Suzanne in particular had improved tremendously, and even beat Billy recently. Honestly I can’t wait to see her playing against Saenson Apaporn from Thailand, and Karen, Kay from Singapore. I heard there are other strong female Singaporean players, but I haven’t met them yet and unsure of their level. Hopefully they will all clash in upcoming Tri-country tournament end of this year, in KL !

The level of female Go sure is rising in South East Asia.

Whereas Hock Doong and Alex seem to have found time for Go amidst busy schedule. Alex apparently is concentrating on solving Life and Death problems, whereas I suspect Hock Doong is focusing more on replaying professional games. His understanding of overall theory on Go strategy is at a much better level than before.

Boon Ping? Haven’t played him for quite some time. He is probably superstrong now, after I delivered the Nihon Ki-in sea shell stones to him. 3 months training on a goban with real quality surely brings shiny result. My goban from Korea instead, is happily collecting dust at the moment.

To get myself out of current slump, I have started studying Buju Daquan and Zhanshu Daquan although yeah, I dont understand the text, only the diagrams. Sometimes I wish I have a study partner, as I often I get very sleepy and hungry replaying the positions alone.

Anyway, from Ryou’s blog,

To all the chess-players in the world. Have you ever experience something similar like mine where people mock or tease you when you said you are going to become a professional chess player? Please share your thoughts and opinions with me.

I was lucky to have supporting friends when I first started out playing Go. But even before that, I had established myself as a board game freak. In fact, if I had an invititation for a board game when I was having exam preparation at the eleventh hour, I would postpone studying to be last-minute.

Anyway, I still remember an advice from Wan Aimran, my ex-housemate where he said, “people don’t have to understand you, they just have to accept you for who you are”. Really Ryou, why are you troubled so much by what other people say when you have dream and means before your eyes? But hehe, I’m not responsible if you’re not satisfied with your future later