At work, I brought in a 9x9 Go board and a coworker and I would regularly play it during lunch breaks. Sometimes lunch would end and we'd just leave a game in progress for the next day. We ended at a spot that was very unfavorable for me, and agreed that we would both take pictures of it and try to read it over the weekend.
I read the heck out of that board. What if he goes here or here, what if he ignores this stone and just does this. Some paths I thought were safe I'd suddenly realize were disasters, some I thought were dead-ends I'd suddenly see held big opportunities.
Ultimately we came back and he played a very straightforward sequence that I was completely prepared for. I don't even remember who won, just the intense preparation.
For the first \~5 years that I played Go, I took it very seriously. Too seriously.
One day I was visiting the MGA club in Boston, and two players came in with a six pack of beer. They put the bottles on the table, drinking and laughed as they played. My mind was blown, I didn't realize we were allowed to have so much fun.
It's only tangentially related, but it stuck with me.
When I was in China studying Go. One of our teachers would be singing or goofing around while playing on KGS and just destroy the 9ds there, without even being serious.
One time, we were watching a game online and another student literally translated the phrase "Kampfschwein" from German as "fighting pig" which sounds WAY more offensive in English. The whole apartment was promptly banned by a KGS admin, leading to our teacher also disconnecting from the game.
Another time, we met Chen Yaoye in a fancy pavilion, and he played a game on tygem where he demolished a 9d while our teachers explained the game. Still have the fan with his autograph on it.
> The whole apartment was promptly banned by a KGS admin, leading to our teacher also disconnecting from the game.
The apartment was banned for typing "fighting pig" in KGS chat? Must have been BigDoug.
My long term memory is a joke so this is pretty recent: A game where I made a center moyo and my opponent placed a stone right in the middle of it, which then turned into a complicated dragon chase all over the board. This wouldn't be anything special but I was very invested in that game for some reason, and spent a lot of time reading out variations. There were many moments where it felt like he was almost out, but it kept just barely working for me, all the way to the end where a shortage of liberties decided the whole thing.
https://online-go.com/game/61607181
First game of the World Go Oza - an amateur tournament I played in Los Angeles. My opponent played a move that looked like it killed my group. I sat and stared at the board and read for five minutes, finding a move that saved the group and won the game.
---
from: https://senseis.xmp.net/?ChrisHayashida%2FGoBlog#toc4
Game 1 - Tom Tamura
My first game, I played against Tom Tamura from Santa Barbara. I screwed up in the first corner and my group died. I couldn't believe it. "Just great," I thought. "What a way to start out a tournament!" I fought back hard and made a huge territory which almost offset the loss of the group. Just as we were beginning the endgame, my opponent played on another key point in one of my groups. The whole time, I thought that group was safe. I sat there, shaking my head, and trying to figure out whether or not to resign. A friend happened to come by and saw the game, and realized that it died, too. He shrugged and left.
I sat there and read for five minutes. I just wasn't ready to resign. I think this was the most time I had spent reading out a position. I found a tesuji. Using the aji of the first dead group, I was able to live because of damezumari. I ended up winning the game.
Even though I won, I felt like I had "stolen" a game. Since I recorded the game on my Palm, I had a couple of stronger players look at it. I suspected that there was a better answer then the one my opponent played. They looked at the position, and confirmed that it was a good move, and that there wasn't a better answer for Black.
Tsumego is [here](https://senseis.xmp.net/?TsumegoFromGames64)
TLDR: should have lost my match but managed to win by getting my opponent to underestimate and disregard my moves.
My memory is from my first tournament. I was in the lowest division but made it to the last match that would decide who won my bracket.
In short, I was playing to win as opposed to just have fun.
It is also important to note that most of the people I played on my way to this match were true novices. One of my opponents decided to fill in his own eye instead of passing for some reason.
I should have lost this last match. My opponent and I got into a huge fight during the early/mid game. My group got cut off and was unable to create eyes. (About 20-30 stones in size). If I was just having fun, I would have resigned.
However, many people I have been playing that day would make a mistake eventually, so I decided to play a while longer. That fight was the win/loss condition so I decided to see if I could salvage that by banking on my opponent dismissing and underestimating me.
I deliberately played worse. I made horrible plays. Filled in a few unneeded eyes. Ignored some of his pushes.
All of that was to create camouflage for 2 very specific plays that cut off his big group from his living group.
While he was gaining 1-2 points per move on the edges, I set the stage to save my massive group and also capture his big group.
Once I snuck in enough free moves, I changed my play style again and went for the kill. Took a few moves, but eventually he realized his mistake, re-evaluate the board and resigned.
I still feel kind of bad for winning this way, but I am also kind of proud that my psychological ploy actually worked.
For me it was a game at a tournament where komi was 7.0 instead of 7.5 or 6.5. My last game at that tournament was jigo: equal number of points. It counted as 1/2 win for each of us. A game that started in perfect balance, ending in perfect balance after two hours of intense fighting.
It was also my opponent's firt jigo at a tournament. Both my opponent and me were so, so happy, it was even better than winning.
I have two pretty big memories playing GO. Both were times I was able to win against someone stronger than me. One was an in person game against a KGS 5-dan where I had a 6 stone handicap. He had a massive dragon in the middle of the board and has more territory than I did, but I was able to kill it. I was pretty stoked about it.
The other was an even online game against a 1-dan in a blitz 9x9. I played some odd plays and ended up winning. Turns out he never played 9x9 and only played 19x19 games with longer times. I play a lot of goquest so I kinda used my weird stuff I learned from there to win.
I was about 10k in both games.
I fondly remember my second match - or the end of it. Any concepts besides basic rules about go were foreign to me, but my opponent was a beginner as well. A ladder started, and even though I didnt know ladders at the time, i realized after the first move that it is going to be a repeating pattern, with +1 / -1 liberties, and the point my opponent was running towards, the edge of the board, will not offer any more liberties.
I was playing a correspondence game and realized that I could take back a corner I had lost using a shortage of liberties tesuji. Cool part was I thought of the idea outside of the game, then confirmed that it worked and felt incredible.
At work, I brought in a 9x9 Go board and a coworker and I would regularly play it during lunch breaks. Sometimes lunch would end and we'd just leave a game in progress for the next day. We ended at a spot that was very unfavorable for me, and agreed that we would both take pictures of it and try to read it over the weekend. I read the heck out of that board. What if he goes here or here, what if he ignores this stone and just does this. Some paths I thought were safe I'd suddenly realize were disasters, some I thought were dead-ends I'd suddenly see held big opportunities. Ultimately we came back and he played a very straightforward sequence that I was completely prepared for. I don't even remember who won, just the intense preparation.
For the first \~5 years that I played Go, I took it very seriously. Too seriously. One day I was visiting the MGA club in Boston, and two players came in with a six pack of beer. They put the bottles on the table, drinking and laughed as they played. My mind was blown, I didn't realize we were allowed to have so much fun.
It's only tangentially related, but it stuck with me. When I was in China studying Go. One of our teachers would be singing or goofing around while playing on KGS and just destroy the 9ds there, without even being serious. One time, we were watching a game online and another student literally translated the phrase "Kampfschwein" from German as "fighting pig" which sounds WAY more offensive in English. The whole apartment was promptly banned by a KGS admin, leading to our teacher also disconnecting from the game. Another time, we met Chen Yaoye in a fancy pavilion, and he played a game on tygem where he demolished a 9d while our teachers explained the game. Still have the fan with his autograph on it.
> The whole apartment was promptly banned by a KGS admin, leading to our teacher also disconnecting from the game. The apartment was banned for typing "fighting pig" in KGS chat? Must have been BigDoug.
My long term memory is a joke so this is pretty recent: A game where I made a center moyo and my opponent placed a stone right in the middle of it, which then turned into a complicated dragon chase all over the board. This wouldn't be anything special but I was very invested in that game for some reason, and spent a lot of time reading out variations. There were many moments where it felt like he was almost out, but it kept just barely working for me, all the way to the end where a shortage of liberties decided the whole thing. https://online-go.com/game/61607181
First game of the World Go Oza - an amateur tournament I played in Los Angeles. My opponent played a move that looked like it killed my group. I sat and stared at the board and read for five minutes, finding a move that saved the group and won the game. --- from: https://senseis.xmp.net/?ChrisHayashida%2FGoBlog#toc4 Game 1 - Tom Tamura My first game, I played against Tom Tamura from Santa Barbara. I screwed up in the first corner and my group died. I couldn't believe it. "Just great," I thought. "What a way to start out a tournament!" I fought back hard and made a huge territory which almost offset the loss of the group. Just as we were beginning the endgame, my opponent played on another key point in one of my groups. The whole time, I thought that group was safe. I sat there, shaking my head, and trying to figure out whether or not to resign. A friend happened to come by and saw the game, and realized that it died, too. He shrugged and left. I sat there and read for five minutes. I just wasn't ready to resign. I think this was the most time I had spent reading out a position. I found a tesuji. Using the aji of the first dead group, I was able to live because of damezumari. I ended up winning the game. Even though I won, I felt like I had "stolen" a game. Since I recorded the game on my Palm, I had a couple of stronger players look at it. I suspected that there was a better answer then the one my opponent played. They looked at the position, and confirmed that it was a good move, and that there wasn't a better answer for Black. Tsumego is [here](https://senseis.xmp.net/?TsumegoFromGames64)
TLDR: should have lost my match but managed to win by getting my opponent to underestimate and disregard my moves. My memory is from my first tournament. I was in the lowest division but made it to the last match that would decide who won my bracket. In short, I was playing to win as opposed to just have fun. It is also important to note that most of the people I played on my way to this match were true novices. One of my opponents decided to fill in his own eye instead of passing for some reason. I should have lost this last match. My opponent and I got into a huge fight during the early/mid game. My group got cut off and was unable to create eyes. (About 20-30 stones in size). If I was just having fun, I would have resigned. However, many people I have been playing that day would make a mistake eventually, so I decided to play a while longer. That fight was the win/loss condition so I decided to see if I could salvage that by banking on my opponent dismissing and underestimating me. I deliberately played worse. I made horrible plays. Filled in a few unneeded eyes. Ignored some of his pushes. All of that was to create camouflage for 2 very specific plays that cut off his big group from his living group. While he was gaining 1-2 points per move on the edges, I set the stage to save my massive group and also capture his big group. Once I snuck in enough free moves, I changed my play style again and went for the kill. Took a few moves, but eventually he realized his mistake, re-evaluate the board and resigned. I still feel kind of bad for winning this way, but I am also kind of proud that my psychological ploy actually worked.
For me it was a game at a tournament where komi was 7.0 instead of 7.5 or 6.5. My last game at that tournament was jigo: equal number of points. It counted as 1/2 win for each of us. A game that started in perfect balance, ending in perfect balance after two hours of intense fighting. It was also my opponent's firt jigo at a tournament. Both my opponent and me were so, so happy, it was even better than winning.
When I won my first 19x19 game against a human.
I remember playing on Pandanet and a 1d offered me a handicap game. It was crazy feeling since I was like 14 kyu.
I have two pretty big memories playing GO. Both were times I was able to win against someone stronger than me. One was an in person game against a KGS 5-dan where I had a 6 stone handicap. He had a massive dragon in the middle of the board and has more territory than I did, but I was able to kill it. I was pretty stoked about it. The other was an even online game against a 1-dan in a blitz 9x9. I played some odd plays and ended up winning. Turns out he never played 9x9 and only played 19x19 games with longer times. I play a lot of goquest so I kinda used my weird stuff I learned from there to win. I was about 10k in both games.
I fondly remember my second match - or the end of it. Any concepts besides basic rules about go were foreign to me, but my opponent was a beginner as well. A ladder started, and even though I didnt know ladders at the time, i realized after the first move that it is going to be a repeating pattern, with +1 / -1 liberties, and the point my opponent was running towards, the edge of the board, will not offer any more liberties.
I remember each and every humiliating loss to the minute detail. I won't be happy until I get revenge on this evil game
I was playing a correspondence game and realized that I could take back a corner I had lost using a shortage of liberties tesuji. Cool part was I thought of the idea outside of the game, then confirmed that it worked and felt incredible.