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 Post subject: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #1 Posted: Thu May 21, 2020 8:06 am 
Dies in gote

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Can you recommend a Go pro, whether classical or modern, whose games are particularly instructive?

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #2 Posted: Thu May 21, 2020 9:32 am 
Gosei
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Instructive for what?

Shape, fighting/power, flow, living in small places, moyo games, opening, endgame, ...

For starters: Every pro will play (on average) every move better than an amateur would, so I guess - in this sense - every pro game is instructive.

From ye olde days: Otake Hideo was said to have an "easy" to understand style for amateurs, if I remember correctly.

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #3 Posted: Thu May 21, 2020 11:30 am 
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Thank you! This is hard for me to grasp as a beginner. I come from chess, and I have Elo 2260 there. Games of position players like Anatoly Karpov or Magnus Carlsen are easier to understand than games of players where the board is regularly on fire ;-)
But how I should express this in Go, I just don't know.
But thanks a lot!

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #4 Posted: Thu May 21, 2020 12:46 pm 
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In that case, then Otake is often mentioned as a good example. Mid-late 20th century Japanese games are often a bit calmer, while the more recent play by Korean and Chinese players fits the "board is on fire" theme.

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #5 Posted: Thu May 21, 2020 1:47 pm 
Honinbo

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jumapari wrote:
Thank you! This is hard for me to grasp as a beginner. I come from chess, and I have Elo 2260 there. Games of position players like Anatoly Karpov or Magnus Carlsen are easier to understand than games of players where the board is regularly on fire ;-)
But how I should express this in Go, I just don't know.
But thanks a lot!


Had you asked that question 5 years ago, I could have recommended Otake or Takagawa. Unfortunately, in the AI era of go, the bots are better at positional play than human pros. Much of the positional go wisdom accumulated over centuries, well, isn't. It's not that the bots are scrappers. In fact, they attack less in the opening than humans did before they arrived.

The good news is that all today's top pros are learning from the bots. So they are playing nearly perfect openings, as far as we can tell. :) I don't know who to recommend, but look at young 9 dans and see who you like. Maybe someone who plays a lot of games that don't end in resignation.

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #6 Posted: Thu May 21, 2020 2:33 pm 
Oza
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I understand the idea and I applied it myself, using Otake Hideo as an example. However I'd say that it's only mildly useful - if at all.

When you look at pro games, their opponents are pros too. Your opponents are other beginners, so even if your play emulates a pro's play, the positions will soon resemble anything but a pro game, so you're left to your own resources, with hardly anything to imitate.

Can I recommend dwyrin's "basic" series, where this high amateur dan plays all sorts of opponents from DDK to low dan, trying to win by keeping it basic? There you will learn which of the moves your opponents typically make, are wrong and how to capitalize on their mistakes by sticking to a way of playing that is rooted in the fundamentals.

Like:
- take big points
- connect your stones
- surround the opponent
- make shape (and he shows what shape means)
- attack to make profit
...

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #7 Posted: Thu May 21, 2020 2:54 pm 
Honinbo

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Knotwilg wrote:
I understand the idea and I applied it myself, using Otake Hideo as an example. However I'd say that it's only mildly useful - if at all.

When you look at pro games, their opponents are pros too. Your opponents are other beginners, so even if your play emulates a pro's play, the positions will soon resemble anything but a pro game, so you're left to your own resources, with hardly anything to imitate....


Nothing against either Knotwilg or Dwyrin, but I disagree with this. My main study, aside from my own reviews and playing around with positions, has been the study of pro games. If you mean monkey-see-monkey-do imitation, then yes, your weak opponents will take you into unfamiliar territory where that does not work. But if you mean programmatic imitation, which is concerned with goals and means and which generalizes and adapts, then learning positional play by studying and imitating pros (and bots) can be very useful. Sure, sometimes, maybe often at first, you have no clue where to play, but such situations will occur less and less often over the months of play and study. :)

Good luck!

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #8 Posted: Thu May 21, 2020 5:53 pm 
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It is my experience that studying professional games, if you are under 5k, is an exercise in frustration made more insufferable by layer upon layer of incomprehension. As others have said, you’re not a professional Go player. You may aspire to being REALLY REALLY good in a few years but you will never be a professional. Emulating professional moves without playing against another professional is a waste of your stones.

If you want to reach the dan levels, just relax and be a beginner. The toughest part of beginning go, in my opinion, is unlearning everything you know about western games. If you are an expert chess player, your approach to chess will only prevent you from understanding go.

Enjoy the trip. Work at it. Study. Learn the basics. Build your experience. Allow yourself to lose many hundreds of games without getting emotionally attached to your score or rank. Find a teacher if you want to advance quickly; you cannot do it on your own. With every small advancement you make In your comprehension of go, you will need to deal with the realization that you know nothing about go. It just keeps getting weirder and better.

You can enjoy discovering how interesting go is or it can make you nuts.

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #9 Posted: Thu May 21, 2020 6:36 pm 
Gosei

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I think that you, as a beginner, should focus on feeling connection between stones that are not close together. I also suggest looking for balance for your stones on the board. In this AI era balance is not as valued as it was 10 years ago but it helps you to see the relationships between stones. You might get a lot from Yilun Yang's book Fundamental Principles of Go. I think his way of explaining things would suit a chess player.

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #10 Posted: Thu May 21, 2020 6:44 pm 
Honinbo

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You might like this advice. :)

https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?p=245951#p245951

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— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #11 Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 3:13 am 
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My best advice will be the books from yuan zhou. He chose very cool games with a lot of comments. you will learn something from every games.

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 Post subject: Re: Looking for instructive pro Games
Post #12 Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 5:54 am 
Gosei
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jumapari wrote:
Thank you! This is hard for me to grasp as a beginner. I come from chess, and I have Elo 2260 there. Games of position players like Anatoly Karpov or Magnus Carlsen are easier to understand than games of players where the board is regularly on fire ;-)
But how I should express this in Go, I just don't know.
But thanks a lot!


I know the feeling in reverse ; )

I dabbled in chess a lot and once even took it seriously with playing tournaments, getting a teacher... and analysing master games. I found the (apparent) lack of foucs while going over these games baffling and even if you never hear, that you should memorise the games of past masters, there is a kind of underlying assumption that you should remember a lot of situations nevertheless.

Maybe because I'm more used to it but I prefer the more focussed way of going over professional go games and even shogi games ("japanese chess"). In the latter - to my limited understanding - games and players are sometimes studied just to learn from the way certain pieces move.

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