Learning to fight please help

[otenki]

Hey guys,

For some time I've been trying to learn how to fight but without any success.
This is a game where I loose pretty badly because I fail to fight my way trough his teritory.

Maybe I should not be fighting my way through his teritory but it felt like there was no other chooice.

Oh and I'm white.


Thanks in advance,
Otenki

[p2501]

There are several good books about what fighting in go is about and how to do it.

Attack and Defense, by Ishida Akira and James Davies
Get Strong at Attacking, by Richard Bozulich
Kato's Attack and Kill, by Kato Masao
Master Play - The Fighting Styles of Kato Masao and Seo Bong Soo by Yuan Zhou

Fighting in go is all about strengths and weaknesses of stones/formations/groups.

[otenki]

Thanks for the tips on the books.

I read attack and defence but I did not gain that much from it.
Most of the idea works on players that are about my strenght but when I play stronger players like the one in this game all of the theories don't seem to work anymore.

I'll give the other books a try to see if I can improve my fighting and style a bit

Thx,
Otenki

[p2501]

Judging from the posted game, it didn't look like you were trying to play a fighting game. In the game it was almost always you who had the weak groups. One thing led to another...

In order to fight properly, you would have make your own groups strong (in a natural way and not by playing slow moves) and try to force your opponent to create weak groups. For instance by making peaceful solutions in local situation unattractive for your opponent - fighting will ensue naturally.

Master Play - The Fighting Styles of Kato Masao and Seo Bong Soo by Yuan Zhou reads very well and is not very theory heavy.

[otenki]

"For instance by making peaceful solutions in local situation unattractive for your opponent "

Nice idea, I'll try if I can find a way to do it.

I've read the sample page through for that book and it indeed seems to be the kind of practical ideas that i'm looking for. I think this will indeed be the next book I will try to read.

Thanks !

Otenki

[Bill Spight]

A few comments.

[golem7]

When I look at your game, a strategical decision seems to be the reason for your loss. I think it was much too early to pull that stone out of the ladder. In the process you only gave black many points of secure territory as well as overwhelming thickness on the lower side of the board in exchange for a group that doesn't even make or destroy territory and can still be attacked. This is a big advantage for black and after that you just get pushed around because of blacks better position.

Maybe you shouldn't only focus on fighting itself (although that's always fun), but also on better choice of fights. Always make sure that you profit from a fight, before you start one, be it influence, territory or a kill.
If you can't read it out the fight will probably be better for the one who is behind, so if that's you then go wild But if you're ahead it is better to minimize the risk involved in complicated fighting. In an even position it's just a question of personality, I guess

One piece of practical advice although not directly game-related: if you have a weak group in the vicinity of your target, just spend a move to strengthen it. It makes it so much easier to start invasions and stuff, if you prepare like this, because you won't get your own groups into trouble. Also, if your opponent spends a move to defend the threat (e.g. invasion, pincer, cut), that just means you've strengthened your group in sente, maybe even made some points and can take the next big point.

I hope you can take something out of this.
Cheers

[otenki]

Hey!

Thank you Bill Spight & golem7 for pointing to some more practical reasons for why I'm loosing these games. I think I agree with you that I'm picking the wrong fights and that my direction, strategical decisions seems to be off.

I'll try to focus on this more instead of the fighting itself.

Many thanks!!!
Otenki