Go for Life

Happy holidays

2011-12-24T14:38:00.001+01:00

May you have a great weekend and a happy new year!

Tenth game at EGC 2011

2011-08-06T23:18:00.004+02:00

The final round of the EGC in Bordeaux. There is both sadness and relief in knowing that EGC is over for this time. It has been two weeks of fun and serious games but it will be nice to have some rest from the competition. Before it is all over I have to play another French player. Because of my previous wins I have moved up again to play against a 6 kyu. My opponent has already won five games before this game and among them one against a 4 kyu so he will probably be of my strength. I will probably have a chance to win my last game of the tournament. Let's do our best!

My opponent plays as black and I as white. The opening went quite well except for a reading mistake by me on the upper side that was quite big. After the white invasion on the left side I felt I had to do the same on the right side.

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]TM[5400]OT[3x30 byo-yomi]
GN[EGC Main Tournament Round 10]PW[Boywing]PB[French guy]WR[4k]BR[6k]DT[2011-08-06]EV[EGC 2011]RO[Round 10]PC[Bordeaux, France]WT[Sweden]BT[France]RE[B+Resign]
;B[dp]
;W[pd]
;B[qp]
;W[cd]
;B[qf]
;W[nc]
;B[pj]
;W[op]
;B[mq]
;W[no]
(;B[qm]LB[qh:A][qk:B]C[Possible to invade at A or B]
(;W[lp]
;B[pq]
(;W[oq]
;B[fq]LB[kq:A]C[Black can later play at A]
;W[cj]
;B[ed]
;W[gc]
;B[fe]
;W[df]
;B[cc]
;W[bc]
;B[dc]
;W[bb]
;B[hd]
(;W[hc]
;B[id]
(;W[jc]C[Bad jump]
;B[ic]
;W[ib]
(;B[jb]C[Block from wrong side]
;W[kb]
;B[hb]
;W[ja]
;B[gb]
;W[gd]
;B[ge]
;W[cn]
;B[bp]
;W[hq]
(;B[cl]C[White have several options]
(;W[bl]
;B[bm]
;W[cm]
;B[bk]
;W[dl]
;B[ck]
;W[dk]
;B[bj]
;W[ci]
(;B[fo]LB[bh:A]
(;W[bi]
;B[al]
;W[qh]
;B[ph]
;W[pi]
;B[qi]
;W[oi]
;B[rh]
;W[qj]
;B[ri]
;W[pk]
;B[rd]
;W[qc]
;B[or]
;W[nr]
;B[pr]
;W[nq]
;B[ko]
;W[kp]
(;B[oj]C[Ladder does not work for black.]
(;W[ok]C[Bad move]
;B[nj]
;W[oh]
;B[pg]
;W[mh]
;B[og]
;W[mi]
;B[qk]
;W[ql]
;B[rk]
;W[pm]
;B[rl]
(;W[pl]
;B[qn]
;W[fm]
;B[lk]
;W[nf]
;B[ng]
;W[mg]
;B[on]
;W[ml]
;B[mk]
;W[nm]
(;B[oo]
;W[nn]
;B[gr]
;W[hr]
;B[jf]
(;W[lf]
;B[bn]
;W[fg]
;B[rc]
;W[ih]
;B[gg]
;W[gh]
;B[fh]
;W[eg]
;B[jk]
;W[hk]
;B[jo]
;W[ip]
;B[ij]
;W[hj]
;B[hh]
;W[gi]
;B[hg]
;W[ea]
;B[eb]
;W[da]
;B[fa]
;W[fn]
;B[ai]
;W[ah]
;B[aj]
;W[bh]
;B[hs]
;W[is]
;B[gs]
;W[jr]
;B[qb]
;W[pb]
;B[qd]
;W[pc]
;B[rb]
;W[je]
;B[ie]
;W[jd]
;B[ig]
;W[im]
;B[jm])
(;W[bn]
;B[aj]
;W[ao]
;B[am]
;W[ap]CR[cq][dq][eq][cr][dr][er][cs][ds][es][fs]C[White will reduce a lot of points]))
(;B[om]C[Black can do better]
;W[ol]
;B[pn]
;W[nl]
;B[nn]C[Painful for white]))
(;W[ml]C[White should leave his stone in atari]))
(;W[nj]
;B[ok]
;W[ol]
;B[nk]
;W[mk]
;B[nl]
;W[nm]
;B[ml]
;W[ll]
;B[mm]
;W[mn]
;B[lm]
;W[km]
;B[ln]
;W[lo]
;B[kn]
;W[jn])
(;W[ql]
;B[nj]
;W[pm]))
(;B[jo]
;W[jp]
;B[oj]
;W[nj]
;B[ok]
;W[ol]
;B[nk]
;W[mk]
;B[nl]
;W[nm]
;B[ml]
;W[ll]
;B[mm]
;W[mn]
;B[lm]
;W[km]
;B[ln]
;W[lo]
;B[kn]
;W[io]
;B[jn]
;W[jm]))
(;W[bn]C[White should start from this side]
;B[al]
;W[bi]
;B[aj]
;W[ao]
;B[am]
;W[ap]LB[bi:A][aj:B][am:D][bn:C]C[A-B and C-D exchange is good for white]))
(;B[bn]C[Huge move]))
(;W[co]
;B[cp]
;W[dm]LB[bn:A]
;B[dj]
;W[ci]
;B[dl]
;W[el]
;B[ek]
;W[fm]
;B[gk])
(;W[ep]
;B[eq]
;W[do]
;B[cp]
;W[bm]
;B[bl]
;W[ej]
;B[el]
;W[fn]))
(;B[qc]C[Black should play here]))
(;B[hb]
;W[jb]
;B[gb]))
(;W[ic]
;B[jd]
;W[kc]
;B[eg]
;W[ch]
;B[oe]C[Better for black]))
(;W[ic]C[White should play here]
;B[hc]
;W[hb]
;B[gd]
;W[cn]))
(;W[lq]
;B[oq]
(;W[kn])
(;W[mr]
;B[nq]
;W[kn])))
(;W[qh]
;B[ph]
;W[pi]
(;B[qi]
;W[oi]
;B[rh]
;W[qj]
;B[ri]
;W[pk]
;B[oj]
;W[ql])
(;B[oi]
;W[qi]
;B[pg]
;W[qj]
;B[qk]
;W[rk]
;B[pk]
;W[rl]))
(;W[qk]
(;B[qj]
;W[rj]
;B[ri]
;W[pk]
;B[ok]
;W[pl])
(;B[pk]
;W[ql]
;B[pl]
;W[rm]
;B[qn]
;W[ri]))
(;W[qq]
;B[rq]
;W[pq]
;B[kp]
;W[ro]
;B[rp]
;W[qo]
;B[po]
;W[pp]
;B[qn]
;W[pn]
;B[so]
;W[oo]
;B[rn]
;W[kn]))
(;B[pn]C[Black should play here]))

I played a sequence on the right side that captured a stone in a ladder. Black soon played a ladder breaker and then pulled out his stone from the ladder. The problem was that the ladder breaker didn't work and neither I or my opponent read it out, we just assumed it worked. So instead we started to fight for a couple of moves and now black is ahead in the game.

I didn't really find anything to attack so it is more or less game over for me. We still played it to the end and I lost.

At the same time Girlwing played against a 6 dan again. It was a close game but she played a steady game and never gave her opponent a chance. In the end she won by 2.5 points.

So now totally Girlwing have seven wins I won three games out of ten. As I mentioned in my first post about EGC I didn't expect to win much in the first week but was hoping for better results in the second week. It was so true, but I didn't expect to play so many under ranked French players. I played against five French players the first week and I lost all five games. I feel I should have won one or two of these games. In the second week I won three out of five games, which is an OK result. Before next time I go to EGC I must do some practice before the tournament so I am warmed up and can be sure of my level.

The top two tables where the strong Koreans play.

Cristian Pop 7D and Dmitriy Surin 5D.

A lot of the players standing outside the playing venue for a group picture.

Price giving ceremony.

Dinner with the Finnish players and a couple of British as well.

Ninth game at EGC

2011-08-05T21:03:00.000+02:00

It's friday and only two games left to play in the EGC. Today I played a Korean lady of 7 kyu. She didn't speak any English so we nodded and I placed my first black stone on the board.

She played her first four stones on the same side of the board, while I spread them out to occupy a larger territory. Her fifth stone she approched my lower right corner and there she must have played wrong because I closed her in directly.

I left my corner with some aji and secured some territory in the upper right. Directly she attached to my 4-4 stone and I played a hane. In the sequence that follows I build a wall that is building a large moyo.

She then turns to invade my lower side and I jump in to her lower left corner at san-san. She block from the wrong side and I get a good result and her D6 stone is too close to her D4 group, making an inefficient shape.

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]TM[5400]OT[3x30 byo-yomi]
GN[EGC Main Tournament Round 9]PW[Korean lady]PB[Boywing]WR[7k]BR[4k]DT[2011-08-05]EV[EGC 2011]RO[Round 9]PC[Bordeaux, France]WT[Korea]BT[Sweden]RE[B+5.50]
;B[pd]
;W[dp]
;B[pq]
;W[dc]
;B[fq]
;W[dn]
;B[jp]
;W[ci]
;B[jc]
;W[po]
(;B[ql]
;W[qq]
;B[qr]
;W[rr]
;B[qp]
;W[rq]
;B[pp]
;W[rp]
;B[qo]
;W[pr]
;B[or]
;W[qs]
(;B[pf]
;W[pc]
;B[qc]
;W[oc]
;B[qb]
;W[lc]
;B[gc]
;W[de]
;B[od]
;W[nd]
;B[ne]
;W[md]
;B[me]
;W[le]
;B[kb]
;W[lb]
;B[je]
;W[lf]
;B[mg]
;W[jf]
;B[ie]
;W[kh]
;B[li]
;W[hq]
;B[cq]
;W[cp]
;B[dq]
;W[ep]
;B[eq]
;W[ho]
;B[jn]
;W[fi]
(;B[hm]
;W[fp]
;B[fk]
(;W[dk]
;B[ej]
;W[di]
;B[dl]
;W[el]
;B[ek]
;W[dj]
;B[em]
;W[cl]
;B[dm]
;W[cm]
;B[en]
;W[lq]
;B[mp]
;W[gq]
;B[bq]
;W[bp]
;B[jq]
;W[gr]
;B[fr]
;W[aq]
;B[ar]
;W[ap]
;B[bs]
;W[nr]
(;B[os]
;W[ro]
;B[qn]
;W[ki]
;B[lj]
;W[hk]
;B[hl]
;W[ik]
;B[jl]
(;W[ge]
(;B[he]
;W[gd]
;B[hc]
;W[hd]
;B[id]
;W[ib]
;B[hb]
;W[ka]
(;B[ic]
;W[ja]
;B[kd]
;W[ld]
;B[ha]
;W[la]
;B[eb]
;W[db]
;B[ec]
;W[ed]
;B[da]
;W[ca]
;B[ea]
;W[cc]
;B[qi]
;W[kk]
;B[ll]
;W[kl]
;B[km]
;W[lk]
;B[mk]
;W[mh]
;B[lh]
;W[lg]
(;B[nh]
;W[ml]
;B[lm]
;W[mj]
;B[nk]
;W[mi]
;B[nj]
;W[kj]
;B[ni]
;W[ng]
;B[og]
;W[nf]
;B[of]
;W[mf]
;B[oe]
;W[js]
;B[kr]
;W[ks]
;B[ls]
;W[ir]
;B[jr]
;W[is]
;B[lr]
;W[ei]
;B[hg]
;W[gf]
;B[ig]
;W[eo]
;B[gg]
;W[fg]
;B[ob]
;W[nb]
;B[pb]
;W[nc]
;B[rn]
;W[sn]
;B[sm]
;W[so]
;B[rm]
;W[gh]
;B[gk]
;W[gj]
;B[ii]
;W[jk]
;B[hn]
;W[io]
;B[jo]
;W[fs]
;B[es]
;W[gs]
;B[hi]
;W[fn]
;B[fm]
;W[gn]
;B[gm]
;W[ip]
;B[fd]
;W[fe]
;B[fc]
;W[jg]
;B[ke]
;W[kf]
;B[na]
;W[ma]
;B[oa]
;W[il]
;B[jm]
;W[ps]
;B[nq]
;W[gi]
;B[jb]
;W[ia]
;B[im]
;W[ji]
;B[ij]
;W[hj]
;B[ih]
;W[hf]
;B[if]
;W[ef]
;B[iq]
;W[go]
;B[in]
;W[fj]
;B[hh]
;W[kc]
;B[jh]
;W[jj])
(;B[mi]
;W[mf]
;B[ng]
;W[nf]
;B[of]
;W[oe]
;B[pe]))
(;B[ja]))
(;B[eb]))
(;W[kk]
;B[ml]))
(;B[nq]
;W[os]
;B[oq]
;W[mr]
;B[ro]))
(;W[hk]
;B[gl]
;W[jl]))
(;B[jj]))
(;B[nq]))
(;B[pl]))

My H7 move is not so good. It should be better at K10. My F9 is even worse and makes a counter attack at H9 possible. The E10 move I regretted the second after I put it on the board. So I just pretended it didn't exist and I tried something else. The problem is that I removed some aji in the upper right.

Whites M3 made me some worries but I decided to defend my moyo and played N4. I was later told that this was a very good move. My opponent didn't answer so I got the possibility to capture the M3 stone.

A couple of moves later white attacked my upper group with G15. The best response to live is E18, but I wanted to be able to jump out in whites middle area so I played H15. That gave me some problems when I played wrong a couple of times and I barely survived thanks to my opponent to make as many mistakes as me.

By now I felt I was ahead and didn't want any bad surprises so I played inside my own territory at R11. Then came L9 and I felt like crying. I read out as far as I could and there are so many cutting points and it was hard to find any way to play a sequence where I can keep all my stones. So I played a sequence to give away three stones and am able to close off my territory. Then again I didn't expect the next move at O13. Well now it should really be closed.

We played all the way through endgame and to fill all the dames to count the points. I won by 5.5 points. Yay! So now I have three wins totally and all of them in the second week. Tomorrow I will meet a French 6 kyu. I think he both lost and won against 4k and 5k so he should be at my strength. It will be a challenge!

Girlwing won today against her Japanese 6 dan opponent. Tomorrow she will play another 6 dan who has played well this tournament. Let's hope for the best and that Girlwing wins her seventh victory.

Go players solving weiqi problems together under a tree.

Morino Setsuo 9P is reviewing the game between Alexandr Dinershteyn 7D and Catalin Taranu 7D.

Players looking at the results of today and the new pairing of tomorrow.

To farewell drink is served tonight.

Players enjoying the farewell drink.

Eighth game at EGC

2011-08-04T22:48:00.000+02:00

For my eighth game I am paired against a French lady of 9 kyu. She won her first six games and then lost a game yesterday. I know for sure that French players are much stronger than their rank so I was expecting 4 kyu competition regardless of her rank.

She started with securing her lower left side and I played one stone under the star point on the left side and on the upper side. That made her the possibility to build a small moyo on the upper left corner before I was able to secure my left side. Directly she approached my stone on my lower right and I played an OK joseki but she was not aggressive enough and secured her stones in a heavy shape. That gave me the possibility to play a strong shape.

Then she left her stones and approached my upper right corner. There I probably should had played a pincer instead of the kick-jump. But at least I got the chance to jump out with my middle stone and threaten her lower group. Now I got the time to play a sequence to threaten that group until it lived with only two one point eyes. Ending in sente I was able to invade the upper left moyo as well. She played wrong and I got a great result after cutting of a stone and adding that to my left side territory.

About here my phone rang (without a signal) and I hung up directly but when the kifu came back it was totally empty. I then tried to load the autosave-file but that one was empty as well. U guess the autosave had saved the empty board over the one I had entered the moves. So it was totally blank and I turned off my smartphone. So a note to the author of Gobandroid. Please fix that bug! And a note to me, turn the phone in to flight mode when you play tournament games! So all of the kifu is made from memory. There are 100% chance that the moves are in the wrong order.

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]TM[5400]OT[3x30 byo-yomi]
GN[EGC Round 8]PW[Boywing]PB[French lady]WR[4k]BR[9k]DT[2011-08-04]EV[EGC Main Tournament]RO[Round 8]PC[Bordeaux, France]WT[Sweden]BT[France]RE[W+22.50]
;B[cp]
;W[pd]
;B[dc]
;W[pq]
;B[eq]
;W[cj]
;B[cf]
;W[jc]
;B[hc]
;W[je]
;B[he]
;W[cm]
;B[po]
;W[ql]
;B[qq]
;W[qr]
;B[qp]
;W[or]
;B[qn]
;W[np]
;B[qf]
;W[qe]
;B[pf]
;W[nd]
;B[qj]
;W[ol]
;B[oj]
;W[ml]
;B[nn]
;W[lo]
;B[iq]
;W[kq]
;B[io]
;W[pm]
;B[pn]
;W[rm]
;B[ro]
;W[rr]
;B[rq]
;W[rn]
;B[pp]
;W[op]
;B[sp]
;W[fc]
;B[gd]
;W[ed]
;B[dd]
;W[ef]
;B[fd]
;W[de]
;B[ec]
;W[ce]
;B[bd]
;W[be]
;B[nm]
;W[nl]
;B[ln]
;W[lm]
;B[kn]
;W[re]
;B[rf]
;W[nf]
;B[nh]
;W[og]
;B[ph]
;W[rj]
;B[ri]
;W[rk]
;B[pk]
;W[pl]
;B[oc]
;W[pb]
;B[od]
;W[oe]
;B[pe]
;W[pc]
;B[lc]
;W[ld]
;B[kc]
;W[kd]
;B[jb]
;W[mc]
;B[ic]
;W[jd]
;B[se]
;W[gg]
;B[hg]
;W[hh]
;B[ig]
;W[ih]
;B[of]
;W[ne]
;B[ng]
;W[go]
;B[gq]
;W[gm]
;B[en]
;W[el]
;B[cn]
;W[bm]
;B[bn]
;W[an]
;B[bo]
;W[jl]
;B[im]
;W[il]
;B[hm]
;W[gl]
;B[hl]
;W[hk]
;B[dm]
;W[dl]
;B[gk]
;W[em]
;B[dn]
;W[fn]
;B[km]
;W[kl]
;B[ee]
;W[df]
;B[ff]
;W[fg]
;B[gf]
;W[bc]
;B[cd]
;W[ad]
;B[bb]
;W[mb]
;B[kb]
;W[jr]
;B[lp]
;W[lq]
;B[mo]
;W[gs]
;B[fr]
;W[si]
;B[rh]
;W[eo]
;B[cc]
;W[rd]
;B[sd]
;W[sc]
;B[sf]
;W[rc]
;B[ac]
;W[ae]
;B[ie]
;W[jg]
;B[jf]
;W[kf]
;B[if]
;W[li]
;B[mi]
;W[mg]
;B[lk]
;W[ll]
;B[mk]
;W[kk]
;B[oi]
;W[lj]
;B[sh]
;W[sj]
;B[ao]
;W[am]
;B[do]
;W[fp]
;B[ep]
;W[fo]
;B[qk]
;W[hn]
;B[in]
;W[mh]
;B[ir]
;W[is]
;B[fs]
;W[hs]
;B[jq]
;W[kr]
;B[mp]
;W[mq])

Anyway, soon she invaded my upper side. I did my best to defend and I should be able to kill her stones but I let her connect with some of them to her upper left side. I managed to seal off the middle and got a lot of points there. In the end my opponent invaded my middle and I have a lot of weakness and cutting points and it is absolutely possible to capture some of my stones. I had to give up some of them and I chose the four at B7. It was still not enough for her and I won in the end by 22.5. So that was my second win so far and tomorrow I'll meet a Korean 7k. Expect a lot of fighting and bad shape!

Girlwing played another 4 dan and she won. Tomorrow she will play against a Japanese 6 dan. Lets hope she wins so she can continue to play strong players. 4 dans she can play against in Sweden. :)

After our games we went in to town for some leisure time and sightseeing. Girlwing was very close to buying a Lancel handbag for €400. I told her not to because she already have a fancy handbag that is only one year old. She painfully left the handbag and cursed me for several blocks while we was walking. Women... ;)

We went in to a big church called Cathédrale st.Andre. I was not able to walk very far in to the church before I was told to take of my cap. I think only women and the priests are allowed to wear anything on their heads. I am not sure what the practical reason for that is. But I didn't mind, there was no sun in there anyway.

A really nice big church.

This is where the priest usually stands and brainwash the simple people.

The great church organ.

The Great Dune of Pyla

2011-08-03T23:48:00.014+02:00

Today is another day of rest and sightseeing. The organizers of EGC are arranging a trip to a vineyard and another one to la dune du Pyla. We already went to the vineyard and Saint Emilion so this time we chose the great dune.

The dune is now 107 meters high but not so long ago it was 117 meters high. There was a storm in 2009 that damaged the dune quite a lot.

The dune is made entirely of really fine beach sand and it is a tough job to climb the dune by foot. The sand is flowing away almost like heavy water and every step you take only takes you half a step ahead. But of course we had to climb all the way to the top, then down to the sea to wet our feet and then climb all the way to the top again.

If you have good legs you must try to run/jump down the steepest parts of the dune. It is almost like flying or jumping on clouds. A really nice feeling!

And another thing... when you climb up again, use your toes like claws to get a good grip. If you let the sand flow between your toes it will take you much more work to climb up.

The path from the parking to the dune is crowded with small shops packed with souvenirs. The most interesting stuff are decorations made of the sand from the dune, but I didn't buy any.

Nice shadows from the trees on the path to the dune.

There we first see the dune!

The stairs were easier to use than to climb the dune. It is quite a steep angle. Some people walked on the side where the angle is less.

A view from the top of the stairs.

The dune is 3 km long and 500 meters wide.

There is a lot of sand here... About 60,000,000 m³.

Most of the people gathered along the top.

It is a popular place for paragliding.

The beach. The dark things in the water are rocks.

You can not see the top of the dune from the water.

After the dune we went to a small cute city named Arcachon. Mostly so the Japanese players could taste the local oysters. Girlwing ate as well but I went for a walk along the beach.

A view of the beach.

On the base of a pier they have this carousel.

The beach from one of the piers.

Another view of the beach.

The local casino.

They have cute houses all around the small city.

Seventh game at EGC

2011-08-02T20:25:00.000+02:00

For the seventh game I was paired against a French player again. This time a 5 kyu that was not playing in the first week. So this is his second game and he lost the first one. I didn't know that when the game started and was kind of expecting to get crushed by another French sandbagger.

It was cloudy and a bit chilly in the morning so I wore jeans to the playing venue. Halfway into the game the sun started to shine and I regretted my decision to wear jeans and wished I had my shorts. It became very warm and the air was heavy and humid. Later in the afternoon the sky opened with heavy rain and thunder. I was lucky to be home before that happened.

In the game I play black and start with a Chinese opening. I need to study that opening some more because I don't manage to play effective moves. It feels a bit too slow. My opponent had a better start and soon he had a big moyo in the lower right and a large territory at the top.

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]TM[5400]OT[3x30 byo-yomi]
GN[EGC round 7]PW[French guy]PB[Boywing]WR[5k]BR[4k]DT[2011-08-02]EV[EGC 2011]RO[7]PC[Bordeaux, France]WT[France]BT[Sweden]RE[W+12.50]
;B[pd]
;W[dp]
;B[pq]
;W[dd]
;B[ql]
;W[nc]
;B[pf]
;W[jd]
;B[cf]
;W[dj]
;B[ch]
;W[ce]
;B[df]
;W[fd]
;B[cj]
;W[ck]
;B[dk]
;W[cl]
;B[bj]
;W[jp]
;B[lp]
;W[jn]
;B[cq]
;W[dq]
;B[cp]
;W[co]
;B[dr]
;W[er]
;B[cr]
;W[do]
;B[bo]
;W[ek]
;B[di]
;W[ej]
;B[bn]
;W[po]
;B[np]
;W[qq]
;B[qr]
;W[pm]
;B[pl]
;W[mn]
;B[jq]
;W[iq]
;B[kp]
;W[ip]
;B[nl]
;W[om]
;B[ol]
;W[oh]
;B[ph]
;W[oe]
;B[pe]
;W[of]
;B[og]
;W[ng]
;B[pg]
;W[nh]
;B[nn]
;W[nm]
;B[mm]
;W[lm]
;B[ml]
;W[no]
;B[ln]
;W[mo]
;B[lo]
;W[op]
;B[nq]
;W[on]
;B[qn]
;W[oq]
;B[or]
;W[pp]
;B[pr]
;W[pn]
;B[jl]
;W[ff]
;B[jm]
;W[ji]
;B[fh]
;W[gh]
;B[jc]
;W[ic]
;B[kc]
;W[ib]
;B[nd]
;W[md]
;B[ne]
;W[me]
;B[od]
;W[mc]
;B[li]
;W[lh]
;B[kh]
;W[ki]
;B[jh]
;W[ii]
;B[kd]
;W[je]
;B[lg]
;W[mh]
;B[mf]
;W[nf]
;B[le]
;W[lb]
;B[mi]
;W[kg]
;B[jg]
;W[kf]
;B[jf]
;W[ke]
;B[oi]
;W[lf]
;B[ni]
;W[mg]
;B[cc]
;W[dc]
;B[be]
;W[cb]
;B[cd]
;W[qc]
;B[pc]
;W[pb]
;B[qd]
;W[rb]
;B[rc]
;W[hm]
;B[hl]
;W[gm]
;B[gl]
;W[im]
;B[gi]
;W[hh]
;B[fg]
;W[gf]
;B[cm]
;W[dm]
;B[jr]
;W[ir]
;B[is]
;W[hs]
;B[js]
;W[gr]
;B[em]
;W[el]
;B[qb]
;W[qa]
;B[ob])

I invaded the lower left corner directly and I am not so sure I should have done that. He became strong and it will be hard for me to invade or reduce later. When the sequence was over he answered by invading my lower right. For a log time I was reading how to cut his stones there and as soon as I got sente I played the cut. I was hoping for a kill but white managed to live quite easily.

Next I try to invade the upper side. I read out a great sequence but in my excitement I read wrong and I didn't gain much from the sequence. That was kind of my last hope. In the endgame I managed to reduce a little bit more but in the end I lost the game with 12.5 points including the 7.5 points komi for white.

When I was about to leave I saw that there was a blind player in the room. He uses a special board where you place stones on raised intersections and the stones are cut out so they fit on the intersections and doesn't slide around. The black stones have a small spike on the top and the white stones are smooth. Every time the young woman placed a stone the blind man was feeling with his fingers in the played area. Then he feel the stones in another area and plays a stone. It is quite amazing that he can do that, he kind of have to remember most of the board in his mind and without ever being able to look at the board.

After my game I went to see Girlwing play. She played against a 5 dan who lives in Spain. Girlwing was stressed and her opponent acted very calm. I never counted the points because there were a lot of unplayed areas on the board, but it looked like Girlwing was leading. That's why I got surprised when Girlwing resigned some moves later. She was sad and angry that she played so bad. She was ahead after the opening but made mistakes so some of her stones died after the opponent had invaded her territory.

Tomorrow we play no games but instead we will see the great sand dunes.

Sixth game at EGC

2011-08-01T20:52:00.000+02:00

The second week of EGC just started and the sixth game has been played. I feared that I had to play another French guy and this time it could have been a 9 kyu player. But when I looked at the pairing I was happy to see that I was about to play against a 6 kyu player from Spain.

I was sitting closest to the window where the strong sun was shining directly in to the room. I pulled the curtains so I didn't get the sun in my face. That didn't help much from the warmth the sun gave to the room. It was almost hard to breathe. I was just hoping this warm room would affect my opponent more than me. But Spanish people should be used to warm conditions compared to a Swede like me.

I started with a Chinese opening as black. My opponent invaded directly and I answered with a standard variation. Soon I started to play strange and my attack was not so affective.

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]TM[5400]OT[15/300 Canadian]
GN[EGC Round 6]PW[Spanish guy]PB[Boywing]WR[6k]BR[4k]DT[2011-08-01]EV[EGC 2011]RO[6]PC[Bordeaux, France]WT[Spain]BT[Sweden]RE[B+Resign]
;B[pd]
;W[dp]
;B[pq]
;W[dc]
;B[ql]
;W[po]
;B[np]
;W[qq]
;B[qr]
;W[qp]
;B[rr]
;W[pm]
;B[pl]
;W[om]
(;B[nk]
;W[mm]
;B[nn]
;W[nm]
;B[lk]
;W[oq]
;B[op]
;W[pp]
;B[pr]
;W[nq]
;B[mq]
;W[mp]
(;B[lp]
;W[mo]
;B[nr]
;W[lq]
;B[mr]
;W[no]
(;B[kq]
;W[oo]
(;B[jc]
;W[qf]
;B[qe]
;W[pf]
;B[nd]
;W[pj]
;B[ok]
;W[rj]
;B[ph]
;W[qh]
;B[ce]
;W[hc]
;B[je]
;W[de]
;B[df]
;W[cd]
;B[ee]
;W[dd]
;B[ef]
;W[cj]
;B[fq]
;W[dn]
(;B[dr]
;W[cq]
;B[fo]
;W[ej]
;B[of]
;W[oh]
;B[og]
;W[pg]
;B[nh]
;W[oi]
;B[ni]
;W[qk]
;B[rf]
;W[rd]
;B[pe]
;W[qg]
;B[re]
;W[qc]
;B[pc]
;W[rb]
;B[pb]
;W[he]
;B[ch]
;W[cf]
;B[cg]
;W[be]
(;B[gd]
;W[gc]
;B[fd]
;W[fc]
;B[hd]
;W[eh]
;B[eg]
;W[dh]
;B[gh]
;W[hh]
;B[hi]
;W[ii]
;B[hj]
;W[ij]
;B[ik]
;W[jk]
;B[jl]
;W[il]
;B[hk]
;W[kl]
;B[jj]
;W[jm]
;B[kj]
;W[fh]
;B[gg]
;W[hq]
(;B[ip]
;W[hp]
;B[ho]
;W[io]
;B[iq]
;W[go]
;B[hn]
;W[gn]
;B[gp]
;W[hr]
;B[ir]
;W[hm]
;B[in]
;W[jo]
(;B[gm]
;W[fn]
;B[en]
;W[fm]
;B[em]
;W[fl]
;B[eo]
;W[cm]
;B[cl]
;W[cr]
;B[bm]
;W[bn]
;B[dm]
;W[cn]
;B[bk]
;W[bj]
;B[el]
;W[fk]
;B[dk]
;W[dj]
;B[gr]
;W[hs]
;B[gq]
;W[jn]
;B[ep]
;W[er]
;B[eq]
;W[dq]
;B[ck]C[White resign])
(;B[hs]
;W[jn]
;B[gr]
;W[im]
;B[gq]
;W[ho]))
(;B[hp]
;W[ip]
;B[ho]))
(;B[eh]))
(;B[cq]))
(;B[pf]
;W[jc]))
(;B[or]
;W[kp]
;B[cf]))
(;B[nr]))
(;B[rn]
;W[ol]
;B[pj]))

Soon my opponent invaded the upper right side and I made it too easy for him to live. At least I got sente and I approached his upper left corner stone. White played the wrong joseki but I didn't find a good way to continue from it so I left my stones and approached the lover left instead. A better way should be to invade that corner directly to take away his points.

After some luck and not so great play from my opponent I managed to close off the right side and now it started to look good with the balance of territory. My opponent invaded my upper right corner and both I and him played wrong so his stones did in the end and I kept my corner territory.

Next I managed to close off the center even more and then my opponent thought it was time to invade. Sadly for him he didn't manage at all and just helped me to close it completely. He got a ponnuki instead but that is not worth so much this late in the game. It gives some strength to his next invasion.

So he invaded the lower side at H3. I believed that this was not possible so I answered in the strongest way I could imagine. It didn't go as I planned. I misread as usual. But as you can see in the variation it was still possible for me to connect my stones. I didn't see that so I started my hunt for two eyes. At this point I didn't believe that could be able to win any more, but I have to try and do my best.

I run out into his territory and after a lot of reading and playing threatening moves, I managed to get two eyes for my group and my opponent resigned. So I won my first game in the main tournament. That was about time! I just hope that I will keep playing more players at my level and that I don't make so many big mistakes.

In the evening there were rengo and rapid tournaments. Girlwing and I didn't participate in any of them. Instead we walked around and talked to people and looked at games.

In the middle of the tournament the fire alarm went off again and everybody had to go out to the grass field. This is the second time this happened. I do not know if there are people smoking inside or if there is a glitch in the alarm system.

Bordeaux sightseeing

2011-07-30T23:55:00.002+02:00

During the weekend we didn't have any games. In EGC 2008 we also played the weekend tournament, but it is a bit tiresome to play so many games and we wanted to rest and see some more of Bordeaux.

Girlwing and I looked at the Bordeaux city map and discussed what we should do. We decided to focus on the old parts of the town and to see a couple of churches.

First we took the tram to Place des Quinconces. It is a large open area where it used to be a defense building for the city. When it was no longer needed they tore it down and this large empty space was left.

At Place des Quinconces they also erected a huge pillar with interesting bronze statues on the sides.

This is outside Place de la Bourse where they have an interesting fountain where people play in the water. It is a lot of fun for kids and even adults.

The theatre.

Outside the theatre.

A crowded shopping street.

Cathédrale Saint-André de Bordeaux.

Carousel

View down a street.

We went to a fancy restaurant for dinner. We drank this wine with our food. It is a wine from Saint Emilion where we went earlier in the week.

Église Notre-Dame de Bordeaux.

The fancy shopping street after closing hours.

The Bordeaux tram.

Might be a small triumphal arch.

Cathédrale Saint-André de Bordeaux.

Église Notre-Dame de Bordeaux.

4th and 5th game

2011-07-29T21:55:00.000+02:00

The forth game is against another French guy. This time he is supposed to be 7 kyu. The game started well and I felt good after the opening. I got a big corner while my opponent didn't get much influence in exchange. Then I started to play too fast and didn't settle my groups before I moved to the next big points on the board.

My opponent invaded my side and I played a little strange but with and OK result. I was still ahead in the game. Then I did a stupid invasion of the lover right corner. I ended in gote of course and my opponent was able to close of the right side and now that area looked huge. So I had to invade and either try to capture some stones or live in the center.

The only problem was that I had a weak group at the bottom that got really hurt by my center invasion and I my opponent had a joyful time to attack them both. At the end I did a desperate attempt to enclose the white group at the top but I failed and my stones died. So I had to resign.

The next day I had yet another French guy to play. He was 8 kyu but by now I have realized that French ratings are not to trust at the kyu level. I was told that French players can not decide their own rank as soon as they become 12 kyu. They must prove their strength in a tournament and the competition for the ranking points are very tough. It is hard for them to get a higher ranking because all players are improving and keep losing games against each others. I hope winning against me will give them a higher rank.

My opponent of today played black and choose to play the chinese opening. I answered by a stone halfway to his side and directly he invaded my corner. I felt it was too early for an invasion and I didn't know how to answer so I defended. That was of course wrong and I should have let him take the corner. My tactic was to only give him one eye at the side so I could chase his group over the board to build strength and territory. You see his group in the upper side.

I was doing quite OK until he invaded my right side and I got two weak groups again. I had my chance to make the left one alive while still having the possibility to save the one in the middle. I should have played where the marked black stone is, but I didn't. Instead black played there and the stones god captured. Then I did some desperate attempts to capture the black cutting stones in the middle but failed and more of my stones died. I lost again.

So now I have played five games against French players and I lost them all. When I got home and looked at the result list I saw that all of my five opponents have won all of their games. If you look at the results you can see a lot of great results for French players who are around 5 kyu. That can be of some consolation for me. Maybe I don't totally suck. Maybe my opponents are stronger than their rank say.

I put some hope in the next weeks games, but you can expect me to lose games when I play the French.

Chateaux Soutard et Saint Emilion

2011-07-27T20:42:00.002+02:00

On wednesdays we have no games to play so instead we went with the tourist trip that the EGC organizers arranged for us. We payed €30 each and got on a bus that took us to Saint Emilion and the vineyard Chateuax Soutard. We had a guided tour and got filled with both information and wine. We looked at the plants in the fields and tasted the almost ripe grapes. They are very tasty and a little bit sour because they are not ripe yet. Then we got to see the huge barrels where the grapes get fermented and the more normal sized where the wine age and get its complex flavour. Last we got to try three different kinds of wine. The first one none seemed to like. The wine was sour and bitter and is supposed to fit well with fat food. The second wine was a bit boring but maybe mu mouth was shocked by the first wine. The last wine was quite good and also the most expensive. But you are supposed to save it for ten years before it is worth drinking so we tasted one from 2002. I think the first wine was the most interesting. The wines cost €13, €29 and €32.

After the vineyard we went to see Saint Emilion which is a very cute old town. We bought the town speciality almond macorons filled with chocolate paste. Very tasty! Even better was the canelés! But I guess you can buy those everywhere in France, and I will.

Our guide is explaining that there are only women working on the vineyard.

Everybody are tasting the grapes and looking at the leaves to see what kind of wine they make here.

The huge barrels used for fermentation.

This is how it looks like when you are sitting inside an empty barrel tinted by red grape juice.

Here they let the wine age to taste well.

Inside this secret chamber they keep the really old wines.

We get told how to taste wine in a professional way.

I took some extra grapes on my way out.

One of the many macaron factories.

One of the many wine shops.

The small town have many steep alleys.

Inside one of the macaron factories.

Another steep alley.

Yet another steep alley. Getting boored?

Many cute corners to find.

People was panting hard after climbing the steep and narrow roads.

At the top I found this baby vineyard. There are 800 in the region around the town.

The view from the top.

Porte de la Cadène

I was very tempted to buy myself a merlot plant to take home. But I am not sure the Swedish customs would approve.

On the road at the top I found this little crab friend. There is no ocean in sight so I guess he escaped from a restaurant and to become someone's food. I guess he will not survive much longer poor fellow.

Third game at EGC

2011-07-26T21:16:00.004+02:00

The day after the pair go I was tired and this time it was me who was late by fifteen minutes and my opponent was waiting for me. This game I was playing a 6kyu player that had won both his earlier games. Let's hope for better luck this time.

At the same time Girlwing was playing the talented Cristian Pop 7D. She was not hoping for much success but she would try and play her usual game and then we see how far that will take her.

My opponent started as black and played the Chinese opening. I played wrong a couple of times and my opponent soon had a territorial lead. When Girlwing later looked at my game she said that he is stronger than me and have good sense of shape. I hardly understand the concept of good shape so he punished me and played at my weak spots to take advantage of my bad shape. That is quite painful in the game of go.

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]TM[5400]OT[15/300 Canadian]
GN[EGC Round 3]PW[Boywing]PB[French guy]WR[4k]BR[6k]DT[2011-07-26]EV[EGC]RO[3]PC[Bordeaux, France]WT[Sweden]BT[France]RE[B+5.50]
;B[dp]
;W[pp]
;B[dc]
;W[pc]
;B[ci]
;W[jq]
;B[jd]
;W[de]
;B[fd]
;W[cc]
;B[cb]
;W[cd]
;B[bb]
;W[cg]
;B[ff]
;W[eg]
;B[ef]
;W[df]
;B[dh]
;W[dg]
;B[cm]
;W[fq]
;B[dq]
;W[qi]
;B[bh]
;W[eh]
;B[ei]
;W[fi]
;B[ej]
;W[hh]
;B[fj]
;W[gi]
;B[fo]
;W[hp]
;B[mc]
;W[pe]
;B[qn]
;W[ql]
;B[np]
;W[no]
;B[mo]
;W[oo]
;B[qq]
;W[qp]
;B[pq]
;W[pn]
;B[op]
;W[mn]
;B[rp]
;W[me]
;B[pm]
;W[ol]
;B[qm]
;W[om]
;B[pl]
;W[pk]
;B[qk]
;W[qj]
;B[rl]
;W[oj]
;B[hk]
;W[hn]
;B[gm]
;W[kc]
;B[kd]
;W[lc]
;B[ld]
;W[mb]
;B[md]
;W[jc]
;B[ic]
;W[ib]
;B[hc]
;W[hb]
;B[gc]
;W[mq]
;B[mp]
;W[nq]
;B[oq]
;W[lp]
;B[lo]
;W[mg]
;B[nb]
;W[lb]
;B[oc]
;W[pb]
;B[od]
;W[oe]
;B[gb]
;W[ja]
;B[rj]
;W[ri]
;B[si]
;W[sh]
;B[sj]
;W[rg]
;B[ii]
;W[ih]
;B[ji]
;W[jh]
;B[ki]
;W[kg]
;B[hi]
;W[ie]
;B[id]
;W[er]
;B[dr]
;W[ds]
;B[cs]
;W[es]
;B[lq]
;W[lr]
;B[kp]
;W[kr]
;B[cr]
;W[ga]
;B[fa]
;W[ha]
;B[eb]
;W[bg]
;B[bi]
;W[bc]
;B[mi]
;W[ni]
;B[or]
;W[ms]
;B[ns]
;W[mr]
;B[ln]
;W[mm]
;B[kl]
;W[gj]
;B[gk]
;W[gn]
;B[fn]
;W[hm]
;B[gl]
;W[mh]
;B[eq]
;W[gr]
;B[fp]
;W[gp]
;B[nk]
;W[ok]
;B[mj]
;W[il]
;B[qo]
;W[po]
;B[ob]
;W[pa]
;B[pd]
;W[qd]
;B[he]
;W[if])

I managed to invade the upper side and to secure some points but I was never able to catch up entirely and in the end I lost by around five points. So now I have three losses in a row and no wins. It will become very hard to reach my EGC2008 record of seven wins out of ten games, But as I wrote in an earlier post I expect to lose many games the first week and hope for more in the second week. I am very happy if I manage to get five wins totally, but we'll see about that.

After my game I went to see Girlwings game. It was very exciting but as I counted Girlwing was behind by ten points. She invaded the side and captured nine stones but at the same time giving up many stones in the center. They say she gained in that exchange. In the last moves I counted a win for Girlwing by 1.5 points, but when they counted she had lost by 0.5 points. Anyway, good game Girlwing!

Second game and pair go

2011-07-25T23:59:00.003+02:00

The second day people seem to have fallen in to the French time schedule and a lot of people were showing up very late for their games. Both Girlwing and I had to wait for half an hour until or opponents showed up. I played another 5k and Girlwing had to play against a 4D.

My game started quite OK but soon I got too much territory in the centre and not enough solid territory on the sides. I only had one corner. So I tried to go all in and secure what I had and try to reduce for my opponent. I failed badly. I almost didn't get any territory in the middle and in the end I lost a lot of stones there, so I ended up losing the game.

Girlwing played her game very fast and was sitting and reading while I played my game. It seemed like she had an easy game today. Now when she have two wins we hope she will play someone in the top boards.

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]
GN[egc game 2]PW[Boywing]PB[French guy]WR[4k]BR[5k]DT[2011-07-25]EV[EGC 2011]RO[2]PC[Bordeaux, France]WT[Sweden]BT[France]RE[W+Resign]SW[19]
;B[dd]
;W[pp]
;B[pd]
;W[cp]
;B[jd]
;W[qi]
;B[nq]
;W[lp]
;B[qq]
;W[pq]
;B[qp]
;W[po]
;B[pr]
;W[or]
;B[qr]
;W[oq]
;B[qn]
;W[pn]
;B[qm]
;W[qf]
;B[qe]
;W[pf]
;B[nd]
;W[cf]
;B[ch]
;W[ef]
;B[fd]
;W[di]
;B[ci]
;W[dj]
;B[dh]
;W[eh]
;B[cj]
;W[dk]
;B[cl]
;W[ck]
;B[bk]
;W[dl]
;B[cm]
;W[dm]
;B[cn]
;W[do]
;B[hq]
;W[fq]
;B[jq]
;W[jo]
;B[lq]
;W[np]
;B[kp]
;W[lo]
;B[ko]
;W[kn]
;B[jn]
;W[io]
;B[fr]
;W[er]
;B[gr]
;W[fp]
;B[ho]
;W[hn]
;B[go]
;W[gn]
;B[cd]
;W[lc]
;B[jc]
;W[le]
;B[qc]
;W[jf]
;B[ke]
;W[kf]
;B[ld]
;W[md]
;B[kd]
;W[me]
;B[nc]
;W[he]
;B[pl]
;W[nl]
;B[ok]
;W[nk]
;B[ff]
;W[gg]
;B[fg]
;W[fh]
;B[km]
;W[ln]
;B[in]
;W[il]
;B[jm]
;W[hc]
;B[mc]
;W[fb]
;B[eg]
;W[fc]
;B[gd]
;W[hd]
;B[kk]
;W[jj]
;B[jk]
;W[ik]
;B[kj]
;W[ki]
;B[oi]
;W[qk]
;B[om]
;W[nm]
;B[pm]
;W[oj]
;B[of]
;W[oe]
;B[ne]
;W[nf]
;B[pj]
;W[nj]
;B[pk]
;W[pi]
;B[mf]
;W[ng]
;B[lf]
;W[lg]
;B[ij]
;W[ji]
;B[hm]
;W[gl])

The pair go tournament started in the afternoon at 15:30. Girlwing and I played as a pair of course. She is 5D and I am 4k and our rankings are a little bit too far from each others for us to be able to play a good game. The weaker player will usually not be able to follow up the stronger players intentions.

Our first opponents were a 3D and a 18k. They were expecting handicap and were quite disappointed when they realised they wouldn't get any. The 18k played very well and didn't do any big mistakes, only a couple of slow moves. We got a big lead in territory and there was not much they could do so they resigned.

The second round in the pair go was half an hour late and this time we met a 3D and a 2D. Just when they sat down Girlwing told me "Now we lose, they are both strong". Ahh, what the heck, it is just for fun. We played really well and was ahead in territory. After a lot of fighting we managed to cut and kill a large group and the game was over.

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[6.50]
PW[3D-2D]PB[Girlwing-Boywing]DT[2011-07-25]C[Pair-Go EGC 2011. Round 3 Girlwing-Boywing against a German guy 2D and his wife a korean girl 3D

Sequence:
Girlwing-Korean girl-Boywing-German guy]RE[B+Resign]
;B[pd]
;W[dp]
;B[pp]
;W[dc]
;B[de]
;W[dh]
;B[fe]
;W[fc]
;B[cc]
;W[cb]
;B[cd]
;W[eb]
;B[cj]
;W[nq]
;B[qn]
;W[ei]
;B[cn]
;W[cl]
;B[dl]
;W[dk]
;B[ck]
;W[dm]
;B[bl]
;W[el]
;B[cm]
;W[jp]
;B[fq]
;W[fp]
;B[gp]
;W[fo]
;B[dq]
;W[eq]
;B[er]
;W[ep]
;B[gr]
;W[cq]
;B[dr]
;W[hq]
;B[gq]
;W[qf]
;B[qh]
;W[qc]
;B[qd]
;W[pc]
;B[oc]
;W[rc]
;B[od]
;W[rd]
;B[kc]
;W[ge]
;B[ff]
;W[qj]
;B[ql]
;W[qq]
;B[pq]
;W[pr]
;B[or]
;W[qr]
;B[oq]
;W[ro]
;B[rn]
;W[qo]
;B[po]
;W[qp]
;B[np]
;W[ic]
;B[rf]
;W[rg]
;B[qg]
;W[re]
;B[rh]
;W[sf]
;B[pf]
;W[cf]
;B[gf]
;W[he]
;B[hf]
;W[mp]
;B[mo]
;W[lo]
;B[lp]
;W[mq]
;B[lq]
;W[mn]
;B[no]
;W[ko]
;B[go]
;W[kd]
;B[ld]
;W[ke]
;B[jc]
;W[jd]
;B[ib]
;W[hc]
;B[hi]
;W[lc]
;B[lb]
;W[mc]
;B[mb]
;W[md]
;B[le]
;W[bm]
;B[bn]
;W[me]
;B[lf]
;W[mf]
;B[lg]
;W[mg]
;B[mh]
;W[nh]
;B[lh]
;W[og]
;B[pg]
;W[nb]
;B[ob]
;W[ma]
;B[kb]
;W[nc]
;B[ja]
;W[qe]
;B[of]
;W[oi]
;B[pi]
;W[pj]
;B[oj]
;W[mi]
;B[ok]
;W[li]
;B[jh]
;W[jj]
;B[ik]
;W[ih]
;B[ii]
;W[ji]
;B[jf]
;W[hh]
;B[gh]
;W[jg]
;B[kh]
;W[ij]
;B[hj]
;W[hk]
;B[kf]
;W[gi]
;B[gj]
;W[gk]
;B[fj]
;W[fi]
;B[ig]
;W[jk]
;B[il]
;W[hm]
;B[ki]
;W[lk]
;B[kj]
;W[kk]
;B[lj]
;W[mj]
;B[mk]
;W[nk]
;B[ml]
;W[nl]
;B[nj]
;W[ni]
;B[ll]
;W[pl]
;B[ol]
;W[nm]
;B[pk]C[Black win by resign])

Again the next round was very late but finally the pairing was up and we saw we would play against a 7D and a 1D. This game was much harder and we got behind in territory. Girlwing tried some smart sequences and I managed to follow even tough I didn't really understand the game but in the end of the last sequence I played wrong and all hope was gone. After that we never found any chance to catch up so we had to resign the game.

The final round were supposed to start at 22:00 but the pairing came at 23:00. At that time people were tired and annoyed by all the waiting. I looked at the pairing and saw that we got paired with the same opponents as previous round, so we had to complain. The same happened to another couple. After some confusion and organizers running around they switched the pairing for a couple of boards. We sat down and waited for our opponent that never showed up. A lot of pairs never came to their games and I understand them. It was late. So we had to sit and wait for half an hour until our opponents time ran out so we could get our win.

The next day I saw on the results that we waited in vain. Only pairs with four wins will continue to the qualifying rounds. A disturbing thing is that a lot of pairs had four wins but only eight of them will play the qualifying rounds. It seems like they didn't use any pairing algorithm, only manual random pairing. The strongest pairs never played each others I was told. We have to look at the results later. Not that it matters for us but I would like to understand what people complain about.

First game at EGC

2011-07-24T20:09:00.003+02:00

Ahhh today is the first day of the main tournament games. Big expectation and anticipation for the worlds largest go event. Almost a thousand amateur go players from all around the world is gathered and a lot of go professionals as well.

The first round was supposed to start at 09:30 in the morning but of course there were delays. For some time it was a bit chaotic and one of the organizers announced that there will be no games today. We didn't take that too seriously because that is unthinkable, so we continued to wait. One hour late the pairing was up and we could find our table and our opponent.

There were a lot of small tables in each room and there was not a lot of space. The go boards hardly fit on the table but there were no real problem to play. As we say in Sweden "If there is room for our hearts, there is room for our butts".

I played against a 5k French player. It was an even battle but in the end I was ahead but short of time. My opponent then threaten to kill some stones in a complicatedly shaped group of mine. I was too stressed to be able to read it out so I took the safe way and sacrificed a stone and a couple of points. That was my last mistake that changed the outcome of the game and I lost by two points. At least Girlwing won her game against a 4D player. I hope for better luck tomorrow.

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]
GN[Round 1]PW[French guy]PB[Boywing]WR[5k]BR[4k]DT[2011-07-24]EV[EGC 2011]RO[1]PC[Bordeaux, France]WT[France]BT[Sweden]RE[W+2.50]
;B[pd]
;W[cp]
;B[pq]
;W[dd]
;B[ql]
;W[nc]
;B[pf]
;W[jd]
;B[ep]
;W[gq]
;B[fo]
;W[jq]
;B[co]
;W[er]
;B[dr]
;W[eq]
;B[dq]
;W[dp]
;B[do]
;W[cq]
;B[gp]
;W[hq]
;B[cf]
;W[en]
;B[eo]
;W[di]
;B[cc]
;W[cd]
;B[dc]
;W[ed]
;B[ec]
;W[fd]
;B[bd]
;W[be]
;B[bc]
;W[ce]
;B[ck]
;W[cj]
;B[dk]
;W[fi]
;B[lp]
;W[qh]
;B[qj]
;W[po]
;B[pp]
;W[qo]
;B[rp]
;W[qp]
;B[qq]
;W[ro]
;B[rq]
;W[no]
;B[np]
;W[ol]
;B[ok]
;W[mo]
;B[oo]
;W[on]
;B[op]
;W[kn]
;B[ko]
;W[ln]
;B[nk]
;W[nn]
;B[me]
;W[ne]
;B[nf]
;W[oe]
;B[of]
;W[qc]
;B[qd]
;W[pc]
;B[od]
;W[mc]
;B[gb]
;W[fc]
;B[fb]
;W[ib]
;B[hi]
;W[jg]
;B[ld]
;W[hh]
;B[lc]
;W[oc]
;B[lh]
;W[lg]
;B[mg]
;W[kh]
;B[lf]
;W[kg]
;B[jc]
;W[ic]
;B[je]
;W[ie]
;B[kd]
;W[id]
;B[ae]
;W[af]
;B[ad]
;W[bf]
;B[rc]
;W[rb]
;B[rd]
;W[li]
;B[sb]
;W[ra]
;B[mb]
;W[nb]
;B[lb]
;W[pa]
;B[mh]
;W[mr]
;B[mq]
;W[lr]
;B[nr]
;W[fk]
;B[ej]
;W[gi]
;B[fj]
;W[gj]
;B[gk]
;W[hk]
;B[gl]
;W[hl]
;B[gm]
;W[lk]
;B[hm]
;W[hj])

After the games we went out to find a supermarket. In Sweden I am used to that the supermarkets are open all days in the week, but not in France. Here they close at lunch time if they are open at all. So now we are running low on food, but I think we have enough for breakfast tomorrow morning. Otherwise we can buy some potato chips in the playing venue.

After the game we also went to listen to a 9p Chinese commenting the top boards games.

For dinner I ate a American French pizza. The most fat pizza I ever ate!

A church outside the pizza place.

This girl sat on the wall of an old building we passed on our way to the closed supermarket.

Trip to EGC 2011

2011-07-23T23:07:00.001+02:00

Early in the morning the 22nd we got up and went to the airport. We are going to Bordeaux in France for the European Go Congress. First we took a plane to Paris and then another one directly to Bordeaux. Once we got there we took the bus a couple of stops and they jumped of to take a bus on another line. There we had to wait for 30 minutes for the buss to show up. If we knew that we would have taken the taxi instead. The time was 20:00 before we came to the hotel so it took us the whole day for the trip.

Our next challenge was to find somewhere to eat dinner and find a supermarket so we can buy breakfast for tomorrow morning. We picked a random direction and started walking. We saw nothing at all. Not a pub, not a restaudant or store. But then suddenly after 10-15 minutes of walking I see the so familiar sign of Mc Donalds. Yay! We will get something for dinner al least. Next to the restaurant we also see an advertisement of a supermarket so we keep on walking for a while of hopes to see the actual building where the supermarket is. We didn't find it but we found a mini supermarket that had what we needed for breakfast.

Then we directly went to Mc Donalds for a burger. Also bless the restaurant for their Wi-Fi so we could download the google maps of Bordeaux to our mobile phones. Those maps with the phone GPS is a life saver when you are lost in an old french city!

The next day we went to the playing venue for the registration. There was a long queue for payment and to get the badges. It was the paying part that made the queue so long, so because we already had payed I tried to walk up to them and showed the paper where it said that we had already payed and they took care of it directly and I got my badge and was a happy man.

By this time it was time for lunch so we took the tram to Hotel de Ville to find a restaurant. We sat down at the first place we found and I ordered a burger and a glass of their most expensive red wine. They asked me how I wanted my meat done and I said medium. Directly after he wrote that down and left I started to regret myself. I had a feeling that medium done meat in France is not the same as it is in Sweden and when I got my food I saw directly that my feeling was right. The meat was raw! They had just put it in the frying pan for a couple of seconds to get a brown surface and the rest was totally raw. I was quite ok with this but was a little bit worried about the restaurants hygiene. The burger tasted good anyway and the wine was just great!

After some sightseeing around Hotel de Ville and some more shopping in a supermarket we went back to the playing venue for the opeing ceremony. All important people and presidents of all organizations held short speeches. When it was time for the main sponsors speach they only was able to speak for a short while when the fire alarm went off. The sponsors seemed stressed while the organizers tried to cover the alarm so it shouldn't make so much sound. They shouted that there was no fire and all was ok, but not all was so sure about that. After a short while everybody was told to go out the nearest exit and out on the grass while the firemen searched the building for any fire. After around 15 minutes we were allowed to enter the building again and the sponsors were able to make their speech. This was the last speech and now it was time for a short movie that was supposed to last for one minute, but they were never able to get the movie started even tough we waited for ten minutes for it. So there were some problems but everybody seemed happy anyway. We are all having a good time!

We met some people we know and talked for a while before we went home to rest before the games start tomorrow.

European Go Congress 2011

2011-07-20T22:47:00.000+02:00

During two weeks in the summer of 2011 the 55th European Go Congress (EGC 2011) will be held in Bordeaux, France. It is very exciting because both Girlwing and I will be there to play in the tournament.

We've only participated in an EGC once before and that was when it was held in Leksand, Sweden in 2008. In 2008 it was the largest EGC ever and this year Bordeaux seem to break that record. In 2008 there were 718 players in the tournament and this year it seem to be at least 726 players. Some might drop off and other might sign up late so we will see the exact number when it is all over.

As usual in the EGC we will have no tournament games on Wednesdays so we will make plans for some sightseeing on those days. This year we have also decided to not play in the weekend tournament and instead use the weekend for relaxation and seeing old houses and stuff.

We will of course play all games in the main tournament and probably participate in the pair go tournament, but we will probably not play any small boards or blitz games.

We have both been very lazy and have not been practicing anything. For Girlwing it will probably not be a big problem because she is so strong that she have her mad elite skills deeply burned into her bone. It is far worse for me but I hope I get warmed up in the second week so I at least can defend the honor of my current rank of 4 kyu.

Studying Chinese

2011-07-16T15:25:00.000+02:00

I am studying chinese. It is really hard... I've been told that I write like a chinese five year old. I guess that is OK if you know that Chinese five year olds are forced to study really hard. What do you think of my writing in the picture?

I've been studying in a really slow pace for half a year. The students in the class were not very interested in studying and the teacher didn't give us any homework so each chapter took at least two weeks. It is hard to blame the teacher because if she was being too hard on the students then they would just drop off and not come back. It's a pity that diligent and lazy students are forced to stay in the same class, but there are not enough students to make several classes.

Anyway I have not decided yet if I will continue with level 2 this fall. I can probably study faster and learn more if I study on my own. The problem then will be to push myself to continue to study every week. If I manage to continue, maybe I'll post a blog in Chinese later if I have learned that much.

Midsummer pole

2011-06-24T16:15:00.001+02:00

Now the midsummer pole is up. :)

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Happy Easter

2011-04-21T18:32:00.001+02:00

Have nice holiday and eat a lot of eggs!

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Semla

2011-03-12T14:30:00.001+01:00

Nam nam

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Weiqi pro in Sweden

2011-03-12T00:26:00.001+01:00

We managed to get a Korean go pro to Stockholm. She came a couple of weeks ago and the plan is that she will stay for a year.

The pro will come to the Stockholm go club twice a week to hold lectures and review our games. She is also arranging an insei style league for us. It is also planned that the Korean pro will be present in all Swedish go tournaments during the year.

I hope many swedes will get inspired and work hard to get stronger. I will at least visit the go club more frequently. See you there!

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European Go Tournaments and Rating

2011-01-27T20:52:00.015+01:00

As I discussion today about rank differences between countries it made me think of a problem I had before.

The discussion about rank differences between countries comes now and then and in the end of the discussion most people agree the solution is that people need to travel around and play in tournaments against players from other countries.

Yes that would be perfect, in theory. Not so many can afford to do that. But if you are really interested in go and are prepared to spend money and time to travel to other countries to play in tournaments then you can do it.

So I started thinking about it. I can combine a vacation with a tournamenet. Pick out nice cities in the world, look up what tournaments they have and book the tickets. Maybe take one or two days vacation from work to get some extra time for sightseeing. If I make some friends there then I can maybe save some hotel money and sleep on a couch for free and later return the favor when that person visits my city for a tournament.

Then came the next problem, how do I find a list of all the tournaments? First I looked at eurogofed and there I found a link to EuropeanGoTournamentCalendar and http://www.eurogofed.org/eurocup/calendar.htm and http://www.eurogofed.org/calendar/calendar.htm. It is quite obvious that there are a lot more tournaments played than this. So how do I find the rest? I asked online at lifein19x19.com.

Soon I got a lot of links. So many that someone created a new wiki-page at Sensei's Library called NationalTournamentCalenders. Great stuff! So many places to look at. It would be great to have some central place for all this information. Like a web page where you can search and sort by date or country and city. Such a web page would be easy to create but hard to maintain. How would we get all organizers to use such a tool? And if they use it would the players find it useful? Would it encourage players to go to tournaments in other countries? Maybe, maybe not. It might be worth a try, but this page should probably be hosted by EGF. They should see an interest in such a project.

Another thing to try to solve the rank difference problem in Europe could be to arrange online Internet tournaments that get reported to the European rating database (EGD). With such tournaments we have the problem of cheating. You can let some strong player do the playing for you. Yes there is a risk for that and I don't have a clever idea how to prevent it. The best way is probably to avoid any prizes and only let the players compete for the fun and honor. I have been thinking of creating such a tournament myself and if I am allowed to report the results to EGD I might even go through with it.

Suji

2011-01-25T17:05:00.002+01:00

After three years of vacation, the downloadable PDF go magazine Suji is back with its fourth issue.

Now they aim at an international audience instead of just players from Switzerland. This is probably a smart move because it will be easier to get people to contribute with material and the magazine will get more readers.

It is a well designed magazine consisting of totally 19 pages including the covers. There are plenty of images and colors on most pages. I believe this magazine can have a nice future and I look forward to the next issue in the end of March. I expect the following issues to have more pages but I would be happy even with less. I think it is more important to keep a steady release cycle than to have a perfect magazine and many pages.

In this issue we can find:

Editors note
iPhone/iPad commercial (no mention of alternative platforms like webOS or Android)
Game review
Go theory lecture, Solid openings
Go problems
A cry for help
Letters from the readers

I hope they find the inspiration to keep creating many more new issues in the future.

Merry Xmas

2010-12-24T21:22:00.001+01:00

I wish you all a merry xmas! May the elves, goblins, goats or old bearded men give you a lot of gifts in the coming days. Eat a lot of traditional food and spend time with your family and friends.

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Mezza Luna

2010-11-22T19:06:00.001+01:00

Italian restaurant near Odenplan. Very tasty pizza!

Forno a Legna

2010-11-13T19:58:00.001+01:00

Such a good looking pizza! Bide your time, I will devour you...

WWRUG10

2010-10-21T21:05:00.000+02:00

I am currently at the WWRUG10 conference in Las Vegas. The WWRUG (World Wide Remedy User Group) is a community gathering around the Remedy tools and applications provided by BMC. This is the first time I am attending the RUG and I hope to be able to attend again in the future. Two persons have attended all of the RUGS and several have attended ten times or more. My guess is that around a quarter of us are here for the first time ever.

One new "cool" thing presented was an iPad version of the SRM interface. Some think this is great and I just wonder, Why?. Who needs to order stuff from their iPad, if you have one? I would see a larger need to have an interface for incidents and tasks for technicians on the run. Then even iPad is a bit bulky and you would need access with your Android/iOS/webOS/whateverOS smart phone. Maybe I am just confused about this new iPad product? We will see in a short future what it will become.

I was hoping to pust blog entries at least once a day when I am here but I don't have Internet access. Now I am able to borrow a computer with Internet access so I can post this entry. I will write something more when I get home again.

Hainan China

2010-09-08T23:34:00.004+02:00

Girlwing, her parents and I went for a eight days vacation to Sanya on the island Hainan, which is a tropical island south of China. Hainan is famous for its beautiful beaches, fancy hotels, pretty seashells, tasty seafood, giant Guan Yin (观音) and sweet coconut candies.

To the left you can see the first hotel we stayed at. GuestHouse International Hotel in Sanya is quite fancy with a great view from the top of the mountain and not too far from the beach. We payed around 400 yuan per night for a room.

The Guesthouse by night.

This little friend was waiting outside our hotel room one morning.

One day we went to NanTian Hot Springs outdoor spa. There they have fish that feed on visitors. They like exotic Swedish flesh.

Another day we went to see the giant GuanYin. On the way there we stumbled over some ancient grafitti. This one say longevity (长寿).

Here you can read "Live long and prosper" (寿无量).

These are common in temples and used for praying.

The entrance to the temple. Over the entrance you can see "二不" which should be read from right to left and literally means "not two". I leave it as your homework to figure out the deeper meaning of that.

The goal to our journey. A view of the giant Guan Yin.

Guan Yin again.

Next day we spent some time in the town and I found several interesting things to take pictures on. This is some strange tea.

When it is hot and the sun stands high, you should protect your skin from the strong sun.

Selling narcotics.

Need a copy of a key?

Or maybe buy some second handed shoes?

Here we are selling meatballs, fish balls and other kind of balls cooked in oil on a stick. To the right they sell lemonade.

In Hainan you can buy all kinds of fruit for really great prices.

Fruits are sold everywhere.

Lottery is the weeks highlight.

Selling more drugs.

A dried fish store.

An ice cold soup made of fruits like watermelon, sweet potatoes, cocnut, beans and some more stuff mixed with coconut milk and ice.

A lotus flower in a pond in the hotel area of the second hotel we stayed at.

Our bedroom in the more fancy Crowne Plaza in Sanya.

The hotel beach.

They serve drinks as well. Nice :)

This is the hotel area where we borrowed a tandem bike.

The Crowne Plaza is a really big hotel. This is just the hotel lobby. Second floor is housing a café. I like the ancient style. The hotel were the location for the miss world the same year we where there, but earlier.

World Expo 2010 Shanghai China

2010-08-30T22:47:00.008+02:00

The World Expo in 2010 was held in Shanghai China. As I was in the city at the time I had to make a visit. It is a huge area of 5.28 square km hosting incredible buildings where 192 countries are exposing their culture.

It was interesting to see and it would take several weeks to see it all. We had only one day and most of it we spent in queues to enter the most popular places. I actually refused to queue for the most popular because of queueing times of around four hours. Instead I focused at the ones with shortest or no queues.

Wedding wagon from Mongolia.

Interesting facade on a building.

Beautiful old style house with hand carved wood details.

It was very tiresome

so a rest is needed.

The gardens need constant work.

England made this giant seed.

Filled with real seeds.

A lot of seeds.

Seeds of all kinds and shapes.

They where like ALL OVER.

The Swedish Pavilion. I showed my Swedish passport and they let me jump the queue and enter via the VIP entrance. The same trick worked in all the Scandinavian pavilions. Good to be Scandinavian on the World Expo in Shanghai. :)

Fried dumplings for dinner!

Australia by night.

Malaysia by night.

Night view over the theme pavilions.

The giant China pavilion. You can see 5 floors. Under it you have all the Chinese provinces.

The Yunnan entrance.

New Go Books

2010-08-29T14:20:00.008+02:00

Every time I go to China I want to buy some weiqi books. The two main reasons are that it is so damn cheap and that there are so many of them to find.

This time the main reason was to find a beginners book for kids that I can give to my sisters kids. We went to the major bookshop in down town Shanghai and went to the weiqi section. There they have a wall filled with all kinds of weiqi books. After some search we found this one. ErTong WeiQi RuMen (Go for beginner kids). The book starts with really basic things like counting liberties moving on to capturing stones and to end with medium level problems. Totally 219 pages, almost A4 sizes. The only problem with the book is that you need to know how to read Chinese, but Girlwing promised to translate the book to Swedish for the kids.

For myself I found some books as well. They are two problem books in the level 5 to 1 kyu and one book 1 kyu to dan level. The books are filled with problems. One consist of life and death and the other of tesuiji problems.

First Girlwing didn't want to let me buy the more difficult of the problem books but after some begging she allowed me to buy it if I promised not to read it until I became 1 kyu. I wonder how long time it will take me until I can start to read that one...

Also, when we came to Shanghai we had a couple of "The world of Weiqi" (围棋天地) waiting that Girlwings father had bought for us. Those are mostly for Girlwing to read but I can find some fun in watching the pictures and trying to solve the problems in them. I can also replay the pro games with interesting variations. We have been thinking of subscribing for the magazine but then we probably have to subscribe for several copies at a time. Anyone interested in subscribing with us? It will probably be at least 50 yuan per issue.

Chinese fruit stores

2010-08-26T13:38:00.003+02:00

Here in Shanghai you can see fruit shops everywhere. Sometimes there are really less than 100 meters between them. And all they do is sell the fruits that are available for the season, and they seem to sell well.

The key here is to understand the important social game they play in China, and that it is totally different of what we have here in Sweden.

In China, family is everything. Also friends, colleagues and neighbors are important. You have a very wide network of friends and relatives. You call your cousins wives fathers brother for your uncle. Your cousins wives fathers brothers daughter is your sister. Blood bands that in our view is so far away that we never heard their names mentioned here in Sweden is someone that you regularly visit in China.

If anyone in your family or someone among your friends have visited you, then you have to visit them in a reasonable time period. They gave you a gift (Yes it is a rule) and you have to give something of more value than you got from them. You can see the gift they gave as a loan with interest that you have to pay back next time you go to them.

So now you can see that this thing with gifts is quite important. So what is usually given as a gift?

Well it depends on how wealthy you are. Among the really rich ones it is gold and jade. When you go to the Chinese malls you will see that it is common with jewelry stores that sell small statues made of gold or small to mid sized gold bars. Amulets or jewelry made of jade is also common. Among those who try to achieve a western way of living you can buy western food or wine (which is ridiculously expensive).

If it is the season for moon festival, then it is common to give a box of fancy moon cakes. Otherwise it is never wrong to give some vitamins or omega 3 oil pills of a good quality brand. Wishing health for your loved ones is never wrong.

Another thing is to give fancy cakes or bakeries. It is believed that this is common food in the west and that we eat this for breakfast. For a Swede this sounds ridiculous, but it is just to play along...

The most common thing to give among common people, that you don't have to impress but you wish a healthy life for, is fruits. Every family along the street will then have to boy fruits as gifts at least once or twice a week. Then you start to understand that selling fruits is a big business.

Beijing Yandai Byway

2010-08-25T21:44:00.007+02:00

We have been in Beijing for a couple of days visiting old friends to Girlwing. Soon it is time to go back to Shanghai again but first we decided to take some time for sightseeing.

We once before, in 2006, visited a bar street at night by the river. Just a quick stop and a short walk before we went home. It was dark and a lot of people but it seemed like a nice area. So we wanted to go there again when the sun is shining.

I didn't expect so much people there but it is an old area aiming at tourists so we were not alone there. Though it will be a lot busier at night when all the bars open and everybody is having a party.

On a sign in the end of the street I read: "The Yandai (literally meaning "tobacco pipe") Byway measures 232 meters long. It was known as Gulou Byway over two centuries ago as recorded in an ancient map of the capital city. During the late Qing Dynasty, it was renamed Yandai according to local annals and vendors along the street mainly dealt with smoking sets besides paintings, calligraphic works, jade ware and other curios. As it embodies traditional folk customs and distinctive features of old Beijing, Xicheng District Government launched a protective restoration in 2007; and it was designated as a Speciality Shopping Street by Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce."

Street view

This cool guy was sitting just inside a shops open door,

chewing his toe nails.

One of the many small shops along the street.

A midget terracotta soldier,

equipped and ready to party!

The romantic river where you can hire a pedal boat.

A lot of bars along the river and the drinks are not expensive.

When you are too drunk to walk you can let this guy give you a ride back to the hotel. That will cost less than one of the drinks you had.

A local girl.

More shops.

The last dinner in Beijing for this time. This plate is huge! Probably food for at least three persons. Girlwing always buys too much food. But it was tasty!

Great Mosque of Xi'an

2010-08-21T19:52:00.011+02:00

Our next stop was the Muslim quarters in Xi'An. There is supposed to be a really old and beautiful Muslim mosque there and we wanted to see it.

Directly when you enter the streets to the Muslim quarters you notice a different atmosphere. The people are dressed differently and the many food stands look different. It is very interesting. There are around 80000 Muslims in the city and they all seem to be focused in this area.

Soon we found a sign saying "The ancient mosque 150 meters. You are welcome!", so we turned around that corner in to a very narrow path between the houses. A couple of Muslim men ran past us hurrying forward and we saw then turn in to an opening ahead. We walked there and entered where they disappeared. As soon as we entered the mosque we understood why the men was in such a hurry. It was time for praying and the mosque was filled with people. So we stood still outside and watched them pray. The mosque is very beautiful but we didn't dare to take any pictures during the ceremony. So after about ten minutes we walked out from there. the picture to the right show how it looked just outside the main gate.

So we walked away and took a stroll through a small shopping street with everyting a tourist would ever want to buy and a lot of other crap. When we came to the other end of the shopping street we found an entrance to another mosque. If it wasn't for Girlwing I would have missed it totally. Thank gods that she can read Chinese! The first mosque we visited is actually the new mosque that was built instead of the old one. And I think the new one looked really really old.

The old mosque is around 1360 years old. The mosque is quite special in that it doesn't look Arabic at all but have a typical Chinese style. You can see some Arabic writings here and there but that is all. It is very beautiful with its gardens and ancient Chinese style houses. I think that is a good thing, because it is the religion that is the important thing, not the design of the buildings.

The entrance to the Great mosque of Xi'an.

One of the many cool houses in the garden.

The path to the Great mosque.

Several small "houses" on the way there.

Still on the path to the mosque.

Just a couple of more houses and then we are there...

Ah, there it is!

A quick look inside the Great mosque on Xi'An.

Xi'An Great City Wall

2010-08-21T17:38:00.006+02:00

As I mentioned earlier we took a closer look at the great city wall of Xi'An. It is an impressive piece of work.

The first version was build 2200 years ago. It took four years to build and when completed it measured 25.7 km in length, enclosing an area of 36 km.

Inside is now the actual city centre and there is where you will find everything worth watching. And of course the wall itself is worth a visit.

The wall is wide enough for a bus to drive on it, though I didn't see one... but you can rent bikes if you are in a hurry around it. It was still slightly raining so we took a walk around half of the wall. In the picture up to the left you see me reading the city wall map in front of one of the entrances to the city. The city wall is behind me and the house on top of the wall is for the army archers to snipe on enemies.

Here is the house again after we climbed up.

Notice the scale, it is not a small wall.

Matching waste bins.

One of the many smaller houses on the wall.

Probably shelter for the soldiers.

Imagine you are the enemy down there and

I am aiming my crossbow at you.

Three small police cars, no police... But around the corner behind the police car there is an entrance to a toilet, so I didn't dare to borrow the car. :(

Cool Chinese roofs. Used to belong to a rich Chinese merchant, but now the government officials are using it.

This can probably be of use in case of an invasion.

The wall continues like forever...

Here we will get off the wall and enter the Muslim quarters. That is another place you must see when you go to Xi'An and you can read about it in my next blog entry. Cool house by the way.

Xi'An Giant Wild Goose Pagoda

2010-08-20T22:56:00.003+02:00

I earlier wrote that we saw the Small wild goose pagoda. If there exist a Giant wild goose pagoda, then we must go see that one too!

We went there quite late when the sun was setting, with heavy clouds and a light rain, so I did not have the optimum conditions to take good outdoor pictures. Maybe I should have waited until it was darker and the spotlights were lit.

This time we didn't climb the pagoda. Partly because we were short of time (they'll close in one hour) and partly because Girlwing said 20 yuan was too expensive. 20 too expensive? In the tax-free on the way home she wanted to buy a facial cream for 800 yuan and she said that was very cheap. I don't understand the reasoning here...

Here are a few things that I liked to see in the temple around the pagoda.

There are a lot of old houses in the area of the temple. Many of them contains altars to the many "gods", others are the homes for all the monks that live there.

When you get to the temple you often see one or more of this steel bathtub filled with burning incense.

Usually you use the incense or a candle and hold it like this and bow three times in each of the four direction while you mumble some blessing words in the Buddhist language.

Here is the Giant wild goose pagoda, that we didn't climb.

A chinese lusthus (gazebo).

Some of the monks strolling around.

I could imagine myself living in a summer house just like this one.

A couple of local girls.

A famous Chinese monk who taught the Japanese how to write with the Chinese characters. He also taught them about a lot else from the Chinese culture and made them civilised so they didn't have to live in caves any more.

I can never get enough of the cool Asian roofs.

A monk reading from the holy scripture near a Buddha altar.

Xi'an Museum

2010-08-20T17:18:00.051+02:00

On our fourth day in Xi'An we went to the museum. There you can see the history of the area from the stone age to more recent times. A lot of interesting objects to see.

Girlwing was very excited and took pictures of every object she saw. She is so cute, and annoying... It felt like it took us forever to go through the whole museum. But it was worth it!

Here you get a taste of what we saw there. Not too much... If you want to see more then you'll have to go there yourself. You'll need half a day. We used four hours. The tickets are for free, but there are thousands standing in queue. So you do want to go and buy tickets for 20 yuan for the special exhibition to be able to jump the queue.

This Buddha is nice.

Magnificent stone bowl.

Under the table you can see the reflection of the bottom.

Another beautiful jade bowl.

An ancient Chinese coffee mug, or something...

After taking all the pictures,

Girlwing got hungry and bought her favourite food. Corn cobs!

Xi'An Terracotta Army

2010-08-19T21:08:00.049+02:00

You can not go to Xi'An without seeing the famous terracotta army. There are many tousands of soldiers that all look different from each others. We believe that the original soldiers of Chinas first emperor stood models for the clay artists.

The archaeologists found three tombs filled with soldiers and they believe that there are more tombs to be found.

The tombs with all the soldiers are an impressive work. It is quite amazing that the emperor only became 49 years old and still had time to conquer and unify the whole China, to become the first emperor of China, build the first Great wall of China, the Grand canal of China and build this impressive terracotta army. He also arranged book burnings and to bury scholars alive.

His whole life he was striving for eternal life and that is what killed him in the end. He had alchemists trying to make elixir of life to achieve immortality. When he ate some of these pills containing high levels of mercury, he finally died. In one way he became immortal... we still talk about him.

To me he looks like the regular nut-case that is striving for power. People like him should never be let close to any power at all. Still, our history is filled with them.

Here are some soldiers standing guard.

Archaeological excavations are still in progress.

A lot of chattered pieces are put together in an advanced puzzle.

The generals war planning rooms.

Headless war planning in progress.

A piece of nature between the tombs.

A lot of soldiers are found in this way. Both sides of this path is more or less untouched and it is unknown what lies beneath.

Xi'An Small Wild Goose Pagoda

2010-08-18T21:51:00.003+02:00

The first old Chinese building that we planned to see in Xi'An was the Small wild goose pagoda. A pagoda is a kind of house or tower with many roofs.

This pagoda was built in year 709 and is 15 levels high but it used to be even a bit higher before the devastating Shaanxi earthquake in year 1556.

Girlwing and I climbed the stairs all the way up to the top. The last levels I had to take off my backpack to fit in the stairs and small passages. Finally up there we were able to enjoy the fantastic view over the city.

Breakfast!

Stone carvings with names of who donated a lot of money for the construction of the pagoda.

On my way up the pagoda!

Chinese graffiti at the top...

The temple next to the pagoda.

Small Wild Goose Pagoda.

A pomegranate tree.

The yard of the temple.

A stone lion.

A sacred animal looking piece of wood.

The horse parking lot. The higher stone, the more powerful owner.

The most powerful people have a statue on top of the stone.

Really cool leaves on that bush!

Happy lion parking spot.

The temple and the pagoda in the background.

I also took some time to smell the roses.

Lunch!

The great wall of Xi'An.

We will take a closer look on that one before we leave.

Xi'An Food

2010-08-17T23:08:00.015+02:00

Girlwing and I took a late vacation and went to China. First we stayed a couple of days in Shanghai with her parents and met some relatives, then we went straight to Xi'An.

The first day we went out to try different kinds of special street food. There are a couple of streets packed with people and all kinds of food and there is fun stuff to buy everywhere along the streets.

It is a very special atmosphere and if you ever go to Xi'An this is something you have to experience. Everything is very cheap compared to Shanghai or Beijing. Not to mention what it would cost in Europe.

First we ate spicy duck neck in the street. Then some fried rice in a simple restaurant. Girlwing followed that up with some cold noodles and after that a cold dessert that you see getting prepared in the picture to the right. I didn't dare trying the cold food but it didn't matter because my stomach got a bit upset anyway. So I stayed away from the street food for the rest of my stay in Xi'An. Girlwing didn't have any problems so I guess I am just a little more sensitive than she is.

Tomorrow we will go and see some old parts of the city. So stay tuned for some more pictures.

European Professional Go League

2010-08-08T01:16:00.000+02:00

Now the first step has been taken to start an European Professional Go Organization. These are exciting times and I wish them all the luck in the hard work it will take to make this a success.

Every year they will take the 12 strongest European players that want to compete in a European professional league. If you are not strong enough you will loose your pro status and be replaced with some stronger player. This is quite different from how it works in Asia where you keep your pro status for life, no matter if your strength decline.

Personally I think this is a bit strange and I think they instead should allow one, two or zero new players each year depending on their strength. Maybe the aspiring players need to play five pros and win at least two of the games. If several players manage this then they play against each others to decide who will get the pro status this year. If none of them are strong enough then none of them will become pro.

In the beginning the new European pro organization will have a hard time to find any sponsors and it is very uncertain how they will manage to get any games played unless they play online. Maybe they will play the games when they are participating other regular amateur tournaments in Europe?

No matter how hard it will be for the organization, they must keep working hard and build relationships with media and potential sponsoring companies. They must get popularity and interest from the go playing community and most crucial of all, they must work hard in spreading the knowledge and interest of go in the general population in Europe to get the broad customer base that they are lacking today.

So far the information available is quite vague so maybe they are not talking about real pro status, but just a new league with strong players. That is not as exciting but can be very interesting as well. Such a league might push strong players to become even stronger so that they can participate one year and compete for the honour and money of the first price.

I have hoped for an European professional Organization for a while. I am aware that such an organization will not be as strong as the Asian ones, but it doesn't have to be. But it will need to have a core of really strong players who are really dedicated to the game and have a strong passion to spread the interest of the game to as many as possible. I believe that such a core team of strong European professionals is the only thing that can make this happen and I really hope that they exist.

IgoLocal

2010-08-04T18:54:00.002+02:00

A new tool for weiqi players has emerged. It is called IgoLocal. This one can be seen in two different ways, and they work perfectly for both.

One is as a reaction against too much focus on online Interenet go servers and the lack of real life social interactions over a physical go board. The other is to see it as a very useful tool for beginners to find other players and go clubs in the area where they live. If a beginner have no one to play against then they will soon loose interest in the game. And why not use this tool to find go players or go clubs in other countries when you are out traveling? I'd like that!

This new site is aiming at working as a real life physical go server. You register on the site and point out on the map the approximate location of your home. It is not important to point out exactly where you live as long as it is in the correct city area. Then you can see on the map if there are any other go players that live near you and send messages to those players. You can join a go club and discuss topics in an online forum.

You can set up games for people to join or accept some others games. After joining a game you are supposed to physically meet in some nice location like a park or a local pub and have a nice time over the go board. This is a good idea, both to get new friends and to expose the game of go to the public and in that way hopefully attract more players to have all the fun we already have.

IgoLocal have a nice looking and easy to use interface. If you are curious then you can read more about it here. There will be more features in time but it is impressive as it is already.

In the first day after release the site had 150 people registering and now as of this writing, three days later, I can count to 398 players and new players register all the time. We are now 6742 active players on the EGF ranking list and there are probably the same for USA. If we count all the casual players that are not going to tournaments we probably have to triple those numbers. I do not dare to guess the huge amount of Asian players. Let's hope a lot of us knowing something about the game of go to register and we will have a very powerful tool to use.

So spread the word to your go playing friends to register and you will see that you might get some new friends in your area to play and socialize with.

Life and death problem

2010-08-02T23:45:00.000+02:00

It was fun to create the previous tesuji problem so I started to make another one. This one is a life and death problem.

It is really tricky to make a good problem. I had to start over several times and move around the stones. But I think I got it right in the end. You can try and see if you like it. This one is probably easier than the tesuji problem.

Black is in trouble. Is it any way to make life here?

Tesuji problem

2010-08-01T18:21:00.000+02:00

I created a go problem from one of Girlwings games on KGS. She actually played it in 2006 but since I saw her play this sequence I have been planning to make a go problem from it.

Blacks stones got cut off and isolated. How should she play to get them back?

Go to goproblems.com to try it out on an interactive board.

This is my second go problem that I put on that site. The first one I made is a life and death problem from my own games and it is easier to solve. You can try that one here.

Computer vs Pro at EGC

2010-07-28T23:48:00.013+02:00

At EGC 2010 in Finland a match between a Cray XT4/XT5 supercomputer against a European 5 dan professional, Catalin Taranu, was played on a small 9x9 board with no handicap and after that a game with a full size 19x19 board with 7 stones handicap for the computer. The computer program MogoTW used 512 of the 10864 computer cores available in the supercomputer.

Most people interested in go-playing computers were expecting MogoTW, an improved version of Mogo, to give a tough resistance on the small board while having problems on the full sized board. In the game on the small 9x9 board the computer never really had a chance and lost. On the full sized 19x19 board the computer played quite well and had a nice lead in the endgame. Because of the way the program works (Monte Carlo/UCT) it didn't really try to take any points in the endgame and was instead connecting stones in its own territory, while the human professional player were taking point after point. But that was OK because of the computers big lead and in the end it had won by 1.5 points.

Next time it can play with six or even five stones handicap. By then the computers playing strength have probably increased so it will be a challenge for the next human professional to beat it.

Double Rainbow

2010-07-10T20:10:00.000+02:00

There are some really creative people on YouTube with a lot of time to use. I just stumbled over this video clip.

Yeah he seem to be high or something. Nothing creative about that clip. But when some creative person get their hands on such a video clip they can make something really interesting of it. Like this!

Quite cool ha? :)

Stockholm summer go club

2010-07-08T20:50:00.002+02:00

The first time this year for me at Stockholm go club this summer. We play in the Bolero café where we can eat and drink beer. In the picture you can see my opponents in the pair go. We lost... :(
But it was fun anyway! :D

Work party - Midnight bath

2010-07-02T00:42:00.001+02:00

Some of us took a bath in the pool. I didn't because I forgot my bathing suit. :P

Work party - Mosquitos

2010-07-01T23:38:00.001+02:00

The sun is down but the mosquitos are still up with us. This stuff is helping some but not much... Some more beer and we will not notice... Raj raj!

Work party - Raj raj

2010-07-01T22:33:00.001+02:00

A couple of beers... and everything becomes much more fun! :D

Work summer party

2010-07-01T20:42:00.001+02:00

Once a year in the beginning of the summer my customers boss is inviting us all to his home. There he and his wife are treating us with food and drinks. Good customer!

Wbaduk Online Go Tournament

2010-06-29T08:29:00.003+02:00

Wbaduk is following up their free pro lessons with holding a new online tournament with prices.

If Wbaduk keeps promoting go and their new international servers, this might become an interesting regular tournament. We will see if they can give some much needed competition to KGS dominant position in the west.

I will look this up and see if I have the time to play.

Home made midsummer pole

2010-06-25T18:50:00.001+02:00

This is our own home made midsummer pole. It looks good and once standing it will look great and we will dance around it and sing midsummer songs about small frogs and small pigs.

View from bridge

2010-06-24T21:39:00.001+02:00

This is a view from the buss when it drives over the bridge Hogakustenbron. Many beautiful views in the nortern parts of Sweden.

Train to Norrland

2010-06-24T19:49:00.001+02:00

Girlwing and I are taking the tran to Norrland. She slept the whole trip, lazy girl.

Free go pro lessons

2010-06-23T17:37:00.001+02:00

Right now you can get professional go lessons for free on the wbaduk go server. 14 teachers including 8 professionals are available every day. It is on a first come first served basis so you have to be there in good time.

This offer is valid from 14th June to 1st July. Notice that the times are in Korean time zone and also notice that the teachers are sitting in the middle of the night to make it comfortable for the players on the other side of the globe with different time zone.

Take the chance to get a lecture from a strong player!

Pizza Hut - Tropical Chicken

2010-06-22T21:23:00.000+02:00

Oh tasty pizza, I WILL DEVOUR YOU!

Pizza Hut - Garlic bread Bruccetta

2010-06-22T20:55:00.001+02:00

Girlwing and I took a ride by bicycle to Barkarby. Finaly there we got hungry and we found the right place. :)

MAX, Coffee and Bicycle

2010-06-19T17:37:00.001+02:00

We just ate burgers at MAX and it was so good! After a dinner here you can have a free coffee of the kind you see in the picture. It is really good coffee. Under the cups you see a map of the area around Solna. We just bought a bicycle for Girlwing and now we will ride all the way home. It will probably take 30 minutes, if we find the way...

Project party - Bowling

2010-06-17T19:50:00.001+02:00

Bowling is so fun! I suck at it... but it is still fun... :)

Project party - Burger

2010-06-17T18:36:00.001+02:00

Free dinner is never wrong. :)

Project party - First beer

2010-06-17T17:23:00.001+02:00

We are done with the BMC ITSM 7.6 upgrade project. It was a huge success so now we have to celibrate. This is the first beer at the local pub close to work.

Stockholm Open 2010 - Second day

2010-06-13T23:57:00.001+02:00

The second day started quite good for me. I played my first game against a KGS player on his first tournament in real life. He played the tournament as a 5 kyu but I felt he was actually much stronger than that. He played some moves a bit strange and I felt I got an advantage. If he learns some fundamentals and josekis he will be 2 kyu in no time.

He used a lot of thinking time and soon he was in byo-yomi and he used one period and then another. Then suddenly the last period expired and I won on time. Girlwing looked at the board and said it was very close and anyone could win. The strongest endgame would decide the winner.

My opponent believed he had another byo-yomi period when the Ing clock said 1:30, but that is actually the last period. I actually made the same mistake in a tournament a couple of years ago. It's a hard lesson to learn, but you will never forget it.

During lunch a whole bunch of us go players went to the local fast food place Daisy's. Girlwing ordered a disgusting looking fish and chips and I took a greasy plate of kebab. The food was not the best but we had interesting discussions about the Swedish go world and old players that we seldom see any longer. We imagined how interesting it would be if all the strong players started go to the tournaments again.

After dinner Girlwing I and jpyllman went to the bicycle dealer next doors. I need a new tyre for my bike so I fell for this deal with two brand tires. When I got home I fitted one of them on my bicycle but then I got the problem of filling it with air. So now I have to go buy myself a pump. Or I have to carry the wheel to some place where I can fill it with air. Hmmm... I need a car...

After lunch it was time for a second game. Another 5 kyu for me to play against. It is always a little scary to play the lower ranked players because I feel pressure to beat them. Still they have a good chance to win over me but it feels better to get beaten of a higher ranked player. Probably because that if a stronger player wins over me it is because he is better, but if a weaker players wins over me it is because I played bad. This is of course not true but this is a common way of thinking.

Anyway... The game started off good and I had a nice moyo. Then I made a bad judgement and I got myself a running group and a not yet alive group on the side to worry about. It ended with my running group with 21 stones died and a big dent in my moyo. I played to the end anyway and I lost by 35 points.

So to sum it all up I won two games and lost three. I am not very happy with this result and I really need to study. So Girlwing bought me a book and I will study it this summer. Hopfully I will come back to the next tournament as a 3 kyu player.

Girlwing won all five games and the first price. She also gave a free lecture as a price to one of the 9 kyu players. This lecture will be held online in English on KGS. Hopefully it will be a public lecture so we all can watch a learn something valuable.

On the way home we stopped in Kista for some sushi. At the same time there was some performance by Magnus Carlsson the singer. He is actually good live. I only wish he sang some other songs....

Now it is time for bed and another week of hard work. I will dream of becoming stronger and beat all my opponents in the next tournament... Sweet dreams... :)

Read about the first day.

Stockholm Open 2010 - First day

2010-06-12T21:25:00.006+02:00

Summertime and time for the Stockholm Open summer go tournament. This year there are not so many players participating but I think there were around 25 players today.

I were up late working on a cool ARS function while Girlwing was out partying downtown.So we were both very tired this morning so we came about 15 minutes too late. We had called in for registration and luckily enough the first round hadn't started yet. We even had time for some coffee and a short chat with some of our friends. It is always fun to see our weiqi friends.

So the first round started and I was paired against the organizer booru. Here you can see hem in deep thought. Is he trying to kill my corner? Actually he managed to kill my lower left corner after a blunder from me. Any move would make the corner live except one and that one I picked after some consideration. So then I had to become really creative to come back in to the game. I the end I managed to capture the white stones in the upper right and in the process destroy the upper left area for white. So my opponent resigned.

In the second game I got owned. I was behind from the beginning to the end. I started throwing stones around everywhere on the board always keeping sente. This playing style leaves a lot of stones to cut off and capture and it is often a sure way to lose but if you make it complicated enough then the opponent might do some critical mistake and you can turn the game in to a victory. But not this opponent... he played very steady and safe and every move was a little better than mine. Girlwing said he played Lee ChangHo style.

In the the third game we played "my moyo is bigger than your moyo" and I think I was a little ahead, but it was very close. Also some areas was unplayed and could change to points in any way. Then I made this move that was so gote and didn't make me any points at all. Actually I needed two moves to make sente. And it was a good plan early in the game but the moment was lost when I played it. So my opponent got sente and things went downhill from there. Soon after I played a really good endgame sequence, with the only problem that it took away my liberties and my opponent was able to set up a snap back on my corner group. It was miai for him to take one eye or the other to kill my whole group. The game was over... but I played to the end and we counted and I lost by 24 points on the board and I was black.

Girlwing won all of her three games today. And if I can bet money I would put them on her winning the two games tomorrow as well. I asked her about her games and she say that her opponents are very strong and they actually feel stronger than their rank suggest. That sounds good for Swedish go.

Girlwing loves chips. So if you want to be friend with her and give her a gift then chips is a good way to start. To celebrate the victories of today she bought herself a big bag of chips. She could not wait until she got home so Girlwing started to eat as soon as she sat down in the subway.

A good end of a good day.

Read about the second day.

Guitar hero

2010-05-23T02:03:00.001+02:00

Hugs in the kitchen

2010-05-22T21:53:00.001+02:00

BBQ on the balcony

2010-05-22T21:43:00.001+02:00

Beer in the sun.

2010-05-22T18:00:00.001+02:00

Moyo Go Free Forever

2010-05-18T23:20:00.004+02:00

Frank de Groot, the developer of Moyo Go Studio, seem to have given up with the development of one of the most powerful go programs on the market. He is no longer selling the product but are instead giving it away for free.

He claim to have a lot of enemies in the go community and it seem to be caused by aggressive competition among the commercial go program developers on one side and on the other side the fact that he say that he is not sure that people ever was gassed or incinerated by the Nazis.

He seem to be a smart but odd person. Too bad the software and its customers have to suffer. When he have such controversial ideas of what happened during the second world war, he should keep it to himself. Especially if he have a commercial interest in selling his software. Also it might not have been smart to proclaim a war against those who opposed him, no matter who started the conflict.

If he intend to never develop or sell the product again, I hope that he will let it be open source so other developers can continue the work and maybe even port it to Linux. I have been very interested in the program since I first read about it on the Internet, but I was never able to try it out because I use Linux and it is a Windows only program.

Swedish championship 2010

2010-05-16T20:47:00.002+02:00

I am now on the train home from Norrkoping and the 2010 Swedish championship in go. It was a good tournament and now we are exhausted and will sleep all the way to Stockholm. I only won two games but Girlwing won all her eleven games. So strong!

How Many Squares are there on a Go Board?

2010-04-26T21:02:00.009+02:00

Kami Kaze: How many squares are there on a go board? Go away and think about it for a while and then come back and we will discuss it!

20 kyu player: 361 of course.
Kami Kaze: Wrong...

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

(A pause follows, but frantic calculations occur.)

1 dan player: 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!
Kami Kaze: But wrong...

3 dan player: 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.
Kami Kaze: And still wrong...

(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?"

Marvin: I tried to tell them, but you know what humans are like, they have the attention span of a dead gnat. Here I am with a brain the size of a planet, and having worked out all the possible games of go, the meaning of life is to have two eyes except in seki when ......

Crowd: Which restaurant shall we eat at tonight?

(The crowd departs leaving Marvin talking to himself.)

Marvin: I can tell you what the strictly correct komi is if you really want to know? Oh never mind me, just carry on. I haven't got any feelings of course .....

(From Sensei's Library)

Windows Installer for SRM 7.6

2010-04-23T12:47:00.004+02:00

I am just about to upgrade our BMC Service Request Management 2.2 patch 4 to SRM 7.6 patch 1. It should be a straight forward upgrade. I will install everything on the D-drive and I've deleted stuff so I have at least 2 GB free space. On the C-drive we have only the Windows operating system and we are not allowed to install anything else on the C-drive.

I start the installation but it halts before the actual installation starts with a message that I need to free up space on the C-drive for temporary 1500 MB data and it is only 1376 MB space available.

WTF! I have nothing to free up on the C-drive. Can't I use some network drive for temporary storage during the installation? Or use the 8GB memory that is mostly unused at the moment? Quite often I wish we were using Unix/Linux instead of this toy-OS called Windows.

See you later... now I have to call some Windows-tech to help me expand the C-drive or whatever they do.

Swedish Championship 2010

2010-04-17T22:50:00.001+02:00

It is time for the Swedish Championship 2010. More precisely the games will be played 14-16 May.

This year it will be played in Norrköping southeast of Stockholm. It is the first time that the Championship is played in Norrköping and the proud organizers are so far doing an impressive job. It will be interesting to see how well they will deliver when all the players arrive.

There have been a lot of discussion of how to make the championship more interesting. So for the first time we are trying out a system that makes the 16 strongest Swedish citizens play a knock-out. All the weaker players and the players without Swedish citizenship (like Girlwing) are playing a regular six rounds McMahon. After each round, the players who lost their game of the top 16 will be paired in with the rest in the open McMahon tournament. When only the two strongest players are left, they will play a best of three, so the first one of them with two wins will be the new Swedish Champion.

I and Girlwing are planning to attend so I really wish we both can go. Sometimes work is stealing our weekends but let's hope it will not do this time. So we'll see you in Norrköping!

If you have any questions you can discuss it in our forum.

Faye Wong - Jiang Ai

2010-03-27T01:57:00.001+01:00

This is my favorite Chinese artist Faye Wong or Wong Fei or 王菲 with her best song in my opinion Jiang Ai. Other great songs she made are Impatience and Love life.

Main course

2010-03-18T19:21:00.001+01:00

Tasty fish with mashed potatoes and sauce.

First course

2010-03-18T18:25:00.001+01:00

You guess what it is... Tasty anyway! :)

After work beer

2010-03-18T18:15:00.001+01:00

First beer! :D

Lunch bread

2010-03-18T15:32:00.001+01:00

This is my lunch bread. They put the butter in the bread for me. I've never seen that before. :P

Lunch at Stadshotellet Västerås

2010-03-18T15:27:00.001+01:00

We are having business planing at Stadshotellet in Västerås. This is our lunch. Tasty tasty! :)

Go Rules Dispute Video

2010-03-08T23:18:00.000+01:00

Mr Breakfast posted a video about the go rules dispute I wrote about earlier. It is a video of the actual event. Not the best sound but quite interesting to see! :)

New BMC Home Page?

2010-03-03T18:35:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I and a couple of AR System consultants were talking about the ugly Home Page we have in our ARS ITSM 7.0 environment.

We have the standard out of the box stuff with links to the left and a huge empty blue void on the right side. I want to build something useful on that empty space but so far there have not been enough of a business need for that.

Then one of the consultants mention that he saw this new cool Home Page in arslist. So I dug down and found it. Yes it is cool and you can see it in the picture here. But as I understand it, this is nothing that you will get out of the box, this is an example of what you can build with the technology that BMC will release in mid 2010.

It looks cool but then the question for me will be... Will my company find a business need for me to let me build something like this for them? Probably not, because we are aiming really hard at buying more and more applications out of the box and not customizing anything. Everything should be configurable.

This is both good and bad...

Bad because I will not be developing as much as before.
Good because it will force me to change career. ;)

Go Rules Dispute

2010-02-28T23:50:00.015+01:00

I found an interesting anecdote on Sensei's Library. Two strong European players are playing an important tournament game in EGC 2002. The rules for the tournament were the Ing 1991 rules.

Player A was leading with around 30 points in the end of the game and it was a sure win. But he didn't know the specifics about the rules that was used. Player B who was in for a sure loss in the game is an expert of rules of all shapes and forms. He saw his chance...

Player B found a loophole in the rules and used it to try to get a win. Basically it is about the dead stones on the board for both players. You are supposed to capture them and remove them from the board. Player B did this while Player A just passed, as is common under other rules. Finally when both players had passed Player B said that his stones that were captured in the opponents territory are now alive and the game is now won by him. Confusion emerged!

This lead to a dispute and the judges had to be called in. They ruled in favor of Player A. The decision got appealed to EGF rules comity that also ruled in favor of Player A. The intent of the rules won over the letter of the rules.

This has been a dispute among go players since then and is still under discussion almost ten years later. It is interesting to read but it is easy for the discussion to get ugly from time to time. Especially against Player B.

Personally I think it is not so complicated and it was a very correct decision to let Player A get the victory as he deserved.

One can argue that Player B did nothing wrong when he tried to play the rules when he otherwise would have lost. And I can agree, that nothing wrong was made, if I only look at the rules that was used. But I think it is very ethically wrong by Player B and I am sure that this is not what Mr Ing meant when he invented the rules. The whole point with Chinese rules is that the rules should not decide the outcome of the games and if the players don't agree they should play it out on the board and it is there, on the board, that the game should be decided by the players. The rules would work good if both players knew them.

Obviously the rules had to be changed. Otherwise this can happen again. So the Simplified Ing Rules was created. You would think that the creation and use of the new rules should end the above mentioned dispute? Not at all... and it will continue for quite some while...

Fat Tuesday

2010-02-16T23:17:00.000+01:00

Today is the Swedish celebration of fettisdag which is directly translated to "fat Tuesday" and is the Swedish Mardi Gras.

The only way the regular Swede is celebrating this is to eat a Semla. Of course I went to buy me one as I love sweet pastries.

The normal Semla is a sweet bun that is spiced with caardamom. The top is cut off and a small hole is pinched out. Then you mix some almond paste with powdered sugar that you put in the hole, add some whipped cream, put the lid on top and sprinkle some powdered sugar on top.

One crazy way of eating it is in a bowl and pouring hot milk over it and eat with a spoon. I am not that kind so I keep my milk in a glass and eat it directly. But first I eat the lid with some of the cream and then big bites of the rest until my plate is empty and I dream of another one.

Chinese New Year

2010-02-14T14:59:00.000+01:00

Happy New Chinese Year! Now it is the year of the tiger. This is something that is celebrated by all Chinese people. Much like we westerners are celebrating our new year at the 31st of December.

This year, like last year, we celebrated it together with the employees of Huawei. This year Girlwing was the hostess together with a college.

We started with eating a lot of tasty Chinese food and drinking Swedish beer. A couple of the Chinese employees had some fine BaiJiu with them from China and I was treated with some. Quite tasty but also strong with 43% alcohol.

When everybody were done eating it was time for some performances and snacks. This is to my understanding very common on occasions like this. Many of the employees were involved in some way with singing, dancing and fun games. Many of the employees children made performances as well. One thing that struck me is that this would never work in a Swedish company's party. We are too shy and would need a lot of beer and wine to have fun together, not to mention spontaneous singing in front of a crowd . Not a single person at this party got drunk. Another difference is that in a Swedish party there would possibly be some social dancing and that is probably very rare in any Chinese party and there were of course no social dancing at this party.

Most of the celebration was made in Chinese and much of Girlwings role as a hostess was to translate what was said to Swedish. As to be expected most of the Swedish guests left quite early after the food. Probably because they didn't feel like a part of the group when they couldn't understand everything. That is a bit sad but it can be understandable.

The whole celebration is anyway for the Chinese people, who are kind of stranded here in Sweden, so far away from their families at home. It is for them like it would be for us to be all alone over Christmas in China, but a hundred times worse. Family and friends are very important for them, so it is very valuable to be able to do this together with the colleagues and friends they have here so far away from home.

How to become a go pro

2010-02-08T22:15:00.007+01:00

If you are living in in another country than China, Japan or Korea, how do you become a professional weiqi player? One way is to move to one of those countries and join their insei schools. There are a couple of western players who have done this. This is really hard work with a lot of competition against the other students and you have to be one of the best to make it to become a pro.

But now you have an easier way if you are foreigner of Japan. You can apply for a special foreigners test at the Kensai Ki-in. I believe this new test has been passed already. It is a quite simple procedure... You will play two games against two 1 dan pro players as black without komi.

If you manage to win both games, then you become a pro.
If you lose both games then you will of course not become a pro, but you can try again next year.
If you win one of the games and lose the other, then you will get another chance by playing a third game against a 9 dan pro. If you win that game then you will become a pro.

You might have a good chance of playing against non active professionals, because the active ones are usually quite busy with their career with studies, travel and tournaments. This way makes it possible for even strong 6 dan players to pass the exam.

I think this is good news for all the strong western players. Also, with more strong players with pro status it will encourage regular players to study more when they have western pros to look up to. These western pros will be more like celebrities than the 6 dan and 7 dan we have now. So I encourage all 6 and 7 dan players that feel that they might have a chance to pass the test to go to Japan and try.

Now go and become a pro, every country needs one!

Future go program

2010-02-06T23:00:00.002+01:00

Sometimes when you surf around on Sensei's Library you will find some interesting, odd or fun stuff. It is easy to spend a couple of hours reading about this and that.

I am interested in programming and am still searching for the perfect go software. So when I stumbled over this page I felt that it is something worth spreading. The name of the page is "Go Software For The Future" and there anyone can post their suggestions and requests for the perfect future go program for programmers to consider.

So please do! :)

Blog Statistics

2010-02-05T23:39:00.003+01:00

I read somewhere that IE8 now is the most common web browser on the Internet. I got surprised by that news so I decided to check the statistics for my blog.

I could not find any support at all for the claim from IE8 to be the most common browser. Rather the opposite.

Ok, my small blog is no good benchmark for this but I got around 200 visitors each month so that gives something to go on.

About the visitors to my blog we can see that Firefox is the most popular browser. Good second place is IExploder. How common is version 8 among those? About 6% of all IExploders are of version 8. 52% is version 7 and 43% is still version 6.

Another interesting thing we can read from the graph is that Google Chrome is slowly gaining interest. It will maybe pass IExploder within a year among my readers. No? You don't think so? Hmm... we'll see...

E-mail support with humor

2010-01-26T21:58:00.000+01:00

I am maintaining a BMC AR-System environment with ITSM applications supporting ITIL applications including Incident, Problem and Change. This system is sending out a lot of e-mail notifications to all the users. Quite often the end user reporting an incident answers the receipt e-mail asking questions or sending additional feedback. Very often the system just receives autoreplies about the users being on vacation or on paternity leave.

The autoreplies we don't care about but the questions and feedback can be interesting to pay attention to. I want to build some workflow to filter out the interesting stuff and attach to the relevant ticket in the system or automatically deal with them in some other way in the cases where it is not possible to find the corresponding ticket. So far I didn't get the permission to do this development.

Instead I was asked to set up an autoreply in the exchange account for every incoming e-mail that comes from within the company. In this autoreply we are just going to inform the end user that they've sent an e-mail to a system and no person will read the e-mail and that they should send the e-mail to some support address.

So I did, but I was a little bit concerned that Exchange was not smart enough to deal with the auto-replies from end users on vacation. If our system sends an e-mail to a user on vacation and and the users e-mail account sends an auto-reply to our system that send an auto-reply back to the user that sends an auto-reply again and so on... You get the picture. It will become like a ping pong match.

I sent an e-mail to our e-mail support group asking about the risk of an ping pong match. I really liked their answer.

"Usually Exchange is smart enough to not start a ping pong match that it can not win. But occasionally it can happen that they get excited and someone smashes in a backhand volley."

OK it didn't wipe away all of my concerns, but still I really like to see some humor at work. :)

Europe got a new pro

2010-01-22T16:04:00.000+01:00

Li Ting [6D] living in Austria just became pro through a test by the Kansai Ki-in at the age of 29. You can also read the new at the Austrian Go Association's homepage. Her pro status will be valid from 1st Mars 2010.

This is very good for European go! I hope she will play a lot of pro tournaments in Japan and become even stronger.

(Now I think we can make all European 7D to pros, found the European Go Pro Association and start our own pro circus in Europe)

Eidogo for Blogger HOWTO

2010-01-15T23:09:00.000+01:00

I got the question from a fellow weiqi playing blogger of how to post a game of weiqi to a blogger blog post.

Well, I have done it. Now I will try to explain how you can do the same. I remember that I had some problems to implement it myself. Mostly because I was not sure how the whole process works. After some trial and error I figured it out.

I found my first clues on the Eidogo homepage. This information is probably enough if you have a single copy of the board on your personal homepage. This description is not really enough if you want several boards with different games on your blog. At least not to my experience.

So this is how I did...

First we want to add the eidogo javascript to the blog. The first you might thing of is to add it to the html part of your post. That doesn't work for more than one board and post. Instead you want to add it to the header so it is included only once for your whole blog. Then you will never have to do this part again.

So go to the Layout section of your blog and click on Edit HTML. Maybe you already have done some of your own cusomizations there. At least I've made a lot of them. Before you start you want to do a backup of your template if you by mistake break anything. Then you can do your changes.

Down there in the later parts of the code you will see a row saying:

</head>

Just above this line you add:

Then save the template.

The next step you need to do for every blog post you want to add a weiqi board to. So you start writing a new blog entry. Write any free text and when it is time for your Eidogo board you hit Edit HTML.

Where you want to have your board you enter the text:

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]

RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]

PW[Boywing]PB[Juãn]WR[5k]BR[4k]RE[W+Resign]

;B[dp]

;W[qp]

;B[dd]

;W[pd]))

</div>

The red code in the middle between the div-lines is the content of an sgf-file. Mine here only have four moves. You can use a complete game of course.

Notice that it doesn't work to preview your post...

Now publish your post and you will see something like this!

(;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Chinese]SZ[19]KM[7.50]
PW[Boywing]PB[Juãn]WR[5k]BR[4k]RE[W+Resign]
;B[dp]
;W[qp]
;B[dd]
;W[pd]))

Work Xmas party

2009-12-11T21:59:00.003+01:00

The day after Huaweis Xmas party, it was time for an Xmas party at my work. For as long as I have worked there I have never heard of such a party. So I went there to hang out with some of my colleagues.

It started around 17:00 but we came there after 17:30 and by then the whole corridor was packed with people eating, drinking and talking. It was a nice way to mingle with hundreds of known and unknown. Most of them were unknown to me, but if we had this a little more frequently then soon it would be a totally different thing. I believe this is good for the atmosphere at a workplace so I would like to see this maybe twice a year.

We were offered some small plate with different pieces of food. Not much at all so I wish they had some bread to fill the belly with. But there was candy here and there so I ate quite a lot of chocolate. With the food we had the option of beer, wine or water. I think I had at least five glasses of wine so I got a bit drunk, but at a party like this most people need to get a bit drunk to create the friendly atmosphere to get people to talk to each others.

During the evening a choir walked down the corridor and stopped here and there to sing some Xmas songs. They were quite good. Better than me at least... :P

The party was supposed to end at 19:00 and by that time they started to clear off all the food and drinks. Many of us were not ready to go home yet so we stayed and talked to after 20:00. By then most people were gone and my friends went downtown to keep the party going in some bar. I went home to Girlwing to help her prepare for our guests from England that will come in the weekend.

I think it was fun and it was good to see people I work with in a relaxed situation. I really home we will do the same for next Xmas.

HuaWei X-mas Party

2009-12-10T21:06:00.005+01:00

A couple of days ago I got an invitation to Huawei´s X-mas party at the Chinese Embassy in Sweden. As I was told the dress code was "Business Casual". I thought about this for a while and came up with the idea that for some people this will mean to wear a full suite with tie, because this is what is expected of them in their office. For others this will mean a nice sweater with a shirt under it. The only suite I have is about ten years old and only worn during friends weddings. So I was not so keen of wearing a suit, but a nice sweater and a shirt is something I can wear to dress up. I quite often wear this at work but I felt it was needed to buy something new.

So I went to the store and asked for help to match up something good for me. I am not afraid of something colorful so I got a nice red sweater and a blue/gray shirt to have under it. With this I wore a pair of beautiful black trousers and pair of shiny black shoes. I was so handsome.

The party started at 16:00 with mingle and simple Chinese performance. I could not leave work that early but I got on the subway at about 16:30. On the way I took this picture of the invitation card.
Notice that the R.S.V.P is 18th Nov and I got the invitation late on the 8th Dec. No big deal... Just check out the invitation... I think it is fun that I was invited at all.

About 17:15 I arrived at the embassy with some other of Huawei´s customers and one of the employees that I know. That felt good so I knew that I was going in the right direction. In the entrance of the gates to Chinese territory inside the embassy there were some security guards and employees of Huawei. I knew one of them since before so there was no problem for me to enter. I didn't even have to show my invitation card, but I showed it anyway just for the fun of it. He just waved to me and smiled and I walked in to the Chinese land.

Soon I entered the main building and welcoming me was my sweet Girlwing who for the moment worked with greeting all the guests. I was directed to hang of my clothes in the employee area. Then I walked around among the guests and looking to see if there was anyone I ever met before during my life as a Remedy ARS Consultant. I didn't see any familiar faces from that time. I was hoping too much. Most of the people were purchase managers, CEOs and similar people responsible for decisions about purchasing telecommunication equipment. Not much close to the people that is responsible for IT support and IT process tools. Another thing that struck me that everybody were wearing a dark suite, with a discrete tie. Hmmm.. I am not wearing a suite.... I am wearing a nice read sweater. I was standing out very clear from the crowd. Oh shit... Actually I didn't care that much about this... but instead I was feeling sorry for all the people being so stiff, boring and imagine less. I was expecting some people to wear suite but I didn't expect everybody to wear that. What does "Business Casual" mean really?

Girlwing introduced me to some customers she met through her work and I talked to some of her colleagues. I also watched when some calligraphy artists were writing some of the customers names with Chinese characters. There was also a person there making Chinese tea in the proper way for the customers to taste.

So far the party looked like a western party with some Chinese details. So now it was time to continue in a Chinese way. That means that everybody should do something together. Usually that involves everybody listening to speeches or watching performances. So everybody goes in to a room filled with chairs, just like in a theater, in front of a stage. First we watched a short tourist advertisement movie about Beijing. It was interesting for me with many beautiful scenes. This movie was probably the embassy's idea.

Then there was some performances. Here I think they did a mistake of NOT informing the audience that they didn't bring the best performers they could find in China. Instead they had asked some young Chinese students who for the moment are studying in universities here in Sweden. In Asia it is impolite to say "No" so off course they participate if their country asks them to perform for the Swedish customers.

In China it is very common that the parents pay a lot of money and energy to get their kids educated. It is also very common that the kids get some extra education to play some instrument, dancing, calligraphy or playing weiqi. So many student are skilled in those arts. So we got the opportunity to enjoy some traditional instruments by these student. They were very skilled but it was obvious that they were not professionals. In the dancing acts there was one girl that was very good while the others didn't really match up to her skill. There were also two singing acts and here came the second mistake in my opinion. They sang in English. Hey, we Swedes are quite good in English and we know how these songs are supposed to be sung. But it was cute... I only wish that they had sung in Chinese. In that way we would have no idea if they made any mistakes, and it would be more in theme with the traditional Chinese instruments that were played in other acts.

The funnies thing with the whole act were the two presenters that talked between the acts. Especially the girl. She had no idea of her lines and she had to look in the note hidden in her hand all the time. At one moment when the male presenter asked her "Do you like to see movies" and she looked at the note and hesitated for two seconds and then said "Of course". Was that so hard to remember? ;)

Anyway I enjoyed the show and I understood quite soon what the deal was, but I was afraid that many in the audience didn't get it and thought that it was bad. It was obvious that the students didn't get so much time to practice before the show so I hope they were pleased with what they delivered. All credits too you all!

The performance took a while and now we was starving. As soon is was over everybody had to leave the room so they could remove all the chairs and make the room ready for the food. It was an Asian buffet. So tasty! It almost felt as I was back in China. Someone said it was the embassy's chef who had made all the food. If he did... Good chef! And it was a lot of food. After everybody had eaten about two thirds of the food was still left. I was so hungry and focused on the food so I forgot to take any picture of it. :P

After everybody was filled with Chinese food it was time to round things off with a great show of fireworks. This was the most amazing fireworks show I ever witnessed this close. The whole show took about 30 minutes or something like that. The last five minutes there were some really big pieces. The ground shook of the explosion when the rockets left the ground. The alarms of several of the embassy's cars went of "wee wee wee wee". Several seconds of nothing... and then the most amazing colors and lights lit up the sky. Again and again and again. I am still amazed... 8)

When the show was over and we walked out from the embassy, the police came and checked out what was happening. Probably someone had called them about explosions over at the embassies. I am not surprised... :)

New workplace

2009-12-08T16:21:00.002+01:00

Now I have moved to a new workplace. Down to the dungeons, far away from the coffee machine. It is a room for 24 persons and so far we are 14 here. There have been no actions taken to reduce the noise from people talking and the wall paint is a sharp orange color from the 70th. We probably have to live with the ugly colors, but I heard that there is some hope for getting some noise reduction in the form of plants and soft screens.

During planning everybody was fighting to get a window seat, except me. I picked the seat far away from the windows in the back of the room. I am a bit more light sensitive than my colleagues and I don't want to annoy them, and me, by pulling down the shades every day.

In the picture here, you can see my small workspace. People tease me for my big fat monitor. I am almost the only one at work still using a CRT. But I am picky about the resolution. I am using 1600x1200 and if I take an 19" LCD that they offer I will get a resolution of 1280x1024. So I rather let them tease me and wait until I can get the LCD displays with 1920x1200 resolution. They exist in the market but it takes a good while until my work decides to bring them in. Actually last week I saw that they now offer 26" LCD widescreens. 26" is a lot... 24" or less would be enough. I will ask my boss and see what she will say about it. The small LCD to the right in the picture is not mine. It was put there by mistake. I let it be for now...

On my big fat screen you can see a pro weiqi game. It is my screen-saver program sgfsaver that is replaying the weiqi pro games on random. On my small laptop screen you can see an old background image I made using povray. It say "ARS". Actually it is not my default background... I put it there only for the picture. :)

O'Learys

2009-11-20T18:30:00.002+01:00

I am now at the Copenhagen airport in Denmark with Jimbo. We have been on a BMC CMDB Atrium 2.X Administration course. Now the week is over and we are on our way back to Sweden.

We have a couple of hours to kill at the airport so we are eating dinner and drinking a couple of beers at O'Learys. The burger was good but was not very warm when served. The beer was as usual very good. Soon we are done and will look for some present for our girlfriends.

What should we buy? What do girls like?

Decide before you read

2009-11-07T02:08:00.000+01:00

I played a game of go (weiqi) recently. Quite early in the game I was ahead so much that it should have felt so hard for my opponent to continue without to resign.

In those situations you should try to play simple. Don't hesitate to connect and give away small points if that makes you stronger. Never play aggressive moves that create fights that you might lose.

I played an aggressive move to stop my opponents advance in to my territory. It was stupid... but it was a reflex move and as soon as I placed the stone I saw it and thought... OH NO! This is not good... This looks dangerous! And yes... my opponent cross cut me.

From this I had to find the best way to minimize the damage. So I started reading. I read all the variations of all the moves I could think of. Then I saw it! The move! The move that would stop my opponent and then save all my territory in a single move.

So I played it... and after two moves I realized that I read so wrong. Fuck! Now the opponent is running out with his stones in to the heart of my territory. From here it went down the hill and soon I had lost on time.

I showed the game to Girlwing and I got scolded for playing this stupid move that let my opponent run out in to my territory. I tried to defend myself and explain my stupid reading mistake. No use. She just got upset of me blaming on bad reading.

But I didn't feel that I was blaming. So we talked about this for a while and after a while I got it. I should never had read in the first place. First I should have decided in what direction I need to play to get a winning situation. After that I should read and find the move to realize this direction of play.

In my future games this will be something to think about, but it will be really hard. I have really no experience of this way of thinking. Usually I just go on hard reading and sometimes pure feeling. But I think Girlwing have some really good idea about this and it is probably the perfectly right thing to do.

We will see if this knowledge will make any measurable impact on the results in my games.

Bowling hall dessert

2009-10-21T20:59:00.002+02:00

Yeah, ice cream! This was a really great treat. The vanilla tasted great but strange and and was the subject of discussion for about 20 minutes. I am not sure that it was pure vanilla ice cream. Probably some other spice included.

Bowling hall dinner

2009-10-21T20:38:00.002+02:00

Dinner time! I got a toast with red onion slaw(?) and a beef on top. A bit strange but good. Of course a Newcastle Brown Ale to drink.

Disco Bowling

2009-10-21T20:15:00.002+02:00

It's hard to take any pictures of people in the bowling hall. So here is a picture of the bowling hall in Västerås. Our department is out for fun on our yearly get together. I didn't perform so well but ended in top-10.

Fika at work

2009-10-21T15:34:00.002+02:00

After lunch we had a department meeting. Halfway through the meeting we took a fika break with coffee and ice cream. I love ice cream! :D

Sambal Oelek, Västerås

2009-10-21T13:18:00.002+02:00

Today I ate lunch at Sambal Oelek in Västerås. Tasty tasty! But it could be a lot more spicy. The name of the dish is Bò kho.

Mobile blogging test

2009-10-15T13:52:00.005+02:00

I have had this blogger applet in my Sony Ericsson mobile phone for quite some time now. So it is about time to test it out.

The picture is taken with the phone camera not so long ago this autumn. Cold in the air and the poor bug have problems moving. I helped him off my path to the grass on the side and then kept walking home.