What do ways of learning, literary outlaws, mushrooms, and Peter O’Toole have in common? The new episode of The Agency Podcast is now available and it’s called Putrid Scum. Join us.
You can listen right here or find Putrid Scum at iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify and TuneIn.
Yeah I know, I don’t feature much of that rock ‘n’ roll music around this joint, but just for fun, here’s Dave Edmonds with Gerant Watkins tearing up the accordion, performing the Chuck Berry tune, Promised Land.
This is tremendous fun…
The night before last we played 5 games online, of which I won 3. I’m continuing to give him 2 stones and I receive 6.5 points komi. In the first game, Vox was ahead and I was obsessing about how to catch up, when he approached my top right corner. At this point, I cannot explain what caused me to ignore his move, which I should have simply blocked without a second thought. I played elsewhere, trying to set up some kind of impossible attack, and he killed my corner. Game over. Ack!
Our second game was close. Vox was ahead in the middle game, and I picked away at his lead, but couldn’t quite steal the game. He won by 2.5.
I won the next 3 in a row. The 3rd game revolved around one of Rik’s groups. He chose to run a weak group out from the side, the idea being to survive the group and wreck my potential. I killed 29 stones. On review, we found a successful counterattack for Vox, but he couldn’t find it in the heat of battle.
The final game was quite interesting.
Vox invested in really large area on the right side of the board. I was able to get the top right corner to keep him from getting everything on that side, but still it was a scary amount of points.
However, I got a really good top left corner and grew it into the middle and I also got points on the bottom. Maybe more importantly, outside of the right side, I limited Vox to about 15 points. I won the game by 9.5.
I love the strange-looking mushrooms we call lobsters. They’re actually not a species of mushroom at all, but the result of a fungal attack. A cup fungus attacks certain host mushrooms, turning them scarlet red and contorting them.
The host mushrooms – there are 2 of them – are edible but not palatable. If you tried to eat one you would certainly spit it out. However, when the hypomyces attacks the host, it transforms their taste, making them a really tasty edible.
Lobsters are often found half buried in the forest duff. They are sometimes covered in dirt and parts of them may be bug-eaten. The host becomes quite dense and you can scrub them with a toothbrush under running water to get all the dirt out. Then slice them into eighth inch slices. Once you do that, simply cut away anything that isn’t white or scarlet.
They have a crunchy texture and are good fried up or in soups and stews. When I find a lot, I also dehydrate some for winter.
Another late-night recording session! The latest episode of The Agency Podcast is called Whiskey Go Go. Sergio Leone to tomato sandwiches. It’s that kind of episode. Hope you enjoy it. You can listen here or find the podcast in the usual places.
Here’s something from YouTube for all of you who have seen my posts about the game of Go and wonder just what the heck that’s all about. Here’s an extremely brief explanation.
Last night about 11:00, I let the Newfs out in the backyard for a pee. They charged to the back of the property, and then I heard the yelp that can only mean, oh crap there are 2 giant dogs running at me full tilt. It turned out there was an old beagle in our yard. Along with our neighbour, we walked around the neighbourhood with him. Someone in a car said there was somebody driving around looking for a beagle, but we didn’t see anyone.
We invited the dog to stay with us. He was pretty relaxed with The Partners and the cats and quickly settled in. He followed Sheila when she came up to bed and he hopped up and slept cuddled up with her. Fortunately he had a Toronto tag. I called 311 and within half an hour I was talking to the owner who came to pick him up.
Our guest was named Milo. He was with his owner at a friend’s place over on 30th Street and got scared by some fireworks. The owner said he was driving around looking for him for much of the night, while Milo was comfortably sacked out with us. We’re so happy to have reunited them. Milo was an excellent house-guest.
Last night I won 4/5 games online. I’ve been giving 2 stones and receiving 6.5 komi. In July we played 42 games and I had a 62% win rate.
Vox has consistently been a territorial player. That is, he tries to take early cash and then reduce my potential later in the game. He hasn’t changed this approach even though I’ve forced him to accept 2 stones and have continued to do well. That may be fine in that I’ve won quite a few games as a result of Vox making a critical error or in some cases a blunder. And, there is no doubt that I started winning more after doing a lot of tsumego (life and death) problems and improving my reading skills. It’s reasonable to think that if he can clean up his errors, he’ll have an advantage. At the same time, it may be that by keeping his stones under pressure, and in some cases complicating the game, I increase the chance of forcing an error on his part.
While Vox likes to play to grab cash early, he also does not like me to develop big moyos and if I attempt to build one, he will almost always dive in to stop it quickly, rather than make a big development move himself. I try to restrict his base in this kind of situation and make some profit by attacking. He might consider allowing me to make a moyo and take a bigger one for himself, since he has the handicap helper stones – and then later invade or reduce me. I think this is one way he can start to call the shots and force me to make riskier plays. Another way to look at this is to ask the question, when is the right time to invade or reduce?
Another thing I notice about Vox’s approach is that he will always kick against a kakari. It used to be high-level players preferred to pincer rather than kick, unless there is a friendly stone on the other side of the kicked stone. More recently the robots like to kick in most circumstances and do it with success. However, those are even games, those are super-strong bots. If I were playing the black stones with a 2 stone handicap, I would try tight pincers when my opponent makes a low kakari against a 3/4, trying to keep sente and keep him under pressure.
Let’s see what August holds.
27th Street 