One of the things that occasionally makes go infuriating is that a moments lapse of concentration can make an hour of otherwise good go utterly meaningless.

It's not necessarily a matter of playing too fast, its just that over the course of a relatively long game, my mind just wanders off at one point to less strenuous things, and poof *

I guess I just feel like complaining, because without the ability to muster up the mental stamina to withstand a prolonged assault, all of my thought, knowledge and skill are worthless.

I think this is the main reason that I'm stuck rank-wise.

*sigh*

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

Possible, but maybe not certain. Need to confirm with a high-level teacher.
But yes, important to have the stamina for a 3-hour+ game.

This continues to be a problem with me as well, though not as badly as it used to be. A year ago in tournament games I wouldn't even be able to read simple variations at the end of the game, which would lead to me just blindly playing defensive moves and losing a lot of points. Even now I have trouble toward the end of the game reading out even reasonably simple variations.

Are long games where you lose concentration the only time that you are spending that long on concentrating on Go for a single session?

In my case this was true and I'm trying to treat it by either playing longer games online or doing longer problem and study sessions, analogous to what I would do if I were running a longer running race than I were training for. When I go to a tournament and play 3 games in a day, that could be 6 hours or more of Go--longer sessions elsewhere seems like the only way to stop my performance from totally deteriorating.

ETA: I guess I'm prejudging what you are saying as a fatigue issue, because that's what it is for me.

Yes, that's the same way I treat it.
It's also the reason why I don't do a lot of easy problems anymore. You solve them so quickly that your brain just shuts down after a while and then you stumble. It's better to chew a bit on the harder (but still possible) ones and train your focus and concentration.

Another thing that helps me is replaying professional games. Replay it with the book, clear the board and look how far you can remember without the book. (I start to get confused between 50 and 70 moves ^^).

And yet another thing: Ladders! Gather ladder-problems and lay them on the board and read them all the way to the end. You will need a lot of focus and concentration for the harder ones.


Apart from that: Rank-wise I think it's more important to know when to concentrate. That's why I do so many problems. I don't want to drain my stamina to read a common corner-shape. That's why I try to get a fundamental grasp of the opening because I don't want to spend too much time and energy on the first douzen moves.
Play solid and get in the middlegame, that's where "our" games are decided ; )

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Read a heavy book*. Something which takes a lot of concentration to read. I find that always helps me with my concentration, as well as my thought process. I'm always better at go, at thinking and at writing, when I've been reading more frequently.

*heavy in content, not in mass.

I guess you could be right. I certainly still make plenty of weak moves, whether I'm concentrating or not. And also my opponents must lose concentration at times - though it does seem to happen to me a lot.



It's partly a fatigue issue with me as well, though that seems to have gotten better over the years. In my case I didn't train like you suggest, but instead just kept playing more games until I got more used to the mental stress. Nonetheless, what I notice is that my attention level isn't constant during a game, and at some points, I find myself thinking about something unrelated to the task at hand. Sometimes this happens after I've played a sequence that I'm satisfied with, sometimes it happens when my opponent takes a long time to think.



I'm not sure about this knowing-when-to-concentrate thing. Sure you can save mental energy by playing a familiar opening or recognizing and remembering certain shapes and patterns, but... don't you still have to concentrate the whole time?



I've been trying this a bit. I got out my daughter's math book and read it for a while, but then I figured I might as well be reading a go book. I've also been reading a Thomas Mann novel which does take some concentration. The nice thing is that when my mind starts to drift, I can just put the book down and go to sleep and it's still there where I left it the next day.

In short, you all seem to be right, that the mind needs exercise in order to maintain a high level of attention over a longer period of time. On the other hand, playing is exercise, and I've certainly done a lot of that. I suppose that losing concentration from time to time isn't particularly abnormal. It's just aggravating to see victory snatched from your hands while you were daydreaming.

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

Yes, you're right (I've phrased it too astract), but as you said, if you play something familiar you save mental energy. Saving means you can later spend that amount, right? =)

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

I study on the university here in the Netherlands and follow some tough mathemathical courses. The exams we have to pass are all three hours in length. One thing I have learned over the years is, however difficult or easy the exam might be, to have a break after one and a half hours. I eat an apple, look around and consciously not think about my exam. This way my mind can rest for a bit and, more importantly, I can release some of the stress and judgements I had and look at the problems with a new and open mind.

I've never used this technique in Go, but if you find yourself struggling after a particular point in the game, maybe it's good for you to have a small break after let's say 70 moves? Go rules allow it.

For me loss of concentration manifests itself a little differently. I tend to start making my games, "more interesting", sometimes at the expense just playing solidly for the win. This tends to happen before I rank up, after which, I tend to lose on time. Consequently, it isn't a big deal, but I don't play what would be considered long games.

An idea I have been considering is counting the number of variations I read out, or developing some sort of meta search criteria. Say pick three places on the board find the best move I can read out then compare the three positions.

It happens even to top pros I think. Fujisawa Hideyuki for example, was known early in his career to lose won games at the end to an upset because he made a mistake or oversight. After Go Seigen had the accident he couldn't concentrate well either. If you feel your concentration slipping, get up and walk around a bit, maybe go make a cup of tea and clear your mind. This works in longer games, which is what I gather you have difficulty with:)

It happens to me too, of course. But sometimes you just have to slow down and stop making instinctive moves. Try reading, only reading 2 moves ahead is better than not reading at all. Force yourself to read a little bit, or wait until you can. Refuse to play move when you have lost concentration. Go and regain it

I dunno if it's good advice, 'cause I'm not l337 at go, but I wonder if my philosophy from these days might apply: the 80% rule (based on a japanese saying).

Too often in the past, i try to go all out on something. Maybe it's a diet. I try to eat like 700 calories a day. Works for a few days, I snap, then i binge eat and gain ten pounds.

Or i decide to study korean or japanese. I study intensively for hours after work a few days, snap, then don't study for weeks.

Hence, the 80% rule. don't go all out. try to do 80% of your "best" so you don't snap.

so when you need to conentrate in a game of go, don't overdo it. concentrate at 80% power, and don't snap.

who knows if it works, but snapping and binging can't be that good. consistency. yes.

_________________
be immersed

IMO, every player has the psychological problem of occasionally lost concentration and then making a blunder. This dimension of psychology exists besides strategy, tactics and time management; therefore one should not blame one's current playing strength to only one's psychology.

IMX for real world tournament games, the blunder rate is about 2~3 for a strong kyu, about 1 for a 2d~3d, about 0.5 for a weak 5d and approaching 0.1 for a strong 5d.

The human mind wants to make errors in order to relax. Overcoming the problem requires more than an error-handling procedure, because a player can forget about both avoiding blunders and performing an error-handling procedure. In the process of creating a next move, one needs a sort of relaxing moment before executing the move. A moment at which one's mind comes to rest, feels happy about having a move candidate but also is free of the urgency to place the stone down immediately. Then one has a chance to reflect the candidate before executing it, even if an initially intended error-handling is missing for the potential blunder.

Another similar type of blunder is not related to lost concentration but is related to the arrogance "This is an easy decision, I do not need to verify strategy and tactics in this obvious case.". Circumstances can always become non-standard, and the usually obviously correct move might be wrong in the particular context. Abandon your arrogance and verify each move in the global context before making it. A locally correct move can be wrong globally.

It's not perfect, but regarding this type of error, I've found waiting to remove the stone from the bowl until after the move is decided can be quite helpful.

You may also consider playing in a style that doesn't require as much concentration, or that reduces your opponents ability to concentrate, IE avoid those razor edge games altogether. For example some of the "Bean scattering", light sabaki, high miai, probe oriented and tenuki based styles are fairly robust to local mistakes and make it difficult to concentrate on any one position, I think you have to concentrate at some point in time, but maybe not the entire game.