I need suggestions!

While my reading is still not as good as it could be, it doesn't seem to be the real weakness of my game.

After some review and some meditation, it seems like I don't really know how to use my tactics and turn that into an overall board advantage. I guess I lack a sense of direction in my Go.

Often early in my games, I see an interesting line of play and play it out. It usually dpoes not seem (to me) like too bad a line of play, at least locally. However, what I frequently find is that those local situations start to be dissonant ... my structures don't work well together.

I know, what I'm describing is "Direction of Play", right? Well, I suck at it.

I'm totally lost as to where I should start to improve this part of my game. Should I finally try and pick up a book (in this case Kajiwara's Direction of Play, if I can find it)? Are there a specific kind of tsumego I should look for?

I admit that I'm pretty lax on my Go study. Part of the reason is that I don't ever really know what to focus on ... so I just end up playing a whole lot of games and learning piecemeal from whatever comes up there. I have on occasion reviewed my games with stronger players, and have been grateful for their comments ... but I've never really felt like I've had a good study focus to keep me improving at a faster pace.

So, a question for my colleagues on the board ... how should I improve my sense of direction?

One thing is, to constantly remind you to check the whole board position. If you are reading out a local line of play (like an invasion), check the end result with the rest of the board - how does it look, how much influence does your opponent get etc..?
That takes some discipline, but avoids the pitfall of only seeing the local play.

Now, the next question is of course, how to judge a given whole board position. I don't know if there are any good books for this specific topic (i have "Direction of play" but not read it entirely, so i can't say how good it is), but the strategic decisions are probably most important in the opening. So any good book covering the fuseki should be a good start.
Whole board problems (fuseki, find the biggest move etc..) may also be a good idea.

If you haven't read it, i would reccommend "Attack&Defense". Not only is this a great book, it teaches not only the proper tactical ways of attacking and defending it also has chapters about the strategy. When and where to attack are probably sometimes more important than how to attack.

With this you might be able to start making plans during the game. (Attacking this weak group here and use the resulting influence to invade his side/make a moyo) These plans can act as a guideline when evaluating a whole board position.

If you are currently doing life&death/tesuji-tsumego, i would reduce the amount of time spent on these a bit. At least for me, heavily studying these local techniques result in more local play and less strategic thinking in my games.

But overall i find strategy in go still pretty hard and often feel pretty lost during the fuseki.

_________________
Magics way up the hill (personal study journal)

As is my pattern, I return to this journal after many months.

I have now reached 2k on KGS (though it's a shaky 2k, and I may flip-flop back to 3k a couple more times). Actually, I feel better about my style of play, lately. What I next need to work on, I think, is improving my reading. Right now it's good, but it's not great. I keep missing important branches, mostly due to impatience.

I can taste the dan rank! it's so close!

For direction, it might be useful to try to apply two principles:


1) Play from weak stones, i.e. turn them into strong ones
2) Leave strong groups, both your own and your opponent's, well alone

Just about every go manual I have seen in Japanese gives these pointers, and a certain not-unsuccessful fellow by the name of Yamashita says No 1 is the 'fundamental of fundamentals'.

Why not try them and see?

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

An interesting thought. Thanks for posting!

Ah, good old thread necromancy!

Hello again, folks! Every few months I decide I should try this whole "learning to become better" thing again, if only to find things to share with those of you who might find them interesting.

Brutal honesty: I'm a terrible student. I have never studied well in my life. All these study journals talking about the books they are reading and the problems they are working on make me a bit jealous. If I crack open a Go Book, I lose my attention span within a few pages. Go problems are a bit easier for me to work on, but I tend not to examine them too closely. This means I don't really get enough out of them. (I love puzzles, though, so interesting tsumego can keep my attention for a fair while.)

So, anyways, what am I going to do this time around? Well, how about I play more Go? Yeah, that sounds about right. Maybe I'll also talk about a few interesting subjects (3-3 invasions, ladders, nets, etc), in an attempt to urge myself to learn more about them.

Stay Tuned!

I've never been much for theory books either. Books with problems are fine, books for reference for joseki or tesuji or whatnot are fine, but theory books are boring. I think it's better to play lots of games and go over them carefully

This is probably the big thing I need to force myself to do. I might play a couple games tonight and go through them ... just need the kids to get down to bed.

Well, I dropped to 3k for a short period and just got back to 2k on KGS with my last game. Here's a position close to the end (I'm Black):

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c What can Black do?
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . O . . . . . . . . . . . O . |
$$ | . . O , . . . . . , . . . . . X X X . |
$$ | . . O X . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . |
$$ | . . X X . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . O X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . . O X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O O X |
$$ | . . X , . . . . . , O X X X X X O O X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O X O O O O X X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . O O . X X O O O |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . W . . . X X O . O O |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O O O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . X X X X X O O . O |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . O X . . X . X O O X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O X . . . X X X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O X X . X . . . O |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Here's what I did (hidden for those who like to guess):


And here's the full game. Beware ... my play could be described as ugly and terrible in many places.

here is what i selected as next move in hidden

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

Thanks for the idea, MW!

Your last diagram is what I expected to happen, so your move is definitely something more interesting to consider.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc What can Black do?
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . O . . . . . . . . . . . O . |
$$ | . . O , . . . . . , . . . . . X X X . |
$$ | . . O X . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . |
$$ | . . X X . . . . . . . . 1 . . . O X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . O X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . . O X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O O X |
$$ | . . X , . . . . . , O X X X X X O O X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O X O O O O X X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . O O . X X O O O |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . W . . . X X O . O O |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O O O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . X X X X X O O . O |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . O X . . X . X O O X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O X . . . X X X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O X X . X . . . O |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . O X . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Without reading any further this was my first instinct ^^

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Thread Necromancy!

Hailthorn recently pointed out that he'd reached his 1000th game. I was curious to see what my stats might look like.

I'm going to be generous and say I've played 30 games on a real board. That just leaves my KGS games. Using the KGS Analytics page, I see:

1122 Wins
1208 Losses

Add them all up ... 2360 games so far. Not far to go to reach 2500!

I'm currently back at 3k on KGS. A little bit of work will be needed to get back to 2k, I think.

Joined the ASR League again. Hope it helps to get me back in shape a little.

Ok, I'm back.

Been a long while. Apparently I'm floating at 2k KGS right now, but I feel very weak. My play feels like it's full of holes and that I'm lucky to eek out the wins I've obtained.

Question to anyone who wants to answer ... is there a standard response to the following (which I don't actually think is joseki):

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc What should Black do?
$$ ---------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 8 . . . . . . .
$$ | . 7 4 1 9 . . . . .
$$ | . . 5 6 . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . .
$$ | . a . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 3 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . ,[/go]

I ran into this early in a recent game (colours may have been reversed), and couldn't for the life of me figure out what I should do ... I decided to play at a, cutting off , but is that a reasonable choice? What other options should I consider?

Hi Marcus, you have two ways to atari = .

Var 1. sente, at a local vital point of B's shape:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ---------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . 4 X . . . . . . .
$$ | . O X O O . . . . .
$$ | . 2 Q X . . . . . ,
$$ | . 3 1 X . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . W . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Var 2. Broken shape for :

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ---------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . O X O O . . . . .
$$ | 6 1 Q X . . . . . ,
$$ | . 4 2 X . . . . . .
$$ | . 5 3 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . W 7 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Which to choose probably depends on the global situation ?
( Var 2 seems stronger for B locally.
After you sacrificed the extra ,
it seems to me a bit of waste not to take advantage of . )

Ed, your var 2 is Black's "refuted" line for the trick play, and var 1 is the "tricked" line. Note that Black has sente in var 2.

Hi Shaddy, thanks. Originally, I had a question about
Whether is sente in var 2, but I wasn't sure,
so I left it out of the post.

I had missed the throw-in :

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W tenuki; takes the ko
$$ ---------------------
$$ | 6 7 8 . . . . . . .
$$ | 3 2 X 9 . . . . . .
$$ | . O X O O . . . . .
$$ | O B O X . . . . . ,
$$ | 5 O O X . . . . . .
$$ | 4 X X . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O X . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Thanks, Ed and Shaddy!

It's things like this that I'm sure I used to know ...gonna be a long path to reclaim a lot of those memories.

Of course, I've forgotten a number of bad habits to, right? (Here's hoping, anyways )

Note that Ed's first line is used when this shape comes up in a 5-4 joseki, without a pincer stone to wrap around.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Is there a reason this wouldn't work, assuming the direction is fine?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc
$$ ---------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 9 . b . . . . .
$$ | . 7 4 1 8 . . . . .
$$ | . . 5 6 . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . .
$$ | . a . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 3 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . ,[/go]

Followed by blocking on whichever side is largest, at A or B.