My friend Ted and I have been playing Big Scioty for some time. It’s named after the Scioto River in Ohio. I’ve heard the tune called Big Scioty or Big Sciota as well. This one has words, although it’s often played as an instrumental. It’s one of those tunes that is played by both old time and bluegrass players. Ted likes to slow this one down and sing it.
I played 9 games of Go last night with Vox. He had an edge overall, winning 5 to my 4. I’m sure he was happy with that result after last week losing 6 of 9. I’m going to try to remember to photograph at least one of the games we play and write a little bit about it. Last night I photographed one of the games I won.
In the pictured game, I was black and opened with a sanrensei fuseki, meaning I played 3 star points in a row on the upper side. In our games Vox has had a lot of success diving into 3-3 points under my 4-4s then reducing on the outside on a large scale, but I’ve become better at keeping his territory small and attacking his reducing stones, so I’m playing this fuseki occasionally, inviting Vox to steal the upper 2 cornerss if he chooses. In this game I followed up the sanrensei by playing tengen (the 10-10 point).
Tengen, according to the various youtube commentators I’ve watched, is supposed to be a bad move. One online go teacher says, tengen is always bad. Still, facing 3 star points, it sketches out a huge moyo and challenges white to reduce it before it gets converted to a big chunk of territory. It also means in many situations ladders will be in my favour.
In this game, Vox wound up with 3 of the 4 corners – and the 2 corners on the bottom side were quite good. His problem was I converted my early moyo into way too much territory – there is over 60 points in that area on the top of the board alone with another 10+ points on the left side as part of the same group. As long as I held my own in other areas, it was going to be difficult for white to win.
If I recall correctly, Vox played a move just above the tengen and I was able to make a wall above that. He might have been better to ignore the tengen stone and try to make a living shape between 2 of the upper star points, with some access to the centre, or try to force me to take the corners and build positions on the outside. I can’t help but feel I got away with way too much in this game.
Of course I’ll continue to occasionally try this opening pattern, until Vox shows me it isn’t a good idea.
Shovels & Rope….
Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives…..
The new episode of The Agency Podcast is called Game Theory. You can listen to it here or find the show on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Google Play, TuneIn or Spotify. Special thanks to Vox for participating in this episode.
What kind of games do you play?…..board games, card games, video games, strategy games, games of chance?
I love playing the game called Go, or Baduk or Wei Chi, depending on where you are. As Vox reminded me during this episode, he and I have been playing for 33 years. It just gets more and more interesting.
Vox and I have been playing a lot of very close, tough-fought games lately, punctuated by occasional games involving crazy big kills. Recently, I’ve had a bit of an edge, but I know better than to take any advantage for granted. He could soundly thump me next time out.
Sheila made this mosaic “sketch” while watching the house sparrows in our back yard. It’s just over 16 inches tip to tail. You can see many of the mosaics we have made here at 27th Street on our mosaics page. We create a variety of custom mosaic projects including birds, butterflies and benches, on a commission basis. Each mosaic is unique.
The East River Stringband with R. Crumb…
We have a special mini-episode of The Agency up, all about the film Uncut Gems. Check it out here or find it on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Google Play, TuneIn or Spotify. We had lots of fun recording this one! Please check it out – and don’t forget to subscribe to here all our podcasts.
The Tulip, a Toronto diner/steakhouse which has been around for 90 years, has closed. They posted the following on Facebook: “Unfortunately, business conditions have changed regarding our lease agreement in ways we can no longer accommodate, and we have been left with no choice.”
I used to work in that east-end neighbourhood some years ago, and had quite a few steak sandwiches at The Tulip back in the day. Not so long ago, I dropped in for lunch with my friend Hobie. We had been on a nature walk at near-by Ashbridges Bay, and when we considered where to get a bite to eat, I remembered the Tulip. It was pretty much as I remembered it. I’m glad we had a chance to lunch there before they closed.
I wonder what happened? Has condo-fever reached that area? If so, there will be a lot of small businesses in trouble in the area in the next few years.
The latest episode of The Agency Podcast is called Manifestoes R Us. You can listen to it here or find us on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Google Play, TuneIn and now also Spotify.
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Listeners may also enjoy The Gnostic World of Candy Minx:
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