Dsaun's shape lectures.

Dsaun[1k] taught me sooo much today using one of his lectures. He teaches an audio lecture almost monthly (which is available for free on kgs, you can view recordings of his past lectures for free, although they do not include the review games he does afterwards reinforcing his points) After the lecture he went through 7 high dan games showing examples of how to use shape as he went. I learned how important good shape can be and how to use it effectively. I would reccomend every player struggling with shape or who does not understand shape to come to one of his lectures. I'll be writing a post as soon as his newest lecture is scheduled.

about Dsaun

He was born in germany (as an U.S. citizen.).
He speaks french.
He loves go (especially teaching it).
He started playing go seriously in 1993 though he first learned the rules in 1975.

12k

Hey I got to 12k matches are getting a little harder now.
sorry for this mostly blank blog entry. haha.

What do I do in my spare time? + A WIERD COINCIDENCE

So when I'm not learning Japanese, playing Go, or writing a blog about learning Japanese or playing Go, What do I do? Well lots of stuff but A big thing I do is design and program video games. In fact today I was doing just that. But as any good programmer knows, programming is not fun if there is noone to share it with. So I was in my usual programming chat room! It had been a while since I had visited that room so of course one of my acquaintences asked me were I had been for the past few weeks. When I told him I was playing Go he had no idea what I was talking about. (now here is where it gets interesting). So we had a short conversation about what I was going to be working on and then another of my friends logs in. The first thing he says is 'So does anyone want to play go?'
I thought he must have had an alt logged in or something. But nope. He had no Idea I had been playing Go. I asked him his rank. '12k' he said. This must have been the biggest coincidence ever.

Played against a 9d on kgs with 15 handicap stones:

Yeah I was black. I had FIFTEEN handicap stones. I lost by over 50.

In this game I was 13k btw.

Egad should stop fooling around with kgs and go pro haha.

13k a sense of weariness

Yesterday I got to 13k but today I feel like going on is pointless. I don't know why but I have absolutely no motive to continue in my go studies today. I think this will probably change but as for now I feel unmotivated. Uhg... will post further updates as to my mood. cya good luck everyone don't give up.

Heavy rank - kgs

after getting to 14k on kgs I got a huge burst of confidence and started studying like crazy.
I've won my first 9 games as a 14k. However my rank is not going up much. This is due to
the 'heaviness' of my rank. The more ranked games you play the less freely your rank moves. This is a problem in the kgs ranking system. If your rank gets heavy their are a couple things you can do
1. make a new account (obviously a new account is very light.)
2. play stronger players without handicap and beat them (this overcomes the heaviness by playing heavy matches)
3. take a break from ranked games for a few weeks(after a while your rank will become light again.)

Thanks for reading hope you don't have to suffer the same problem I am.

Egad'z Blitz Tactic

Egad: in blitz i try to taunt my opponents with bad moves that they can't seem to kill
Egad: then i press my face up against the glass and make blowfish faces
DukeDaniel: nice

These are his exact words. Feel free to try out his methods and/or comment your opinions of them