The Blog

An Interview with Schayan Hamrah, Austrian Champion 2011

2011-12-31T15:30:00.000-08:00

from http://eurogotv.com/

The Austrian championship finals, a class A tournament, took place in mid December and I proudly present to you an interview with the winner, Schayan Hamrah, conducted and translated by the sandmann!

sandmann: So, how does it feel to be the Austrian champion?

Schayan: It’s somewhat cool to be the Austrian champion (the youngest of all times:D). It’s a pity though that the previous champion didn’t make it to the finals, I’d rather have seized the title from him than winning it in this manner.

Schayan is the youngest champion in Austrian Go history at 16 years and 3 months, beating the previous record by 8 months. Coincidentally, Schayan is also the current Austrian youth champion.

s: How did the finals go?

SH: It was exhausting and enthralling! After I lost the first game from a favourable position by 1.5 I didn't imagine that I could pull myself together and win the remaining games since I had yet to face the toughest (imho) opponents, but with a good bit of luck and endurance I somehow did it after all.

s: Which was the hardest game?

SH: The one against Lothar Spiegel 4 dan. I ended up viktorious after 4 and a half hours, by 3.5 points.

s: I watched the live relay on KGS. I saw there were many close games.

SH: Indeed! This shows that the best players in Austria are very close in strength.

s: Did you prepare for the finals?

SH: I replayed a few Korean games every day to boost my fighting spirit. Sometimes I had too much of it in my games though.

s: Do you play on the internet?

SH: I do, but I rather play in real life (preferably with shell and slate stones in the Go club which are actually not free to use).

s: How is the Go situation in Austria?

SH: The game is not as widespread as in e. g. France or Germany or the Czech Republic. As a result there are fewer strong players. The Austrian champion is only 3 dan compared to the 6 dans of the above mentioned countries. We need to work on this still.

s: Are your friends more interested in Go than before you won this prestigious title?

SH: Nay, they're more into partying than mind sports.

s: Do you want to say anything else?

SH: Nah.

s: Thank you!

Happy New Year everyone!

To all those Westerners out there spending time in asian countries who think that all the natives are looking at them and that it is annoying that all

2011-05-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

I look Asian, so I don't have that problem. While staying in Taiwan I noticed that even me who is used to seeing Westerners (since I live in central Europe) takes a glance at foreign-looking people, and it is very hard to surpress wanting to take a glance when I spot someone who doesn't have black hair.
After noticing that, I noticed that I do the same with the natives. When I think someone resembles or might be someone I know (or good-looking), I look back in order to check whether it is really someone I know (or good-looking). Also when the person does something strange like crawling the way up to the metro station in prayer, or that dude riding a bike which transports more stuff at once than it could possibly fit into a car.
Dear Westerner, if it bothers you that people keep looking at you, well, they also look at themselves. You are not all that special:) The hair colour is the only thing standing out.
Keep in mind that there are Asian people who dye their hair in order to deliberately catch the people's glances.
If it really annoys you that people look at you because of your hair and face (or so you think), I suggest you wear a hat, that kind of hat that people wear who work on rice fields (looks like and also serves as an umbrella without the stick), and one of those mouth covers, available in various colours and designs, which got really popular especially in Japan when swine flu broke out and are still en vogue. The hat covers quite a part of the head (wearing it correctly you might not see who or what you are walking into) and the mouth thing gives your style the finishing touch. If that is not enough, you can also wear a mask or something more creative, then the people will really have a reason to look at you!

Völkerkundemuseum

2011-05-03T13:15:00.000-07:00

Bei der Benefizveranstaltung für Japan im Völkerkundemuseum musste Go natürlich auch präsentiert werden.

Da war auch dieses aufgeweckte japanische Kind. Wir dachten schon fast, es wollte unserem Zoltan im Fuseki Vorgabe geben, leider hat er eine Leiter verlesen und konnte danach nicht mehr aufholen. (Es hat im Museum übrigens Geld verloren, wir wissen nicht genau, wie viel, entweder 6 Euro 30, 36 Euro oder 630 Euro. Ehrlicher Finder bitte melden.)

Tournoi de Paris and whatever else happened

2011-04-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

Let's start with the conclusion from my tournament games:
I am improving at getting lucky and making my opponent mess up. And I started talking English with French accent.

Otherwise there is not much to say. Three Chinese pros participated at the tournament (including MilanMilan and smartrobot, I don't know the third one but I think he resembles Lee Changho a bit). The tournament was held in Antony, in the outskirts of Paris. Rumors have that next year it will actually take place IN PARIS!

sad news: La Maison du Go ("Hugo c'est qui?!"*) had to close a few days after the tournament due to bankruptcy.

random facts: if you get caught fare-dodging (not buying tickets in the Metro) in Paris, you should tell them you are a foreigner (or pretend that you only speak Chinese) because they pay only the half of the penalty (25€ instead of 50€). ;)

There is a Book-Off in Paris! When you go to the Metro station of the Aligré club Troll Café, which is called Ledru Rollin, get out at the wrong exit and you will find it. They stock e.g. Manga for 2€ each.

*the joke is that La Maison du Go sounds the same as La Maison d'Hugo. In French when a word starts with a vowel or an h (which is not read, so pronounciation-wise it still starts with a vowel), the last sounding consonant of the preciding word is linked to the word's pronounciation. Take a guess how the first RER train station after Paris CDG airport "Parc des expositions" is pronounced.

Nichtgospielervernichtung am Ottakring

Da waren Schulklassen. Da waren Stände mit Go, Schach, Boxen, Essen, ein Kasperltheater und ein kaputter Wuzler. Dann waren die Schulklassen weg. Ich spielte Schach. Was war das überhaupt für eine Veranstaltung?:) Ist ja auch egal, Hauptsache, die Schulklassen wissen jetzt, was Go ist.

Blubblablaaahablubb

2011-03-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

The European Youth Championship took place in Brno last weekend. Just in case you are wondering, I did very badly, losing games I could have as well won, if I wasn't as weak as I am, and not winning games that I could not have won.

Btw, the EYGC 2012 has no host yet. This is a good opportunity if you feel like
supporting European youth!

Just two days after the tournament, Czech Republic faced Germany in the Pandanet European Team Go Championship. Since I missed the last train hanging around in a tea house (which was totally worth it, see below), I considered staying one more night to help the local commentator comment the games (who got sick in the end and couldn't come). Thus it was decided that I stay one more night to help him comment the games.

This brings me to the topic I have been pondering about ever since.

Instead of commenting just the first board (which seemed like a pretty one-sided game), I switched between the four boards to check the situation and explain a bit what had happened. The second board was a fighting game which involved a lot of reading, exchanges and finally also dead groups.
Third board was pretty one-sided as well, but in the end the unfavoured party managed to cheat spectacularly, spotting a mental weakness of his opponent who was probably like come on, resign already (which I would have been thinking too).
On the fouth board the local Brno hero played in the Czech team, he was particularly stressed about the game. After some kind of investive fuseki where he gave his opponent many points, Germany started to get too hooked on a ko and finally had to spend 4 moves there. In the meanwhile, Czech dude had mapped out his own piece of territory and cut off a group. Unfortunately he didn't manage to attack the group in a cool manner and was behind after the fight. This resulted in the first loss of Czech Republic.
Luckily for that guy, it remained the only loss. One by one, result windows popped up saying that one of the players had resigned or so, and finally we could confirm the result of Czech Republic beating Germany 3:1!

just imagine me standing there, holding the wine glass and blathering

This was exactly the way I commented the games. I didn't get much into detail, but explained the games in a way that the audience could follow who was ahead and stuff like that. It was not quite educative, but probably easy to follow and we could kind of watch all games. My question of this week, what makes you a good game commentator? And subsequently, what makes you a good Go teacher?
For starters, I think that a good teacher doesn't need to be a good Go player. (Of course it would be preferable if he wasn't a bad one.) I've heard that someone who couldn't swim had produced medal winners (in swimming). Nevertheless, this doesn't work with e.g. English language teachers.
I think that Go is something inbetween which required skills of both directions.
Consequently, if a Go player is strong, he is not necessarily a good teacher.
I don't know yet what we can conclude from this.

And thus ended my weekend on Wednesday.

Places worth visiting (cont.)

Brno

Brno is a city where very cool people live and thus a cool place to hang around. I was particularly impressed by the tea houses. It seems that the Go players meet there regularly to play Go and drink tea. And to eat wasabi nuts, which I totally recommend, and smoke waterpipe. (And I won at Settlers of Catan while the last train home left without me:D)

Another reason to go to Brno is that the beer costs less than 1 € in clubs. (compare with 8€ in a Swiss club)

(I particularly liked the kids' disappointed gaze when it was pointed out to them by the opening ceremony dude that Brno and the South Moravian region were known for the wine, but unfortunately they were too underage for that.)

Cha no ma (Vienna)

The one thing the tea houses in Brno didn't have was Matcha. I cannot explain its taste, it's just delicious and Cha no ma (it roughly means house of tea) is a totally Japanese place to hang around.

Targu Mures/Romania

It seems a lot of cool people are going to Shusaku Cup next week.

http://www.shusaku.ro/ecupa2011.html

Linz

The tournament in Linz, which is one of the top 5 Austrian tournaments, will be held on 2-3 April. Linz is where I go to university and I have to admit that the people are nicer than in Vienna.
This time there will be a seperate 13x13 tournament for there are many beginners who don't trust 19x19 yet.
Don't hesitate to join even if you are one of them!

http://linz.goverband.at/

Japan

The recent catastrophy has made me think that humanity is doomed to extinguish itself one day. The industry just wants to get money so badly, it neglects dangerous stuff like this. Let's take genetically manipulated food as an example (or air pollution, it's not as if there hasn't been any technologic stuff invented to make emissions of factories less harmful, it's just that it costs). Food is adjusted on a genetic basis to make them more lucrative for the people who do that. Nobody knows what might happen to people in the future who eat that food. Or to their children. The best and hopefully most likely scenario is that nothing will happen. Though thinking of worse cases doesn't require a great amount of imagination.
However, the situation is already quite *beep*ed up if the best thing that can happen is that nothing happens.

(Don't get brainwashed by me)

ZzzzZZZZzzzzzzz...

2011-03-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

I sincerly apologize for slacking off and not writing much in near past. I am really demotivated to do anything besides sleeping. I am not even motivated to go to university (I planned this term really awesomely and I am supposed to like the courses I have).
My KGS-mom told me that this is a symptom of sleeping too much. :O Now I am supposed to cut my sleeping time and do weird things as jogging and doing the laundry in the morning.
I've always seen sleeping as a kind of honte. Honte is a move that you just can't do without or without which you are extremely limited in your possibilities. A honte improves the further developement and although seemingly slow, it is worth spending the ressources of one move for it.
So too much honte is no good either. Or so it seems. I'll try getting up earlier tomorrow. But not jogging in the morning or anything alike:) Let's see if it helps.

Neuer Post

2011-02-27T02:36:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened since I last posted...

-I realized that Tygem kibitz is worse then KGS. Imagine the content of your junk mail folder posted during a game and everybody (even 9d) trolling without admins. (All in Chinese.)

-Won Seong-Jin spectacularly defeats Lee Changho in the Fujitsu Cup:

Lee Changho resigned while he was winning. The game would be decided by a pretty huge semeai, when Won played the winning move: tenuki! (my favourite move btw) It mislead Lee into misreading the semeai and believing he would lose it when in fact he could have won if he had continued playing. Nice trick, huh?

See the game commented by An Younggil 8p: http://gogameguru.com/commentary-lee-changho-won-seongjin-fujitsu-cup/

-places you should visit:

Erding, 5-6 Feb 2011, was a great tournament as it has always been. Located in the South of Germany, it attracted 112 players for the main tournament (including 12 Austrians if my count is correct) and an unknown number of kids for the 13x13 tournament.

Do join those excited participants of Erding next year!

The Ishi Go Club organized a tournament in Lausanne 19-20 Feb. Even though there were not as many participants as Erding because the organizers were stupid and chose the same date as another huge tournament (last year too -__-), I played exciting games nevertheless.

Lausanne is a beautiful city in the left of Switzerland and definitely worth visiting even if there is no Go tournament!

KGS kibitz

2011-01-30T03:17:00.000-08:00

Just when I should be studying for upcoming exams in foreseeable future, I have been mooching around on KGS and kibitzing.

I noticed that a shift in the habit of kibitzers has been taking place over the last few units of time. The random shoutings of "KO!" and "seki" have decreased. Now it is words like "semedori" and "aji" which make you sound smart.

Secondly the use of words coined by KGS such as "stong", "farl" and "qnert" seem to have declined.

And due to the influenza of MilanMilan, there are a handful KGS 9d who actually speak, contrary to the former situation.

*Kibitzing is the art of commenting an ongoing game. Common techniques involve talking about the players, ranks, Chuck Norris and your mom.

Get Strong at Kibitz!

Winterloch

2011-01-12T02:20:00.000-08:00

Warning: Almost more than 100% of this page's content is based on personal experience and observation and has no scientific claim!

As there isn't much happening Go-wise I thought I'd tell you about 3 of the languages that I know a bit or that I am learning right now. It might be of your interest if you stumble upon people who only speak one language or if you are unsure which language you want to learn.

The languages are listed in analphabetical order:

First of all, Japanese:
Japanese is kind of in fashion, especially among Go players.
The Japanese language roughly consists of 50 syllables (they can be combined to create other syllables) and there are 3 different ways to write them: in Hiragana ひらがな or Katakana　カタカナ, which are tables of those syllables (whereas Katakana all look the same), or in Kanji　漢字, which are characters stolen from China long time ago (and in Roman letters Romaji).　Read details here.
The Japanese grammar is not hard to grasp. The function of a word in a sentence is decided by a suffix (usually 1-2 syllables) that are simply added to the word. Verbs have 2 tenses and there are general patterns to modify a verb to make it mean what you want to say (there are only 2 irregular verbs).
To me the difficult thing is that there are different degrees of polite and casual language. E.g. a shop assistant would speak differently to his boss than to customers than to his wife than to his children than to his parents; there are manly and feminine ways to say things and different types of people also speak differently.
But if you know English, you already have a wide range of Japanese vocabulary. If you put English words in those 50 (and more) syllables, you will sound totally Japanese.

E.g. makudonarudo hambaagaa
or merikurisumasu (Merry Christmas)

suggested ways to learn Japanese: watching Japanese drama
watching Anime (if you want to sound like Yakuza or Ninjas)

Janapese evil laughter: kukukukuku

English:

Unfortunately in my country (where there are no kangaroos) it can't be taken for granted that the person you ask for the way speaks English well or sufficiently.
I learned most my English and recommend learning by: watching Anime with English subtitles
reading Manga in English
chatting in English (on KGS)
learning Japanese! (improves your English vocabulary)

One day I will have my children watch lots of Anime with English subtitles.

Korean:

I don't really know Korean, but I heard the grammar is similar to Japanese and I know Korean people who learned Japanese fast.
Anyways, Korean looks like this:

It looks all Chinese, but in fact, Korean has an alphabet with consonants and vowels similar to the ABC. Check it out.
You take the letters and organise them so that they look good.
E.g. ㅁ is m, ㅐis ae and ㄱ is k (or g), together it makes "maek" as in maek-do-nar-deu

Korean (evil?) laughter: k k k k

(according to a friend who lives in Korea it's the usual Korean laugh)

Chinese:

The Chinese writing consists entirely of Chinese characters. Estimations of how many of those exist range from approximately 47035 to 80000.
The People's Republic of China, Singapure and Malaysia use a different set of characters than Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau which they simplified in the 1950s and 60s, as opposed to the traditional characters. They look strange to people from Taiwan etc and vice versa. (Afaik Japan uses the traditional ones.)
Chinese grammar is really easy. Words cannot be changed from how they are and there are less tenses than in Japanese.
However, the pronounciation in Chinese is very difficult to learn for foreigners. A slight mistake in the intonation gives a word a completely different meaning.
It is also due to the tones that there are funny sentences like 媽媽騎馬馬慢媽媽罵馬
mā mā qí mǎ, mǎ màn, mā mā mà mǎ (mother rides the horse and scolds it because it's slow).
Also the fact that there are so many different characters make it difficult to learn, therefore I don't recommend learning Chinese.
Furthermore, there is the tendency to write foreign words with Chinese characters which makes them incognizable. An example:

I don't think you would recognize it as mài dāng láo.

ways to learn Chinese:
grow up in Chinese-speaking environment
don't learn Chinese

please enjoy the following poem:

施氏食獅史

石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。
氏時時適市視獅。
十時，適十獅適市。
是時，適施氏適市。
氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝世。
氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。
石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。
食時，始識是十獅，實十石獅屍。
試釋是事。

how it is read:

Shī Shì shí shī shǐ

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì.

German:

German evil laughter: Muhahahaha!!!!1

French:

I started learning French again a few days ago.
It is a mystery to me how people can communicate in this language.

French evil laughter: niark niark

(no idea how to pronounce it:P　as you can see, I have been laughed at evilly in many languages)

General tips:
I made the experiennce that if you have grammar questions in a language, you should ask a person who is learning the language rather than native-speakers. The same applies to the tariffs of public transportation in their own city.

I know it's random but look, a fish ¸.·´¯`·.´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸><(((º>

...and a leaky New Year!

2010-12-26T05:30:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I went to a demonstration for Wikileaks, Julian Assange and freedom of speech. (I'm pretty sure that even YOU couldn't evade the media's ballyhoo about that.)
Even though it was just before Christmas, there were still some 200-300 Wikileaks supporters who found time to gather at this event.

There were a few heads of somethings who held speeches about Wikileaks and stuff.

I don't remember them exactly, but they said things where I was like "damn they are right" and thought that it shouldn't be the Wikileaks supporters, but the others who are indifferent or even against it that should hear what they had to say. I will point out a few points which got stuck in my memory:

-We live in an age of information and we, the people which the country consists of and the state serves for (not the other way, usually), have the right to get ahold of information. Therefore it is important that there is Wikileaks which provides the people with information that are concealed to us for reasons.
-In this legal fight concerning Assange, who is right will be decided by who wins the fight in the end. Until now there are only losers in this fight, the biggest of them being Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks.
-Regardless of whether the Swedish women who sued Assange for sexual assault had connections to the CIA or not, the fact that their face and names were spread by the media will deter other women from going to court who have been sexually assaulted.
-We know that the US government is elaborately working on lawsuit to bring charges against Assange. We should remember that Julian Assange is not per se Wikileaks and providing the people with information is not a sexual crime. Assange's private doings are none of our business.
-Not forgetting Bradley Manning who is suspected by the US government to have passed on their secret files to Wikileaks. He is imprisoned since half a year under inhuman conditions (torture?).

I recommend gulli.com (in German) to keep updated about this and other interesting news.

The CIA has launched a taskforce to assess the impact of 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables. Its name? WikiLeaks Task Force, or WTF for short. Read Guardian article

Update: Wikileaks supporters countered the WTF with a project called the Open Media Group (OMG).

Merikurisumasu

2010-12-24T03:29:00.000-08:00

Don't become addictively hooked on Mahjong!

How do I study Go?

2010-11-29T13:13:00.000-08:00

I have been asked this question frequently. Here I shall explain to everybody how I study Go.

For that purpose, let me slightly modify the question. ~~How~~ Do I study Go?

A Japanese top pro player (if you know who it was, I'd appreciate it if you told me) once said that ordinary people cannot understand how he studies Go. When asked about details, he answered "I study Go by watching the trees blossom."

The thing is, nowadays I am sort of lazy to open the book and place stones on my awesome home-stuck Go board (in the picture below).

But don't take this as an excuse for not studying. I was very studious when I was still young and promising. In every spare moment, I would solve tesuji problems, replay pro games, study joseki, compete with my rivals and so forth. I was also blessed with the presence of Kobayashi Chizu 5p sensei who taught and spread Go in Vienna for one and a half years. It was also due to her ambition that a few Master Courses with top Japanese pros such as Takemiya Masaki 9p and Aoki Shinichi 9p had been organized.

Of course I also attended (and still attend) a lot of Go tournaments and met a lot of cool people.

This all helped me to improve and solidify my knowledge and feeling for Go.
I would still like to improve, but I am either too lazy or too busy or both nowadays.

Even though I do not study Go as frequently as before, I have found a lot of similarities between Go and other things, say, other games, language, music, nature, also in real life. Imho everyone should find their own enlightenment, so I'll save emy breath, or ink, or whatever, for telling you how I study Go nowadays.

Like the pro studies Go by watching trees, I found that I got stronger at Go by watching anime.
Below you can see my personal heroes:

Akagi Shigeru, the genius who descended into darkness

Tokuchi Toua, a clone of Akagi

(thanks to Namii who introduced them to me:D)
They are really ugly, but both of them are masters at their field (Mahjong and baseball repectively) and have not lost a single game.

They cannot teach me Go moves, but there is a lot more involved in a game than just the moves. I have even been defeated at the first move by those factors beyond the goban. If you are one of those people who don't care for such things, then I will have a hard time beating you too:P

Last weekend at Kranich tournament I had to play my little Finnish rival. Imo I successfully turned his unusual opening into a disadvantage for him, then I messed up big in the middle game, and after a byoyomi-flawed endgame it turned out to be a 2 points victory for me.
I think that I wouldn't have won it if I hadn't watched One Outs the week before and listened to Tokuchi Toua's teachings. On the other hand, if my opponent had done that too, I would have lost the game (probably by time or resignation).

I hope I could answer some of your questions and don't forget to study this site to get stronger:)

Oh, and this one is awesome too. Of course everything is for free! (But you are still welcome to donate!)

Spielefest 2010

2010-11-20T14:43:00.001-08:00

Yet again the Austrian Go Federation infiltrated the Games Festival to promulgate (lol what a word) Go to the world.

Contrary to the Sports Festival, where Go was relatively complicated compared to the other sports, it had the simplest rules among all board and card games this time. Only some games involving hitting a ball somewhere and the spinning wheel of fortune could outrule this suspicious looking game in terms of simplicity. (I won a t-shirt, two puddings and a drawing set spinning the wheel:) ).

Although I was there only on one of the three days this event took place, I was kinda overwhelmed by the number of visitors. Estimations score up to 10.000 visitors.

This time quite a few people got stuck to this game and they wouldn't stop playing it. Out of the people I took care of, there was a cool couple who had a peaceful and consensual playing style, and a father and his son who discovered the very depth of this game's complexity well concealed behind its seemingly simple rules. (Well, they are simple, but there are experts who would rather make them look complicated, too.)

They were all very talented and I am looking forward to meeting them again.

They also took part in the simultaneous games where they had to face Li Ting 1p (whom I have beaten once out of countless encounters in my life at Go in an even game:D, I also beat her at 3-dimensional TicTacToe at the games festival) who was imported from Japan just for this occasion. With anonymous help eventually one person managed to beat her in their simultaneous game! Very talented, and the anonymous dude too^^

Last, but not least, I shall mention the head guy and head woman of Kasu, an organisation with the aim of speading Japanese games, best known for playing Riichi Mahjong. Somehow they also got dragged into the flow and became fascinated of Go.

Btw you might have noticed that the pictures are kind of blurry. That is because my camera is not working properly anymore. I cannot change the settings nor see the pictures it takes until I copy them to the computer. If you want to see better quality pictures, feel free to donate for a new camera:D
(donations so far: 0.20€)

Mannheimer Aji 2010

2010-10-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

Einer meiner Fans, ein Hauptorganisator des Turniers, bei dem ich übernachten durfte, meinte, ich sollte unbedingt etwas übers Mannheimer Aji schreiben.
Also ja, ein sehr cooles Turnier, nächstes Jahr unbedingt kommen. :)
Das Turnier brach heuer (dieses Jahr) die Tradition, am Wochenende der Zeitumstellung stattzufinden, aber entgegen meiner Befürchtungen haben am Sonntag nur die nicht mitgespielt, die aus feierlichen restalkoholischen Gründen dazu nicht in der Lage waren.

Leider hab ich nicht viel von Mannheim gesehen, bzw. angeblich habe ich schon alles Sehenswerte gesehen.
Die Mannheimer Innenstadt ist wie ein Gobrett in Quadrate mit Koordinaten eingeteilt. Allein dafür lohnt es sich eigentlich, nach Mannheim zum Turnier zu fahren und sich gobrettmäßig zu fühlen.

Heuer waren Cho Seok-Bin 7d als Live-Kommentator und die als Mangakünstlerin zu Ruhm gestiegene chidori am Turnier anwesend. Chidori hat mich wieder gemalt und mir ist aufgefallen, dass ich wie L ausschaue.

Ich übernahm übrigens zeitweise vorübergehend den Bücherverkaufsstand und konnte mit meinen Werbesprüchen viele potentielle Kunden begeistern und sogar einen zum Kauf bewegen.
Die angebotenen Bücher vom Brett-und-Stein-Verlag waren nämlich ausschließlich in deutscher Sprache und daher waren Englischkenntnisse nicht notwendig, um den Text zu verstehen (wobei, wer schaut in Gobüchern schon auf den Text). Ich bin außerdem mit den Büchern mehrmals 5d geworden (bis ich aufgeflogen bin, ich spielte das Aji als 4d) und auch DU bekommst um nicht einmal 20 € so ein Buch gratis.

Ein besonderes Highlight war das Massenrengo. Es wurde jeder Zug und deren Zieher mehr oder weniger erfolgreich aufgezeichnet. Jeder durfte mitmachen unter den Voraussetzungen, dass jeder immer nur für die selbe Farbe spielt und nicht mehr als jeden 5. Zug seiner Farbe macht.
Es kam im Joban (Eröffnung) gleich zu einem interessanten, kreativen oder auch innovativen Furikawari (Austausch), wo schwarz den fünften Zug im Nadarejoseki (Lawinen-Eckabspiel) tenukierte (ignorierte und stattdessen auf einer anderen Hälfte vom Brett einen Stein hinklatschte), -was dem Spieler auch direkt eine gewisse Bekanntheit einbrachte- wonach niemand mehr für Schwarz spielen wollte, bis ich Seok-bin-sensei* rekrutierte mit der Bitte, er möge retten; danach lief die Partie relativ flüssig und normal wieder weiter.
Dieses Massenrengo begeisterte unter anderem die im Bild zu sehenden Kiddies, die es gar nicht abwarten konnten, bis sie wieder am Zug waren. Sie waren so vertieft in die Partie, dass sie unter anderem mich verwundert ansprachen, als ich meinen Zug gespielt hatte (was mich immer noch sehr erheitert): "Ey, was machst du!"

*Die Bezeichnung sensei　先生　lässt sich auf zwei Arten herleiten.
Was japanische Volksschulkinder lernen, ist 先に生まれた　saki ni umareta, also "(wurde) zuerst geboren". Tatsächlich ist jemand, den man sensei nennt, theoretisch vorwiegend fortgeschritteneren Alters als man selbst. In japanische Kabaretts aber kommt sensei von　先ずは生きてる mazu ｗa ikiteru, also "Hauptsache noch am Leben".

Tag des Sports

2010-09-26T05:39:00.001-07:00

The Heroes' Square in Vienna held a festival yesterday on Sports Day.

Of course Go could not be missed at such an event. Our stall was located in the periphery of the square, next to the Poker and the Square dance.

There were several unfavourable circumstances, like the rainy weather forecast or the computer games event which was being held on the same day and had ads in every metro station unlike the Sports Day which I only heard about the day before.
Nevertheless the event was well-visited, not inferior to last year's.
There were quite a few people who came to the Go to have the rules explained.
The number of people who will show up at the Go club one day is a michisuu (未知数, unknown quantity).

In my opinion Go fails at such events in terms of presentation and attractiveness. The objective in this sport isn't as obvious as hitting the ball/target/other person.

Even though there were a lot of people who were interested in this game.
A few examples of how they reacted:
-Is this game from China or Japan?
-Of course this is from Japan, I know this from the crosswords.
-This looks complicated. Let's go.
-Can we eat this?
-Ah let's wait under this tent until the rain stops.

My favourite not-anymore-non-go-players were two kids who seemed to have a go set at home already:
-This is a cool game. Now we know how it works.
They cleared my doubts that go would have no chance amongst all the other kinds of sports.

Yet again it seemed that the shorter the explanation of the rules, the more the interested people were inclined to try out the game; especially because the other attractions at this event had obvious and simple rules too.

It was also important that more go players gathered at the same place, even if they only played against each other, in order to look more organized. It also proved useful to have ongoing games for explaining the rules to the astonished spectators:
-This game is about who surrounds more territory with his stones. This area is white's points, and this is black's. This is not sure yet. and so on
This saves a lot of talk about rules because it was obvious that the two players on two sides of the checkered board place black and white candies respectively and alternately
on the intersections of the lines on the board.

One of the highlights for me was when I noticed that McDonald's sponsored this sports event.

Nichtgospielervernichtung at Japanfest

2010-09-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

After a successful sweeping of non-go players at AniNite two weeks ago (rumors have that a certain go dude seduced about 20 girls to the go club), the valiant go players of Vienna went to the Japan festival to annihilate some more non-go players.

Besides this divine game, the festival also provided Japanese calligraphy, Japanese manga, Japanese origami and Japanese expensive food and a stage for Japanese music, Japanese martial artists, Japanese dancing, Japanese kimono show and music.

My favourite victim this time was a 9-year-old Japanese boy who spoke little German. He fell in love with the game at first sight and played no bad moves despite not knowing the rules in his first game. He even won his second game against me (with my help^^) after which he probably grasped the rules. Later he insisted on playing a third game with me, in which he finally started playing first-line fuseki moves and broken shapes.
Perhaps someone should relay to Robert Jasiek that knowing the rules better makes you weaker.
(I also won my first game of Settlers of Catan and got crushed in the second game after figuring out what was going on.)

It is very hard to explain the rules to newcomers, so that:

-they understand the rules
-they don't get confused
-they don't start playing stupid beginner shapes
-they don't get scared off the game because the rules are so "complex" and never want to play a game again

The Austrian Go champion 2007 came up with this way of explaining rules, skipping the first point:
Lothar Spiegel: "Also das Spiel heißt Go. Es ist das älteste Brettspiel der Welt, älter als Schach. Schach ist böse. (spielt ein paar normale Fusekizüge auf dem 9x9-Brett) Es geht darum, Punkte zu machen. (zeigt auf das Gebiet, das seine Züge einschließen) Wer mehr Punkte macht, hat gewonnen. So, jetzt spielts eine Partie und ich erkläre euch den Rest der Regeln nachher."
Opfer: (Gekicher) Ok. (spielen gute Züge)

(loose translation)

Lothar mirror: So this is Go, the most awesomest game in the world. (talks while playing against himself) It is about making points. (strokes the board) The winner is who makes more points. So now play a game and I will explain you the other rules afterwards."
the victims: Hm Ok. (play good moves)

Go in Latine

2010-08-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

Pridem erat ut ante hoc Latine usus sim. Id nuntium publicum in lingua Latina tamen conscribere coner.
Plurima elogia proverbiaque Latina proverbia ludi nostri lapidum proba sunt. Ita converti decem formulas aureas gnaritate modesta mea. Scilicet gratum menda emendare!

Decem formulae aureae

Non aveas victoriam nimium
Moreris intrare adversarium
De re tua cura aggrediendo
Cape velocitatem sacrificando
Paulum immolare amplium
In periculo abice
Firme evitat trepidare
Ductus respondendus adversarii
Communias contra soliditatem
Noli bellum petere in detrimento

Amen

Mein Kampf gegen Nichtgospieler / My battle against non-go players

2010-08-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

Heute machten sich 3 tapfere Gospieler auf, der Welt das Gospiel näherzubringen und Nachwuchs zu rekrutieren. Beim Go7, wo sie sich mit Material ausstatteten, starteten sie ihre Reise und kamen ihrer Mission bei einer Besichtigungstour durch die Wiener Innenstadt nach.

Three little Go players initiated the plan today that they secretly worked out. With munitions stolen from the Go club, they went around in my hometown to carry out their mission of annihilating all non-go players.

Leider war es nicht sonnig genug, also konnten nur zwei Personen das Spiel kennenlernen, eine davon war sogar interessiert: eine nette Dame, die uns Zeitung und Comics verkaufen wollte, und eine andere, die uns Essen brachte und danach Geld von uns wollte.

Due to suboptimal weather situation total annihilation was not possible. Only two persons fell victim to the sinister messengers of mischief.

Oh Gospieler, die ihr dies lest! Vereinet eure Macht und erzeugt Gospieler!

The Introduction to The Blog

2010-08-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

Hey, this is Viktor's Go blog. Viktor didn't mean to start blogging, but circumstances forced him to do so.

Read the posts in order=D
I.e. the lowest post first, then the one above, etc.
It gets less interesting the further you read.
(Or rather don't read the posts below this one).

Cheers

不当な勝負パート２

2010-08-04T23:31:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot to get to my point in the last post, so I shall write it now:
There should be the same amount of lost games that were won and won games that were lost in the end. (By experience those are more frequent than won won games and lost lost games, that is why I was surprised about my performance at this year's congress.)
So when I lose a game stupidly, I will tell myself that I have also won games stupidly.
This should be just fair.

不当な勝負

2010-08-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

Losing a won game can make one feel very bad. In my first post ever in a blog I complained verbosely about a game that I could have won. I felt very awkward about that game as it would have been a nice win for me (it would have been my opponent's first loss in Europe :S ). But after a few days the awkwardness vanished. I even greeted her today;)
The same happened to my friend two days ago. He (4d) lost by 1.5 points to a Korean 7d due to an obvious endgame blunder. I promised him to spread the word to alleviate his dismal pain.
Although there should be the same amount of won losing games and lost winning games, I only rarely hear people complain about having won a lost game.
If that is because people start a game expecting to win, a game loss results in a loss anyways.
That wouldn't be the case if people start a game expecting to lose! The loss of a game wouldn't cause a brain fission, whereas a win would make an unexpected convenience.
We can improve our results by reducing the expectation!

Though I am not too sure it is a good idea to expect to lose in the first place:)

Tesuji of the week:

A girl I know was in a situation where she didn't know what she should do. Let us call her Lisetol (totally fictional name).
Lisetol was riding the elevator when a good-looking sexy boy entered and would continue the journey with her. She didn't know him, and he didn't know her. Lisetol couldn't come up with a good move, so eventually their paths parted at the end of the elevator ride.
Later Lisetol contemplated rigorously about the situation and reviewed it in order to try to find out if there was a better move she could have made. This is when she came up with the Tesuji: Jump! The elevator would get stuck and there would have been no good way for him to go out.
Next time Lisetol will remember the proverb: The One-point Jump is never bad!

聽不懂

2010-08-03T05:43:00.001-07:00

我發現日本人在下棋的時候常常用日文嘆氣、罵人等等。最常聽到的是「まいったな」跟「ばかな」。很可惜因為很多人在看動畫和學日文、所以聽的懂日文髒話。
下棋時自言自語好像都是用自己的語言.我跟法國人下的時候他也是講法文的。
可是我也有聽說某一個羅馬尼亞人直接罵一個 “F#CK!“ 。
我的話呢、看到怪棋會說一個「そうか」。結果有一個德國對手也跟我來一個「そうか」。
下棋的人一定都會講幾個日文的詞、沒聽過「お願いします」的應該沒有。
聽說用台語罵人聽起來特別的有力、而且坑定只有台灣人聽的懂。會講台語真方便。

P.S.:剛剛想起來法國人也有跟我「そうか」。

(Fuck beat Suck by half a point. The ultimate proof that Fuck is superior to Suck.)

The Post

2010-08-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

Das Wochenendturnier ist vorbei!
Ich habe 3:2 gespielt und verliere voraussichtlich 10,5 GoR. Ich schreibe dies am Strand, während die anderen Strandvolleyball am Strand spielen. Mir fällt nichts ein, was ich schreiben soll. Laura meinte, ich sollte etwas auf deutsch schreiben. Sie ist sichtlich beeindruckt von Futur 2.
Gestern war alles im H&M um 50 % reduziert. Ich habe einen flauschigen Plüschpulli erstanden. Die Länge der Schlange bei der Kassa, zeitweise auch am Eingang, verhielt sich in etwa exponentiell reziprok proportional zum Gesamtpreis der Produkte. Wir (my Finnish lover and me) kamen dann auch zu spät zur Runde, aber zum Glück waren die Pairings noch später dran.
Heute waren wir (my Finnish lover and me and someone else) bei der Wrong Noodle Bar. Ich dachte mir nichts dabei, als ich eine große Nudel bestellte. Ja, dann haben wir mehr als die Hälfte meiner Nudel eingepackt bekommen.
Als ich eine Partie später die Nudel essen wollte, bemerkte ich ein hübsches Muster an der Papierschachtel, die an Fettflecken erinnern sollten. Es stellte sich heraus, dass es Fettflecken waren.
Es gibt gerade kein Bier und nachdem ich kein Bier getrunken haben werde, werde ich nicht besoffen geworden sein.
Mehr Interessantes gab es in meinem Leben nicht.
Wie man vielleicht leicht merkt, habe ich wirklich keine Ahnung, worüber ich schreiben soll :P

(Die Sachen klingen vielleicht belanglos, sind aber sehr wichtige Ereignisse in meinem Leben.)

Justice

2010-07-30T12:48:00.001-07:00

I lost the 4th round very fairly to Pikku-Jussi. He played cool moves in the fuseki and I never recovered from the disadvantage of my uncool moves.
The last (5th) round finished very fairly too. S. Fenech, the Petanque Xiangqi World Champion, played a joseki that he didn't know and couldn't recover from his disadvantage either.
Only 1 out of 5 of my games ended in unfair results. It seems that my Go has gotten kind of solid.
Either that or my sense of justice needs to be adjusted, a little bit.
As I envisioned, we played Mahjong. I have an awesome paper Mahjong set.

The Finnish system

2010-07-28T06:14:00.000-07:00

Today there is no main tournament game, so I kind of did nothing but sleep.

Yesterday, before we went to the bars, we were hanging around with a lot of Go players in the park just next to the school. As usual, people drank a lot of beer and more beer, so there were a lot of empty cans and bottles to be disposed of.
Finnish cans and bottles have a 15 to 40 cent deposit value, probably one of the reasons they are so expensive. But the dudes who introduced this were very thoughtful.
Some guy who looked like a beggar approached us and picked up all the empty cans and bottles that he could find. He even asked us to give him our empty cans and bottles.
I conclude that he either did this for the deposit, or to keep the park clean from empty cans and bottles. Maybe both.
I have to admit that this bottle deposit system proves very effective. It makes picking up trash in the park have a double purpose. In Go too, we are looking for moves that serve as many and effective purposes as possible.

Why do I play Go?

2010-07-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

The third round has passed very peacefully. I won very fairly again. As the balance of fair and unfair games has to be maintained, my next game will end with an unfair result again.
We (the young and promising Go players of Europe and the promising Go player of Europe) have just studied trick plays for 3 hours. Some of us are searching for their lost brain.

One of my fans has asked me to write about why I play Go. My answers to this question would be quite random, so I will refer to a conversation instead that I had with a Taiwanese guy today. We talked about a lot of stuff, amongst others he told me why Taiwanese kids don't play go:

1) It is in black and white. (Computer games have more colours.)
2) You have to stay seated for a long time.
3) You have to use the brain.

Somehow I can't help worrying that the masses of Non-Go-players in Europe is endangering the existence of this game in Europe. How can we help the game to get more players?
Let's unite our power and annihilate the Non-Go-players!

*a*ar owes me a hug.

Update: We went out tonight to hang around with the cool Go players in bars. It is Prodi's first time to go out drinking. Jussi massaged me when I was drunk=D

pics

2010-07-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

Feel free to check the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/viktor92lin

Second Day

2010-07-26T14:08:00.001-07:00

Today I won very fairly against Pål from Sweden. I came up with a new move during the game which finally reverted to a known trickplay. Unfortunately Csaba, pronouncedちゃば, 6d, busted it when I showed it to him afterwards. So my move didn't even survive one day. But maybe I can still sell it to breakfast.
I haven't had time yet to check whether breakfast won by 0.5 or not.
Btw yesterday I forgot to write that someone actually mistook me for a pro. I was reviewing a game for my Finnish lover when some random guy joined. After I finnished the review, he asked me to review his game, in case I had a humble little time for him. He was obviously shocked when he heard that I was not pro. Apparently some of my move suggestions and ideas have pleased him very well. It took him by surprise when I showed him my 3d name badge and he was seriously impressed when I showed him the other side of the name badge which was 2k.
He told me he was 4d and suddenly his interest for a review has faded.
To the games that have been played I shall add volleyball, Settlers of Catan, Poker and soon Mahjong.

Yesterday I got drunk too fast, so Namii couldn't treat me a beer, but I am sort of drinking it now. It's getting hot in the room...

First Day of EGC

2010-07-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

The first post of this blog is late by one day, and misses an introduction. The reasons shall be explained in unforeseeable future.

I arrived at Tampere yesterday. It was quite easy to find the tournament site as it seems that everything cool (including our accomodation) in this city is located on the road connecting the railway station and the school(s) where the tournament takes place. Besides Go, people also play football, frisbee, various weird card games, Mafia (btw the Mafia always wins)...
I've also met many of my friends, some nice people and some pretty people as well as some nice and pretty people.
By the time I am writing this on paper, the first round has already finished. Approximately half of the participants won their game the other half probably lost theirs. I belong to the latter, unfortunately. I lost to a female Korean 7d who is called Kang Samm Fing (I don't remember her name... I hope she won't read this :D), on board 3. The playing rooms are spread in three buildings, with the boards 1-100 located in a school, about 5 minutes walking distance from the registration venue (yes I walk very slowly). As for this venue, the lower the board number, the more stairs one has to climb so that the top boards literally are on the top.
In my game I have once again proved my psychological weakness in tournament games. Rather than a weakness, although not a strenght either, I could call it a special ability.
My opponent Kang was female, as mentioned. A lot of people think she is hot, so as she probably does too, I was able to use reverse psychology, making her think that I think she was hot and that I would get distracted. She also played very fast, I heard she always does.
After the fuseki, as was expected, I was behind. This time it was because I made a big unintended sacrifice. This is when my ability comes into play. When I am behind, I start finding good moves, and my opponent actually started using her time. I managed to punish her overplays and eventually she died unintentionally as well, quite bigly too. Eventually I was ahead (Jussi told me later by 15 points). Now that I am ahead, my ability causes a brainfreeze. Suddenly a semeai happened between my stones and my stones (ones that I supposedly captured). When I came to my senses, there was a huge seki on the board laughing straight at my face. This is the story of how Kang Samm Fing, 7d, won her first round in the main tournament of the Zhuyeqing Tea European Go Congress Tampere 2010.

By the way, for some sophisticated reasons Japanese rules with 6.5 komi are applied in the tournnament.
The news of the day for me is that breakfast, 3p, lost his game by 0.5 points to Cornel, 6d. According to the oracle, breakfast will win his next game by 0.5.

random facts: Today Namii will treat me a beer^_^
I finally hugged Prodi, accomplishing a mission that was assigned to me 2 years ago.
A*** sucks [smiley, flower, flower] (By *a**a)