Tami's Way

Tami · **#321**

Robert, you`re misquoting me and selectively quoting me. I can`t get into discussions like that.

BTW, I think your Nihon Kiin L&D must be a different one from mine. Mine is only a small pocket book. I gave the ISBN number so anybody can check it out if they wish. It may be small, but it contains everything I need for the time being.

RobertJasiek · **#322**

Tami wrote:

Robert, you`re misquoting me and selectively quoting me.

The purpose of selective quoting is to keep the length short instead of twice or thrice as long. If this happens to lead to misquotation, then by accident.

Tami · **#323**

RobertJasiek wrote:

Tami wrote:

Robert, you`re misquoting me and selectively quoting me.

The purpose of selective quoting is to keep the length short instead of twice or thrice as long. If this happens to lead to misquotation, then by accident.

I know. I believe you are a good person and that you have positive intentions, so I would never for a moment think you misquoted me maliciously.

thirdfogie · **#324**

Tami wrote:

It is beginning to seem that reading strategy books is fun, but in terms of improvement is not as useful as it feels. The real problem seems to be enforcement. The better you are at L&D and tactics, and the better you are at shape, the more easily you can get your way strategically. Conversely, there`s not much good in building a beautiful moyo if you don`t know how to convert it into real points.

Good point, well made. The quote also captures the feeling one has when playing a significantly stronger opponent, that greater force or power resides in his or her stones.

Splatted · **#325**

Tami wrote:

It is beginning to seem that reading strategy books is fun, but in terms of improvement is not as useful as it feels.

I feel the same way, but I wonder if it might be more accurate to say that just reading strategy books isn't as useful as it feels. I'm currently working my way through attack and defense, and I've had almost no luck applying what I've "learned", but there definitely is a lot of very useful information in there.

I don't know how you try and make use of the books you read, but my impression is that like me you've been reading/solving sections and then trying to keep that in mind when playing. This may not have worked, but that could just mean we need to find better ways of engaging with the material. Here are some ideas:

1) Go through the book multiple times: Try and drill it in to your subconscious.
1b) You could also treat books you've worked through like problem books and solve them repeatedly. With multiple books on the same subject I imagine it would be like having a collection of targeted problems with detailed explanations.
2) Go through pro games and look for situations that seem relevant to what you're studying.
2b) Guess how they will apply the concepts described in the book.
2c) Try and work out how/if the moves the actually play relate to those concepts.
3) Review a bunch of your games looking only for positions relevant to what you are studying.

Maybe none of this will help either, but I feel like there is so much good information locked away in these books that learning how to use them would be a huge asset to improvement, and well worth the time invested.

Bonobo · **#326**

John,

Tami · **#327**

Splatted wrote:

2) Go through pro games and look for situations that seem relevant to what you're studying.
2b) Guess how they will apply the concepts described in the book.
2c) Try and work out how/if the moves the actually play relate to those concepts.

Yes, I do try this, but I`m beginning to feel that one tends to bend concepts to the moves, i.e., you tend to see what you think you`ll see. In other words, I`m beginning to think that the "do L&D school" were right all along - it`s reading that makes you strong.

Try making a leaning attack on a stronger player - he`ll thwart you through reading.

Try making a splitting attack on a stronger player - he`ll thwart you through reading.

Try making sabaki against a stronger player - he`ll outread and make you heavy.

Try making shinogi against a stroner player - you`ll be resigning with a big dead group.

Maybe you could think of it as being like a swan on the water. What you see on the surface is an elegant gliding motion, but underneath, out of sight, the legs are working furiously. Similarly, when you look at some pro games, say one of Shuei`s masterpieces, it might look like pure strategy, but what you`re not noticing is all the tactics that the master was reading and controlling.

RobertJasiek · **#328**

Splatted wrote:

I'm currently working my way through attack and defense, and I've had almost no luck applying what I've "learned", but there definitely is a lot of very useful information in there.

Even just the limited amount of knowledge in Attack and Defense can be good for about two ranks (if the contents is new to you), but you must be patient and try to apply the knowledge during the next three months.

Quote:

I don't know how you try and make use of the books you read,

Surely it depends on the contents presentation of the books! If the contents is hidden in the text, then you must find and transform it to forms you can understand and recall. If the contents is explicit in the text, then you only need to understand and recall. (And apply.)

Quote:

Maybe none of this will help

You missed the most important kind of learning: learn the relevant contents consciously.

RobertJasiek · **#329**

Bonobo wrote:

I cannot empathise when somebody criticises a software they don’t know how to use.

I cannot share the idea of buying an expensive software just to find out whether it is good or bad.

Quote:

those who want to repair a Ferrari with a can opener

Big software bugs must be repaired with rough tools - or a difference software must be used.

Quote:

All you would need is any text editor you feel comfortable with. If it need be, use MS Word, OpenOffice (which is not being developed anymore) or LibreOffice, its successor. I can import or convert/import all standard (TXT, RTF) or semi-standard (DOC, OpenOffice or Libreoffice formats) formats for further processing. You know about the information, the content you want to convey, so you just take care of that and leave the rest (the form) to somebody who knows how to further process it for press and/or screen output.

Do you? IMX, fighting the software's bugs is the by far greatest help. However, submitting a document to somebody else so that he can then fight the bugs SLOWS down the process for the author. (Can you bring OpenOffice to be updated more frequently again? Can you reduce the bugs of LibreOffice (incl. its database software!) so that it becomes better than OpenOffice?)

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everybody does exactly what they know to do.

Right.

Quote:

Just edit your text, put in “XXX Diag. 42”

This is exactly how I do NOT work. (Scribus is inapplicable for me because of that.) I do not know if other authors work like that. If I tried to write a book while not already seeing the diagrams in the text roughly inserted, it would not work. We are not speaking of a narrative with one colour plate but of factual texts with 1000+ diagrams (each updated once on average during the writing process), where the text contents is written around the diagrams and vice versa.

Quote:

typesetter.

Extra processing of typesetting is not a problem, except that the go book market is too small to justify much publication delay for the sake of getting perfect typesetting.

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You could even just use "" (inch marks) instead of typographic quote marks; the typesetter would either know

You can't. A go book author does not have the time for inserting such marks.

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whether it’s better and less work than creating diagrams in a dedicated graphics program (for me that would be Adobe Illustrator)

Cry. Go diagram editing programs cannot be beaten by generic graphics software.

RobertJasiek · **#330**

Tami wrote:

one tends to bend concepts to the moves

Imprecise concepts must be bent - precise concepts must not.

Quote:

the "do L&D school" were right all along - it`s reading that makes you strong.

Strategy without reading is nothing. Reading without strategy is nothing. Strategy informs about what and how to read. Reading verifies whether particular strategy is good.

John Fairbairn · **#331**

Tom: I agree with Robert's assessment above. The problems of producing a go book cannot be appreciated properly until you have tried it. This is not a case of starting with a negative attitude. Anything can be achieved if you put enough time and mental effort into it, but you have to be sensible and start with some idea of how much time and effort it is worth investing for such a small market - a market that is going backwards, too.

Diagrams are by far the biggest problem in the production process for various reasons. Among them, there is no go software that works reliably to produce good diagrams (e.g. missing captured stones in variation diagrams, inability to use long labels, add arrows, awful fonts, etc.) I have found MultiGo to be the best for me, but I still have to Photoshop every diagram as well as create it. Even then, you often find that a small change in text pushes a diagram to the next page and so it has to be done all over again. It's a burden only the idiots among us take on.

topazg · **#332**

Tami wrote:

... i.e., you tend to see what you think you`ll see. In other words, I`m beginning to think that the "do L&D school" were right all along - it`s reading that makes you strong...

My only observation is to be careful to separate reading from L+D. L+D is an important aspect of reading for sure, but often stronger fundamentals and superior understanding of shape can give you a completely commanding lead against a weaker player without having had a single L+D issue arise.

Good fundamentals is a quintessential part of good reading - it gives you a much better collection of moves to assess in your reading lines and weeds out some of the chaff before you get started, so it's an integral part of reading skill.

It's one of my big frustrations that so many problems are either L+D, tesuji to split/separate/kill, or find the big point (border of two moyos) type moves. That sort of skill is important, but the "squeeze / sacrifice for thickness" type reading is at least equally important and, IMO, rather neglected in problem sites and problem books (maybe I'm reading the wrong ones).

Bonobo · **#333**

Robert,

RobertJasiek · **#334**

Bonobo wrote:

without even thinking about them, as you proved.

I thought about that and rejected it; it is not worth the extra time for the books in question.

EdLee · **#335**

hanekomu wrote:

LaTeX plus the igo package; see its documentation at http://ctan.open-source-solution.org/fonts/igo/igo.pdf

LaTeX is amazing (as always). Thanks, hanekomu.

Tami · **#336**

Yes, please move to a different thread if you`re going to start talking in-depth and technically about typesetting. I don`t mind some discursions, but I`d appreciate if discussion here were mainly about "Tami`s Way". Cheers!

Tami · **#337**

Indeed, I think the "6 orders" stuff from a few days ago was a bit of an abberration.

I`m getting the sense that playing go well is exactly that - knowing how to play well. Knowledge is useful, even indispensible, but nevertheless definitely second, a distant second even, to knowing how to use it. Some people know tens of thousands of advanced words, but say less than a child with a sense of what is important.

A long time ago, I heard that the way to become strong at chess was to study the endgame. It`s only now that I`m starting to realise why. It`s because the endgame teaches a player how to use each piece and combination of pieces. It teaches the player how the pieces work. With enough of that kind of understanding, then they should be able to prevail over a more knowledgeable but less knowing opponent. And I am going to advance my go on a similar principle: I`ll endeavour to learn how the stones work together. That`s what tsumego and pro games and the other methods of training really teach you.

So, my latest plan is to do lots of tsumego (L&D, tesuji and other kinds), study pro games and play go as much as possible. Of course I will continue to learn joseki and fuseki patterns, but that will be secondary to learning how to use the stones well.

In my view, a good analogy to tsumego practice is practicing scales and technical exercises on a musical instrument. Obviously you have to learn to play real pieces (i.e., play full games), but such exercises help you to focus on challenging and improving specific skills. So, tsumego are the scales and arpeggios of go.

The only other difference is that I`ll quit consciously "trying to apply" things to my games. Instead, I`ll take each position on its own terms and play the best move my reading shows me. It really is hopeless attempting to play by heuristic, anyway, if my experience of it is anything to go by. It just slows you down and leaves you feeling disappointed.

I probably will post less on this blog now. I have investigated and attempted quite a few things, and there`s not much left to say other than just to carry on.

Tami · **#338**

Hi everybody. I`ve not dropped off the face of the earth, and I don`t think I`ve given up playing go, but I`ve been completely immersed in music...

To be honest, especially if you have any kind of major and unavoidable distraction, such as family and/or work, you probably have to accept that you can probably only expect to get reasonably good at just one thing. I don`t think I have a lot of talent, but I do have perseverance, so I`m pointing it at music more and more now.

I did, however, buy the Kiseido book on Attacking and Defending Moyos just before Christmas, and I was struck hard by the very introduction, in which we are recommended to "just play" and not think about it (so much). I have always wondered why I have tended to be much stronger at fast chess than normal games, but maybe it`s because I just play. With guitar playing, I find the same thing - I`m much better when I just play and let it happen.

But this makes me wonder - what is the conscious mind actually for? What is thinking good for if it tends to get in your way when performing an activity?

My guess is that thinking is useful in the acquisition phase - you have to understand the reasons why this or that technique works, or why this tesuji succeeds under such-and-such conditions, or why you choose one joseki in one situation and another in a different case. When you reach the performance phase, you either know what kind of things to consider, or you don`t. If you should think at all, perhaps it ought be a kind of "pondering", when you let the moves come to you, rather than attempt to find them.

I`ll try it next time I play go, but goodness knows when that will be.

EdLee · **#339**

Tami wrote:

what is the conscious mind actually for? What is thinking good for if it tends to get in your way when performing an activity?

It depends on the activity: http://news.yahoo.com/brain-works-025027478.html

Tami · **#340**

Well, after nearly four months I started playing again. But no more studying. In fact, no more "thinking" even. Just look at the board, and play whatever seems right. Trying to verbalise the processes seems impossible, and as unhelpful as it is when playing the guitar, speaking another language, riding a bicycle...

My approach will be "play and learn". Play a game, not too slow, and afterwards make a mental note of the main points. It`s usually obvious where the game changed direction, but my good friend Toge also often looks in and points out things I miss.

When you dispense with all the pseudo-logical verbal thinking, you find a deeper level of concentration. It`s fun, too.

I don`t have much more to say.

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