...but I only played one game

went to club last night -- first time in I don't know how long -- played a game with a kid who said he was 15kyu from not playing in a long while. When I asked him what his level was before he quit playing -- 8kyu

with almost every move, I think he played out the whole game in his head.

then we'd get to a move that he realized was not so good, either as soon as he played it, or a few moves later. He wanted to go back an examine it just to see "what if". I said sure -- my first mistake!!

now, I normally don't care if he wants to take back a move and replay from there. I don't mind losing. Its just a social club game. But after we mostly filled the board he wanted to go back to his original move.

We did that a couple of times, and almost every time there seems to be an extra black stone on the board after the restoration (I was white).

after almost 3 hours, it felt like I played 3 or 4 games in one, and lost most of them.

next time -- game clock, 20min per. no undo. and definitely no variations during the game -- you don't get to see what my plans are until I'm ready to play them. During one of the variations, I sprung a trap I was holding onto -- the variation had gone so far, I didn't think he'd be able to restore the original board position -- later, during the "real" game, he was now prepared for the trap.

he may have been off his 8kyu just a bit, but certainly not 15kyu worth. And I think he gained 3 stones in strength during our one(five) game(s).

You can always say "let's come back and look at it after the game is finished", assuming you can remember well enough to get there

As a side note, if the trap that you planned on springing didn't work after he saw it coming, maybe it wasn't a very good play?

I can understand the feeling. A guy asked me to redo the corner position after I stabbed him with a feidao.

But after I let him take it all back, he got stabbed by another var.

Just learn more tricks!

I am quite strict in this respect, but I have also never encountered such wishes. The game is the game, a single sequence; any analysis is for the postmortem.

Besides, not playing does not lower anyone's strength significantly. I would not accept a demotion of more than one stone without having seen him play.

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

I'm a kyu player and I feel like every time I take at least six months off, I improve by half a stone. I think it has to do with forgetting bad habits (or maybe it just has to do with server rank drift ).

actually, it wasn't so much of a trick, as it was just a big weakness to exploit. and come to think of it, I think I manged to exploit it twice (in two different variations), before he learned how to protect himself better against it.

I was up by 20-30 points, even after being sloppy and losing a whole corner... by that point I was getting tired and grumpy at having played 3 games in one and didn't care anymore. By the end of the game, I started playing blitz, and played while standing, and talking on the phone.






edit: was != wasn't -- changes meaning

Not quite the same thing, but when I go to replay my games, the moves I have trouble remembering are usually the bad ones...

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

yeah... that's why I wasn't about to give him any handicap stones

he was a little taken aback when I suggested we play even

and I could tell, he hadn't lost much, if any, off his original 8kyu

Just say: "lets review that variation afterwards" and be done. Avoiding "dumb mistakes" is a part of Go strength.

Indeed. I started playing on kGS again after a one year hiatus. I was 9k when I stopped playing and now I have won 11 in a row and I'm 7k? .

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Games * Rank Graph
7k

Next time you play him set up a clock, 20 min SD and wipe the floor with his dead body oh and dont forget to twist the knife