Win streak ends

I'm pissed. I just ended my 13 win streak by losing a game by 3.5 moku. I mean, I don't mind losing a game in which the gap is big, or I had to resign, but 3.5 moku?? Damn, it's sure frustrating.

Anyways, I just learned a new joseki yesterday, but i'm not confident enough to use it. I got it from the game between Touya and Hikaru, in their first official pro game. For those who know, it's the joseki where white is under a double-kakari in the corner. I asked Yoshi about it, and he said if I'm confident about my ability, I can use it. He also mentioned that higher dans use it because they know the outcome.

Anyways, I'll be calling the new joseki that I learned The Touya Joseki. Haha.

NEC Go Tournament - Day 2

Hello there. The NEC Cup ended yesterday with Liang Bian [6d] winning Division 1, hence becoming the champion of the 8th NEC Cup. Later, we had a chat on our way back to the city, I found out that he's from China, and have played Go since he was 11 (now he's 24). That's a good 13 years spent to become a 6 dan, I must say. But he did mention that he has haven't played Go for 3 years. Erm, well, that makes it 10 years then.

Anyways, as for me, I didn't get a prize. But I wasn't that sad or anything, because I didn't expect to become top 5 for this year's tournament. But for next year, I will gain strength, I will become stronger, and I will get a prize! :) You can view the pictures from yesterday's games here. As for today's result, here they are.

Game 4 = vs. Tracey [3k] - lost by 5 moku
Game 5 = vs. Patrick [2k] - lost by resignation
Game 6 = vs. Diang [1k] - won by resignation

Since I lost the first 2 games today, I told myself that I can do myself a favour by winning my last game. Hence, I put a large effort in winning the game. You can view the outcome of the game on the link given above. Yes, I know I'm bad. I killed 3/4 of the board. :)

A friend of Diang came up to me (he's japanese), and asked "are you really go-kyu?". Go in Japanese means 5. Man, that sure explains how good the game was. I was so impressed with myself, but well, can't get too carried away since I lost most of the games. Hehe.

Next year, I hope to be in division 1, and there will be much more stronger opponents there. Yes, it's a challenge.

*Be shodan!*

NEC Go Tournament - Day 1

Greetings. I just got home from the NEC Cup, which was held in St. Kilda. Before I start telling what happened there, I have some pictures for you. Now, there were 3 games played today, and another 3 tomorrow. During registration, I was rather taken aback to find that I was listed as a 5 kyu (I registered as a 9kyu). Later, I was told that the rank is adjusted to the Australian rank. Anyways, here are the results of the game.

Game 1 = vs. David [3k] - lost
Game 2 = bye
Game 3 = vs. Doug [5k] - won

The organisers of the tournament told me in person that since my Division (Div. 2) has an odd number of participants, for every round one player will get a bye. So, for round 2, I got a bye.

After the games started, the organisers told me that as a compensation for not playing in the second round, I'll get to play Sensei Isamu Haruyama, a 9-Dan Professional from Nihon-Kiin Japan. Man, I was thrilled to get to play a pro player. (the pictures are on the site given earlier). I was so excited about the game, that I screw it big-time. :)

He gave me 9 stones, and half way through the game, I resigned (half of the board was dead). Lol. But it was great experience. My first game against a pro, and he turns out to be a 9-dan! :) Anyways, later after my game, a few other people came over and had a game with him.

After the game with Sensei Isamu, I had a new goal in mind. Haha, this goal is gonna sound rather silly. Rather than becoming a shodan by the end of this year / early next year, I hope to give a good game with the coming pro for next year's NEC Cup. (a good game - with handis, and trying to loose by a small margin - or perhaps a win, if that's possible. haha).

Enough day dreaming for now, I need to look over a few kifus before tomorrow's game.

p/s: the 3rd new mini-picture is a game of me and David. The 4th picture is me playing Shidougo (tutoring game) with Sensei Isamu.

7 kyu

I'm delighted to announce that I've been promoted to 7 kyu (KGS: eccentric). At this rate, I really hope I can get near Shodan by the end of the year. Anyways, the opponent that I play are getting tougher by the day. This enables me to learn more. :)

Anyways, the Go tournament is going to be held at the end of this week. I'm getting pretty nervous, as it will be my first time playing in an official tournament. Till then, more practice!

Arabising the Malay culture, the hell?

I read an interesting article from Malaysiakini, where they had an interview from Rais Yatim, who happens to be the current Culture and Heritage Minister. Now there, from where did he get such absurd assertions that the Malays are trying to make their own culture Arab-like? I certainly don't see my own people covering their faces with arabaya and the men wearing thoubs everywhere? Women are alowed to work and drive in Malaysia. Then, what is he trying to say?

Enough about that. I heard that the DBP (Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka - responsible for anything that has to do with the Malay language), had just come up with the most ludicrous statement. Recently, they banned a local artist's song from being aired on RTM (one of the many radio stations in Malaysia), all because she (the artist) had words such as Seksis and Diva in it. To top it up, P.Ramlee's Madu Tiga, one of his classic hits, might end up being banned on RTM too because there's an English phrase which sounds "I Love You".

All of this pisses me off. It is apparent that the people that are currently in DBP are having this inferiority complex about the Malay language dissappearing. The way they think is so backward, they could be living in the dark ages for all we know. What's the big deal of having 2 languages in a song? The Chinese and Japanese have been doing it for years.

A better way to improve

I had a friend came over to my place yesterday to play Go. He's from China, and he happens to be quite strong. He said that he never played in a proper club, so he doesn't know his exact rank. From the way he plays, I reckon he's around 2-3Kyu. After playing around 3-4 games, I noticed that it's much more easier to learn something new by playing a real game, rather than playing it online.

Maybe this is because you actually touch and feel the stones, which makes it a lot easier to comprehend advance moves. But the thing is, in the area where I live in, a good Go player is really hard to come by. I only meet them at Go clubs, once a week. Another thing I realise about playing live games is that you'll have to do the counting yourself. For somebody who's only been playing more internet games, this can get quite difficult. I took me a few live games to understand how to count the territory, and it was fun. :)

The Great Ocean Road Trip

Greetings. I just got back from a 2 day trip to the Great Ocean Road. The trip was good. We went to visit 5 towns along the way to the The 12 Apostles, which is the main attraction of the Great Ocean Road. Those towns are Geelong, Lorne, Apollo Bay, Port Campbell, and Warrnambool. In everytown we went, I manage to take some pictures, and in the end, I got more than 190 pictures with 1280 res each :) . We went there by a car that we rented, a Toyota Camry Altissa. Man, it's one of the best Camrys I've been in, yet. I wonder how much a car like that will cost in Malaysia.

Anyways, if you guys are interested, I've put up some of the pictures here. I like the pictures I took in Port Campbell. It was dawn, and it was bloody cold! My friend said that it might be around 2C.

The pictures from the 12 Apostles was also nice. Most of the pictures are cropped and resized, to give a better view. I reckon I could make my own postcards with the pictures I took here. Hehe.

The butterfly effect

I went to watch the butterfly effect yesterday with some friends. I heard people saying that it was good movie, but I never knew it was that good. Yep, Ashton Kutcher manage to put up an amazing show. Apart from that, the storyline itself was one hell of a storyline. I really can't believe it that they manage to come up with those ideas.

If you've seen it, what did you think of the part that he woke up and he found out that he his limbs were gone? Damn, that was a good one. I was pretty shock myself. Anyways, as for you guys who haven't seen it, better go while it's still at the movies.

Oh yes, since we're on the topic, Paycheck is also worth watching. The storyline is interesting, but isn't as complex as The Butterfly Effect. Still, with Ben Affleck in it, it's a must see. Now I can't wait to I get back to KL for winter holidays and get all these movies (and more!) on DVD9! lol.

The many benefits of Go

Recently, I've been reading some online articles about Go. Most of them I got from personal Go sites. Anyways, there was a research made in the early 80s (in Japan), and they found out that most old people in Japan don't go senile because they play Go. The reason is simple. Go demands thinking at a higher level. The better you are at Go, the more you will think.

Go is also a good way to boost your IQ. This is pretty obvious because to get better at Go, you think a few moves ahead, learn the unthinkable moves, and solve a lot of tsumego (life and death problems). People say Maths problems can also improve your intelligence quotient, but, as how my younger brother put it "Go, you needs maths anyway". Yep, you can do your brain some good, while having fun.

The argument above is to justify that my whole 2 weeks of holidays would be dedicated in preparing myself for the coming NEC cup. :)

Easter Holiday commences

Well, even though it is still Friday, I have the feeling as if the holidays has started already. I'll be having a two week Easter holiday starting this monday. I kinda look forward to this holiday because the previous weeks has been pretty hectic for me. There were loads of assignments, Programming especially, in which the problem-solving is really tiresome. (me prefers solving interesting Go problems at GoProblems).

The NEC cup is around the corner, but not within my Easter holidays. Even though I'm 8kyu, I'm still not confident enough playing with lower kyus with high handicaps. Actually, I've been worrying about it too much. I've been studying some games played against lower kyus with high handis, and it seems some of them weren't able to use the handicaps given to its full extent. In the end they lost big, and the handicap stones given were rendered useless.

Heh, that was rather comforting. LOL. Yoshi told me the other day that he had a friend (6kyu) who played in the NEC cup last year. His friend lost big-time just because he wasn't able to fight a 15kyu with 9 handis. Damn, this is starting to give me the creeps.

* Be shodan! Make it happen! *