Making friends (and rivals?)...

I visited the club again today and was given another warm welcome. As soon as I walked in the door they began waving and calling me over. The manager set me up with a player I hadn't seen yesterday. I walked around, checking out the game of the 1 geup I played the day before. He earnestly offered me a game, but I begrudgingly had to turn him down as I had a previous arrangement with the other player.

As I sat down, the manager told my opponent, Adam, to put down four stones. I was a bit surprised; I didn't want them overestimating my actual ability. Nevertheless, I won the first game by nine points. The second game finished much sooner, as he made a very elementary mistake that allowed me to kill his group (or how 95% of my games end up; my opponent making a mistake).

I felt great having won two games, but that natural high wouldn't last long. Without even being able to stand up and stretch, the manager sat down and told me to put down four stones! I wasn't sure exactly what strength he was, but seeing as to how I was given four stones, I'd venture to guess he's a 2 geup. All I knew about him from the other players was that he was an attacker; but then again, what Korean isn't?

Maybe it was my previous games that gave me an air of confidence, but I played very aggressively against the manager, something I don't tend to do against strong players. Unfortunately, he lived up to his style and easily destroyed me in the first game. However, I hunkered down and cleared my head as he went to have a smoke. The second game started a few minutes later.

I continued attacking him as strong as I could, and the game remained relatively even entering the early stages of the middle game. Then came what I could proudly say was my finest hour. All six of the players at the salon at the time huddled around our table. He started a ko in the lower right corner of the board and was using the boundless threats he had in the lower left to try and kill my large group in the bottom of the board.

However, I used the ko to my advantage. With the threats, I cut off a large group of his (the one he was trying to kill me with) in exchange for giving up the left corner. When I made the exchange, the crowd responded positively in my favor, with one of them saying, "nice job!"

Indeed I felt good until the scoring phase. It was then I found out I had lost by a single point. A soul-crushing point that I could have easily overturned had I not made one slack move amongst the twenty good yose moves. Alas, that is baduk...

6 geup!

I spent the last few hours at Fort Lee Baduk, a cozy baduk salon located on the ever-busy Main Street of Fort Lee. The manager was very welcoming and I was immediately set up to play against a 1 geup. I told him I was 8 geup and was promptly given seven stones. I had expected a colder welcoming, but the players at the salon couldn't be nicer.

There were a couple of other games going on at the time, and spectators would hover from table to table glancing at positions. I started out quite well against my opponent. For most of the game I kept calm and collected, as did my opponent. I was impressed with his ability to play so calmly and serenely; perhaps I was expecting a sharper bite?

I missed a few tesujis and he quickly erased my 20 point lead near the end of the middle game. I was comfortable with 80% of my yose; it was very solid, but I missed a few of his reductions. I split two of his groups and attacked both as strong as I could, but he easily deflected my attacks and made life.

They were a bit surprised I didn't know how to count up the board at the end of the game. I said I had only played online, which prompted a 6 geup to comment almost boisterously, "how do you count online?".

It was clear I had won; I knew I was leading the whole time, but I didn't expect to win by a paltry two points. My opponent praised my ability and said I was 6 geup in strength. I was then set up with the aforementioned 6 geup.

Opening with my favorite fuseki, the Kobayashi, I fell behind early on. He stumbled in a position on the top of the board, seemingly making a misread. He missed a net that gained me six points and the game felt even from the early yose on. Perhaps he was taking it a bit easy on me? It certainly felt that way in the second game, where I resigned early on.

He was generous enough to show me how to count at the end. We both ended up with 53 points each, but seeing as to how it was an even game with full komi, I lost by 6.5 points.

After the second game, I began conversing with the owner of the salon, Brian. We had a fruitful conversation, talking about baduk and the relationship between Turkey and Korea (I had worn my Turkey soccer jersey).

All in all it was a really great time. I was challenged by the "Snake" and will play him tomorrow. Hopefully I won't be embarrassed. In the meantime I will try to finish the third LCH book.

Hopefully with their help I can reach my next goal of 1k by the end of July...

July 1st - 2k - DONE!
August 1st - 1k - ...
September 1st - 1d - ....