Update 19

Been pretty busy with my new job working night audit at a hotel. So I haven't been making it to go club lately and not doing a whole lot gaming-wise. I have plowed my way through most of the Shuei book. I finished his games. There are just a few supplementary games at the back that were by other players that he commented. I have also been reading the Janice Kim Learn to Play Go series. This is a series that is for beginners and lower rated players. I bought the second book a long time ago (like 2004 or so). But just recently decided to complete my collection. So I read the first book which is really basic but there was one item that I did learn from it which was that in capturing races you are supposed to fill the opponent's outside liberties first because when you fill shared liberties you are decreasing your own so you will lose the race if the opponent fills your outside liberties with their moves. I probably had heard this rule of thumb before but it struck me as a fresh piece of knowledge that I hadn't internalized yet. So then I reread the second volume which was nice. Then the third volume was a bit more interesting. And the fourth volume is definitely teaching me some stuff even though none of it is really stuff I hadn't heard before. So I have a positive impression of these books because I feel they are gentle and easy to read but contain quality knowledge at the same time. So, I mentioned in a previous post about a guy named Jackie that goes to the club that is a fair bit weaker than me. He is not an absolute beginner or anything though. So like I said, I am learning things from this series so I thought I would lend him these books. Actually, the fourth volume arrived damaged and when I asked Amazon for a refund they said that I didn't actually need to return the book. Jackie is really into recycling and getting full value out of stuff so I thought he would appreciate being gifted this damaged one (still totally readable just kind of bent and scuffed). But I thought the fourth one was slightly advanced for him so l lent him the first three as well. So, I feel happy about that. The king of value personality I have talked about before is happy that I am getting more value out of these volumes by sharing them with someone for whom they might have more impact. I did mention to my boss at work that would like to have Sunday afternoon off and it looks like that will be the case starting in June. So other than that there hasn't been a whole lot going on gaming-wise. I have felt some interest in video games again but haven't really done much of anything about it. I would like to post more often here on the blog. I mentioned to someone the other day that I thought maybe 10 posts a month would be a good target. But it just feels tough to do that. And I don't want to post just for the sake of posting. I want my posts to be good content. So we will just have to see.