| | Tuesday, 31st July
By now, all the days are starting to run together into one big blur. I'm having trouble remembering which day it is and every day is almost the same as the day before.
Everytime I try to go by the vendor's tables, they're closed. I rush from recording to eating and back to recording, and eating, and recording -- sounds like I'm doing a lot of eating, but I fell like I'm rushing through the meals too.
Will I get a chance to buy any books? Will I get to play any games myself?
US Open round 3 - I'm recording two of my favorite players (I'm getting a lot of favorite players) - Michael (ZhaoNian) Chen vs Young Kwon on board 4. I'm starting to relax and have a little fun with the colorful commentary.
The game didn't last too long. Afterwards, they started to discuss the game a little. Michael, who is used to playing online a lot, wanted to use my computer to review. So I pulled the game offline and we went into the next room and let Michael use my computer. They showed each other some of their mistakes, and played a few variations to see how they could have imporved the game.
Wow, an early lunch. I almost don't know what to do with myself. I wandered over to the main playing area to see if I could find and meet any GoDiscussions people. Looked up a few names on the pairing sheet to see which table they're sitting at. so I could at least learn to recoginize them for later.
I had a lesurely lunch, and with some of the other EJournal staff. Chris remarked how impressed he was with my game recording ability and offered to let me record board 1 for the Ing games later this evening -- cool!! I already know its going to be a Jing Yang game!
After lunch, I was finally able to browse the bookstores a little, and start putting together my wish list. I went back to see who might still be lingering in the main playing area. Didn't see anyone I knew or wanted to meet, but was asked by an older Japanese lady if I wanted to play a game. I kinda didn't, but her English wans't all that great, so I didn't have the heart to tell her no.
So then I thought, ok, my first self-paired official game, but no, she just wanted to play a casual game. That's ok too. She's 1 dan. I'm 9 kyu. She didn't want to give me more than 4 stones. Ok, I'll probably lose, but maybe I'll still learn something.
I screwed by my joseki in one corner early on, then for most of the rest of the game felt I was way behind. She had a large moyo that I waited too late to invade. The best I could do was to try and reduce it a little. I was surprized at the end to have won by 4 points.
We did a brief review at the end - in broken English/Japanese - and she showed me how I should have played that joseki that I messed up. Its a very common mistake that's been discussed recently here on GoDiscussions, and is also described on Bantari's site.
Then I got to go to an afternoon lecture by Xuefen Lin 1p (yet another favorite of mine). But I don't know why I go to afternoon lectures, because I keep nodding off and feeling guilty for being disrespectful to the lecturer. But my friend Trevoke was there and he kept elbowing me to silence my snoring. He also wanted to see Yilun Yang's Ing game that didn't get broadcasted from the day before. Since I was now the keeper of the Ing game records, I pulled it out and transcribed it to sgf for him.
Now for the Ing games, round 3. I mentioned to our usual board 1 recorder about Chris telling me I could record board 1 tonight. He seemed really disappointed that he would miss out on a chance to record a Feng Yun game (it was to be Jing Yang 9d vs Feng Yun 9p), so I relented and recorded one of my other favorites, Xuefen Lin vs Eric Lui on board 3. Given my choice, it was hard to choose because all the boards were going to be great. Then it wasn't until recently (almost two weeks later) that I realized that our usual board 1 recorder had been recording Feng Yun's games all week - so far, she's always been on board 1.
I should have stuck to my guns. I still had fun. I enjoy recording any of these great players, and I have so many favorites now.
Tonight, Jing Yang suffered his first loss of the week (in both the US Open and the Ing) against Feng Yun.
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| | Posted 8/16/2007 5:09 PM - 142 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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