What's the best way to start?

print the game out on paper -- either using several diagrams, or all in a single diagram

play it out on a real board.

wipe the stones off the board and replay as many moves as you can remember.
lather, rinse and repeat as often as you like.

One move at a time

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

I follow the same method as xed.

It takes awhile but the number of moves and patterns you recognize will steadily increase as long as you continually do it.

I add in one step -- when I get to a move that I can't remember, I try to think about why they played it "Oh, the lower right is settled, now the upper left is the biggest area!" then next time I get stuck I try to think of it in terms I can rationalize for the next move.

I just started go a month ago and am learning the basics with go problems, books etc. Is it really worth my while to memorize a pro game? Opinion seems to be divided.....

It is worth your while to play over pro games, but why memorize them?

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Memorizing a game of go is something like memorizing a long poem. It is too long to do at one sitting (at least for most people).

To memorize a long poem you start in the middle. Why? Because the middle is the most difficult part to remember, and where you start your memory work is what you remember best.

I suspect that it is best to start memorizing a pro game at the end. One reason is that the previous plays are on the board, and that makes it easier to memorize earlier plays. If you already know where they will be played, all you have to learn is the order of play. (OC, that does not hold for captured stones. ) Another reason is that to memorize a play it helps to understand why it was played. Part of why it was played is evident later in the game. (Only part because the opponent generally tries to thwart the intention of a play.)

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Interesting, I've seen (amateur dan) advice to not memorise past the midgame because of the great difficulty a kyu player will have with remembering the sequence of endgame moves (the idea being a focus on imprinting good shape on the mind). Of course turning this on its head, perhaps focusing on the most difficult part is the better idea (that and the endgame is usually easier to interpret than the fuseki without research outside of the game for kyu players). I don't know, something to think about I suppose.

memorize is such an odd word, isn't it? -- what does it mean really?

Have I actually memorized a sequence because its so common that I now know it? Or is each move in the sequence just the right move to make at just the right time? And do we then go around the board stringing together these different sequences because we've memorized them, or do they just naturally flow from one to the next because of the changing temperature of the whole board situation somehow makes sense?

After I replay a pro game on a board (from paper) once, I can usually recall easily the first 30-50 moves (depends on how complicated the game is) without really thinking too much about it. But I haven't really put any effort into memorizing it. And I usually can no longer recall it the next day (or even a few hours later).

However, if I replay the game a couple of times in one sitting, I can often remember most of it even a few days later. But none of it really ever goes into long-term memory still. (long-term memory -- that's when I've memorized something). I have to replay it again many times over, and with some effort to commit to long-term memory.

I've tried to commit some pro games to long-term memory (just because I think its fun, and I like to do it), but I haven't been altogether successful at it. Usually the second game pushes out the first, and so on. I can never seem to remember more than one at a time.

Does it help me be a better player? Maybe not the memorization part. Maybe just the act of playing out the game helps me more than trying to memorize. I eventually learn to recognize a few common shapes and sequences more often (though I still tend to play them in the wrong order).

I think the biggest benefit to memorizing games.. I can now recall my own games better after I've played them, more than I used to do (which helps when reviewing with your opponent afterwards). I didn't see this benefit at first, but it seems obvious now.

But its also all part of having a reason for the moves you play (and coming up with a reason for the moves your opponent plays). Which also helps with memorizing pro games. It doesn't matter so much if the reason is right or wrong. It just helps the sequences make sense, which in turn helps you remember where you played next, because now you know why you chose that move.

When looking in the end, where should I start reading ? Should I try to find how the fuseky was played ?
or should I try to go backward... any advice ? so many stones at the end for a beginner ...

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Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

Here is a long game to illustrate how you might go about it. I make use of an important idea: chunking. For our purposes, that means grouping sequences of plays together into units. The idea is that we can hold around seven chunks in our heads at one time. But Neil Larson, author of the MaxThink idea processor ( http://www.maxthink.org/indexflash.htm ), advocates working with five chunks at a time. It makes sense to work with fewer chunks if you are not just keeping them in mind. In poetry consider quatrains (4), pentameter (5), and hexameter (6), or haiku (5-7-5).

Anyway, it seemed useful to back up around 5 chunks at a time, as you can see. Just go to the end of the game and back up the play. Enjoy!



I think that this shows that memorizing the endgame is surprisingly easy. With practice, even visualizing it all should not be too hard. OC, that's much easier than reading it all out to start with. But if you can't visualize it, you can't read it out.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I'd like to take a slightly different approach and say that you should work on remembering your own games after you've played them. Aim for being able to replay the whole game correctly. This is easier than memorizing pro games because you (should?) remember why you played the moves and that will help you remember them. It will also help you focus on your mistakes If you play on-line, as many people do nowadays, a record of the moves is created automatically so if you can't remember what you played at a certain point you can consult the game record. An interesting idea is the fact that apparently there is a relationship between your playing strength and your ability to remember and replay your game right after you finished. The reason for this is that as you get stronger your moves become more logical, you have reasons for playing them rather than just playing somewhere arbitrarily because you can't think of a reason to play any place else. If you can have a reason for the moves you play that is a big step towards improvement.

As far as memorizing pro games is concerned, I think the main benefit comes from playing through them a lot. You get a sense of shape, flow, and joseki choice. However, if you have no idea why the moves were played you are likely to play moves you memorized automatically in your own games when the shape is different and the move may even be a mistake. That's frustrating because, after all, that move was played in a pro game.
So I say by all means play through pro games but focus on memorizing your own games as you play them and, especially, focus on playing thoughtfully, with reasons for your moves.

I have been told (OK, that's a dangerous way to start, but bear with me...) that there's a certain go school in Japan that starts children on memorizing famous games even before they know the rules. The thinking being that they will absorb the flow of the game almost without realising it.

On the one hand, I can't imagine small children having the patience for that for long, but on the other hand, that's how Shindo Hikaru learnt to play....

Me? I did try for a while, but got bored.

<edited to remove silly typo>

I'm with Gowan on this one. I was going to post something similar until I read his. I have never been a fan of memorizing pro games. But I do think you should play through as many of them as you can, trying to absorb the shapes. But as he says, if you cannot replay your own games then you will not improve.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Children learn in a different way to adults. Sometimes methods are transferable, sometimes they aren't.

I've set myself one goal for 2014 in the game of Go (I've mostly withdrawn from trying to become better, having shifted to other grounds - music, table tennis): memorize the ten game match of Lee Sedol and Gu Li.

I will not memorize a game until An Younggil has analyzed it at GoGameGuru.

This is because I want to memorize something that I understand. There is little point in memorizing the phone book (especially nowadays) or the number plates along the road, except if you just want to build some brain muscle (if that is a relevant activity at all). Understanding the game helps me memorizing it, and trying to memorize it forces me to try and understand it.

I have no real opinion on Bill's original idea of starting in the middle but I'm learning a game in its chronological sense. This will trigger potential sequences and I will recall the positive feedback later.

I agree the endgame is the hardest part, because sequences are rare and players will apply mutual damage, so our strength to visualize patterns is less applicable. For the endgame, I try to approach it the way I (should) approach my own endgame and look where the big areas are, so that when the players shift about the board, at least I get some positive feedback about their order of play.

The late endgame is the hardest to memorize because the shifts occur almost every move, but they are also the easiest to understand, because it's all about points.

Pro games are not really memorized, they have to be understood. It is pointless if you just memorize all the moves without understanding why they were played. I don't think that people that just started playing should be memorizing pro games. It is a waste of time. You should work on life and death problems. Until your reading is good enough you will not understand any pro games. Memorizing meaningless patterns will not do your playing any immediate good.

while there is some truth in what you say, I mostly disagree with your sentiments.

yes, they should be understood, eventually, but its not necessarily pointless, nor completely a waste of time.

I agree, it may not be the most efficient way to improve, but I think it can actually be somewhat effective. I've personally had some positive experiences with it.

The only part about this that I agree with is the "just started" part. Once you've got to, say, SDK, I firmly believe pro games are extremely instructive. The emphasize good shape, they can teach you a lot about the value of moves that you may otherwise think small, they can teach you about honte, they can teach you about not following your opponent around the board, and countless other valuable lessons. Yes, there are complexities and subtleties that perhaps only a fellow pro would be able to pick up on, but good moves are generally good moves for reasons that even mortals can understand.