Tuesday 2 July 2013

Two days of teaching


Monday started with an introcution by Maeda-sensei. He explained the details of the camp league and especially pointed out how we could order lunch in the student canteen of the Osaka University of Commerce. After the introduction we made a short trip to the canteen so he could show us everything on site. There are actually different lanes (noodles, lunch set, rice bowl) depending on what you would like to eat. We got a nice menu with pictures of every meal.
Unfortunately my games took to long so I could not test the canteen, so far.

Opening words by Maeda-sensei.

After the introduction we played our first league game (see my post about it). The afternoon schedule was also very tight. First was a lecture by Sonoda Yuuichi, 9p about "Diagonally vs. vertically". The essence was: If you have more stones in a region than your opponent (you are stronger) play vertically otherwise play diagonally. It's because playing vertically, which often involves attaching to stones, strengthens all stones but the weaker one profits more from it. In the picture he explains a nice example where black should first extend his moyo and weaken his single stone at the right side. After the black stone got weaker attaching to the white stones and playing diagonally is quite profitable for black. The other guy is John Richardson who was our translator on the first day.

Sonoda-sensei explains how to effectively use an invasion.

Following the lecture Yasuhiro Nakano, 9p and Li Ting, 1p did simultaneous teaching games. Every participant is supposed to get at least two of such games during the camp. Maeda-sensei offered to review league games for everybody not playing that day.

Nakano-sensei playing simultaneous games.
The topic for the end of the day was properly chosen. It was about endgame. Maeda-sensei gave a short overview about endgame calculation. Along the way he stated that the middle game is most important in a game of go followed by the end game. The least important is the opening which a lot of people study  the most. Additionally since nobody on earth likes to study endgame you can very easily get an edge there. The question in the picture is, if it is better for black to play in the top right corner or to capture six stones in gote.

Maeda-sensei introducing endgame calculation.












Actually he is quite serious about studying endgame. Therefore we get everyday an endgame homework to solve. Three people selected in a drawing among everybody with the correct answer got little rewards. Here you can see the "hard" version of Mondays endgame exercise. Feel free to solve it! :-)

The difficult endgame homework. 













On Tuesday there were a lecture by Yasuhiro Nakano, 9p. He showed some examples where one should not just look for good shape but consider the actual situation. At the end he took a loot at the decisive game of the 25th Asian TV Cup. It was a victory for Iyama Juta, winning the first international title for Japan since eight years. In the afternoon there were simultaneous games  and game reviews again.
Nakano-sensei reviewing Iyama Juta's Asian TV Cup game.













Tomorrow is our "free" day which we will use to visit the Kansai-Kiin and watch some professionals playing their own league games.


4 comments:

  1. Really nice blog, thank you so much for posting! I wish you a nice stay and hope that you'll learn a lot! Will you also tell us about all the pros teaching at the camp? :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I will write about most of the pros visiting the camp. Is there anything specific you would like to know?

    ReplyDelete
  3. In the pic of Nakano P's lecture, the guy on the left is so cool!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You are doing a great job hitting the highlights of your trip! I definitely see Maeada-sensei's point about how studying endgame can actually give a player a big advantage. Thanks again for a great post!

    ReplyDelete