Don't feel able to fully review this myself:

Boidhre · #1

I feel that B138 lost me the game, that if I had left F13 die and just played E15 or similar instead that I'd have been in better shape. I'm also wondering about the, I assume, loads of poor moves I made that I'm not able to see. Was I right to not mind him invading the upper left side and just seeking to contain him without making contact? (i.e. is B126 a bad move, should I have gone to B14 or E13 perhaps?) I feel I handled this invasion rather badly and that up to this point my play was ok for my level and would like some advice here.

My apologies if this game is of poorer quality than what should be posted here. I've only been playing for 2 weeks (played a little 9x9 7 years ago but less than 10 games) and this is my fifth game at 19x19 in total so I'm really in a place where I could use pointers.

jts · #2

Welcome (back) to go! Some ideas on the beginning:

EdLee · #3

Boidhre,

Bill Spight · #4

For a beginner you play very well.

Some comments:

Main focus: Avoid unnecessary plays.

cyclops · #5

Great reviews here again. Really pointing out the important, not too complicated things. Here my minor details.
With 148 and 150 you (black) did a good job to separate two white groups. Then at 152 you unnecessarily sacrifice the cutting stones. Defending them does not only gain you 4 goods points immediately but it also has good follow up and better serves your attack than the 152 you played in the game. Further you can expect to gain from the cut in the endgame. Defending against the atari can't be bad here unless you see something really big or urgent. Another way to look at it is that the defense against the atari is clearly better than the atari itself.
At he end of the game you both indicated that you didn't know who was going to win. In case you care it is better not to pass until the boundaries are better defined. As long as you play neutral points you won't suffer. It would get you one more point here.

Boidhre · #6

Thank you all very much for your comments and reviews. Definitely some stuff to work with there.

Boidhre · #7

So, based on that game what do I need to do the most work on? I'm drilling basic problems to try and get patterns into my head, what kind of books should I be reading? Or is it just a matter of doing what I'm doing and putting in the games and learning from my losses?

jts · #8

Boidhre wrote:

So, based on that game what do I need to do the most work on? I'm drilling basic problems to try and get patterns into my head, what kind of books should I be reading? Or is it just a matter of doing what I'm doing and putting in the games and learning from my losses?

You don't need to worry about books yet. Purely from the point of view of improvement, playing lots of games will help you the most, reviewing those games with stronger players will help you a great deal as well (try the KGS teaching ladder or the beginner room, if you play on KGS - posting games here works too, of course!), and then doing tons of life and death will greatly speed up your progress.

However, if you want to read a book anyway because you like books, I would recommend either a book on tesuji (such as "Tesuji" by James Davies, in the Elementary Go Series) or Kageyama's "Lessons on the Fundamentals of Go."

karaklis · #9

Boidhre wrote:

I'm drilling basic problems to try and get patterns into my head, what kind of books should I be reading?

Play a lot of games is the basic advice in the double-digit-kyu area.
"Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol.2" is a good book for studying basic patterns. You could also sign up at 321go.org and do the course and the exercise.

Bill Spight · **#10**

IMHO, the advice of playing a lot of games has a caveat. Play stronger players. (If your purpose is advancement.) Play SDKs and dans. You should be an SDK yourself within months.

Boidhre · **#11**

jts wrote:

However, if you want to read a book anyway because you like books, I would recommend either a book on tesuji (such as "Tesuji" by James Davies, in the Elementary Go Series) or Kageyama's "Lessons on the Fundamentals of Go."

Yeah, I'm one of those people who likes reading about theory even when it isn't necessarily what I need at the moment.

karaklis wrote:

Play a lot of games is the basic advice in the double-digit-kyu area.
"Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol.2" is a good book for studying basic patterns. You could also sign up at 321go.org and do the course and the exercise.

Yeah, I'm working through 321go and gochild at the moment as well as doing 30k-20k problems on goproblems. Should I be going for loads of easy problems or a mix of hard and easy?

Bill Spight wrote:

IMHO, the advice of playing a lot of games has a caveat. Play stronger players. (If your purpose is advancement.) Play SDKs and dans. You should be an SDK yourself within months.

Hmm, I can't see many SDKs willing to play with a 22k player! I also have the issue of two young kids making getting a lot of games in awkward. Would a good AI set to a difficulty level that beats me handily be useful as a sparring partner for when I can't give my undivided attention for an hour to a game along with playing on KGS?

oren · **#12**

Boidhre wrote:

Hmm, I can't see many SDKs willing to play with a 22k player! I also have the issue of two young kids making getting a lot of games in awkward. Would a good AI set to a difficulty level that beats me handily be useful as a sparring partner for when I can't give my undivided attention for an hour to a game along with playing on KGS?

You can try dragongoserver.net. I play there and it's nice to be able to start and stop playing when you need to. I'd be willing to play if you want. Always better to play people than AI.

Boidhre · **#13**

oren wrote:

Boidhre wrote:

Hmm, I can't see many SDKs willing to play with a 22k player! I also have the issue of two young kids making getting a lot of games in awkward. Would a good AI set to a difficulty level that beats me handily be useful as a sparring partner for when I can't give my undivided attention for an hour to a game along with playing on KGS?

You can try dragongoserver.net. I play there and it's nice to be able to start and stop playing when you need to. I'd be willing to play if you want. Always better to play people than AI.

The problem with turn based for me is that I feel I need to go through quite a few games relatively quickly to show flaws and correct mistakes and I can't really do that on DGS. A few months into this I could see DGS being invaluable but right now I worry that I'll be playing games and by the mid game have advanced a fair bit because of my low standard at the moment and finding the games very frustrating because of early mistakes that I wouldn't now make etc.

And at my low level, is an AI really going to be that detrimental?

Edit: My thinking is, that a decent AI's play can't be any worse for teaching bad habits as playing other high DDKs.

Bill Spight · **#14**

Boidhre wrote:

Bill Spight wrote:

IMHO, the advice of playing a lot of games has a caveat. Play stronger players. (If your purpose is advancement.) Play SDKs and dans. You should be an SDK yourself within months.

Hmm, I can't see many SDKs willing to play with a 22k player! I also have the issue of two young kids making getting a lot of games in awkward. Would a good AI set to a difficulty level that beats me handily be useful as a sparring partner for when I can't give my undivided attention for an hour to a game along with playing on KGS?

During my first year of play I never played anyone weaker than 5 kyu. And the 5 kyu gave me only 4 stones.

For the first six months I played around three games per week. Then I started playing with my girlfriend's father, who was a 2 dan, and my total went up to five to ten games per week.

As for stronger players who will not play teaching games with beginners, I do not hold them in high regard. I think that you can find a lot of strong opponents.

Boidhre · **#15**

Bill Spight wrote:

Boidhre wrote:

Bill Spight wrote:

IMHO, the advice of playing a lot of games has a caveat. Play stronger players. (If your purpose is advancement.) Play SDKs and dans. You should be an SDK yourself within months.

Hmm, I can't see many SDKs willing to play with a 22k player! I also have the issue of two young kids making getting a lot of games in awkward. Would a good AI set to a difficulty level that beats me handily be useful as a sparring partner for when I can't give my undivided attention for an hour to a game along with playing on KGS?

During my first year of play I never played anyone weaker than 5 kyu. And the 5 kyu gave me only 4 stones.

For the first six months I played around three games per week. Then I started playing with my girlfriend's father, who was a 2 dan, and my total went up to five to ten games per week.

As for stronger players who will not play teaching games with beginners, I do not hold them in high regard. I think that you can find a lot of strong opponents.

Thanks, I'll start asking on KGS for them.

oren · **#16**

Boidhre wrote:

Edit: My thinking is, that a decent AI's play can't be any worse for teaching bad habits as playing other high DDKs.

Sure, but it's like playing solitaire to me. It's more fun to play real people and there are plenty out there. Check out the L19 room on kgs. If I'm around and have time, I'd play.

Boidhre · **#17**

A question: DGS recommends using this test to figure out what level you should declare as: http://play.baduk.org/go-test/start.php?

How seriously should I take the results as a guide? (It's telling me 16K European (which is 11K KGS??) which I think is overestimating my strength by a fair bit)

Dusk Eagle · **#18**

Not very strongly in my opinion. I think we've all seen that test before (at least, I've seen it referenced many times), but I don't think it's a very reliable way to judge your rank (it's better than nothing though for people who have no clue). I would choose something closer to the actual rank you've established on KGS.

Bill Spight · **#19**

Boidhre wrote:

A question: DGS recommends using this test to figure out what level you should declare as: http://play.baduk.org/go-test/start.php?

How seriously should I take the results as a guide? (It's telling me 16K European (which is 11K KGS??) which I think is overestimating my strength by a fair bit)

You should not take it seriously. After all, you can go up one or more stones in strength after a single game.

Better to think of yourself as a pre-dan player.

Boidhre · **#20**

Thanks, that follows my own thinking (i.e. that it can't be reliable).

Don't feel able to fully review this myself:

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