This is the game I just played, and I was wondering if anyone sees any BIG mistakes in the way I played. Don't worry. The game ended quickly.

Hi Ken,

Ken, I'll be more straightforward than Ed was because otherwise you might miss the point << based mainly on other posts >>

Do not play opponents too weak to punish your mistakes. If you do, you will not improve. You should be playing an opponent as weak as this one was (relative to yourself) only for the purpose of teaching that person. In effect, returning the favor of stronger players giving you games to learn from.

If because of where you are located you have a problem finding opponents 3-4 ranks above you to play against there is always the option playing against the computer (easy to get programs that are strong enough to punish the sort of mistakes you are making).

I would add that never giving a handicap is a mistake. There's no point in him playing an 18k even.

This would be the height of selfishness. If everyone took that attitude then no one would play anyone weaker than themselves and no one would improve. You should be playing about half your games against people weaker than yourself. Playing on a two stone handicap would probably be a good idea though. This opponent was clearly too weak to punish your mistakes, but you were not too weak to punish his. This was a game were your opponent should have learned something.

Now post a game where you were playing a stronger player and let's see if we can help you learn something.

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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).

You're all saying the same thing. Play weaker opponents too but either teach them or play with handicap. You can learn something from giving handicap, which is playing against influence. You learn from playing stronger players too, because this time the influence is with you but you'll find out stronger players use their stones more efficiently and know better tactics.

My god, you are all making it sound like I play nothing but weaker players. I just open a game and play whomever, provided they are registered and have a rank showing.

And to reiterate what DrStraw has already said in reply to Mike, the notion of never playing people who are too weak to punish one's mistakes is ridiculous, selfish, and would, if followed to a T, mean that nobody below some level could ever improve sufficiently to join the ranks of the "clean" who can punish mistakes. It is a good thing Mike was the beneficiary at some time of those players better than he, before he could really punish mistakes. Or perhaps Mike sprang from the womb a 1d...

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Todd K. Pedlar
Associate Professor of Physics, Luther College
Decorah, IA

Welcome to the forums.

Anyways, it was a short game and there wasn't too much major since you took control very early.

Why do you say that? Would I suggest you post a game against a stronger play if I thought you never playing any?

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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).

No. The point is, you playing for example an 18k even right now unless it's specifically meant as a teaching game isn't a good idea, both of you would benefit more from a 6 stone game as you could both learn things from it and the strength gap is far too big for an even game to be remotely interesting. If you just play them even and then just play normally then sure, you'll crush them but that isn't a good thing for you or them. The same argument goes for playing stronger players, take handicaps more often. Never playing handicap games is a bad idea, mainly because you miss out on valuable lessons on dealing with influence and fighting especially. It's good for you, the weaker players you play and the stronger ones.

A little help please?

That one person misread that paragraph I wrote could be just that one person not reading all four sentences. But two people stopping after the first two sentences and skipping the last two?

So what was wrong with my wording?

I don't see anything wrong with what you wrote. If the strength disparity is too great, it should be a teaching game.

Not sure what the Doctors are onto here.

Your first sentence was an overstatement.

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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.

I'm still trying to figure out what my game with an 18k who took me up on the game I opened has to do with the game I posted here.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the general idea is that it's not very helpful to seek comments for a game in which you steamrolled your opponent and never really got in trouble because the opponent wasn't as experienced.

Replace 18k with any rank more than 2 stones weaker than yours and my point still holds. It's got nothing to do with any specific game you've played just that you've never given a handicap on the KenPruitt account. You don't seem to like taking them either.

To put my money where my mouth is, I've reviewed the second game you posted



Edit: For move 71, my comment recommended pushing up, but while that's probably ok locally the correct move is obviously tenuki.

-- See your atari in your kanta game, Post #2. See also Toothpaste .