I'm Back From the Dead! (Huzzah?)

[Splatted]

I have a new goal: Relax more while playing. (With regards to winning/improving and getting annoyed at my opponent)

The reason I'm posting this now is because I just played a game where it was a problem. I was winning by a lot and then miss-clicked and so asked for an undo. My opponent refused and I was a little annoyed because it was obviously not a deliberate move and he hadn't answered it yet, but I know that a lot of people prefer to play without redos and I was still winning comfortably, so I figured I'd just forget about it and continue the game, but that's when I noticed that he hadn't said "hi" or "gg" at the beginning. For some reason this caused my mild annoyance to explode in to pure rage. I'm talking full on you-shall-rue-the-day rage, and it only got worse as the game progressed since everything became cause for annoyance. I now feel ridiculous, and it was obvious even at the time that all I was doing was spoiling the game for myself, so I'm posting this as a reminder not to be such a twat.

[Splatted]

I just played a 9x9 game in which I managed to create one of the most deadly shapes known to go: the B2 bomber. My opponent, of course, resigned as soon as it was complete.

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2012/9/13/Splatted-revok.sgf

Takes me back to a time when I didn't realise the b2 bomber page on sensei's library was a joke.

[Splatted]

I've just noticed something really weird: I only ever win as white. To find an even game where I won as black I had to go back to my first games on KGS when I wasn't rated and could only play DDKs. It's not just that I have a better record as white, I have literally never won against an equal ranked opponent as black.

This is particularly weird because I'm not winning because of komi and I've always felt it was much easier to play as black. Maybe it's this feeling of being at a disadvantage that makes me play better? I think I need to review some of my past games and see if I can tell what I'm doing differently. Has anyone else found that they win consistently more with one colour than the other?

[karaklis]

It seems that neither white nor black noticed that the B2 bomber could have been brought down with the Mighty Snapback Rocket, a very powerful weapon.

[skydyr]

It seems that neither white nor black noticed that the B2 bomber could have been brought down with the Mighty Snapback Rocket, a very powerful weapon.

Fortunately, it can drop its bombs on the group to the left before getting hit.

[Splatted]

The Snapback Rocket is too slow to hit the fast moving bomber, which has already put black's A4 group in atari.

[karaklis]

Indeed, only just in time!

[Splatted]

I finally won my first even game as black, so I thought I'd review it. It was a pretty weird game because after the first few opening moves, white just continued to make weak group after weak group. I think they were overplays, but they resulted in some interesting fights, and it was good practice because identifying an overplay and profiting from it are two very different things.

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=2091

[Christien]

I think you're starting to understand what the most important thing in go is. But just in case, let me clarify. Reading is the MOST important aspect of go and pretty much determines your strength. I noticed in your earlier posts that you said you needed help in joseki, endgame, ect. However, what you should focus on is Tesuji and Life & Death problems. Even if you're opponent has huge lead in the opening, with a strong reading ability you can still crush them.

Responding to your first post, I believe the reason people make gains after a break is because they learn to forget the principles previously studied and internalize them through trial and error. After attempting the principles through trial and error, you learn when to use the principles and more often then not you don't even think abut it. It just seems to come to you. Although principles are important, I believe by problems/trial and error are the most effective way to learn go. This is my theory of how professionals get strong fast. They do loads of problems and through trial and error then they learn when to apply principles they may have never studied specifically. Go reminds me of math. You don't get good at math by reading how to do the problem (although this can be very helpful to some), but by doing problems you get better and better.

Here's a review of your game, but take it with a grain of salt since I"m a just shodan and not that muh stronger than you.
7: Should be t K3 because even your opponent played L3 you still have a two space extension.
15: Good! But I think if you played the forcing move at O7 first it would be a more aggressive attack.
23: I think you should tenuki. A corner enclosure at P16 would be pretty big.
53: I like G17 better. Your group doesn't have a base and it's harder to pincer.
Overall good game. Your opponent made some bad moves and you took advantage of them well.

[Splatted]

Thanks for the comments Christian, I think you may be right about how taking a long break forced me to stop relying on learned theory and start making moves based on experience. Although my rank hasn't really changed much, I feel like I have a much better understanding of the game than I did previously, and I think that's mainly down to the fact that I've learned to rely more on my own judgement instead of blindly following joseki or adhering to principles. I've made mistakes because of that, but now I understand why they are mistakes, which I never did before.

7: Should be t K3 because even your opponent played L3 you still have a two space extension.

You might be right, but I felt that move at L3 wouldn't strictly need a reply after H3, and if I did decide to reply, extending towards the center looks satisfying in this situation. I also wanted it to be useful against a white invasion in the Q5 area, and L3 seems like the correct distance for that. If White hadn't enclosed the bottom left I would have wanted to play further out to support a possible approach move later, but since that wasn't really an option I wanted to focus on the right side.

53: I like G17 better. Your group doesn't have a base and it's harder to pincer.

This is the only comment I really can't agree with. Black doesn't have a base, but is thick and well connected, while attacking the corner and attacking the pincer stone seem like miai for F17. I think the best white could hope for is to live small with the cutting stone after defending the corner, but even that seems optimistic.

[Christien]

Woops you are totally right about move 53. My mistake I only briefly looked at the top of the board and didn't see it connected to your group on the right. My mistake I apologize.

K3 is better because if your opponent played H3 you can play Q5 or R5. I would favor Q5 because the high corner enclosure puts more pressure on the stone if it invaded at M3. And if he doesnt you could jump up at K5 which would be the ideal situation.

[Splatted]

That does sound good. K3 is definitely starting to look better than L3 now, but I think it's something I need to experiment with to really understand. Thanks for the help.

[Tami]

Responding to your first post, I believe the reason people make gains after a break is because they learn to forget the principles previously studied and internalize them through trial and error. After attempting the principles through trial and error, you learn when to use the principles and more often then not you don't even think abut it. It just seems to come to you. Although principles are important, I believe by problems/trial and error are the most effective way to learn go. This is my theory of how professionals get strong fast. They do loads of problems and through trial and error then they learn when to apply principles they may have never studied specifically. Go reminds me of math. You don't get good at math by reading how to do the problem (although this can be very helpful to some), but by doing problems you get better and better.

This is so intriguing that I cannot refrain from entering here.

I agree that reading strength is absolutely crucial, and there`s no doubt that pros can read far more deeply and broadly than ordinary amateurs. But I think you`re a bit offbase about principles. One mistake I have made and have seen other people make is to be too general-minded about principles, i.e., to think that "one size fits all". Reading through some of the MyCom books (a rather good range of mid-to-advanced texts by Japanese pros), I`m starting to see that many principles need to be applied in a very specific way.

For example, supposing you want to make the opponent`s 3-4 corner to prevent a shimari. Everybody knows that this is a good idea, on principle. But would you know when to play a low, one-space approach? Or when to play a high, one-space approach? Or when to hang back a little and use a high or low two-space approach? The answer would depend on the opposing corner and other factors. Ishida Yoshio explains some of the differences in meaning between these methods of approaching, in アマの知らない布石・絶対の急所 (The Absolutely Vital Points of Fuseki that the Amateurs Don`t Know). You could try to discover these differences through trial and error, or you could take a piggyback ride on a Honinbo`s shoulders.

The point I`m trying to make is that there`s principles (the proverbs and other sayings) and then there are thousands upon thousands of specific situations, but that`s not all. There are many "meta-principles" that apply only to limited situations, but which you have to get to know about. Getting to know all of these special situations takes a lot of effort. In other words, there is a time in every player`s life when they realise that re-reading Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go is not going to yield a noticeable benefit anymore, and that they`re going to have to start reading something...chewier.

It`s kind of painful, but sort of obvious really, to realise that neither adhering to the proverbs nor super-charging your reading alone is going to do the job. There`s a lot of extra knowledge that needs to be obtained, but which can only be found in "high protein" sources like detailed pro commentaries, hard-but-exhaustive dictionaries and the like.

As for your remark about people benefitting from breaks. I agree with this, but not for the reason you state. It`s not that people forget what they learn, but rather they assimiliate it into what they already know. It's like when you learn a new word as a child, and you use it all the time, but eventually you learn to use it appropriately. The psychologists call the process "relational memory", and it`s basically the bridge between acquiring something new and completing its installation. You learn skills, practice them and even walk away from them for a long time, but even while you`re unaware of it your brain makes connections and prunes bad connections. It seems almost like a magical process, but you know the experience of learning something with great difficulty and self-consciousness one day, getting fed up with and leaving it alone for a while, and then coming back to it another day to discover it`s somehow become much easier.

It all boils down to this: keep trying to learn new things, keep practicing with real games, and be patient, because it takes time.

[Splatted]

Interesting post Tami, I'm sorry I missed it earlier. I agree that go proverbs etc can be useful, but your point about how you have to learn to apply them properly is why I think forgetting them can also sometimes be useful. When I took up go again I found that a lot of the habits from my former life had survived, but now I have to consider these moves in terms of how they affect the board because I can't just say "this is Joseki" or "hane on the outside", or whatever. Of course, I should have been doing that anyway, but forgetting my previous justifications made it much easier to reassess what I was doing.

Your point about breaks being useful for consolidating what you've learned is interesting, but I think it really depends on the length of the break you take. In my case I'm pretty confident that there was more degradation than consolidation taking place.

[Splatted]

Tengen: My new playing style

I remember reading somewhere that komi is almost irrelevant to most kyu (or was it amatuer) players because their games are won or lost on a much larger scale due to mistakes in fighting. This seems pretty true of my games, and it got me thinking. Apart from the obvious stuff about how I need to learn to fight better, and to pick my fights better, it also made me reconsider what I should value when playing.

It seems to me that if the games are going to be decided by who wins the fights, rather than who is ahead on territory (except at the very end), I should be placing more emphasis on creating fights that favour me, and less on maintaining a territorial lead. With that in mind, I've decided to start opening with Tengen (possibly with either colour), because a stone that can be useful in fights that take place anywhere on the board now seems more valuable than taking a corner.

It may be a terrible idea, but I managed to end the losing streak I was on and have won both the tengen games I've played so far, so at least I've gotten off to an auspicious start.