Life In 19x19

Haven't posted a game in a few days, so on these 2 I really went all in with the reviews. I think. Well, there's a lot of words in them so.. Yeah.

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1309

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1310

I have been so unbelievably ...

Hi Mike,
Hope you are feeling better now. I thought the game with Zaragorou5 looked well played - you seem strong in the fuseki. Maybe it's the effect of playing Lee Sedol's games?

I kind of liked your heuristic about "Attacked by a non-territory gaining move, defend; if not attacked severely ...

I'm still alive! And haven't stopped, in case anyone reads this still

I've been pretty much unable to play a proper blitz game since the KGS server move. The server is so unbelievably laggy now, I just do not feel comfortable playing 10 second blitz.

In addition to that I had some kinda stomach ...

I'm beat right now. So tired. I should've stopped after the first game which was still ok. I'm actually just not going to post the second game.. And no, I'm not trying to hide an embarrassing loss, I won it, but it was too stupid to even review. My brains sometimes just switch off when they think I ...

Oh wow, time really flies with go doesn't it?

I came back from the gym around 9PM and figured I'd relax before my own games by checking out something to review in the KGS Teaching Ladder(I like to do this as their simpler games are a nice distraction and it helps people out in the process). I ...

Today I decided I would try something different in my games. If my goal is to play more like Lee Sedol, then I do have to start actually trying to play like him at some point. If I keep being my usual self, protecting against everything and being all boring.. I think it'll just get harder and harder ...

Oh balls. I tried logging into KGS at 11:01 PM to play my 2 games and it's down.. Wait, when did it go down? Oh, at 11:00 PM. Right. Down for several hours means I won't be able to play today.

The reason my games went as late as they did is I discovered something awesome from the internetgoschool ...

Topazg, I'll look into it(still not convinced I can remember anything from a screen though ). I think I have some program that already has that feature.

The blitzes continue to be a mystery to me. I went 2-2 in them just now and it's so odd. The 2 games I won were literally just easy, no other way ...

Ahh, you're right. I forgot that it was that move. I remember I got "tricked" by that move in Korea where it would've been better for me to close off the top side, but thinking he can only play a keima that I can block, I didn't. Bad memory, bad.

So, today my slow games went 1-1. First game was.. well, annoying, but you can read in the comments how I dealt with that. Second game was much more interesting, with my opponent taking his time to make his moves. It's far more fun to play a game where you feel like your opponent actually cares ...

One thing you may find useful Mike, is something I did fairly exhaustively when I was studying:

Load the game up in an SGF file, and run it through GOSWF (see m for an example), and try to guess the moves yourself, slowly playing out the game as you get them right.

That way, you're encouraged to ...

Not sure where the word skimming got into this. I said I memorize them. I can replay the first 50 to 100 moves, depending on when it got too messy to be meaningful. Skimming to me would be replaying it once, going "Huh." and then removing it and replaying the next. And even if they start fights and ...

I wouldn't know how to do that. Even if I spent a week studying 1 game I would never understand it correctly. Maybe they're just dodging events that are 10+ moves in the future? They both see it, react to it and it never comes to be, and to a "normal" person it appears they're making passive, weird ...

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1279

I don't know how to take just a position from an SGF file, so just skip to move 134.

So unless I am wrong somewhere I honestly don't see how it could be bad for the game to hang on my opponent needing to win a two-step ko where I have 3 ...

Huh.. I actually did not consider that at all. I looked it over briefly, but decided I had no liberties to do anything, but now that I looked at it again.. Neither does he.

I wouldn't call it foolhardy as it is a huge ko where white takes first and the other option is to not get anything up there ...