My teacher taught me something very valuable, the less you care about what your opponent is playing or saying, the easier it is to read ahead. Greedy play use to infuriate me to no end then finally it clicked, in the game of Go your opponent has every right to play whatever he plays, and if its vulgure he's not slapping you in the face, he is kicking him self where it hurts the most, if you punish bad moves properly you get lots of points, and btw I LOVE POINTS (dont care much for stones if they can die and get me more POINTS). Just an interesting thing I learned

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“I’m here to play go and chew bubble gum, and I’m all out of gum”- misquoted duke nukem

Interesting idea. Another way to say this is that you have to play the board and not the person. I like the way that you said it, though.

Go, is a funny game. You don't have to play perfectly, you just have to play better than your opponent.

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My plan to become an SDK is here.

In essence, this is a valuable lesson for pretty much any game. I remember when I used to get flustered by playing stronger opponents. Then one day I decided, they're human too. And so I focused more on playing better moves and tried to force them into difficult situations even for their level. Doesn't always work, but I've defeated 4k's, 5k's, and 6k's in even games on several occasions.

I used to play Yugioh a few years ago (hey, laugh at me all you want), and overcoming the person-to-person play was pretty difficult since I'm pretty shy in real life, and I was dreadfully so back then. But I eventually got used to it, and defeated the player I idolized there. It was crazy that that happened. But the important lesson is to focus on the game and not whether your opponent is giving you the eye roll for your terrible moves.

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Slava Ukraini!

Heh. Sounds a bit like the day I realized I would play better if I assumed my opponent could see every trap I could, and resolved to just play the best line I could, without hoping for mistakes. I think I went from 12k-9k.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

compensation is a important thing to understand, it is the understanding that I'm not going to get everything on the board, so if my opponent gets this territory do I get an equivalent territory else where. Compensation is the opposite of greed. Greed states my opponent got this and I got this now I'm going to try my best to take what is rightfully his(usually for no reason).

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“I’m here to play go and chew bubble gum, and I’m all out of gum”- misquoted duke nukem

You forgot "and sometimes even 2k's" in this sentence. I assume you went up to Gamma this month?

it all brings to my memory the Tao Te King

"Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left
undone"

and

"A good soldier is not violent.
A good fighter is not angry.
A good winner is not vengeful
A good employer is humble.
This is known as the Virtue of not
striving.
This is known as ability to deal with
people.
This since ancient times has been
known as the ultimate unity with
heaven."

and

"This is called marching without
appearing to move,
Rolling up your sleeves without
showing your arm,
Capturing the enemy without
attacking,
Being armed without weapons."

how can you be successful not playing your opponent?
i dont understand...
if i dont know my opponent..i feel like a blind and very uncomfortable

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

By playing the best move available. If one can play the perfect game, one will always win. (I realize the impossibility of the statement, however, my point still stands.)

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My plan to become an SDK is here.

what is a perfect move????
if you know your opponent is weak at certain aspect of the game you can take advantage of it.
professionals study their opponent before the big game then are they wrong???
your point of view comes from an idea that every move can be catagorized by good and bad which is never true in this game.
you can play agressive or passive..they are both can be optimal and correct.
but if you are winning by enough margin and playing agressive game will be wrong.
if your opponent is good at endgame you must try to creat enough margin before the endgame.

you still think playing opponent is wrong??

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

You're right, but that has only happened once. And yes, I'm in Gamma IV now. I lost enough ASR games to get pretty high in the standings.

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Slava Ukraini!

On a sidenote: With bots coming closer to 6D (KGS) I think it is safe to say, that there are moves which are (at least statistically) better than any other moves on the board. And bots exclusively play the board and not the opponent.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

hey, guys! :) it's just two different points of view on Go. pretty equal. someone like to play against opponent and it's kinda psychology stuff; someone like play together with him just for Go; someone like to play with board like Buddha with no ego; someone can mix it; someone can't… why not?

in my case it's unstable: i lost many games coz of playing opponent's game and sometimes i hate this feeling "omg! i'm just trying to punish 'mistakes' and 'greed'! where is my own Go!?" but sometimes i like to feel energy flow and it's funny to see some character-related stuff on the board…

That Bots coming strong and strong reminds me the quote from Sakata Eio:

"Go is not about winning through brilliant moves, it is about losing through bad moves."

The basic step for becoming strong is find out the mistakes, and change it for right moves.

Playing the opponent certainly has it's place. After all, one doesn't have to play the so-called perfect game to win, one only has to play better than the opponent. I'm not arguing that it's bad, it's just that I think people should try and find the absolute best move available in a position.

I'm assuming that when Go is solved, yes I know that the chance is remote, that there will be one path to victory. You are correct in thinking that this may not be the case, however. Perfect play is something that will probably never be figured out, so for all I know there could be hundreds of thousands even millions of ways to win a game from the beginning.

Professionals do indeed study their opponents tendencies, and I don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing. It CAN be a bad thing in the game if they get too preoccupied with playing the opponent and not the board. If I were to play you, I would definitely study your games, especially your Malkovich games, but I would also focus on the finding the absolute best move that I could on my turns. That way, whether I win or lose, I can feel good about the game.

Another reason that people should play the board is that traps become easier to fall into if you are playing the person, since you have to guess what their weak points are. If you just play the board, and you assume that your opponent sees everything that you do, playing on their weak points isn't so important anymore.

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My plan to become an SDK is here.

Probably need (many more) zeroes.

I'd wager that you'd need more zeroes than there are atoms in the observable universe ...