As an example I will show you a game I just played.



By move three I was thinking "what the hell? How do I respond to this?" Some moves at first glance appear so stupid, however it quickly becomes apparent one cannot react by playing normally. In this game I found myself slipping away from the upper hand in the game. I was totally confused and had no idea what either player was doing, and less so my opponent's aim.

I fear I have slipped into a style of playing which relies entirely on memorised strategies and lines of play - a very conventional kind of play. I do not like to trust myself to the game, preferring to trust strategies and sequences I study or whatever. I tend to "over-joseki", for example, and I struggle when required to deviate from the sequences I have memorised. Rather than devise my own strategies or use my intuition, I tend to play mostly preconceived and established lines of play - and I run into a lot of trouble when playing against radically unconventional opponents.

Has anyone else done the same? How did you overcome this kind of mindset? Any higher ranked players have any advice?

Thanks

At your level you don't really need to care about any strategic meaning of those weird opening moves he played. Just focus on the basics of connecting, making strong shapes etc. and you should do fine. But you are right that such unconventional play can help reveal the superficiality of our understanding of Go.

"Baby steps - you're too young to understand"

Regarding the game posted. Are you sure you were losing it?

Takemiya mentioned this in one of his lectures. His attitude toward the game is a very positive, optimistic one and he said that if he comes across an opponent who plays something strange and new he takes joy in it. "Hey, I've never played this way before. This should be interesting." I think that attitude, more than anything else, will help. In games like this, and really in all games, it's important not to worry about losing.

I think other trap we fall into when encountering play we have been taught is suboptimal is looking for punishments that are more severe than are warranted by the position. A lot of strange-looking plays only lose a little, are often self-punishing and are often---if they are mistakes---much smaller mistakes than the blunders that can occur later in the game due to reading errors.

You should track this opponent down and try to get another game. Enjoy it!



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Why ask for advice if you're just going to criticize the advice you receive?

And your simplification of Uberdude's advice completely omits the ramifications of his advice.

In the game you posted, black's strategy is basically asking for a fight. By concentrating on connection and shape, you make it harder for black to get, or win, that fight.

I hope you didn't take my post negatively. What I mean is it is a hard question for me as a 3 dan to work out some special strategy to deal with those strange first moves (other than just play normal opening moves which is probably a pretty good strategy anyway). But if I played that opponent spending 2 seconds per move and not caring about them at all I would crush him. Why? Because I am stronger my basic shapes will be much better so he will just collapse in all the local battles and it doesn't really matter that he has a stone on 8-7 or where ever.

And as snorri says that game seemed fine for you, but the sort of shape problem I talk about is move 24 at f4: you create a one point jump from f6 which he has already peeped at e5 so he can just push through at f5 and cut you. Instead something like g6 looks good: a strong connected shape which hurts g7 and attack both those black stones on the lower side on a large scale. Or c8.

No no, fair enough. But it seemed condescending to imply that I don't need to worry about the strategical intention of my opponent's moves in this particular game. I don't think you intended it, but nonetheless that's how I read it.

I was interested in why someone would play like this - what is the intention, what is the aim and what is the reasoning. Because by deviating so radically from conventional play, it is difficult to understand these things. By understanding the aim of these moves, one can then discern how to react to them. I do care about the strategical meaning of such moves - regardless of my level, I feel it is important to understand them.

Edit: In hindsight, it seems apparent he only wanted to make square patterns. Looking through his game history I think he was a troll. So maybe there was no strategical purpose.

I would tend to agree with uberdude. The issue is that your opponent probably doesn't really have a aim other than to not play conventionally - there could be many different and non-mutually exclusive aims for move 3 (e.g. psychological, aggressive, centre-oriented) that discussing it at anything more than a superficial level will in effect be a treatise on Go in general :p You really can't discuss the aim without the basics to back it up.

Fair enough

i think players at least somewhat understand the basics at around 1-dan level.

Before that level, strategy is not very important imo. My case in point is how young kids from China just plop down stones randomly and can still destroy most kyu players by just shape, tesuji and fighting.

In game example you showed your opponent will have a harder time making his stones useful and you'll have an easier time making them useless. So if you stick to steady & regular moves it will be easier game for you (and harder for opponent).

For example, move 14 you can go ahead and finish surrounding a corner. White get strong corner, Black useless stone, and White options to develop both sides.

Stones have ways to form most efficient use. Weird moves like this can be easy to over concentrate stones or show them as too far apart or weird distance to work well. This is more advanced way to think about abusing them.

I can understand your feelings of being patronized. And its a quite common feeling when hearing such phrases as "At your level...". But its not intended, really. Its just that it turns out to be quite true that at beginning levels, its just not yet important to worry about what might appear to be some more advanced topics. Even at higher levels, it often still the common advice to focus on the basics.

I think snorri's post was the best in the thread so far. Take a positive attitude and have fun with it.

So what exactly are the basics.
like ladders and nets?

or one point jumps and diagonals?

or tiger mouths and bamboo joints

or influence vs territory?

Also i feel like I don't count liberties often enough and i think this is a big reason why i'm not very good at fighting.

This just seems like a good place to ask for a more clear idea of what the basics are.
Cause I do hear that a lot. And I would like to work on them. It's just I"m not sure how.

hahaha... I asked this very same question (and I think for the same reason) not long ago...
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6897

I'm not sure I got enough of a consensus to call an answer.

I actually really like this post.



this and the way edlee said something like "The entire way I used to play before was thinking the wrong way."

Makes me want to try playing a few games just by seeing stones and groups as "has one eye vs has two eyes" and also "How can i stop this group from having two eyes" or "how can i split this group in two and still get an eye"

Idk it's hard to explain.
Like have my moves focus more on the status of stones instead of territory.
but yeah this is a good thread. thanks.

One thing that the early game is really useful imo at move 15 is to see "the central illusion". It looks like B has really made a lot in the centre, but even if you just give it to him, it's 25 points inside and a) W has more than that on just the bottom and b) B's other stones aren't doing anything.

I feel like the one good easy thing to take out of this game (I'm a big advocate of the "learn one thing from each game" school) is the basic corners->sides->centre, and that on move 16 instead of heading for the centre you could just play another move in one of the corners or the sides and you're already building a big points lead. Even if you play the slow-looking move C16 to obliterate the C17 stone, you've scored at least 10 points, which is half of the value of B's centre demonstration and it will still take him as many as 4 moves to seal off that territory.

When you play K6 there you are agreeing to give B the game he wants.

I love games like this. I try to play unconventional when I can, as I feel it challenges me more in understanding shape and opening theory more than studying set pieces. It's one of the reasons I would love to see Robert Jasiek play a Malkovich, because he also seems to like pretty unconventional moves. I think seeing two high dans going at it, one a conventional player, the other an unconventional one, while explaining their moves, would be amazing.

As for your specific game, I think others have already touched on the essentials: He was more center oriented at first, so you should have focused on corners->centers->side; and that focusing on connection and shape would probably have made it an easier game(note: I only saw the first 50 moves of the game or so, and my strong point is not reading).

As for your question of "Why do people play this way?", I think I've already answered in my opening lines. Let me elaborate: One of the reasons I jumped from chess to go, was that I felt too cramped in opening theory. It seemed to me that if you did not follow one of the conventional opening lines, you were basically one or two steps behind.
I felt that creativity in Go was much more rewarded, and that you could basically never play an identical game amidst 300. Now that I've advanced a bit, I know more about the set opening lines in Go, but still feel they are not as definite as in chess. You can still play around with them a lot.
That's one of the things I love about the game, and that's what gets me to try and play more unconventional lines.

I assume some people might just do it to intimidate/trick opponents, but if if you keep your calm, and play your normal game, it can be a learning experience just the same. So, don't dismiss unconventional players just because. Play them, stay calm, and beat them(and/or learn from them).

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a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

I forgot to respond to this part.
For the most part, I never had that problem(although lately I've been playing sanrensei a lot. Probably should switch it up more).
However, the best way to overcome this type of mindset, in my opinion, is to just play out of your comfort zone. Go to senseis and pick one of the unconventional openings like the great wall, or play tengen as first move. If you feel too anxious about doing this in your main account, create a new one to experiment.

If you do try this, try to think more in terms of shape, connections and eyespace, rather than joseki lines. It might also help if you're a good fighter/reader, as unconventional lines usually depend a lot on fights.

_________________
a1h1 [1d]: You just need to curse the gods and defend.
Good Go = Shape.
Associação Portuguesa de Go

Personally I think that up to move 15 Black expresses a pretty cool idea for White to try to counter. After that Black convincingly demonstrates that he lacks the skill necessary to carry it through consistently. However, the original framework looks pretty neat and I can understand why White felt pressured in this game. Basically I am with snorri and Phelan, take these things as an opportunity, a challenge to think outside of the box. Think about what your opponent seems to want to do and how to counter it. Consider the position neutrally, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the stones and how can you shape your play based on it? Games like this should be a pleasure - at least you don't have to worry about forgetting the things you studied since none of them covered anything like this!

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

Sometimes that is not necessary. If he wants to make less territory than you then let him have his way