Norman Richards

Due to time issues, I've cut way back on my playing.  I'm not doing the league now.  I play one or two games a week and spend most of my free time on problems.  But, I'm still taking my weekly lessons.  I started when I was a weak 4k/5k players, and I played against my teacher (a KGS 7d) at 6 stones.  That's way under handicapped, and the results showed.  It was quite some time before I scored my first victory in a teaching game.  I'd have to check, but I may have just barely gotten to 2k by that time.   As long as it took for that 1st win, it took nearly as long for me to win frequently enough that it was time to move to 5 stones.

My first 5h game was around new years.   I lost by a mere 1.5 points, but then I followed it up with three straight resignations.  I'm a stubborn player, and I like to score games.  But none of these games were even worth scoring.  Last week I lost by 7.5 points, a game which had I not made an endgame mistake I think I could have won.  

I was disappointed, but I was able to follow that up with a win tonight.  Even though it was a win, I got more than a little lucky during the game.  We didn't have time to review the game, but aside from my good luck, I think this win can largely be attributed to the more aggressive style of play I've been taking in these games.  It seems that as long as I can keep the pressure up, I do well in this games.  Whenever I start playing defensively, it seems that I can be sure I'm going to lose the game.  Of course I guess that the fundamental lesson of handicap play is learning how to build strong positions and use them to attack strongly.