I've recently gone into a phase of playing lousy go. I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but part of the reason seems to be that I've been playing not to improve, but mostly just for time-passing, and my playing accounts have drifted up to 6-7k without my particularly caring. This does however seem to have the up-side that I've developed a bit of distance to my go-player self, and instead of agonizing over my losses, I've been somewhat dispassionately observing what I'm doing and thinking about when I'm playing.

Partly inspired by another thread, it occurred to me that what I've been observing are my bad habits, and as they say, recognizing a problem is the first step to getting rid of it. Here is a list of some that I've observed:

1. Not paying attention to what my opponent is planning. It's not like my opponents usually know tricks that I don't - it's just that most of the time, I'm only thinking about what I want to do. I know the tesujis that my opponent uses to ruin my positions, but unless I immediately recognize one, I just go on thinking about my own devious plans.

2. Not reading. I'm not talking about something wildly difficult or over my head, I'm just talking about simple situations. Asking myself before playing: "will this work or not?" Too often, I don't.

3. John F. mentioned this recently: Sometimes, I do read, and after determining that a sequence doesn't work, I simply bang down a stone elsewhere.

4. Allowing myself to get discouraged too easily. One foul sequence, one partly trapped group, one big opponent framework and my heart sinks. Resilience is a great quality in a go player - I don't have it.

5. Playing thin. Too eager to get my stones all over the board. See 1-4.

+ not looking at the whole board, not counting, rote use of old ideas, getting bored and antsy after making a bad move, failure to remember a sequence I've studied etc., etc.

On the bright side, many of these are conquerable ills and would be solved if I were to consistently take my time and be a bit more methodical.

How about yourself? What are your bad habits - and have you managed to eradicate any of them?

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Patience, grasshopper.

That's better than a habit of mine of reading a sequence doesn't work and then playing it anyway.

My single biggest problem at the moment (I think/I've been told etc) is following my opponent around. Playing the game as if it was a case of gentlemen waiting for the other player to run out of sente moves before taking their turn. I'm working on it. Another issue was letting myself get sealed in really easily in exchange for a handful of points on the side. Again, working on this one.

1) A few habitual responses that are simply bad (had a new but obvious one pointed out to me by Uberdude a few weeks ago)

2) Laziness - If it looks sort of like it works, I play it. If it doesn't, I play something else. The only thing I read in detail is when I'm already in trouble and playing for L+D.

3) Apathy - I just don't care enough about the result. When that inspires me to do creative things and learn, that can be a good thing - at the moment, it just leads to not being interested enough. I stopped playing on OGS because I was just wasting everyone else's time (particularly Uberdude who was kind enough to review every thrashing he gave me).

4) Fortitude - My resilience is low at the moment. See the magicwand game on here that just finished for an example. When a really bad sequence happens, I just go on tilt in frustration.

Guilty of all of the above

Since my favorite bad habbit is not on the page i'll note it also... maybe other people have this one too:

- Underestimating your oponent. First part of this is just slacking when i'm the one who is giving handicap and as a result loosing The second one and a lot more serious for my go is if my oponent plays bad moves my responces usualy are just as stupid. Instead I should just "ask questions" to the stone played but I tend to forget it. I guess its kindoff an intrinsic habit I need to get rid off

Cheers,
Otenki

- Getting angry. I'm an ambitious person by nature and I don't like to feel inadequate. Go sometimes makes me feel stupid, especially when I get demolished by a stronger player, and sometimes I just want to flip the table and stamp off in an almighty huff.

- Fear of fights. I'm terrible at reading so I tend to not pick fights if I can help it. Instead I stay in my comfort zone by concentrating on building frameworks.

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Poka King of the south east.

I have the opposite, I tend to always get into fights, even when they don't favor me. Maybe we should play sometime, then we can even out the scale

Only sometimes?

I have a tendency to get angry too, in no small part because it seems that things that work for my opponents suddenly don't work when I try them.

Oh, here's another one: my "basic instinct" is to play a hopesuji.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Oh my... where to start?

1. I often only read common vital points and "standard moves".
2. I rarely search for the best move but take the first move that seems to work.
2a. I often reply to moves the most obvious way wihtout looking for a way to gain one or two points in the process or end in Sente.
3. I miss a aweful lot of details when I read something, like liberties, illegal suicide moves or Ataris. (Not quite a bad habit but just poor skill, I guess.)
4. I don't bother checking my sequence again when I'm a few moves in... Leading to a lot of inferior results since I often miss some details when reading ahead (see 1.-3.)
5. I play too often by patterns, not checking what the right move would be overall.
5a. I tend to focus too much on the local result, neglecting to check the global context.
6. When getting an inferior result, I often lose patience, which leads to decline in concentration, to frustration, and ultimatively to the dark side of the Force.
6a. I generally am too emotional attached to certain results. E.g. fighting Moyos makes me always feel behind.
7. I don't bother to check the status of my groups if it's too complicated to do so in a couple of seconds ("It'll live somehow!").
8. I play too few games.
9. I waste too much time kibitzing, reading/writing on forums or KGS' chats instead of really studying Go.
10. I still love Go despite it kicking me in the nuts since 2009. Quite pathological.

post scriptum:

11. I never count

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

You about summed up my situation. Last night I played a great game, and I thought I was back on track on ward and upward but this morning I couldn't sleep so, I decided to get up then play a game. If somehow I could resist the temptation to play when I just want to relax, but why do I want to play in the first place? Sigh...

I think part of my problem is the days are so short I can't get exercise in its dark by the time I get home, and I want to play more go, so between not being physically ship shape I am also prone to casual games.

Hi,

great topic, I often have the same problems. I think by eliminating 2), 3) and 1) (in this order) I could become threes stones stronger. I'm currently trying to tackle these bad habits one at a time by taking small steps and hope to gain the right momentum. By my personal experience this should work out if done over time. My previous attempts were less successful since I did not have enough time to continue this path.

Wish me luck,
mic

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Go is easy: don't play bad moves.

I found an interesting bad habit in my play recently, and now that I know it's there I keep seeing it pop up (too late, of course).

The situation I first noticed it was a group of about 8 stones separated from a living dragon. It was partially formed territory that my opponent eventually got a stone on both sides of. The question was, did I have to play to keep the stones connected now, or could I play a big point elsewhere? If he played right in the center, he could approach the stone from the outsides, and I could read I'd only be able to block 3 of the 4 paths for him to connect it out and cut. "unless...", I thought "With those blocking moves I can put the center stone in atari! Then he'll have to escape and I get a move to block the fourth possible connection!" I very carefully read that yes, no matter how he approached I'd get the stone in atari and played the big point elsewhere. Then he started the sequence towards the atari and I quickly realized I'd been correct about the atari, but I was in fact chasing the stone into the final connection. It was too late to save the stones, and I went from a healthy lead to a loss.

What I did, and what I keep doing, is breaking reading questions into simpler questions, and once I answer the second question I confuse the sensation of having read a question in the affirmative with the sensation of having answered the question that actually matters. In the example, it was painfully obvious that the atari would lead to the connection anyways, but once I started thinking about "can I get that stone into atari" I forgot what the actual goal was. I'm trying to conciously ask myself after reading now "yes, but did you answer the original question?"

About the 'not counting' habit; I saw in the old MagicWand vs Araban-thread (yes, I've read them all, lol), that Araban started to count when the status of groups was more or less settled. I think (at least!) this point should be recognised in any game and as a very good moment for counting. Then, before yose starts, you know if you need to apply mutual damage, play a risky invasion or some other risky moves.

My biggest problem is that I tenuki in local fights too often. I have a good whole board game (left-handed, says it all ) and I see where I want to use my sente for, so sometimes I take sente without having it, which leads to complicated situations. On the other side, this complicates the game for me and my opponent and I think opponents are not used to the kind of style I play, so that's a win for me.

The second 'problem' is wanting to squeeze every advantage out of a situation, even when I am ahead. For example, not defending in yose after a hane and counterhane on the first line. Sometimes this leads to the loss of big tails etc., but if I read that the opponent can not do anything there, then I just won't defend, even though I can give up sente easily.

My worst habit is the fact that I can't stand losing a game. I haven't managed to eradicate that one yet.

I'm also afraid of making mistakes, so I take alot of time and the result is that I sometimes lose in byo-yomi because I don't have enough time to read out a sequence.

That does sound like an annoying habit. How do you develop your game? I take slumps as opportunities to branch out a little. I think it was Takemiya who recommended that one approach the game some what scientifically and introducing new ideas into their repertoire, even if initially they lead to sub optimal play, then evaluating the results later.

Okay, most of the time. Sometimes I see it the same way I see science; like a vast universe full of secrets that we are able to discover, and I find that more inspiring than discouraging.



This. Times infinity bazillion.

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Poka King of the south east.

I've become aware of another bad habit. This one has to do with how I read. I've never been particularly good at it, constantly struggling with the visualization of stones, but what I've started to notice is that when I come to a capture, I often simply don't read any further. Obviously, a capture is not necessarily the end of the story, but some childish anti-go mechanism in my mind tells me that running into an atari means that that line has been read far enough.

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Patience, grasshopper.

1) Not reading well (or deep) enough to get me out of some sticky situations
2) Still friggin' missing snapback setups!!! (see 1...)
3) Trying too hard to get something in all over the board and ending up with more weak groups than I should.

On a positive note, I've finally started counting more often and that seems to be helping. I finally read Cho's counting book (4 years after hearing a pro recommendation for it...) last month. At this point, the basic concepts were more practice than eye-opening but I think it reminded me that I only need to win the game by 0.5 points, not 10, 20, or 40. So that's helped me play a "better" when I have secured a lead (as long as it isn't an imaginary lead).

Bruce "Revolutionary Self-Critic" Young

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Currently reading: Plutarch, Cerebus, and D&Q 25th Anniversary