I have heard that "one must lose one thousand games to become shodan",and yet this seems insufficient for the task. I am quite adept at losing games, but I am sure that I could lose one thousand (or many more) without improviong my game at all.

It occurs to me, that in order for losing one (or many) thousand games to have any adventageous effect on my playing, I must also learn from these losses. It also occurs that I am incapable of learning very much on my own.

I therefore have decided that, in order to salvage some benefit from my deficiency, I will post all of the games that I lose this year (limited to those I have recorded) in this journal, one at a time, in chronological order, so the good souls of this community might amuse themselves, and in return give some advice and/or analysis that will help me to learn.

Many of these games are embarrassingly bad. I will post them anyhow.

Much thanks,

--nascent--

ps: I don't often write like that ^^ but I thought the tone was apropriate to the content.

This "lose a thousand games" is just any figure, I for instance haven't even played one thousand games yet (only counting games played online) and I already hit Shodan twice on KGS =D

More importantly is the concept of losing. But like you already said, it's learning from one's mistakes. So no problem here, the road to Shodan is wide open and in the cloudless sky the sun shines gleefully ; )

Looking forward to your games!

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

The first loss of the year. January 1, 2013.

Rather poor play. I was a bit behind from the opening, and then I made it worse by badly mis-reading a ladder. My opening needs much work.

It was nice of my opponent to have fun with the meaningless ko at the end. I should have resigned, but ko practice is always good.

Move 16: This black pincer stone is ill advised, and should be attacked, but when white plays the keima against it, it asks it to strengthen itself. If white continues this way, then white's goal needs to be to use the strength gained by leaning on the pincer stone to attack the corner, but after move 37 at Q14, white has a weak group and no strong attack. Consider something more balanced, like the one space jump, instead.

Move 38: At this point, taking the corner weakens the white N16 group even further. Probably not good.

Move 62: No comment on the ladder, really. Black was very kind and should have just responded to white's move normally, because it doesn't threaten to make the ladder work.

Move 74: Black's move is gote, to try and keep white from causing problems with the dead stones. White can play at F3 or so to neutralize black's bottomside wall some and close the corner, or at P6 to take it from the other direction and enlarge the bottom right.

Move 82: White can play at B2 and black can't cut because of the chapel shape.

Move 84: This move plays into a position where black has already peeped to cut at C5. The cut is complicated but leaves black quite happy if played.

Through 103: White is building a wall in exchange for giving up territory, but black has lots of outside strength already, due to the ladder and the bottom right wall and extension. This means that white can't expect to get a lot of points out of the wall, and with this sequence, white ends up terribly overconcentrated in the bottom left. White has played 8 or so stones to secure 4 points.

Move 120: To this point, white has done a great job and broken through black's lines. Instead of the relatively open center, white should concentrate on trashing Black's lower side first, I think. It is much closer to being territory.

Move 152: Black can't break in strongly from this side anymore, so protect the other side or reduce black's top left.

The ko: completely pointless with the score this unbalanced, but it doesn't hurt white either so there's no reason not to play it if you want to keep playing.

As a side note which, I often hear from DDKs or so that they like to 'practice kos' but a large part of getting good at kos is to figure out when you should start one and when you shouldn't. Creating them for practice could mean creating a ko that is highly unfavourable to you, which isn't really practice at all. In addition, when the value of the ko doesn't matter because one player is too far ahead for it to matter, they don't necessarily play the best moves because they don't have to. In a sense, you should be practicing kos all the time, by looking to see where one might appear, and by keeping track of the ko threats each side has, or at a minimum, who has more. As long as you are aware of that, the actual manipulation of the ko doesn't matter so much.

Hopefully this was helpful.

Thank you, skydyr.

Your post is very helpful. I'll take a close look at each of these.

Thanks again,

--nascent--

Thanks for the words of encouragement, SoDesuNe.

I like the link in your sig, A study guide will be quite helpful.

--nascent--

A couple of comments from me too:

Move 8: protect the corner/side. That's where black wants to make a base.
Move 10: and again.
Move 30: what happens if you extend with your stone in atari?

In each case, don't just read out what happens in my variation; compare it to the position black gets in the actual game several moves later.

Much thanks to billywoods and skydyr for you comments and analysis!

I've edited the sgf to include your input and some follow-up.

--nascent--





(Please feel free to point out any glaring errors or to add any further commentary)

I have created a study plan for the next stage of my learning.

I am not targeting a specific rank, nor am I setting a deadline, but rather am detailing a routine to adhere to and curriculum to guide me.

Study curriculum:

"Opening Theory Made Easy" by Hideo Otake. -- This book seems highly respected, and my opening knowledge feels inadequate. Also, I already own a copy.

"Shape Up" by Charles Matthews, the "First Reading (10 kyu course)" as reccomended by the author in the introduction. -- It was recommended to me by a stronger player who said it helped him very much. It is available on GoBase.

"Strategic Concepts of Go" by Nagahara Yoshiaki. -- I like having an general understanding of principles to help me connect the various techniques I learn elsewhere.

Tsumego (1/2 hour minimum / night) -- I'll likely use goproblems.com for the time being. I am considering purchasing the "Graded Go Problems for Beginners" series.

Praxis:

2 games minimum every day with reasonable time constraints.

Self review every game.

Post every (recorded) game I lose to the "Game Analysis" forum here at L19.
Review and study the instruction I recieve.
Edit the game record to include that instruction plus explorations of the suggested alternative plays and post it to this thread.

Be patient. I have difficulty with this one.

Regards,

--nascent--

I have posted my second loss of this year to the "game analysis" forum here.

--nascent--

Sounds very good! I also want to read Shape Up! since a couple of years... ^^

Keep us updated =)

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Here's some further commentary on your moves 8 and 10 (since I mentioned it again in the other game you posted). I played out a bunch of variations to show that, even if you play into the corner on move 8, you often still profit on the top - in fact, you profit more on the top than you do if you play on the top directly on move 8 - and you profit in the lower left too.



(My sgf editor and I don't get along very well. I'm not sure why this is. In one of the branches, I mention an A, B and C: these are B15, C15 and D14 respectively.)

There is one pattern in this formation - it's called Low Chinese Fuseki if Black would play it on move 3:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Low Chinese Fuseki
$$ -------------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . a . . . |
$$ . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------[/go]

Now if White, in thise case, tries to play the approach at 'a' this is a common response:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Low Chinese Fuseki - Response 1
$$ -------------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . 9 . 7 . . |
$$ . . . . . . 8 0 . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . 1 . . . |
$$ . . , . . . 2 . , 5 . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . X 3 . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . 4 6 . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Low Chinese Fuseki - Response 2
$$ -------------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . , . . . . . , 6 4 . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . X 3 . |
$$ . . . . . . . . 2 . 5 . |
$$ . . . . . . . O 7 O . . |
$$ . . . . . . X X 1 . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ . . , . . . X . , O . . |
$$ . . 8 . . . . a X O . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . X X . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ----------------[/go]

is important because Black has a weakness at 'a'.

That's why my first instict would have been to play the Keima at F16 in your game.

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go