Thanks. I suspected that, but I wasn't sure. Just makes the place feel colder, to me.

On the other hand, I had a great time on KGS today, and was educated by several wonderful people.

Yesterday I took the advice of EdLee, Hushfield, and just about everyone else and focused on playing more games. Against humans, mostly. And online ones, too, sometimes.

I post them in case anyone is curious about them or about my progress.

Game 1:
I played a teaching game online on KGS with paK0 [10k] from here (many thanks!). Also, out of the kindness of his heart, Patchouli [4k], stopped by and gave even more review. We went through the game like three times, total. Many thanks to both of them!



My favorite part of this is Move 189, and how we both completely miss it. Patchouli's comments about it on the next few moves were hilarious at the time.

I met many cool people in the L19 room. It was wonderful. Made me feel much better about playing online.

I do have one annoying problem with KGS, though:

Since my rank is [?], I can let the automatch run for 10 or 20 minutes and never get a hit. I've also directly tried to connect to two appropriately ranked open games, and was denied both. This has happened for two days straight. I may, simply, never be able to get a rank there.

Someone advised me to play computers to get rank, but all the computers I've found are [-].

Big chicken and egg problem.

Game 2:

paK0 was of the opinion I should be destroying MFG at 18k with 0 stones, and I was desperate to give it a try.

First chance I got, I dropped 6 stones off my handicap with MFG and dove right in!

I was pretty sure that, in previous games, my losses came from playing too fast. This time, I decided to take a deep breath and purposefully pause 5 seconds after each of MFG's moves, so I would not rush to keep up. It worked out pretty well.



I had the same plan as the previous 6-stone and 7-stone games where I beat MFG:

1) take a corner
2) find a big string attacking that corner that I can cut off
3) cut it off
4) kill it
5) win.

After devastating me in the end game and lots of really stupid mistakes by me, MFG managed to catch up and win by 2.5 points.

Considering how badly he tore me up in Yose, I can only assume I was far, far ahead.

Result: I didn't win. But I'm sure I could've, if I were just a little more careful and better at Yose.

Game 3:
This game was in person, at the Thursday night Dallas Go Club, and I don't remember it, sorry -- I don't have that ability yet, to remember a game I played from start to end.

The game was against a 10 kyu named Kevin. Based on the advice of a 7 kyu at the club who often gives me teaching games, and estimates me at "the mid teens kyu", we set the handicap at 4 stones.

I tried the same strategy I used against MFG again. I'm beginning to be a one-trick pony, I think.

I successfully surrounded a huge string, cutting it off, and my opponent didn't even notice. He later said he thought they were alive the whole game, and was shocked when he realized they weren't.

However, this time I didn't go in for the kill. The string had 7 open liberties, and I would have to give up a lot of sente and make some truly disgusting shape to finish it off.

It all came down to one bamboo joint that for 30 moves I knew I needed to make. I never quite found the time, instead mentally justifying sente moves elsewhere to steal eyes/corners.

This was obviously a huge mistake. There was no other move on the board worth as many points. I should've just taken it. Immediately. Because I didn't, and my opponent eventually realized his danger, cut me, and won the capture race.

Kevin won the game by a huge margin. Conversely, if I had made the bamboo joint, I likely would've won.

Still, this strategy I keep using seems unreliable -- kind of like a "hail mary" pass in football. It's an all-or-nothing, lose-win thing, and if my opponent knows what I intend, it won't work. At least that's the way it's been so far.

I believe I should take another stone against him next time.

Oh, also: Everyone that looked at the game told me my endgame was terrible. So I guess I need to be working on that

Game 4:

I got home from Go Club at 10:00pm, a full hour past my normal bedtime of 9:00pm, but I was wired and feeling like I was playing slightly better. I wanted to keep going.

I logged into KGS, and once again hit the brick wall of game refusal, so I ditched it, and jumped to IGS. I've complained about IGS in the past, but I had fun this time.

Once again my endgame was terrible, but he didn't manage to erase my lead.



A weird thing:
Something about the way the guy played felt very enjoyable. Not because I was winning, I think. He just felt like a fun guy to play (watch me find out he's actually a computer!)

He immediately re-challenged me with one less stone, but I had to decline. It was 12:30am, and I needed to wake up at 6!

Great day, overall, but one problem:
I spent all my time playing, and didn't study any Tesuji, Tsumego, or Joseki. I already feel rusty.

I need to be independently wealthy so I can do this stuff full-time, and not in bits and pieces throughout the day

Mostly, though, I am glad that playing online feels fun again. On both of my servers.

A couple of comments on the bottom right corner in game 1.

R-10. Extension cum pincer.

and The problem isn't that Black is overconcentrated, it is that Black has weak points at P-03 and R-03. A White stone on either point would threaten to connect to White's strong stones.

O-06. It is important to get access to the center, to bolster your own stones. Also, this play keeps the two White groups separated. Divide and conquer, remember? Yes, P-05 is another weak point, but that cannot be helped.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

A few comments on game 4.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thanks, Bill!

Endgame is a great thing to improve and something that seems to be neglected at low ranks - I remember being surprised at how many of my games came down to a few points at even the high ddk level - and how easy it was to pick up 6 or so points without too much effort. That said its something I still need to work on - so it may be one of those areas that requires continuous improvement.

Re: auto text on igs - if your opponent says hi but doesn't play a move - say hi back - I lost a game as white for not giving a salutation in the 1st minute (even though no stone was played). That or it was a bug in the iPod igs app.


Ps ... game 4 ... K *cough* 16 *cough*

Yeah, I saw it this morning when I was reviewing the game. That would've changed things badly. Amazing how blind I still am to ataris.

Re: The end game
I think it's much harder than the rest of the game, at least for me, right now. It's like looking at a foreign language when I try to read a yose book. But I'll work on it.

Thanks for the tip to autotext -- I dind't even know it was possible. How do I set it up?

Good to meet you, S2w!

Good to meet you too!

Re: auto text - to be honest I'm not sure - I play on my iPod (while cradling a sleeping infant in the other arm - now that's a real man's handicap) - where it just happens automatically. Chatting used to crash the app so I'm a little scared of it.

Yes - the introductory yose lessons I've seem tend to devolve fairly rapidly into obscure counting ... And then I wake up

I found that the things that have served me well so far (ie to barely into sdk) are:
1. Sente Sente Sente (maybe think if you want to play ko first)
2. No more sente? Reverse sente! Reverse sente (a gote move where your opponent would have sente) is twice as big as you think it is.
3. Monkey jump! Learn it, use it, watch your ddk opponents run in terror!
4. Jumpy monk! Not as common as mj but 10x as fun. (Watch high sdks run in terror)
5. Mutually Assured Destruction worked for the yanks and Ruskis - now you can use it too! Mutual damage http://senseis.xmp.net/?MutualDamage ie in response to a sente move - play a sente move elsewhere with a more painful continuation to stop your opponent getting all those sweet sente moves.
6. Ko, lovely ko.
7. Sente

Ps. There's also probably 0. Make sure your groups are alive and your opponent's are too. But I like to ignore that one.

The title of this post should be: I haz rank! (sort of, with a ?-mark)

Go Training for today is complete, I guess.

1) Tsumego: 64 (these are from "Basic" and "Easy" on Tsumego Pro.
2) Tesuji: 26 (darn, I should do 10 more for the even hundred, but I am just too wiped out)
3) Long ladder reading drills - 15 minutes. Today was the first time I could read the ladder across the board more than once. Usually I get it the first time, and then my brain is too tired to do it until I take a break and rest. I got it right 4 or 5 times. I lost track of it many more than that, but at least I am getting halfway across the board before I'm lost.
4) Joseki for about an hour, maybe two. I reviewed all the 4-4 joseki I've learned so far, and tried to figure out when I would/wouldn't use them on a board. Hard going. Still can't see the shape before I play it.

I really wanted to watch a lecture on Yose or try to read a Yose book today, but did not get around to it.

But I did play games, and online, even! And in real life, too! All of them with people and not computers!

Game 1
I played another ranked game on IGS and won! I now have a 17? kyu! I'm way to excited about this. I realize I could get busted back down to BC soon, but it's pretty cool to have a sort-of rank.

I remember surprisingly little about this game. I will have to review it again, tomorrow, when I am awake and I am not seeing little Go stones dancing before my eyes.



Game 2

I then went out to eat with a friend of mine and gave him a teaching game. I felt weird doing it because I know how much I DON'T know. But someone has to show him the ropes. However, I may have scared him off. As he was sitting there he saw the ocean of moves and the vast history of thought about the game opening before him, and it intimidated him. We will see if he comes back.


Game 3 and 4

I played my first ranked games on KGS against a 6 kyu. It was kind of weird: no handicap, but also not a teaching game because it was ranked.

The guy was nice and very friendly, and he definitely took it easy on me a couple of times. But he completely destroyed me, as anyone should expect. He was nice enough to hang around after each to give some variations and comments, which was great

No KGS rank for me yet, of course. Not really excited about it, except it will make finding games easier.

KGS Game A


KGS Game B

I'll look these up

Ko... When I get bored when I'm studying josekis, I often chase them down blind alleys, and up ko fighting myself for a full ten minutes before I remember I'm supposed to be learning something useful.

I've Ko fought a lot at the Go Club, but I don't think I do it hardly at all online. I guess I'm afraid I'm going to lose focus, or that I have more defects than my opponent does. Also, I've seen a lot of people try to start a ko near the endgame. Being so bad at Yose, I definitely don't want that!

I guess I should expand on/qualify my love of ko (though I apologies if I'm spamming your journal too much). There are many types of ko- but for the sake of simplicity I'll mention 3.
1. "Even" kos - ie ones where both players have an equal amount to gain/loose depending on the outcome of the ko. This could be the same number of points or it could be that loosing the ko is so bad for both players that it would decide the whole game.
2. "Uneven" kos - picnic kos/flower-gazing kos/lopsided kos - basically kos where on side will loose far more than the other if the ko is lost.
3. "One point" kos - kos worth a point no matter who wins

When I first started I would think about ko fights as the first type of "even" ko. I suspect that's the way you think about them too. In the endgame though uneven and 1pt kos are far more common.

If you can play an uneven ko where you are the one benefiting then you should go for it. The reason being that even if you loose the ko it will mean that your opponent had to ignore your ko threat - which means you will be compensated - so either way you win.

Conversely if you have a *genuine* 1pt ko - don't play it if there is anything else to play - the reason here is that the value of the move is only worth 1/2 of a point ie your opponent will either get to play twice for you to win the ko or would need to play twice to take it from you - so any other move that gets one point or prevents a point loss straight out is superior. That said if you can't see any other points on the board - try to win that ko! I usually do this even if I am well ahead or behind because:
1) it is good practice finding ko threat
2) I am terrible at counting and nothing sucks more than loosing by only .5 points
3) I have an ornery disposition.

S2W,

- Ko is a very deep and difficult topic, worth at least one entire book.
- a ko is a trade.
- Your (3) is just a example of your (1). It's not different from (1); just a special case.

Sam. I advise not to get lost in ko theory. Just don't fear ko and see what happens. For the next games, as edlee points out, focus on keeping the initiative, don't follow your opponent around and apply mutual damage.

Thanks everyone!

Hah!

I just read this same thing in Ishida's Dictionary of Basic Joseki, Vol. 3, p. 74:
"If one is afraid of ko, one should take up another game."

Today, a full day dedicated to Go. I will not be able to maintain this level of effort after Tuesday, when my wife and kiddo come back, but, honestly, life is a lot more enjoyable with them around. Being a Go Monk is not the lifestyle for me.

Beginning of Day Study

I did mostly Tsumego and Tesuji. You'd think I'd have a lot of numbers to show for that, but the first 14 problems I did were fairly long snapbacks, and it took me forever to do them. I then went back to some easier problems, but was making stupid self-atari mistakes, so even the easy stuff was hard. I couldn't even remember how many I did total, but I'd guess it was somewhere around 60. Feels paltry for the hours invested.

I spent a lot of time trying to rest my brain between bouts of Tsumego, so I ended up watching a lot of Nick Sibicky vids. Great stuff! But 4 vids is 4 hours!

I also spent probably an hour and a half shopping for go boards and go stones online, and didn't buy a thing (though I did register at go game guru.) I really wanted some Yunzi stones -- I like the look and feel -- but the lead concerns have scared me away. I have a 5yo that plays go with me, and I want to be absolutely sure it's safe for her too.

Joseki

For dinner, I went to Corner Bakery (sadly, alone), and studied 4-4 Joseki in Ishida.

Joseki, in particular is going slow for me. In 2 hours, I reviewed 5 pages of joseki I'd previously studied, and then did 2.5 new pages. (Note: At least twice: I found myself lost in my version of daydreaming: Ko fighting over unreasonably altered joseki positions.)

At this rate, around 3 pages per day, which is as fast as I can currently go and will be unsustainable when the family gets back, it would take me 80 days, total, to learn just the 4-4 josekis in Ishida. And these are "Basic" josekis.

I hope you I get faster at memorizing them as I go. It really helped tonight, to tell myself why I thought each move was being taken, as I applied it:

"White makes 2 space extension to make a base, black plays line three under star point for more territory, white invades san-san, black 4-4 nobis to cut off white, white hane to threaten to connect, black must choose which variation now... hane and reinforce and give up the corner and lose sente but have a nice wall, or make an L and follow with an atari, and possibly giving up the side, but keeping sente" etc.

Basically, it seems easier to understand, if not remember, when there's a story to it. When there's context. I can process it then.

Games

Because I couldn't sleep, I played about a dozen, maybe 20, drowsy-brained, lightning fast games against MFG 15 kyu 0 stones (yes, I dropped it down from 18 kyu, but I did leave it white with 0.5 komi). My goal was to get to the endgame as fast as possible and get more experience there. I was, of course devastated in most of them, which only makes sense considering how tired I was and how fast I was playing. But I got better quickly, nearly wining. And then, about 1 am, I took almost half the board:



Sadly, no endgame phase

It was actually pretty bad for me at first, but then I jumped out behind one of his walls and started throwing table shapes around, claiming middle territory and isolating his strings. It felt like Baguazhang, just spinning in different directions, projecting power. I gave up a lot for it, ignoring his attacks against my already claimed sides. But I got half the board in compensation. I do feel a little conflicted about it; he had the capture race near the beginning won, but somehow ignored it and let me kill him off. Do I really deserve the win? Who knows.

Still, I wonder if I could do something similar, just much more lightly, with large knight's jumps? They just seem so much easier to destroy than a table. I've tried it many times, but it feels like I'm missing a special pattern to make it work.

Yes, you do - based on the fact that you read out the capture race but he did not. The really nice things about go (at least for non-handicap matches) is that there is little ambiguity on who played the better game. The fact that you recognize how many mistakes you make is a good sign you're getting stronger.

Re Joseki. Everyone is different but I would advise you to learn a couple but don't stress it too much. You'll find that you'll encounter a lot of the same ones over and over and these will sink in (or you can study them harder). Occasionally you'll encounter new ones and after misplaying them you can go look them up after the game.

Ps. Given your love of of light play and martial arts you might appreciate this pattern: http://senseis.xmp.net/?ThrowingStarShape

Of course you can do whatever you like to do and we've all been there but one of the primary conditions for study is that you create the proper conditions for it. Otherwise, we only get this kind of confirmation of what you already knew: you were tired. At this point, any comment on any move could be argued as "of course I was/you were tired". In fact, whenever one misses a good move, it may be because

1. they didn't have the time
2. they didn't have the energy
3. they didn't have the knowledge

3 can be fixed by stronger players but 1 & 2 are only in your control.



You should find a level of problems that is easy to you. Can you tell us which problems you are looking at? Have you tried beginner problems at Sensei's? Or the easy ones at gogameguru? Or the 20 kyu ones at Korean Problem Academy?

From your journal I feel that you are both being too hard on yourself (investing a lot of time, even when tired) and then not hard enough (taking conditions for an excuse and not creating proper conditions).

Back when I was a student I gave private courses in math for high school students who were having issues. I discovered that less than 5% of the issues were about lack of knowledge or lack of capability. 95% were about the discipline to create the proper conditions for study.

You are probably correct. Up until the past two weeks, and actually the past few days, been very careful about getting a full night's sleep, keeping the same bedtime, etc. I think the glare of the screens of my phone and computers, which are what I typically use to study, have been throwing my melatonin levels off. I simply haven't been able to sleep, hardly at all.

I'll have to buy some actual BOOK books, I think, though I was hoping to avoid that. I tend to buy a ton of books just before I quit a hobby. I think my brain assumes "if you have the books, you can learn it any time" and then shuts down. And I really don't want to lose interest in Go.

Know yourself, and know your enemy, right?


ANSWER:

Most of my problems are from Tsumego Pro, Magic Baduk Go, or Go Tsumego and Go Tesuji on my android. I also have been dabbling in Cho Chikun's 900 Elementary Tsumego, and 153 Chinese Problems (this one is a little too hard for me, but very cool -- almost all snapbacks, and thanks to this book I can see some of them now!)