Learning Quest

yoyoma (2k) asked me yesterday to make a greater effort at claiming and defending the corners and sides. I do have a tendency to prematurely extend into the center and will often neglect my corners. This leaves me open to 3-3 point invasions.

You can expect to see a change in my style of play for a while. My initial attempts yielded only small islets surrounded by seas of my opponents stones. I'm not sure I have quite the right idea, ... yet.

I was able to play yesterday and today thanks to delays in some server batch jobs; effectively postponing my crunch period to Thursday and Friday. We seem to be suffering from a minor virus infestation on some of the unimportant servers but it's diverting IT resources away.

During one game yesterday, I resigned even though I was notably ahead because it had run into the time for my lunch date with ChiyoMama. yoyoma told me that this probably wasn't fair to my opponent; granting him/her a win by default and artificially inflating his/her rank. He suggested that I at least ask for an adjournment next time.

I was fortunate to run into DrPep (29k?, also on IGS) and frankiii simultaneously; playing a game with the former. I lost but the pleasure of chatting with them was well worth it. frankiii was also kind enough to review and analyze our game. It's shocking how many moves could have made the loss even worse.

I finally gave rbraham (27k) a chance to play a more even game against me. He won but KGS crashed shortly after our game and it's now showing up as Unfinished.