteorological theory, but that there were some witnesses who claimed to see three UFO's, so we can't draw any conclusions.

Along the way, we passed many swimming areas in the lake: swimming pool sized areas marked off by concrete barriers. Many people were enjoying the water and Li a yi said she used to swim a lot when she was younger, but Li Chen said the water is dirty.

When we ate at our favorite hot pot restaurant for dinner, both Yan Laoshi and Li Chen burned their hands on the pots. Such a restaurant would not last long in the U.S.

I'll try to add some pictures later if I can.

Correcting Mistakes

2006-07-24T19:38:00.000-04:00

Yan Laoshi told us yesterday that one doesn't really improve by learning lots of new stuff. Correcting one's mistakes is the way to get stronger. We've been having all of our games reviewed and mistakes pointed out, but sometimes it's hard to see the overall picture when working with all these details. To help with this, Yan Laoshi did something new yesterday.

We started in the afternoon and, with a break (of course) for dinner, we worked into the evening. Each of us had 5 of our most recent games reviewed again. Yan Laoshi was then able to go more in-depth in the reviews than he can at the center and, more importantly, he was able to point out trends in our play and mistakes that we make often and most need to correct.

I think this was really important for me. It turns out that I still make a lot of moves that don't really have any purpose or aren't making any points. This was something that I hadn't realized from our regular game reviews. Yan Laoshi asked, "How do you lose?" He answered that one way is that your moves don't make points. Another is that, while you are protecting yourself, your opponent is making points.

I also have to do a better job of analyzing the board and understanding what each move is doing. This will help determine what is most important on the board at any given point. One should do this by looking at opposites: strong vs. weak; big vs. small; attack vs. defense; dynamic vs. static.

2006-07-23T22:51:00.000-04:00

As Becci mentioned, we are beginning to play most of our games in the B group now. However, last week I still lost twice to Yan laoshi at 3 stones (I think most of the kids in the B group play him at 2 stones). His wife, Li ayi, said that at the beginning, he was pretty relaxed when he played us, but now he has to try a little harder.

I seem to be doing ok in the B group. I think my record in the group for the last week is 4-2. I hope that by the end of my time here, I can be near the top of the B group. The A group is still pretty far away though, I'm guessing I would need an additional half-year to one year of similar training to make it there. Still, I'm pretty satisfied that I seem to be making progress, although I don't really feel stronger.

The center has been getting a little rowdier lately as the kids who are here just for vacation are getting more comfortable. Zhang Pei Pei, the girl in the B group, has revealed a fan used more for hitting than for fanning. She got in a really good knock against Sang Pan Yu, who is as mischevous off the board as he is on it. During lunch, the kids in the C group are often screaming very loudly as they play games (look forward to a special post on non-weiqi games played at the go center). yesterday, Siu and I actually had to step outside because we couldn't hear each other talk inside.

Chen laoshi, the 5d who teaches the C group, was kind enough to get all of us Weiqi Tian Di magazines. He wrote some nice lines inside. He compared the variations on a go board to beautiful scenery, and the final position to a painting.

I'll post some more games soon.

Yesterday's Games

2006-07-23T20:12:00.000-04:00

In the morning, I played Shang Pan Yu and made a couple of big mistakes, both of which I should know better. I resigned. Shang Pan Yu gets really impatient when I take a long time to make a move and has no qualms about showing it. He'll roll his eyes and give these big exaggerated sighs and beg me to play more quickly. So, just to tease him, I'll take even longer to play than usual. Yan Laoshi says that he has a good feeling for the game, but he makes mistakes. The kids who are stronger than him don't seem to be fazed by my playing slowly. I think it's an indication of their strength and potential compared to his. Yan Laoshi has also reprimanded him during reviews, saying that he doesn't need to listen because he already knows everything. (He has a tendency to make comments about the game being reviewed.) Here's my game with him from yesterday:

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/shangpanyu_becci072306.sgf

In the afternoon, Walther, Siu and I played against kids from the C group who had won their games in the morning. The kid I played has thick glasses and a tendency to start big ugly fights on the board. The difference in strength between the kids in the C group and the kids in the B group is really remarkable. I won this game: I was ahead by about 20 points on the board, plus, with white, I had 7.5 points of komi, but he played the game out to the end. Here it is:

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/becci_zhanglinfeng072306.sgf

Novelty at the Center

2006-07-22T19:32:00.000-04:00

The past couple of days have brought some unusual events at the center. On Friday, we had no power. This meant that not only did we not have air conditioning, but we didn't even have use of our ceiling fans. Furthermore, there was no hot water for tea and they couldn't cook lunch. We played in the morning and had our games reviewed, but then they sent everyone home. Here is my game from Friday morning:

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/becci_chenqi072106.sgf

Yan Sen and Li Zi had joined us at the center on Friday (I suppose they weren't to be left alone at home now that they are both on vacation from school). They picked a bad day, in terms of the heat and no power. On the other hand, we left and went out to a fancy restaurant for lunch. Li a yi met us there. In the afternoon, Yan Laoshi reviewed some recent pro game fusekis with us.

We had power at the center again yesterday, so we had a full day. Here are my games:

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/huangyiqing_becci072206.sgf

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/haoqiyuan_becci072206.sgf

In the morning game, I avoided a complicated situation, but took a loss in doing so. I missed a big chance to come back by not playing an urgent point. In the afternoon, I killed a huge group and won my game, but there are plenty of mistakes to learn from.

After my first game yesterday, I was sitting at a table, recording the game when this little girl appeared in the doorway. She had long pigtails hanging from the sides of her head and a white sundress with green numbers printed all over it. She was shy. Her dad prodded her into the room a few times, but she kept turning back. Finally he stepped into the room behind her and this gave her enough courage. She came up to me and said in clipped memorized sentences, "Hello. My name is Yue." (I'm not sure if I heard her name correctly.) Here she stopped, and turned back to her dad for support. I asked in Chinese how old she was and she replied in English that she was 5. Then she started over with her speech: "Hello. My name is Yue. I am 5 (holding up 5 fingers) years old." She then recited a poem. I didn't catch all of it, and I think occasionally there was some Chinese thrown in. But it started with "If I could catch a rainbow (big rainbow hand motion) just for you, I would." and in the middle there was another stanza that went something like, "If I could build a mountain (hands folded prayerfully into a mountain shape) just for you, I would. But I cannot build a mountain." There was more, but unfortunately, I didn't understand all of it. Her dad took a couple of pictures after she finished and I indicated (in Chinese) that I'd like to have the picture. He said he'd give it to Yan Laoshi.

More games

2006-07-20T20:12:00.000-04:00

I'm going to try to post more of my games now. Here are the two I played yesterday:

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/becci_zhangpeipei072006.sgf

http://www.people.brandeis.edu/~rtorrey/games/becci_baoyu072006.sgf

The first is against Zhang Pei Pei, the girl in the B group. It basically consisted of my making a bunch of mistakes and then resigning. The second is against Bao Yu, another kid in the B group. His dad has been hanging out at the club the past couple of days, practicing his English with us in a very loud voice. In this game, Yan Laoshi said I played well, except for an overplay to which Black responded properly.

I resigned both games. I'm glad that we've started playing the kids in the B group now. It's clear that they are considerably stronger than the kids in the C group. I wonder if I'm allowed to play them only because Walther and Siu are strong enough to play them and I get to go along for the ride. But if that's the case, I'll take it. I think I will learn a lot from playing with these kids.

On a seemingly unrelated subject, the beds here are basically just slabs of wood with a thin pad over them. Supposedly firm is better for one's back, but this is a bit extreme. For the past month, I've been struggling with it. I've been waking up earlier and earlier with my back hurting, preventing me from going back to sleep. Not getting enough sleep is unacceptable. I need it to play well and learn efficiently. So I finally broke down and asked for another pad. It was readily supplied. Now I'm sleeping much better and I hope that will help me keep my energy up.

Mountains, Airports and Dumplings.

2006-07-18T20:29:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Yan Laoshi reviewed the games he played with Walther and Siu the day before. We had more time (this was our day off) so he went more in depth.

In his game with Siu, he exploited a weakness and started an attack on two stones. Siu ran away with these stones, starting a big fight running across the board. Yan Laoshi suggested that he consider sacrificing these two stones. It would give White about 20-30 points, but Black could build a big wall and use his stones on the other side efficiently to more than make up for the lost points. He did point out though that if Black had already been really strong on the other side, then it would probably be better to save the stones--if Black had already secured the points on the other side, then he wouldn't be making that much more with this strategy of sacrifice.

He compared this to an instance where Mao ZeDong led his troops across some big snowy mountains. They killed their horses, abandoned their pots and pans and took off. Travelling lightly was their only chance. Carrying all that heavy baggage can be too much.

Yan Laoshi also said that one has to be careful not to carry too much heavy mental baggage. We joke about how he says "bu hao!" all the time, but if you carry the mental weight of so much criticism with you into your game, it will be hard for you to play well. You have to learn from the criticism but at the same time not be weighed down by it.

In Walther's game, he talked about airports. If you have one big airport (framework), your opponent can just come in and reduce it easily. But if you have two big airports, then when your opponent comes in to reduce one, you can build the other one into a big territory. Here is an sgf file with the example he showed us:

http:\\www.people.brandeis.edu\~rtorrey\games\twoairports.sgf

We also learned the following shape:

http:\\www.people.brandeis.edu\~rtorrey\games\atari_direction.sgf

Finally, Liu yi made more dumplings yesterday for lunch. She tried to get me to eat some, but I wouldn't because there was meat in them, so she made some vegetarian ones for me for dinner. She works fast and her dumplings are uniform and don't fall apart. Guo Juan taught me to make them just before I came to China, but I'm much slower and I often put too much or too little filling so they're not quite right. I've been asked about what we eat for breakfast, so I'm collecting some pictures and will post them soon.

My games

2006-07-17T22:16:00.000-04:00

Here's links to my games for the past week. Some nice games and some really ugly ones. I'm trying to avoid the ugly moves since Yan laoshi will make a face like someone set off a stinkbomb. This face helps me develop a gut instinct for what's bad, it seems like these moves are physically painful to Yan laoshi. (except that that many of the kids seem to have developed an immunity to this face, they just look a little sheepish and keep on playing their terrible moves).

20060713-walther-MaDingRui.sgf
20060713-walther-yanlaoshiFriend.sgf
2006714-walther-MaDingRui.sgf
20060715-walther-LiuJiaYi.sgf
20060715-walther-littlegirl.sgf
20060716-walther-SangPunYu.sgf
20060716-walther-YangSuYiTing.sgf

Hottest of the Three Furnaces

2006-07-17T20:09:00.000-04:00

Wuhan is infamous for being one of China's "three furnaces" (i.e., very very hot weather) and is even said to be the hottest. I had been warned of this and the oppressive humidity here before I came, so I was prepared: I cut my hair short and brought only my lightest clothes.

But how hot is it really? I think the hottest temperature the papers have warned us of was 40 degrees celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and sometimes it gets down to a cool 30 degrees celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). Usually it's very humid as well. In my experience, rain is usually very refreshing, but here, after it rains, it just feels stickier.

However it really doesn't seem that bad to me. I think this is due to the air conditioning. We have a.c. in our living room and bedrooms, in the van (though we don't always use it and it doesn't always work) and at the Weiqi center (though, again, we don't always use it). I think that if we didn't have the a.c., and we had no break from the heat and humidity, I would have a better appreciation of Wuhan's nickname.

Teaching game with Yan laoshi

2006-07-17T01:54:00.000-04:00

Here's a link to an sgf of my game last week with Yan laoshi:

20060711-walther-yanlaoshi.sgf

I have a couple more games from last week coming soon, whenever they can be uploaded. I beat Ma Ding Rui twice in the last week, and on Sunday I also managed to beat Yang Su Yi Ting, a kid in the B group. In almost all of my games this week something very large died.

Chinese promotion tournament update

2006-07-16T22:47:00.000-04:00

Jin Jing, who came around for a couple of weeks to give us teaching games, also went to the promotion tournament to try and become 2p. He hadn't played for 3 years or so since he became a pro (he was studying a lot to get into Beijing University). I think that not many people were expecting him to do well, since much of his preparation consisted of playing teaching games against weak people like me and going to the go center and losing to little kids like Xie Er Hao (although I'm sure he did other stuff too). But we're glad he did very well, he is now Jin Jing 2p. Hopefully he'll come by soon so that we can congratulate him.

If you go to http://bbs.eweiqi.com/showtopic.asp?id=100020623&forumid=520305 and http://bbs.eweiqi.com/showtopic.asp?id=100020624&forumid=520305, you can see pictures of the tournament. I think these are all kids trying to become 1p.

Ten Commandments of Weiqi

2006-07-16T21:52:00.000-04:00

These ten "commandments" are posted on the wall of Yan Laoshi's Weiqi Center.

1. Don't be greedy.
2. Think before you decide: when you'd like to attack your enemy's area or arrive at a new place, examine your surroundings first.
3. When you want to fight, you must protect yourself first.
4. If you want to run ahead fast, carry as little baggage as possible.
5. It's wise to take the big while throwing away the small.
6. Suppose you're in danger: your troops don't have enough food or water and are very tired. At this time, you have to give up your wish to attack.
7. We should be very careful and not be so anxious (similar to 6).
8. As in philosophy, we should consider the static state (defense) and the dynamic state (attack).
9. If you're facing a very strong opponent, remember to protect yourself.
10. If you are weak and alone, just settle down and live--don't run around first.

Another game

2006-07-16T21:49:00.000-04:00

I've posted another game:

http://people.brandeis.edu/%7ertorrey/games/sangpanyu_becci071606.sgf

This one I played against one of the kids at the center. In the end it was close, but then I filled in my dame and killed myself. It was a fun game though, and I've added some comments from Yan Laoshi.

At the Center

2006-07-16T19:40:00.000-04:00

We spend a lot of time at the Weiqi Center now and it was hinted that I should try to give an idea of what it is like.

Yan Laoshi's Weiqi Center takes up the third floor of a building. There are five classrooms, a kitchen (where we get our lunch, as do many of the kids and teachers) and bathrooms. The bathrooms leave much to be desired. They have squat toilets (usual here in China) but they're pretty dirty and the boys' room in particular usually smells terrible. Sometimes even walking past it is painful.

I think there are at least six teachers other than Yan Laoshi. They are generally about Chinese 5 or 6 dan. They give us 2 or 3 stones in simultaneous games, but some of the really strong kids play them even. We're told that there are about 150 students total, but most of them we don't know at all. Now that the kids are on summer break, our dan level group has grown to about 25 kids. These are the kids we spend our time with. Here they are diligently copying down their homework.

Our classroom is actually two classrooms connected by an opening in the middle. One of them you can see above (homework picture) and this is the other. Here Yan Laoshi is playing against a couple of the stronger kids. On the wall above them is a print of the "Ten Commandments of Weiqi". These are war strategies, like "if you are running away, take only the necessities: don't run with heavy baggage" or "if you are weak and tired and your resources are overstretched, you need to call off your attack". I'll post all of them in a separate entry.

On the walls there are charts like this one, listing recent results in our games against each other. You can see how Walther and I are doing (actually, maybe it's too small to read), and Romain and Siu are listed directly above us. The kids are occasionally ranked based on their performance and the top kids might get moved up a group, while the bottom kids might be demoted.

San Pei Pei was the first girl to appear in the dan level group. She's in the B group, so she's pretty strong. She works hard, as you can see here--she didn't notice me sneaking around to take her picture. Yesterday Yan Laoshi was reviewing one of Xie Er Hao's games from the tournament and was explaining that if you give away a lot of points to make big thickness, you have to find a target so that you can use that thickness. After showing examples and explaining the idea, he turned to her and asked her what he had said. She recited the concept perfectly in a schoolgirl singsong voice. Her favorite joke is to hold up bunny ears behind someone's head. She does an especially cute version where she makes oval ears with her first two fingers. My fingers don't bend as much so I can't do it as well.

Usually we play in the morning, have our games reviewed, play in the afternoon and then have those games reviewed. As more and more of us finish our games, the reviews get crowded. All the kids are squirming around and it gets difficult to see the board. Some of them are really paying attention and others are often doing the Weiqi equivalent of doodling: playing with the stones. They like to play a game where you each start with one or several stones on the board and you flick them at your opponent's stones, trying to knock the other player off the board without flying off yourself. Elaborate and disruptive games like these are generally frowned upon during review time, but you'll still see them at less conspicuous doodling like when they rub the stones together and then smell them. (I still can't figure out why they do this--I tried it and I can't smell anything.)

Here is an actual lesson. These happen more often now that we're at the center four days a week. The kids are eager to show off their knowledge. Generally, the kids seem happy to be there and to play, but clearly some of them have parents who push them really hard. They'll get yelled at if they lose or play poorly. Even the parents who are less strict are often seen hovering around the center. I think they're not really allowed in the room while we're actually playing or reviewing, but they come rushing in afterward to fuss over their child. When we're not playing, the noise level in the room grows incredibly. The kids' excited voices bounce off the cement walls and have no where to go, so it just builds. It becomes difficult to speak or even think, but it can be a lot of fun.

and then there were three...

2006-07-14T19:51:00.000-04:00

Romain is heading home today. Yan Laoshi, Li a yi, Yan Sen and Siu left early this morning with him to go to the airport. Yan Sen is supposed to be in school, but is sad that Romain is leaving, so they let him go to the airport. Walther and I could not go with them because they are taking a small car instead of our usual big van. They had to trade cars with someone else because, in order to reduce traffic, there is a law that you cannot drive to the airport in a car with an odd numbered license plate on an odd numbered day.

Romain is happy to be going home. He is only 16 and feels that a month and a half away from home is a long time. The rest of us realize that our time to leave will be here before we know it. How will we return to our "normal" lives where Weiqi is not our primary occupation? And how will we leave this wonderful family? (Yan Sen is not in the picture because he had already left to do homework.)

chinese promotion tournament

2006-07-14T08:03:00.000-04:00

Here's some numbers for the Chinese dan promotion tournament (for earning 1p rank):

300-odd people play in the preliminaries. 120 people play in the final tournament, 40 of who are the best non-pro finishers from the previous year. Of these 120, 20 become pro each year, with 2 slots reserved for the top 2 females who are not in the top 20. This year, the age limit is 17, but next year it might be lowered to 15. I think that this is accurate, but since I just heard this from Yan laoshi, there might have been something lost because of my bad Chinese.

Today, the top two at Yan laoshi's go school qualified for the final 1p promotion tournament. 7 year old Xie Er Hao came close, but he has good prospects for the next couple of years.

Most of the kids in the A, B, and C groups are between 9 and 11. It's sort of sad to think that all of them are at go school, but most of them have no chance of becoming pro. They don't really correct their mistakes, so they can't make quick progress. I don't think that there are any pro prospects in the C group I'm playing in; they would probably rush straight through to the B group at least. Hopefully all of these kids will still enjoy playing weiqi when the grow up.

Half-way Point

2006-07-13T20:00:00.000-04:00

Walther and I have now been here about a month, which means we only have about a month left. I feel like I've learned a lot already, but am I stronger? I don't know. Sometimes I feel that I am, and sometimes I don't. Over the next month, I think we will continue to learn a lot more, but we will also gain much more experience, which I hope will cement the things that we have already learned. I believe that, in the end, I will be a stronger player for having come here. This learning environment simply does not exist in the U.S.

Perhaps the most important thing is that we are laying foundations for continuing to improve even after we leave. Yan Laoshi is working hard to make sure we learn the fundamentals, but also we are learning how to study. Of course, there is nothing like being here and having all your games reviewed and playing all these strong players, but we are learning how to really study problems and learn from our games.

Two months is not enough though. I wish I had much more time here. But perhaps I would then take it for granted, like the kids, and not work as hard. The teachers are always bemoaning the kids' propensity to make the same mistakes over and over again, while we will learn it the first time. (This puts a lot of pressure on us to learn it the first time!)

I'm afraid of losing what I'm learning, especially since, when I go back, I have to write my PhD thesis and will not have tons of time to devote to my Weiqi. So my motivation for getting as much as possible out of this now, and setting up a good study plan when I leave is high. I plan to make the most out of this last month of full-time Go study.

Dance Show

2006-07-13T19:21:00.000-04:00

Last night, Li a yi, Li Chen and I went out to a dance show at a beautiful theatre. Li a yi said Yan Laoshi used to go to such things, but he's so busy now and doesn't like to anymore. The boys weren't interested.

It was clearly a family event. There were lots of kids there, whose laughing and screaming and chattering competed in volume with the music, which was impressive. There was one group of women who danced with yo-yo's, which made the kids laugh uproariously the first couple of times they were used.

The costumes were elaborate and beautiful and the dancing expressive, so that, with a little bit of explanation from Li Chen, I didn't feel like I was totally in the dark. The show was about life on the Yangtze River (which is appropriate for us in Wuhan, since the Yangtze cuts right through the middle of the city). Each scene represented different aspects of life near the river or some bit of ancient culture or tradition. There was a scene about a famous poet who drowned in the river, another about the bride-to-be crying on the day before her wedding, another about the people's relationship with fish.

Though it celebrated various traditions, this was no low-brow traditional show. It was a bombardment of the senses: projected images, ornate scenery, costumes with christmas lights (stars, wishing the Yangtze River the best in the final scene), costumes with black-lit flourescent pink flowers, moving boats, and energetic lighting. The music, including the singing, was all pre-recorded, but very powerful: drums and other percussion instruments, bells and gongs, sounds of the rapids, singing ranging from booming choruses to shrill solos and some fun sound effects like the fisherman slowly and cautiously plopping through the edge of the river, sneaking up on the fish.

2006-07-13T11:27:00.000-04:00

Perhaps I am getting stronger, although it still doesn't feel like. Yan laoshi says that our level is getting higher, his analogy is that he's watching a movie while we're inside the movie, so he has a better idea of what's going one.

On Tuesday, I beat Yan laoshi again with 3 stones. I feel ok about the game, I even managed to play a "miao shou" or two. Afterwards, Yan laoshi said that my style is very steady. When there's a shape to fix, I'll fix it. Then when there's a place to destroy the opponent's territory, I'll do that. And if my opponent shows a weakness, I'll grab ahold of it. Overall, it's pretty rare that I give away points for free. On the other hand, Siu likes to play a little stronger and attack if he can.

Then today, I beat the kid nicknamed Ma Xiaochun, who used to play in the B group. He is strong at fighting (but atrocious at fuseki), and in my previous two games with him, I got hammered on joseki I didn't quite know. This time, I made it out of the first corner alive, and then even managed to kill a group later. It was pretty lucky, but I beat him at his own game so I can't have played too badly. Soon, I'll be able to set my sights on the kids in the B group.

Today in the afternoon, Becci and I played two of Yan laoshi's good friends. Yan laoshi told me that I should be able to win, which I did by killing another big dragon. Afterwards, I heard from Yan laoshi that my opponent couldn't believe that people from outside of China could become that strong, and that maybe he still couldn't believe that he lost to me. Yan laoshi said that I wasn't the only strong one, and that he should come tomorrow to play Siu, who should also be able to beat him. This guy is supposedly about 3-4d; he has a lot of experience, but often plays "random" moves. Yan laoshi also said that after another month, when we have more experience and better fundamentals, this guy wouldn't have a chance against us.

So far, the top two kids at the go school are about to pass the preliminary stage of the professional tournament (they have to win 5 of 8 games, and both are already 4 -2 after 3 days). Xie Er Hao, the tiny kid who's maybe 7 years old is 3-3. He's in the B group, but lately he's been playing pretty well: two of his losses are just by a half point. The other kids aren't doing quite as well.

I'll try to have a game up sometime.

We should have done our research.

2006-07-12T19:45:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, unbeknownst to us until dinner time, was Yan Laoshi's birthday! Shengri kuai le! (Happy birthday!)

Everyone tells me that you're supposed to have longevity noodles on your birthday, but I didn't see any noodles. There was a huge elaborate birthday cake. It seemed like something you'd have at a small wedding in the U.S. rather than for a birthday. Li a yi's brother's family was there as was Li Chen and her cousin. Yan Laoshi made a wish and blew out the candles. The cake was then moved aside for our feast of a dinner, which was festive and merry.

I wish we had known ahead of time so that we could have had presents for him, but nobody else was giving presents either, so maybe it was all for the best.

After dinner we walked down to our usual basketball court. Yan Laoshi loves to play basketball. Li Chen's cousin played too, so I wasn't the only girl. It was really hot though, so we were all soon dripping with sweat. We played for a while anyway and then returned home for watermelon (of course) and cake. I told Li a yi that I only wanted a little bit, but of course got a monstrous piece. After we had finished, we had only eaten about a third of the cake. I was hoping Romain, who eats a lot of ice cream would love the cake and eat all our leftovers, but he didn't like the frosting so I'm afraid the rest of us will somehow have to eat all of that cake. I'm not sure why he didn't like the frosting--it was just whipped cream, so I actually ate it. I have no idea how they managed to sculpt the whipped cream like that. I thought for sure it would be pure sugar.

Game Posting

2006-07-11T20:18:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been lazy long enough. I've finally gotten around to posting a game. We can't post them directly onto the blog (they'll take pictures, but not my games which are really just text files). So here's the first one:

http://people.brandeis.edu/%7ertorrey/games/yanlaoshi_becci071106.sgf

I played this game yesterday against Yan Laoshi, taking 3 stones as usual. I resigned, which is how my games with him usually end, but he said overall it was good. I've added his comments on the game as well.

If you aren't already equipped to read .sgf files, SmartGo, though not the prettiest, works and should be easy and fast to download.

We're not the only blog!

2006-07-11T01:50:00.000-04:00

I just added a link to Romain's blog to our side bar. This one's in French. Siu's blog (in Dutch) is already linked there. Even if you can't read them, they have some other pictures up.

2006-07-11T00:29:00.000-04:00

I think that I haven't updated for quite a while. Last Wednesday I beat Yan laoshi at 3 stones, but it was lucky, my entire game was so ugly except for one really good move. This wednesday, I hope that I can play a better game and still win.

From Thursday to Sunday, I played 2 games a day. I'm a little surprised that I felt so tired playing so few games, but I think that it's because all of the games are serious. I'm glad to have a couple days break now before we start playing again this weekend. It almost feels like I'm playing tournament games.

As before, I will almost always win against the weaker kids in our group, but I have a little more trouble against the stronger kids. The weaker ones will often play moves that are not just bad, but sort of meaningless. The stronger kids are generally much sharper. I did finally get a win against the kid who has a little tail of hair (he won the most games last month), I feel like it was like moving past a psychological barrier, so perhaps I will be able to get more wins now.

I feel like in the last week (and maybe in the last month) I haven't really gotten any stronger, but I feel like I learned a lot, and now I have the right mindset so that I will be able to keep on advancing. At the very least, the game seems much clearer to me.

I think that we are at a pretty significant barrier. When Siu came, he was 1k European, and he has advanced to our current level (whatever that may be, Yan laoshi estimates 3d for Siu) in just a little over a month. But he is having a harder time making progress now. And like I said, I don't really feel like I'm stronger either. But we're not sure how much of that feeling is a function of our being around so many strong players.

Becci has a post soon-to-be-posted about our book-buying trip. I'm just going to list the books I got here:

4 dictionaries (l&d, tesuji, joseki, fuseki), 2 volumes on the newest variations for attack and defense, 3 volumes of endgame (by lee changho), 2 volumes hard korean l&d, brilliant moves by lee changho, igo hatsuyo-ron (classical life and death, a present from Yan laoshi), 1000 L&D (the book the go school uses for the level beneath us), collection of best games from Go Seigen, and a book on stuff to know from Chinese 3d-6d.

Romain was having a little trouble packing for his return to France (this saturday). He also got a board while he was here, dark wood (cypress?), like the cracked board that's at the MGA. It's 13 kg, 6 cm, and he also bought 7 kg of books (about the same as me). Unfortunately, the weight limit for baggage is 20 kg, so we might be doing some finessing with his carry-on.

watermelon

2006-07-11T00:22:00.000-04:00

We eat lots of watermelon.

2006-07-10T23:50:00.000-04:00

Another Food posting.

Here's some selections from our last week's meals:

I see fishballs upfront, then going clockwise: peppers, stir-fried green veggies, condiments, fried strips of beef (romain likes these), some kind of melon (like a cucumber), and in the center stewed eggs and pork meat.

Here we have fish, then moving clockwise: tomatoes and eggs, then eggplant, then some things i forget, then the green thing is dong gua (melon), then duck, then chicken wings, and the center is like an egg custard with meat.

This dinner is notable for its inclusion of chou tofu (stinky tofu) It's the black stuff up front. in the back left, there's also fried stuffed eggplant.

Books

2006-07-10T19:42:00.000-04:00

After four days at the center, we got a much needed break yesterday and stayed home. Our only excursion from the house was an important one though: Yan Laoshi took us to buy books.

It has been raining a lot here lately and though it wasn't raining when we left for the bookstore, it was pouring by the time we got there. Yan Laoshi backed the big van into this tiny alley, just squeezing in. When it was apparent that we meant to park there though, this woman came out and started yelling at us. We were parking right in front of her restaurant and this was unacceptable. My experience has been that professional Go players, though they might have to compromise a little, tend to get their way. So I wasn't worried. Sure enough, Yan Laoshi made it work. He moved the sign standing in front of the restaurant which was preventing us from backing up further. Then he pulled the van back a bit more and that seemed to be enough.

We climbed some stairs behind the restaurant to the bookstore, which was basically a little warehouse: they mostly sell online. Most of the books were Weiqi, though there were also a lot of Chinese Chess books, and a few books on Western Chess and Bridge. They had some equipment, but Yan Laoshi said they didn't have anything really good. We were there for the books.

I wish we had brought a camera with us. We were like kids in a candy store. I'm really glad we had Yan Laoshi there to help us though. It was a bit overwhelming and, since it's all in Chinese, I would have needed a really long time to pick out what I wanted. Instead Yan Laoshi quickly pulled out all the best books for us: 4 dictionaries (tesuji, tsume-go, joseki and fuseki), several tsume-go problem books, a set of Lee Changho end game books and a set of books on new attack and defense techniques. He also gave to each of us a really nice classical collection of (hard) problems. We continued to browse and picked out a few more. I also picked up a Hikaru kifu book, because Hikaru is awesome and because all the kids at the center have them and I wanted one too.

We each spent about 30 euros and each got about 300 euros worth of books. I figure if we buy enough books then our flight here will not have cost us anything. For the rest of the afternoon we spent our time getting better acquainted with our new books. In the evening, Yan Laoshi went through the whole pile and explained a bit about what each of them was for and how we should use them to study. He stressed that we should not just jump into the hard problems (which are tantalizing) but make sure that we do a lot of easy problems every day and maybe one or two hard problems each day.

Kramer

2006-07-09T19:37:00.000-04:00

We've decided that Yan Sen (Yan Laoshi and Li ayi's son) bears a striking resemblance to Kramer from Seinfeld. Yan Sen is lively and funny and does that same stagger when entering a room. When Yan Sen starts acting up, Li ayi can often be heard saying "Yan Sen..." in a quiet but threatening voice. There's always a smile underneath the tone though.

We told Yan Sen that he reminds us of Kramer, but of course he has absolutely no idea who Kramer is.

Our Chef

2006-07-07T19:53:00.000-04:00

This is Liu yi, who cooks all this wonderful food for us.

She likes to talk to me, emphatically and insistently, even though I usually have no idea what she is saying. Even when she says something that I should understand, I often don't. Perhaps I'm just intimidated.

She's always trying to get us to eat more and she still can't fathom the fact that I don't eat meat. "That's not meat, it's sausage!" (Yan Laoshi made this mistake too, but I ate the fried rice with egg and sausage in it that time because I didn't want him to go make more food for me.) The other day she served spring rolls which she insisted had only the tiniest bit of meat in them. I ate those too. I eat a lot of fish here and spend a lot of time picking veggies and tofu and eggs out from between bits of meat.

At the far end of the table, next to the beer, you can see the pile of bowls and chopsticks. We each have our own bowl. Since some of them look exactly the same, we distinguish them with tiny chips or marks. My bowl (blue with flowers) looks the same as Yan Sen's, but he sharpens knives on the bottom of his, so you can make out some faint marks from that if you look at the bottom.

We all have our own tea cups with lids too. I drink green tea and water and beer and usually avoid the coke and orange drink (occasionally I think orange juice sounds good, but when I drink it, I'm reminded that it's more like orange soda without the fizz). I decided before I came that I wouldn't drink any coffee while I'm here. Sometimes I really think that I could use the caffeine, but since our coffee option is Nescafe, it's not terribly tempting--especially compared to the beautiful green tea we have.

Vacation!

2006-07-06T19:27:00.000-04:00

The kids in China are now on summer vacation and, as far as I can tell, will continue to be on break until around the time that Walther and I leave (mid-August). Why is this relevant to us? There are now more kids at the Weiqi center and they're there more often. Thus we are now at the center all day four days each week (Thursday through Sunday).

I don't think there are any new kids in our C group of the dan level; we seem to be playing the same kids. But there are new faces in the other groups. There's even a girl! I had seen some other girls at the center before, but not in the dan level group. So I was happy to see her there.

Next week, several of the more advanced dan level kids will go to compete in a big tournament where they will have the opportunity, if they perform well enough, to become professionals. Yan Laoshi says that even the strongest of them doesn't stand a chance. So I guess they are just going for the experience this year with hopes that they will be better prepared in the future.

Jin Jing (in the yellow shirt), who is professional 1 dan and a former student of Yan Laoshi spends a lot of time with us. He is still in school (he just finished his exams and was number one in his class), so I guess he too is on summer break now. He plays teaching games with us here at the house and he comes down to the center to help review and to play with the kids. With his quiet, shrinking demeanor, he often seems to us like one of the kids. Although I guess that doesn't really make sense since the kids are usually noisy and running around. Since he only recently became a pro and is still active (competing in tournaments) his calculation is very sharp. It's exciting to play with him. He, too, will compete in this big tournament, where he will have the chance to increase his rank to 2 dan.

Counting

2006-07-05T19:50:00.000-04:00

Yan Laoshi has talked a lot about counting during the game. Not just endgame (where you have to play double sente, sente, reverse sente and then gote), but also in the middle game. He often analyzes a sequence of moves to see how much they are worth. The main point is that you can't just count how many points your group has. Instead, you have to compare it to how many points your opponent got in the process. If you make a move or a sequence of moves where you get 30 points, you might be really happy, but if, in the process, your opponent got 25 points, then you really only got 5. If, in addition, your opponent got sente, then you probably lost in the exchange.

2006-07-04T22:12:00.000-04:00

What have I been up to the past couple of days? Saturday and Sunday I played four games at the go school. I was actually more proud of one of the games that I lost than the games that I won. In my wins, the kids played a lot of hasty moves (sui shou, the pinyin doesn't seem quite right to me but that's how it's listed at http://senseis.xmp.net/?ChineseGoTerms). In the loss that I was more proud of, I got an extremely bad result on a complicated joseki when the kid (nickname: Ma Xiaochun) played particularly "miao," or brilliantly. When he diverged, I found the right answer, but I was crushed anyways because his move was so good. It's sort of a mixed bag with these kids, because although they can be very strong, they can also play ridiculous moves.

On Monday, I played Li laoshi at 3 stones. At the end, he was complaining to the kids that I had grabbed all the big endgame points, but I still lost by 3 points. For some reason, in these teaching games, I often play 1 move in the opening that is almost like passing, and then overcomplicate things towards the end. But at least my position was pretty good, in many of the previous games I had already lost by about move 60. I seem to struggle so much with these 3 stones, I'm not sure if I'm getting weaker (before getting stronger) or if the teachers are just so much stronger.

As for my slow move in this game, the lesson was to keep running towards the center if possible instead of connecting on the inside. Fix on the outside instead of the inside. Another way to put it is to keep initiative on the outside, then cut (which is only dame points) will no longer be a problem.

Tuesday, a trip to the Huang He Lo (Yellow Crane Tower). Becci will tell some more about it in her post. We got some nice views of Wuhan.

In other news, Xie Hao, the little 7 year old who is in the B group, also beat Jin Jing 1p on Monday.

More food pictures soon.

Yellow Crane Tower

2006-07-04T19:30:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was another day off, and the boys were given a chance to sleep in. I still got up at 6 to exercise (even this is really too late, but any later is just way too hot). The boys took full advantage of this opportunity to sleep in, so I ate breakfast with Li Zi (Li ayi's nephew). Liu yi served me a big bowl of pork-filled dumplings in broth. After almost three weeks, she's still trying to serve me meat. I pointed at the filling and managed to communicate to her that there's meat inside so I don't eat this. She then removed all the dumplings from my bowl except for one, figuring that I can at least eat one. But then she decided to cook me some empty dumpling wrappers instead. Of course, there was more than enough to eat anyway. With my bowl of broth and dumpling wrappers, I ate some fried dough and fried rice patties and drank a glass of milk.

Around 10, Li Jing (Li ayi's brother) took Li ayi, Siu, Romain and I out to buy a new MP3 player for Romain. This gave me an opportunity to practice some Chinese with Li ayi. I asked her "Ta shi shei?" ("Who is he?"). She said (in Chinese and then English) that he was her brother. I asked (in Chinese) for his name. Then Li ayi complimented my earrings, so (with Siu's help) she taught me to say that my sister gave them to me and that my sister lives and works in New York. So then I told her (also in Chinese) that my older brother lives and works in Boston and that my younger brother is a student. We went to pick up Yan Sen (her son) at his school, but he couldn't leave yet for some reason (or at least this was my understanding of the situation). She explained that there is a lot of pressure on the students here and asked if it was the same in America. I said that no this was not the case and, in fact, my brother feels no pressure whatsoever and just plays computer games all the time.

In the afternoon we went to the Yellow Crane Tower, which is the most famous building in Wuhan. Li Chen told me that the Yellow Crane Tower has 1700 years of history. It was clearly not that old though and she later told me that it had been rebuilt in 1981.

A couple of Yan Sen's friends and their mothers joined us for the outing (even though Yan Sen had to stay at school -- a fact which is particularly mysterious to me because he finished his exams at the end of last week and said that he now has 25 days of vacation). They came with gifts for us foreigners: one of the mothers had handsewn these little tigers and good luck charms (with mini sewing kits inside) for us and they also gave us beautiful fans. The mothers wanted their sons to spend some time with us so they could practice their English (which was very good).

We departed for the Yellow Crane Tower with a packed van (13 people) and frozen bottles of water for everyone. Apparently we had a critical mass of people, or maybe it was the added attraction of foreigners, because we seemed to keep picking up more people as we went along. As soon as we got to the top, I was accosted by this girl who eagerly cried, "Oh, I'm so happy to meet you!" and requested a picture with me. Her mom took several pictures of the two of us and then the girl took pictures of me with her mom. This was nothing compared to their excitement to meet Romain though, who couldn't even understand the girl's English and so was thoroughly baffled.

The view from the top of the tower was impressive. Wuhan is big. For the first time, we could really see how big. Everyone again pointed out that Wuhan is comprised of three sections: our section, which is famous for education, and the two sections across the Yangtze river, one of which is famous for industry and the other for business. The "mountain" on which the Yellow Crane Tower is situated is called Snake Mountain because is curves around like a snake. Across the river, the TV tower is located on Turtle Mountain.

Yan Laoshi rushed us up to the top of the tower when we first got there, but we had a little more time to look at the paintings, stone tablets and other artwork on our way down. It seems that the Chinese philosophy is not to look at these things but rather to take one's photograph in front of them. Li ayi loves taking these pictures of all of us in front of everything even slightly interesting.

As we were leaving the tower, another girl joined our group who spoke English. I'm still not exactly sure how she fit into our group, but I think she was also a classmate of Yan Sen. When she met Siu, she asked him what his English name was. :)

Yan Sen and another girl met up with us for dinner at the favorite family restaurant. Everyone gets a little pot of boiling soup at the table (with your own personal sterno can underneath to keep it going--surely an insurance nightmare in the U.S.). Then you go and pick out various things to cook in it: vegetables, noodles, fish, meat, pig brains, etc. It's a lot of fun and we all love it. We've been there several times now, so we feel quite at home.

Today we're back to our usual watermelon and tsume-go, but today they decided to just give each of us half a watermelon and a spoon.

I'll add more photos when Li ayi puts hers on the computer.

What is Weiqi anyway?

2006-07-02T20:12:00.000-04:00

For those of you who don't know, Weiqi is an ancient Chinese board game. The board is a 19x19 grid. One player has white stones and the other has black. The stones are played on the intersections and, once played, do not move around the board. The goal is to surround empty intersections, which comprise your territory. Whoever has more territory wins the game. You can read more about the rules at http://www.usgo.org/resources/whatisgo.html.

The game is several thousand years old and there's so much history and culture and etiquette involved. When you play each stone, you hold it between your forefinger and your middle finger with your forefinger underneath. Some people will slam the stones down while others play with quiet strength. One's personality comes out on the board as well, where some people are aggressive and others wait patiently for a golden opportunity. There are names for certain shapes like "crane's nest", "patting the raccoon's belly" and "golden chicken standing on one leg". When learning to play Weiqi, one learns not just the rules and strategies but also respect: for oneself and one's opponent and life in general.

Bu hao!

2006-07-02T19:22:00.000-04:00

Ever since Siu told Yan Laoshi and Li ayi that perhaps Romain was accostomed to more positive reinforcement than one usually finds in Chinese education, "Bu hao!" has become a running gag. Li ayi finds it hilarious that Yan Laoshi only says "Bu hao! Bu hao!" ("Not good! Not good!") If people are playing five-in-a-row (like Connect Four) and Yan Laoshi comes over to look, everyone sees that analytical look in his eye and says "Bu hao! Bu hao!"--that is, if they can beat him to it. The joke extends to eating dinner and playing basketball and anything else we do. (Although, that's pretty much all we do.)

Personally, I think that "Bu hao!" is easier to take then when you play a move in the review and he huffs and turns away in disgust.

My goal has become avoiding playing things that I already know are wrong. This sounds easier than it is. But I think this goal is helping. I won both of my games yesterday at the center (this was the first time I've won against any of the kids at the center). I'm still playing so slowly though. When I play fast, I play so much worse. I think each of my games were about 2 hours long, which doesn't sound _too_ bad, except that the kids take no time at all to play. I hope that with playing so much (next week we'll start going to the center all day long four days every week instead of just two) and with tsume-go that I should be able to play faster without sacrificing strength. Yan Laoshi doesn't seem to be concerned about this though. He hasn't told me that I play too slowly (at least not that I know of) but he does tell Romain that he plays too fast and he should slow down. ("Man. Man." -- "Slow. Slow.")

Photo credits

2006-06-30T00:04:00.000-04:00

I don't own a camera. Neither does Walther. The photos we're posting are courtesy of Romain, Siu and Li ayi.

Food, food, food

2006-06-29T20:36:00.000-04:00

After the next uploading cycle, we'll have pictures of Tuesday and Wednesday's fish-loaded meals. I'll probably upload pictures for a week's worth of meals to give everybody an idea, and then do a post every now and then when something exceptional comes up.

This is maybe last Saturday's meal. In the center, pig's feet. At top, some veggies and chicken drumsticks. Left and right of center are fish and ku gua (bitter melon). At the bottom, something spicy, tomatoes with sugar, and fried beef strips.

I think this is Monday's meal. The orange is nan gua bing, a slightly sweet and sticky pastry made from "southern melon." The dish with the big soup ladle is a sort of wet custard with bits of meat. On the bottom right are fish balls and mushrooms. At the upper left, with the yellow cap, you can see the hot peppers Yan laoshi loves to eat (and Romain is deathly afraid of).

This is Sunday's meal. I sort of forget what all the dishes were, but it was a big meal because Li ayi's classmates came to visit from xian. Although if you compare with the other meals, perhaps this wasn't so big after all.

When Josekis Collide

2006-06-29T20:18:00.000-04:00

See if you can figure out what joseki this is (only one corner, of course). The upper right corner is a different variation played out partway. During game reviews, he usually shows us some fairly simple joseki, but a few days ago he showed us this complicated one, probably because the kids in the A and B league like to play it a lot.

2006-06-29T10:51:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, I will be adding more food pictures.

In July, the students are on holiday, so the go school will be open more often. We'll be there from Thursday through Saturday. On the other three days (Mon-Wed), we will study ourselves, play each other or Yan laoshi or Jin Jing 1p, or take a break to go sightseeing.

After two weeks, I've also finally got my first win against a teacher. I took 2 stones against Li laoshi, who is a bit more aggressive and maybe overplays a bit. He's perhaps the weakest of the teachers I've played so far; it's hard to say because it's the first game where I didn't make a huge mistake in the opening. But even the stronger teachers have a hard time against the top kids. Siu mentioned that every time he sees the top kid at the school play against the teachers, there's a dead group somewhere on the board (usually the teacher's).

I feel like when I first got here, I got a little bit weaker as I tried to begin to think the way Yan laoshi thought about the game. I think that now things are sinking in, and I am starting to make fewer mistakes, so I am trending upwards again. The teaching I had received before was from strong players, but it was relatively unfocused. Reviews often talked about good or bad moves, but didn't often focus on the flow of the game, or talk about the right mindset. I might say that my previous teachers analysed the board, but Yan laoshi (with more ideal circumstances, meeting students everyday in person, seeing progress or lack thereof over time) is able to analyse both the board and the student.

Speaking of mistakes, I actually had a game review yesterday that lasted about 10 minutes because I screwed up a large-scale joseki (after I had actually tricked the teacher!). Yan laoshi's advice: don't play large-scale joseki unless you know the variations. Which I would have followed at the time, except I didn't know the smaller-scale variations either. So the first two weeks has been, in addition to soaking up the principles of urgent points and fighting for sente and completing shapes (which I knew beforehand in a theoretical sense, but am now applying), learning some of the more common joseki so that I don't get burned before I have a chance to show my stuff.

Today's lesson: it's usually not good to surround points when you are also helping the opponent make points. Especially if, as he is breaking into your area, he makes more points. In our reviews, we see a lot of gote moves which seem to surround a lot of points, but if you compare with what the opponent gained, are actually not worth that much. The best thing is to play a sequence that breaks the opponents area while solidifying your own.

Example: In one of our game reviews today, black attacked from one direction, gaining a 26 point territory in gote, while helping white solidify 20 points. If black had attacked from the other direction, he wouldn't have that largish territory at all, but would have been able to break into white's territory in sente to take away those 20 points, and then still be able to play a large 15-point + gote move. The difference could be more than 30 points, so enclosing a big territory is not always best if it helps the opponent more. I'll try to post examples for this lesson and more.

Fishing and Foot Massage (with pictures!)

2006-06-27T19:37:00.000-04:00

What a day off! The other day, Siu and Walther said, "I think Yan Laoshi said we're going fishing. Maybe we heard wrong?" Romain and I were completely incredulous. I don't think either of us really believed it until we got there.

We went to a fish farm. The fish were bred in several concrete and brick pools interspersed with concrete docks. It seems that they do this bit of agricultural tourism (our fishing trip) on the side.

We picked up a few old friends of the Yan family on the way and spent the day out there. We caught some fish in the morning. It's not too hard, seeing as these fish are just sitting in these pools with no where to go and nothing to do. Romain was clearly the best. He caught four fish. He also sat in the sun and got burnt, while the rest of us stayed on the covered walkways.

They served us lunch with fish ball soup and a spicy grilled (?) fish for the main dishes. They were delicious. I tried not to think about the stagnant green and orange water the fish live in. Or the fact that the owner chain smokes and tosses his cigarette butts in the pools. Ignoring that, lunch was excellent. Also we had these little bean things that tasted like artichokes. I don't know what they were, but I loved them.

After lunch, Yan Laoshi, Li a yi and their friends played mah jong in the little bungalow, while we westerners stayed out and tried to catch more fish. We didn't have much luck in the afternoon though, as the fish were not biting in the hot sun.

We left around 3 pm and dropped the friends off somewhere. I thought we would just head home, but no. We took a detour to a Chinese doctor for a massage. They specialized in massaging the feet, since there are pressure points in the feet for the whole body.

The massage was wonderful. While my feet soaked in hot herbed water, the doctor massaged my shoulders, found pressure points on my head and massaged my arms: shaking, slapping, cracking, and more pressure points. Then he dried my feet and massaged them for about half an hour, leaving them with a lovely tingling feeling. Afterwards, he massaged my legs. He would hold my leg in a stretch farther than I would have stretched it. He'd hold and hold and then shove. I thought for sure he'd pull a muscle or two, but it would only hurt when he actually did it and then feel better immediately after.

Throughout the whole thing, we snuggled under down comforters and drowsily half-watched World Cup games on TV. I was in a room with Li a yi. The boys were elsewhere. Since I don't speak Chinese and none of them spoke English, I was alone with my thoughts and enjoyed the whole experience immensely. It was an ideal day off. Today we're back to work. :)

I won!

2006-06-27T19:31:00.000-04:00

On Monday, we went to the Weiqi center in the afternoon as we usually do on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I played one of the teachers at 3 stones (he was playing simultaneously with Romain) and I won! He resigned. I was excited, but really this is my strength -- playing with handicap stones. I play so slowly. I feel like whenever I play an even game, I just get behind so quickly. In July, we'll start going to the center all day 4 days a week (now we just go all day on Saturdays and Sundays). Then we'll probably be playing the kids more, which means more even games for me. Hopefully this will help me play faster moves.

Driving in Wuhan

2006-06-26T21:12:00.000-04:00

Yan Laoshi carts us around town in a big van. Mostly we go back and forth between the apartment and the Weiqi center. The 25 kilometer drive to the Weiqi center takes about half an hour. Sometimes we stop to pick up or drop off other students or teachers. I often think that I will study problems or games or Chinese in the car, but I rarely do. There is so much to see that I prefer to just stare dazed out the window.

I'm glad that I don't actually have to drive. Sitting in the car is rather like an amusement park ride. I don't think that anything bad will actually happen, but there's a lot of eye candy and things popping out at you to make you jump. About 85 percent of the time, we're on a collision course with someone or something. There's a bus swerving at us, a car a hair's breadth from the side of our van, or we're barrelling down on some unsuspecting pedestrian or bicyclist. Everyone just goes in the direction they need to go, without much regard for traffic laws. I think it's less dangerous than it sounds though, because no one can go too fast since there's always someone or something in front of you to swerve around or slow you down. So everything seems to move in slow motion. The pedestrians just saunter on their way and trust that the bus heading straight for them will slow down just enough to not hit them.

There's so much to see. There are people everywhere: in cars, in buses, on bicycles or just walking. The buildings tend to be large and covered with loud billboards. Most everything is in Chinese characters, and hence completely incomprehensible to me. Some things are written in pinyin, so that I can at least sound it out and maybe pick out some words. Some of the business names will also be printed in English and occasionally you see a business motto in English. The grammar is often terrible: "In the future, are carrying on..."

2006-06-25T04:30:00.000-04:00

Hi guys,

http://weiqi.sports.tom.com/hubo/sihuoying-all.htm

These are some of the problems that we're doing here. I guess our problems came from here, although our hard copies have some discrepancies with the online versions. In any case, they're about the same level we're doing, if you're interested. Yan laoshi expects us to do one of those pages per day or so each of the life and death (sihuo) and the tesuji (shoujian) problems. We also have another packet of problems we do about 4 per day, that are similar in level.

In the interest of full disclosure, even with our approx. 3 hours per day of self-study, I don't manage to finish all of the 5d level problems in the life and death section.

Ni hao!

2006-06-24T19:51:00.000-04:00

All we do is play Go and eat, so the Chinese I'm learning consists of Go terms and the names of various types of food. Also, we learned quickly how to say "I'm full" ("Wo shi bao le"). We say this all the time, since we eat so much and they're always trying to get us to eat more. "Si shi gua! ("Eat watermelon!") "Wo shi bao le." ("I'm full.") Romain and I don't know how to say too much else, but we're trying to learn more. Yesterday we went out to eat for dinner and Yan Sen (Yan Laoshi's son) had just taught us to say "I love the NBA" ("Wo ai NBA"). So we were practicing saying that we love other things too: "Wo ai Weiqi", etc. Romain started to say something and started out slowly with "Wo..." trying to think of how to say whatever it was, but Yan Laoshi interrupted and finished quickly for him: "shi bao le."

About a month before I came, I got a Chinese textbook with CD's, and started memorizing the first CD and trying to learn some Chinese. I wish I had started months earlier. The little that I learned from doing that has been really helpful, but it would be helpful if I had done a lot more. I don't mind so much not being able to understand what people are saying at dinner. Siu and Walther translate for me a lot, and Yan Laoshi's family are all very good about speaking slowly and clearly to me. They see that I want to learn and are happy to teach me. Li a yi and Yan Sen taught me yesterday to say the Chinese phrase equivalent to "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". (Of course, it doesn't mention Rome.)

I get frustrated sometimes with the Go lectures in Chinese though. Yan Laoshi gets excited and goes fast. When I just watch what he does on the board, I can understand a lot of that, but not all of it. But I also want to learn the Chinese so that I can understand what he's saying about it. I try very hard to listen to what he's saying and try to figure it out from the few words I know, but then sometimes I miss what he's doing on the board. I am learning some of the terms; I can understand more now than I did a week ago. So hopefully it will get easier. I think it would have been helpful though to have taken a Chinese class or at least spent more time on my CD's before I came. I just hate to miss any of what he's teaching me.

2006-06-23T09:50:00.000-04:00

So far, I am still being crushed at 3 stones by the teachers. I guess I've only been here a week so far so I shouldn't expect instant improvement. Well, I guess "crushed" would be an overstatement, but the teachers (probably 5-6d) seem to be able to grasp on to any weakness and use it to control the game.

Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday were all filled with go. We study problems in the morning, in the afternoon we play against the teachers at the go school, and in the evening we review all of our games with Yan laoshi. We now also have Jin Jing, a 1-dan pro about to go to school at Beijing University, coming over in the mornings to help us out with problems, show variations, and play some teaching games.

I think that after another week or so, I'll have all of my glaringly bad moves beaten out of me. At that point, winning against the teachers and maybe even Yan laoshi shouldn't be too difficult at 3 stones. Then, Yan laoshi said that we can start talking about strategies, such as feint in the east and attack in the west. I guess that becoming 2-3 dan Chinese doesn't require any special moves, just a couple of basic principles and some calculating power.

I'm pretty excited, because I can see so many places that I make mistakes, if I eliminate them I will be so much stronger. And by mistakes, I don't mean that I miscalculated (just do more problems), or that I played a move expecting one result and got another (just do more problems), but rather that I was thinking in an incorrect way about how to play go. With these basic principles being drilled into my head all the time, I feel like the game becomes much simpler, the board a little bit smaller.

Hmmm... maybe this last bit doesn't quite make sense, but anyways, I'm excited because I can see a template for my future progress. I read Benjamin Teuber's blog about his trip last year to a Korean baduk school, and it seems that one advantage he had there is that there were more strong players to play games with. He said that fighting strength was heavily emphasied, and games with stronger players definitely will increase that. On the other hand, I think that we get more face time with the teacher here, and are guided more carefully along a path to stronger go. I think that this fits my personality more, since I do better with more structure and guidance, and I also play better with principles being emphasised.

Today, we played in a league consisting of the four of us in the apartment. In the afternoon, I played a terrible game against Yan laoshi at 3 stones. In the first 50 moves I had 4 pretty bad moves. In the first 100 moves, he showed me 4 or 5 moves that, in total, cost me 50 points, or the same as a group of 25 dead stones. (one move cost me 30 points which is pretty bad when you consider that a normal opening move is usually worth about 20 points).

This weekend, we will be playing with managers from a Sichuan company that sponsors Yan laoshi's school. I'm not sure what to expect for our schedule, but our opponents should be 2-3d Chinese.

Some basic principles:

Sente is very big. I guess it's the kind of thing that's sort of hard to recognize unless an example is played out, but in our teaching games, we are always losing 5 points here, 6 points there, and it's as if the teacher only played one move. 3 or 4 sente moves could add up to 15 points, and then another 5 point random gote move, all adds up to be the same as one 20 point gote move. Sometimes, even if breaking into a big territory is big, if it's gote, it's not that big.

Attack 2 steps, defend one step. Many of us are guilty of overattacking. Once the opponent gets stronger, he dives into the hole that we neglected while we were so busy attacking. Especially in handicap games, it's necessary to come back to defend, then it's possible to attack again.

So much to learn! See you next time. Also, if you have comments, please let me know what sorts of things you would like to hear more about (although I will probably ramble about go regardless). And also wish me luck in surviving the onslaught of good food. I was thinking we should take pictures of all the meals we eat, since we also keep records of all our games; and all we do is eat and play go!

Pictures of the Apartment

2006-06-22T01:06:00.000-04:00

We live on the fifth and top floor of our apartment building. It is one of several surrounding a little courtyard which includes the exercise park where I work out in the morning. I'm working on becoming a regular, so that all the other morning regulars recognize me. Mostly, it's a bunch of older people. There's one woman who is there every morning before I get there, and she's still there when I leave. Yan Laoshi and his family live in an apartment in one of the other buildings around the courtyard.

Our apartment has two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. We have air conditioning in the bedrooms and the living room. The kitchen gets ridiculously hot. I don't know how Liu yi (the woman who cooks for us) stands it.

Trip to the Temple

2006-06-20T20:04:00.000-04:00

Tuesdays are our day off each week. Yesterday was our first, and we took a trip to visit a temple in Wuhan. It was beautiful. When we first walked in, they handed us each three incense sticks, which we lit, waved out (we were not allowed to blow on them), and then planted in the sand with a prayer and three bows.

We prayed to various other gods: I prayed to one for something from the heart, and to the god for education, which I figured I could definitely use. We rang the big bell three times for good luck.

Walther described how we chose a statue, which determined our fortune. When we walked in, the boys had to go the left, while the girls went to the right. We could choose any statue to start from, and there were 500 there! How to choose? They kept asking me if I was ready, and I kept saying no. Finally I picked one that I liked and Li a yi (Yan Laoshi's wife) and Li Qian (the daughter of the Liu a yi, who cooks for us) counted with me in Chinese until we got to the 27th statue from the one I picked. It was number 266, and I had to remember this when we went outside. We got cards with a drawing of our statue on it and some fortune-telling clues on the back. We went in by the gift shop to the fortune tellers and waited with a crowd around the table where our fortune teller was sitting. My fortune was very good: she said I come happily and leave happily and that all the things I prayed for today would probably come true. Li a yi kept saying "hen hao!"(very good!) with a big smile and a thumbs up.

bad moves

2006-06-20T05:20:00.000-04:00

When Yan laoshi reviewed our games with Ai laoshi last night, he also talked about different kinds of bad moves:

1) Moves that let you die somewhere on the board.
2) Moves that are only half-way.
3) Moves that don't cooperate with the other stones on the board.

Number 1 is about urgent moves, which are often the difference between life and death, or being attacked severely. Urgent moves before big moves! 2 means that you shouldn't changes plans half-way through (make sure to complete your shape) and also to not play moves whose purpose is not clear, like standing in the hallway between your study and your bedroom: you can't sleep, and you can't study either, so you should do just one or the other. 3 is also related to the first half of number two. If you rush forward to play somewhere else without first completing your shape, your opponent may get sente to come back and destroy your area too easily. The shape I refer to is not only local, but also whole-board, such as connecting two corners together with the side star point. I guess there are always exceptions, but until I become very skilled, these are nice guidelines to follow so I can play nice games and become stronger.

By the way, I am so bad at doing problems.... They're all so hard, but I guess that's the point.

Today, we went to a famous temple in Wuhan to have our fortunes told. The procedure is to enter a room full of 500 statues, pick a random one (or one who looks like a nice guy) and then count n statues away, where n is your age. Unfortunately, as we tried to leave the temple, our car wouldn't start. After getting a jumpstart, we had hot pot for lunch and now I am trying to recover from the heat.

Yan Laoshi

2006-06-19T19:50:00.000-04:00

Our teacher, Yan Laoshi, is great. He spends so much time with us. He eats with us at all our meals, checks our homework (fuseki problems, tesuji problems, tsume-go problems), takes us to the Weiqi center to play and review games and gives us lectures in the evenings.

When we went to the Weiqi center yesterday, the four of us played simultaneously against one of the other teachers at the school. We all took 3 stones and we all resigned. Last night, Yan Laoshi reviewed the games for us again and lectured on playing with 3 stones. He said to use simple variations and to build thickness to make the board smaller. He also said we should alternate between big points and smaller points that defend our shapes. This way, when White jumps in, you can minimize the damage.

Yan Laoshi is very energetic. He's always running around, doing a million things. If there isn't something particular that he needs to do right away, he gets this predatory look in his eye. This is when he is most likely to snatch someone's tsume-go problems and his red pen.

I feel like a 10 year old.

2006-06-18T19:20:00.000-04:00

Being a kid is great. People cook for you and clean for you and you have no worries. Here, I am a kid. Everything is done for me, so all I have to worry about is playing and studying Go. (and trying to find housing in London for the fall...)

The meals are communal. There are many bowls with different dishes in them on the table. We each get a bowl of rice and chopsticks and just grab what we want from the various bowls throughout the meal. And it's so good.

For breakfast, we sometimes have ru ga mien (hot and dry noodles), which I'm told are the "hamburger of Wuhan". They're really good, but a little bit spicy, so I need to eat one of the fried dough type pastries with them.

2006-06-18T10:15:00.000-04:00

There are four of us living in an apartment in Wuhan: Becci and me, as well as Romain (16 yrs. old from France) and Siu Hong (20-something Chinese from Holland). Siu Hong has gone from about 2k European to 2d chinese during the month before I arrived. All of us are playing in the C group at Yan laoshi's go school. This strength of this group is about 1-3d, while the B group is 3-4d, and the A group is 5 and up.

On the weekends, we play the other kids in our group all day. On saturday, I played 2 games in the morning and one in the afternoon, while today I only played one for each half day. Every single game gets reviewed by Yan laoshi or Chen laoshi (the other teacher for the A, B, and C groups). Most of the time, they're berating the kids for playing thoughtless go (which is one reason they think that we will advance much faster, since we really care). So far, I have a 3-2 record, beating the lower-level players in my group but losing to the higher ones. After watching some of my games, Chen laoshi says that I'm good at the larger-scale go (whole-board fighting, speed, cooperating stones) but I'm lacking in "small weiqi," knowing the key points when the board becomes splintered, and the locally best moves, so I have to do a lot more problems to make up for this weakness. He estimates that I am about 2.5d chinese. I can already feel that I'm lacking in some local tesuji power against the stronger kids. I need to do a lot of problems, but as long as I do self study and just review my games with the teachers, I can see a very clear path to getting stronger. I want to be in the B group by the time that I leave.

On Monday, we will go to the school, but only the A and B group kids will be there, so I will most likely be playing with some of the teachers. In the mornings there will be self-study time to do problems. Interestingly, Yan laoshi has never mentioned going over pro games, but I guess if there are so many strong players to teach you the principles of go, it is less necessary. Yan laoshi is always around the apartment in the evenings to give lectures, play teaching games, or just hang around so we can ask questions.

As a side note, the kids seem to be very strong at guessing for nigiri. Siu Hong took white in maybe his first 10-15 games at the go school. I seem to be doing better at nigiri, except that I have won all my games with white and lost all with black, so I should become weaker at nigiri.

And now for a bit of go learning: In life and death, always play from the outside when possible. Even if playing a vital point works, squeezing from outside will be better in points in case the group comes back to life (for example, in a ko fight).

By the way, we are prevented from seeing our blog (although we can edit it through the blogger.com address). So if you have comments, we probably won't be able to see them.

Playing the kids at the Go center

2006-06-17T19:41:00.000-04:00

On Saturdays and Sundays we spend all day playing the kids at Yan Laoshi's Go center. Yesterday was the first day that Walther and I went. There are about 150 students in his school, but only about 15 or so who are in the dan level groups. We are playing with them. They're mostly about 9 or 10 years old. They're very strong and very cute.

The teachers are very animated: Chen Laoshi makes boxing fists and punches the air to demonstrate the fight on the board. He snatches the glasses off of one kid, holds them up backwards to his eyes and covers one side, showing that the group has only one eye. Yan Laoshi sits back languidly fanning himself while the kids replay their game for him until someone plays a bad move--then he pounces. His fan now folded, he brushes useless stones off the board with it; he won't lower himself to touch them with his hands. Someone captures useless stones and he disdainfully picks up a used napkin: Those stones are rubbish! You're eating garbage! The kids giggle at the antics, but they learn quickly and they learn well. It's so much fun to be there.

more gossip

2006-06-15T23:38:00.000-04:00

Yan laoshi also mentioned yesterday that he thinks that go is simple (I guess that's a rough translation). So his goal while we are here is to clarify the principles of go for each stage: opening, middle game, whole-board analysis, and endgame. Then, after we leave, if we study hard we can continue to improve.

There was another interesting analogy that Yan laoshi made. When we were talking about problems that we would usually class as tesuji, he used the example of a bookshelf being tidied up. When a local situation is messy, or unfinished, a tesuji can be something that will "tidy up" the situation to your advantage.

Today, Becci and I might play Yan Laoshi, and this weekend we will be playing all day at the go school.

Arrival in Wuhan

2006-06-15T09:52:00.000-04:00

Walther and I arrived today in Wuhan, welcomed by "Go Walther" and "Go Becci" signs. We spent the previous night in shanghai, hosted by Walther's father. This turned out to be an excellent choice, since we then arrived in Wuhan at least somewhat refreshed from our long flight.

We will be eating well this summer. Immediately upon arriving at the apartment, we were fed so much wonderful food. We had several traditional Hubei province dishes, all of which were delicious. Siu told me at dinner that Yan Laoshi had said to him, "I'm not teaching you weichi, I'm teaching you to drink beer." All the members of our big family here are wonderful. They are gracious and friendly and have made us feel completely at home.

I then played my first game of weichi in China, against one of the other Western students here. Yan Laoshi then gave Walther and I several packets of problems: tsume-go, tesuji and fuseki problems, along with a kifu book to record our games. He explained how we learn go with an analogy of the wheels of a car. On one side the wheels are the basics, which we learn on our own by studying problems. On the other side, the wheels are the teacher and other players. If you have a balance of the two, you will improve quickly. If you have only one side, then you will not get far.

After dinner (more incredible food), Yan Laoshi gave us our first lesson. He talked about how Black's goal is to keep his advantage from going first by making sure his stones are working together. White's goal is to thwart Black's goal. If and when White succeeds, Black needs to switch strategies and try to play fast.

He also talked about how we should play in the biggest spaces in the opening, which are easily determined by counting how many lines are between the stones. However, he warned us that we should play urgent moves first. To determine which moves are urgent, we should use 3 criteria: 1. life or death of a group; 2. if your opponent's next move in an area would make the stones you've already played there useless; 3. the points (usually keimas) where you can expand your area while reducing your opponent's.

I'm sure he told us a lot more than that, but I'm really tired right now. Also, he was speaking in Chinese which was occasionally translated for me by Siu or Walther or our translator. Tomorrow we start in earnest, so I think I will go to bed soon.

Background: How I Discovered Go

2006-06-10T18:51:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, I leave for China.

I will spend the next two months studying and playing a beautiful game that we in the U.S. call “Go”. Five years ago, I had never even heard of this game.

It was just a few weeks before September 11th (The September 11th) and I had just moved to Burlington, Vermont to start a Masters program in mathematics. Not knowing anyone, I joined a couple of students from my new program to go out for beers. We went to a pizza place and were shooting pool and having a beer when Jason, peering through a window in a door to a back room, said, “What’s that game those guys are playing?” Curious, I too went to the door to peer through the window.

I was entranced. It was love at first sight. The intensity and humility and beauty and wisdom of the game pulled at me like a magnet even before I knew what it was. I never thought, much less asked, “Is this Othello?” I did ask what it was, and my future teacher jumped up to start whispering intently about eyes and life and death and battles. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I was hooked.

Two years later I finished my Masters. I was probably about 7 kyu by then. I left for Boston to start my PhD. I’ve been at Brandeis University for the past three years. Brandeis is in Waltham, but I live in Somerville because that’s where the Go club is.

Two years ago, I met Guo Juan 5p at a Go workshop in the Catskills (in New York). With two of my Vermont friends (including my teacher from that first night), I have been taking online lessons with her ever since. She is an amazing teacher and an inspiring role model. When I asked her about some existing programs for travelling to China over the summer to study Go, she generously offered to send me instead to study at her colleague's Go school. This year, she is sending only four of us to study with Yan Laoshi: two of us from Boston, one from Holland and one from France. She plans to expand the program in the future. ("Laoshi" means "teacher" in Chinese -- we will also receive an hour of Chinese instruction every day!)

My friends at the Massachusetts Go Association would probably tell you that I’m about AGA 1 dan now, but after a miserable performance at the Oza in January, my AGA rank dropped to 2 kyu. I hope to become a much stronger and faster player this summer.

It’s incredible to think that five years ago I had no idea that Go existed and now I’m going to spend my summer training hard with a professional.

Introduction, part 1

2006-06-07T02:09:00.000-04:00

Hi,

I'm going to be one half of this blog. I'm a student in Boston, entering law school in the fall. I've been playing Go for 3 years, raised by the kind teachers at the Massachusetts Go Association.

I'm starting this blog because on June 15, I will be going to China to study go (weiqi in Chinese, baduk in Korean). I will be in Wuhan for 2 months, during which time I will be enrolled at a go school and receive professional instruction. I love playing go, and I hope that this environment will allow me to gain at least 2 stones in strength.

This blog will chronicle the activities that I participate in during this trip to China, as well as my feelings on how I am (or am not) improving, and thoughts for how I might use my training to strengthen the Go community in Boston when I go back.

I'll be back later with more details about the trip.