Tabemasu wrote:
It's really important not to play things that people tell you are good, but you don't understand.
I think that like many weak players, there's fairly little that I actually understand, and when I do understand something, it's often fleeting because a real understanding often involves remembering quite a few of the specifics of the situation and even with a fair amount of repetition, these specifics have a high tendency to blur. Lately, I've been trying to combat that, by trying to learn less at a time, for example one variation of one joseki.
Given the number of positions in go, this can be described as the "drop of water on a hot stone" strategy. Given a million years, I might get somewhere with it.
Recently, a fellow taught me one variation of one handicap joseki, and I've been playing it every chance I get. Occasionally, my opponent will play the variation I know, and I get thickness facing an extention, and this is something that not only have I been told that it's good, but it's something that I vaguely know what to do with. For this situation, I can fall back on a so-called principle, and when for example my opponent invades, I might not know which move to make, but I have a good idea of my intent. I'm going to push him towards my thickness and make something on the outside while doing so.
This is the sort of thing that has less trouble wedging itself into my memory, and explains the seductiveness of a nice principle.
I think a number of teachers are aware of this - shall I say - sdk mentality. I don't think they are out to get us, but rather they deign to cater to our limitations. Ideally, they will also press us to move beyond them, and as you suggest, become more independent thinkers capable of making our own judgements.
But how do we take this step? You write:
Quote:
For instance, if you're not comfortable with the result after reading it out or reviewing the game afterward, think about what you could play that YOU think is good (or at least even.)
Comfortable with the result? I'm practically never comfortable in a go game. The only results that I can comfortably judge are the disasters - and even those I can't accurately judge, because I've seen how stronger players have milked what seemed to me to be disasters for enough drops of advantage to fill their victory cups.
When the result isn't so clear cut, I find myself gasping for a principle.
Recently I've been studying the last chapter of Yilun Yang's
Fundamental Principles of Go. It involves showing a typical formation, and a few typical ways of dealing with it. I'm doing my damnest to understand the sequences he presents, questioning whether the moves that he says are sente are really sente. I know from experience that sdk responses to invasions are never as concerned with fixing cutting points than he seems to be. This means, that the sequence is only worth remembering, if I understand and remember what damage the cuts can do.
But back again to my original question. To me, there's one type of result that basically look the same throughout the whole chapter despite Yang's nuanced evaluation: One player lives with +/- a stone or two of territory, and the other gets thickness on the outside. Is anybody comfortable with this? Not me. Did w make a steal? Did black? Maybe after the game while reviewing, I'll see that the result of the territory/influence exchange was better or worse, but I'd really like to know beforehand what I should be looking for.
No doubt Robert will tell me which chapters of which of his books to read and re-read, and in fact I did just re-read this from page 57 of
Joseki 2 Strategy:
Robert Jasiek in Joseki 2 Strategy wrote:
A player's influence is created by his live outside stones and has a greater impact on other intersections the more
*easily friendly stones there can be connected and get life,
*eaily the player can make territory there,
*dificult it is for opposing stones there to be connected and get life and
*difficult it is for the opponent to make territory there.
Is he out to get me?
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daal
at C14, 
and 
wrote:
He got me.