寒かったら、お茶が温め、暑かったら、冷やし、鬱なら元気にし、しんどかったら、落ち着かせる。

Monday, June 27, 2011

Strategy in Baduk

Just a quote.

The other thing that held me back is that for such a simple game, I could tell that it is dripping with deep strategies. Strategies within strategies. Strategies within strategies within strategies. Strategies so strategic that it reaches a Zen state of strategy. Literally.

Monday, June 20, 2011

ABL Live - First try at a live review~~

This was the first attempt of an live commentary for ABL. Still needs prctice...



ABL Review - 100 Tips for Amateur players 2 - by blackmoa

Lee Hajin, a professionals perspective

Reposting this because it is a interesting article written by Lee Hajin

Baduk and Relationship
http://www.starbaduk.com/25406
2011.06.19 07:19:54
43

A few days ago, there was a graduation ceremony at my school, in which two close friends of mine officially received the permission to leave the school. I dressed up from the morning and gladly prepared two bunches of flowers, small gifts and congratulation cards. On the way to the school, I told myself that the ceremony would be interesting with touching speeches and meaningful moments. As I entered the auditorium, finding people in their graduation gowns and caps, the fact that they were leaving flooded into my mind. I knew it was a happy day for them. I knew I would see them again. I knew it was nothing new but things that happened all the time eventually. And yet, I couldn’t help bursting into tears.

I felt sad that my close friends were leaving. I was especially close with one of them, who was going back to her home country, Thailand soon after the ceremony. In baduk community, you are almost guaranteed to keep meeting the same people unless either of you quit playing it. Before coming to Solbridge, virtually all my friends were connected through baduk, and I haven’t really thought about losing them. As long as we are both baduk players, which wouldn’t change easily, I will probably have a chance to see them again.

In my freshman year in the middle school, I had one best friend, who also graduated from the same elementary school as me. She didn’t talk much, but had a golden heart with bright smile. We always had lunch together, and she helped me a lot with afternoon classes and homework because I left the school after lunch break to go to the baduk academy. Yet, she was so caring and helpful that I didn’t feel much difficulty about that. From some point, however, I started noticing that she was hanging out with other friends more often instead of me. So I asked her if I did anything wrong to her. She said she couldn’t stand any more that her only friend would leave the school after lunch and she was alone at the school afterward. I felt terrible. I couldn’t believe that the idea never came across to me. After the incident, I had decided not to have a close friend at school, which I kept until my high school.

When my mind came back to the present after a quick trip to the past, I started going back again to see if I had close friends who were non-baduk players in my life. None. I mean, I did have friends here and there, but they were never as close.

Anyway, thinking about my relationships with non-baduk players, I suddenly wondered how playing baduk would affect people’s personality or behavior in terms of the relationship. There is a saying in Korea that playing baduk brings you good friends. Considering many players I have met, who were genuinely nice and friendly, it’s quite convincing. Also, I saw many cases that baduk players were actually very close to other players. Yet, a part of the reason could be that baduk is such a rare hobby, especially in Western countries. Therefore, it’s not surprising that baduk players in the same town or club would become close friends. What I am interested in, though, is that if there are other factors that distinguish baduk players from non-players as a companion or a friend.

First of all, the obvious message that baduk gives is that we are all independent. As you know, once you start playing you are not allowed to ask anyone. Everyone makes his/her own decisions and be responsible for the outcome. Consequently, baduk players tend to be independent even if they are as young as preteens. In my case, I left home and my family when I was 9 years old to learn baduk professionally. Needless to say, it would have been much more difficult, if it weren’t baduk that taught me to become independent since I was 5.

In many senses being independent is desirable. It forms responsibility and maturity, and it also leads people to be proactive and positive. It is questionable, however, whether it has only upside. For a long time I had believed that not asking for a favor or help was important in building or maintaining a good relationship. Yet, on the contrary, I’ve realized recently that people sometimes want to feel needed by their family, friends or girlfriends. Therefore, you should be aware that being too independent may make your people feel distance from you.

Do you know what one big commonality of most Korean professional player is? They don’t talk much. Though admittedly there are some exceptions, most of the players to whom I have personally talked were very quiet people. When I say quiet, I don’t mean they don’t like talking or have depressed personalities. On the contrary, they are usually bright people, who enjoy listening to others. It’s probably because playing baduk doesn’t require any talking. Thinking about it, professional players are the ones who always have played baduk since they were little kids. Consequently, as you would easily assume, baduk players are mostly comfortable with silence.

Taking my case as an example, I don’t talk much either especially when I am with strangers or people I barely acquainted. Though I speak more when I am with people with whom I feel comfortable, I still wouldn’t talk that much. Also, I tend to talk more in a smaller group, like two or three including myself. Therefore, I prefer having a few close friends to many friends. Considering what I have seen so far, most professional players in Korea are not far from this.

Nevertheless, I am thinking the biggest difference between baduk players and non baduk players is nothing else, but baduk. Other than that, players are in the end the same people. They may have a few characteristics. Yet, I believe any group of professionals or amateurs who have been doing one thing for long enough would share a few specific personalities as well.

Anyway, I wanted to say this to my friends, who successfully graduated. Thank you for the wonderful time. I was really lucky to befriend with you. You have made my school life much more memorable. I wish you the best in your life.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Baduk squares conversation

Have you ever wondered how many squares are on a Baduk board?




How Many Squares on a Go Board - October 1988

Kami Kaze:
How many squares are there on a go board?
Go away and think about it and write your answer down before reading on!

20 kyu:
361 of course.
"Wrong" says Kami Kaze.

10 kyu: No silly, that's the number of vertices. There are 18x18 or 324 squares.
"Wrong" says Kami Kaze.

(A pause follows, but frantic calculations occur.)

1 dan: Aha, there are also squares 2x2 and 3x3 and so on, which means that the total is 18x18 + 17x17 and so on making a grand total of 2109!

crowd: Aaaahh very clever!

"But wrong" says Kami Kaze.

3 dan: You've forgotten that they aren't squares, they are rectangles. There are no squares on a go board!

crowd: That's a dirty trick.
"And still wrong" says Kami Kaze.

(Another pause, and many puzzled faces.)

crowd: Well how many squares are there on a go board then?

Kami Kaze:
It is perfectly true that the smaller areas are rectangles, and each of these is one twelth longer than it is wide. Therefore, if we take an area twelve rectangles long and thirteen wide, we have a large square, and this is the only size which works. There are (19-12 ) x (19-13) or 42 such squares. The answer is forty-two.

Douglas Adams: We all knew the answer, it's the question that we didn't know. Thank you Kami Kaze, the whole question of the meaning of Life, The Universe and Everything is simply "How many squares are there on a go board?"

- adoreme

Friday, June 17, 2011

Kido Cup 2011 - The Review

Last weekend was the 3rd Kido Cup in Hamburg, Germany. Over 200 people participated and with five pros it was a very nice tournament.

Opening ceremony

Mr Park, the sponser of this tournament



1st board of the top8
2nd board of the top8

3rd board of the top8
4th board of the top8
I played in the tournament too, but "just" in the main tournament which was won by Frederik Blomback 6dan from Sweden.
I played a good tournament and I got five wins and two losses in the end while blackmoa just got one win and six losses :( He has to practive even more :)

Also there were some simultaneous games with Ko Juyeon and Kim Yeongsam.

Ko Juyeon 8p
Kim Yeongsam 8p




Not only simultaneous games were played, there were some review by other pros like Kwon Kapyong or Kim Seongrae:

Review with Kim Seongrae

Review with Kwon Kapyong


THE RESULTS CAN YOU FIND HERE ON THE LINKS!

Top8
Main Tournament



Here are some pics of the prizegiving ceremony:


women prize



6 wins and 1 loss



Winner of kids tournament

Youth prize (U21)
Best dressed woman and man
I hope to see you guys next here too :)

Bye
- a1r -

ABL TV Launch!

Welcome to ABL TV!

Cast archive and Chat: http://de.justin.tv/adorable_plum




Next scheduled Live Cast: Saturday CET afternoon, 18th of June

Replacing the BadukTV section as Baduk TV is no longer freely available, will be a Live Cast and Cast archive by adoreme. Random special casts may occur...

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Skynet plays Baduk! Zen reaches 5dan on KGS!

Long time ago when I started play Baduk the Gnugo bot could give me 9 stones until eventually I improved and started giving handicap to it, but now with the new MC stuff and lots of computer power programmers are making very strong bots these days. Zen19d on KGS reached 5dan by being hosted on a cluster of probably quite expensive computers.



Maybe one day in the future bots will make good training partners for higher dan players. Down below three games of Zen on KGS. Enjoy!







- adoreme

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Kido Cup 2011

The Kido Cup in Hamburg, Germany is coming again this year. Instead of the "Hamburger monkey jump" there will be a typical Korean style tournament! It's this weekend from 11th to 13th June 2011.

The sponsor Kido Industrial will sponser over 10.000€ prize money!!! What a huge amount for an European tournament.

Some European top-players will appear like Cristian Pop (7d), Ondrej Silt (6d), Mero Csaba (7d) or Pal Balogh (6d).

There are also over 5 professional players from Korea including Yeon Yeongseon 8p, Ko Juyeon 8p, Kim Youngsam 8p, Kim Sungrae 8p and Kwon Kapyong 7p. Mr. Kwon has a very famous Baduk school in Korea, he produced many pros like Yi Sedol, Choi Cheolhan or Yeon Yeongseon :)

That's NOT everything guys. A BadukTV-team will be there and WBaduk will send a representative to transmit the games on WBaduk. I guess it is the first time that a European tournament will be broadcast in Korea, very special :) Also there will be a broadcast on KGS.

If you are not registrated yet, please come to visit and play on the tournament.

For more information, pls visit the website: http://kidocup.com/en/

-a1r-

Sunday, June 5, 2011

BIBA

The BIBA released a flyer as you can see if you click the link ;)


I think it is a great oppertunity for english speaker to study in Korea.
Have fun!

- a1r -

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Speed test 1

Here is the first speed test. You have 8 minutes for all the problems. If you cannot manage it in the alloted time you need to practice more as these are basic problems which you need to solve in basically 3 seconds or know them by heart right from the start.





Good luck your time is ticking!

- adoreme

BIBA - Blackie's International Baduk Academy

Good news for us who want to study in Baduk in Korea! Already a few months ago BIBA opened with Kim Seung-jun 9p (Blackie) and Koszegi Diana 1p as teachers.

I have found you some information and interesting articles about the academy.

Photos from the academy: https://picasaweb.google.com/113804270615599150715/School#5602191924357374082

Blackie's International Baduk Academy Opened on 31st of January, 2011 Teachers: Pro: Kim Seung-jun (Blackie:) 9p, Koszegi Dia 1p Amateur: Park Young-un 7d, Seong Gi-jeong 5d Open: Every day 11 am - 10 pm (Sunday is officially holiday but school can be opened) Baduk Study: League games, Reviews, Group study, Practicing life and death problems, Homeworks, etcetc... Korean Language Study: 1 hour every weekdays Accommodation: 5-10 minutes by foot.

Blog about the academy: http://biba2011.blogspot.com/


And now some info about the academy:

Price: 800€/month including lodging and dinner (not breakfast and lunch)
Location: Sanbon near Seoul as part of the Sanbon JinSeok Baduk Dojangs
Teachers: Kim Seung-jun 9p (Blackie), Koszegi Diana 1p and Korea Ex-yeonguseng (Ex-insei)

If you stay longer discounts are available.