I haven't posted anything in quite awhile. Part of that owes up to life getting in the way, and part of it is because I haven't really had anything interesting to say/add. Regardless, there has been something on my mind a lot lately: Intuition based play. Is it bad? Is it good?

In my own opinion, I think one can learn more from thinking less in games than spending a lot of time thinking. Now, before I get eaten alive for saying that, let me support why I say that. I've been playing Go for a little over two years now, and I've seldom took the time to think in my games. Or when I do, I actually make the wrong move anyway.

My progression has probably been a lot slower than it could have been because of my preferred method of play, but I honestly believe I've benefited from it. When I play players of my own level, I usually do pretty good in games that have a copious amount of time. However, in blitz games, I tend to dominate players around my own rank. And why? Because I'm so used to intuition based game play, the time setting has next to no effect on my game.

However, I do see the cracks in this methodology, but I think I benefit more from this style of play. Because as I point out, when I'm playing a full time game, I still know when I should pause and give the board a second glance. I"m just saying I think there's a lot to be gained from intuition based play if you have the patience to deal with losses and a probably a longer road to get to the next rank.

This is my opinion, though. I'm curious to see what the common opinion about this is.

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Slava Ukraini!

Even when playing blitz you should be reading and counting as much as you can in the time you have. Sure you need intuition to help pick what moves to read out in the first place since your time is so limited in blitz games but just picking a spot and immediately playing it based on intuition is bad.

I draw two conclusions:

You practice blitz, so you're relatively good at blitz.

Your overall progress is slower than it could be (according to yourself).

Actually, I rarely play blitz games. However, when I do play, I tend to dominate my opponents. I've probably played a grand total 0f 10 or so Blitz games over 2 years. And I've played around 700 total.

As for the second one, yes. It is probably slower than it could be, but I don't quite find that to be a bad thing.

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Slava Ukraini!

I do read and count even in blitz, but I don't spend too much time on it. Typically, I let my intuition guide where I play.

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Slava Ukraini!

I don't always read, but when I do, I read ladders.

Keep climbing, my friends.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
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Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

What do we mean by "think" and "intuition" ? If your intuition is telling you that group looks strong enough for you to tenuki to this approach because this attack can be answered like that...

Oh, right, read that again- you're suggesting that using longer time settings doesn't help you. I mostly have the exact opposite experience- in games I win I tend to be on my second-to-last byo-yomi while my opponent still has 12 minutes main time.

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Revisiting Go - Study Journal
My Programming Blog - About the evolution of my go bot.

Heh, I also cannot say whether intuition-based play is good or bad. However, I think I'm close to the type of player you describe yourself as.

Don't get me wrong ... as I've gotten stronger I've benefited more and more from taking my time ... but I don't analyze well during a game. Analyzing is a skill, and I'm getting better at it, but I rely heavily on my intuition during my games.

This has a couple of effects: 1) My game is inconsistent and all over the place; 2) After the opening, my opponents sometimes underestimate me and suddenly find themselves in difficult situations; 3) I piss a lot of people off because I'm terrible at counting and never know when to resign ... and to make things worse I pull off wins about 25% of the time when I shouldn't have.

So, I believe I'm what's known as a "vulgar" player ... but that comes with having no teacher and no Go books to read, in my opinion.

It won't matter much in the kyu ranks, but after you hit dan, being this kind of player really makes it hard to improve.

Intuition is good but so is calculation. I think you should use both when you play, not just one or the other. Also I have to say, without calculating and reading in a game, I find it hard to improve. Quality over quantity and if you read out variations and stuff in the game, that's quality, if you just click at a spot that looks good and hope it works that's just stupid. I have been guilty of such behaviour many times and every single time I find that the quality of my game deteriorates vastly and I find it hard to learn from the game and to find mistakes. For improving, one game where you read out variations is better than 50 games where you just click at a spot that seems good.

But I'm not bashing intuition, it's great and helpful, just make sure your move works.

Point and play is less a style than a habit, and while it may be fun, the drawback is that it is highly likely to produce a game losing move. If your intuition lets you find clever moves, that's great - but if you play them without verifying their cleverness, you're bound to land in a rut. It's like boxers who don't keep their hands in front of their face: They can look intimidating, but they usually retire early.

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Patience, grasshopper.

obviously, you can't get too far only by intuition itself. it is a great tool if back it up by reading and other stuff. in fact, i would say that good intuition can make half of your success and many players seem to underestimate it in favour of more exact skills and knowledge. i can't really blame them, because the other skills are easier to evaluate and train, while i have no idea how to obtain a better intuition.

so intuition gives you (for negligible amount of time and mental effort) candidates to moves, which you should then evaluate to see if they are really good. i even often choose a move i like and don't play it if i can prove it is good, but play it if i can't prove it is bad

at first i voted for 'yes', because i value intuition very much, but when i think about it, i can't recommend your method - if you want to become stronger, you should work to get a rational apparatus for choosing from your intuition's suggestions

PS: i am also an interesting paradox - when playing a slow game, i am usually the slower player (and i prefer slow games). however, my KGS blitz account steadily tends to have rank one stone stronger than my slow account. what does it say? and when i play a game i don't take serious enough, i often go just by the feeling itself and then my style becomes ugly, filled with overplays and careless mistakes, which lose me the game most times.

PPS: moral of your story is to play more fast games, because you will think about the same as you do now and you get more training for the time invested

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

Well, I learn by repetition. If I repeat a mistake enough times, eventually I'll make it less and less. So with my style, if I actually go back and review the game, I can learn where I should have played in a given situation. I'll admit it's probably not the most effective way to rank up, but that's essentially how I've gotten from 21k to 8k.

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Slava Ukraini!

I suspect that you are moving much deeper into game analysis than you realise.

What you might have meant to discuss for learning purposes is experience versus analysis. However, I am going to answer the more interesting question you pose with regards to intuition.

I am a very strong games all-rounder because of my ability to play intuitively. I am what is known as a shape player. This is an entirely different skill set to counting positions and analysing.

Thinking ahead can still be done intuititively, have you seen Gary Kasparov's eyes flitting over the board when he was playing deep blue.

You always have an image of a position in your mind, when you can see an actual position a stronger image is formed. This is why blindfold play is weaker than normal play. So a level of thought is needed to safeguard against mistakes.

To progress to the very top of any game requires that you add extra information to your skill sets to gain the extra edge. However, most of the time this is a waste of time as your instinctive move remains unaltered but sometimes it will decide the game.

Shape recognition represents the strongest of all game skills and is in effect a measure of someone's natural ability. The top go players in the world must be strong at shape recognition. However, you can't just increase your shape recognition by playing games. You can improve rapidly as you find patterns that your opponent uses but this is a subtley different skill. Similarly analysis can be improved by practise.

So back to the original question. if you are the most natural go player ever born you could become a professional dan player without ever studying any analysis but you will never reach the top of the game on intuition alone.

The strongest natural games player ever, I saw draw with a top chess GM rated over 700 points higher than himself with black and he used less than 5 minutes on his own clock. He is the only human player I have ever met who I will lose to if I try to keep tempo with him. However, the players which beat him (at any game) had to not only have natural ability but the discipline to think too.

LOL! Good one H! Essentially all your games posted here are blitz. You start with 25 minutes main time and finish the game in 15 minutes.

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Nicely said. I suppose it's not the best method. And that point was proven when I tried to kill an opponent's group with....dead stones. Only realized they were dead after it was too late and I lost the game as a result. I think I could have won had I evaluated the situation more. So yes, I can see why so many people say intuitive play isn't the best.

At the same time, it's hard for me to really concentrate on games like this because I have ADHD. (Lame excuse) But, really, it's easier for me to play point and play style rather than trying to focus on a game like Go for too long. I figure my normal attentiveness for a game will last about.....10 minutes. Then I gradually lose focus. It's also why I usually only play 1 or 2 games in a row, and then stop for awhile.

Again, I can't necessarily blame my methodology on the fact that I have ADHD, but like I said, it's just easier to play the way I do. I suppose I could look into some mental training and see if I can ease the strain of remaining concentrated over long periods of time.

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Slava Ukraini!

I play fast, but my opponent always doesn't. That's typically a disparity you wouldn't have in the form of blitz games that are popular these days. However, I shall clarify. I meant I usually don't play games with blitz settings.

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Slava Ukraini!

I don't understand the difference between "intuition style" and "not knowing how to use your time."

Everyone uses intuition to come up with plausible looking moves. 75% of the game is then using your time to calculate, reason, and determine which of those moves seems best. By stopping at step 1, I don't think you are playing a different style -- you are just playing worse.

For what it's worth, I had a very difficult time calculating and analyzing productively in chess when I was about 18 -- my attention would drift and I would find myself thinking in circles constantly -- but over the next few years I worked pretty hard at it and became much better; I also very noticeably improved my ability to concentrate and think about other things, like detailed technical writing and mathematical arguments. So you may find this change about yourself if you work hard at it. (I have never been diagnosed with anything, though.)

I must admit I'm also in the camp of not being able to spend time - I'm just too impatient.

Cata's anecdote is certain interesting, but whether being better at other things is caused by the effort spent in calculating and analyzing productively or is merely correlated with it may not be clear :p

The difference is that the longer you look at a move, the more likely you are to filter instincts away.

The heart of an intuition-based style (that is to say, heavily intuition-based play) is to focus on improving your instincts. It is not a method for winning, but rather a method for learning.

You indeed will play worse a good deal of the time, but, since you are playing moves that come naturally to you, you will also improve your ability to read ahead because you will have a "feel" for certain branches of the tree. Over time the calculation will follow, but you need to start by going out and making natural mistakes.

I'm an intuition player, I played fearless, stupid, blitz for my first year of the game. And it took me to 1d.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...