Middlegame Tactics

[Annihilist]

Generally when I play, I have a solid fuseki, and a decent endgame. I'm decent at both, I think. But I struggle in the middle game, and quite often I lose because one of my large groups die or I fail an invasion and, while struggling to keep it alive, give my opponent 20 or so free stones.

Overall, I find the middlegame difficult to understand, and I'm not good at it. I don't really know why. So this thread is for a discussion of improving one's middlegame.

[hailthorn011]

Generally when I play, I have a solid fuseki, and a decent endgame. I'm decent at both, I think. But I struggle in the middle game, and quite often I lose because one of my large groups die or I fail an invasion and, while struggling to keep it alive, give my opponent 20 or so free stones.

Overall, I find the middlegame difficult to understand, and I'm not good at it. I don't really know why. So this thread is for a discussion of improving one's middlegame.

I think my terrible fuseki is why I have a difficult time in the middle game. But maybe Attack and Defense could help you with your middle game.

[skydyr]

I have to second the recommendation to read Attack and Defense if you haven't already. It's a good introduction to how you attack, how you defend, and how to keep groups from becoming weak, or take advantage of them when they do. Where the opening is all about setting up groups, the middle game is about the interplay between them. This is guided by relative strength and weakness. A lot of the middle game is also about making sure that you don't encourage your opponent to weaken another of your groups globally in response to your locally good move, and similarly, trying to force your opponent to weaken one of his groups in the process of saving another, so you can roll from position to position attacking and reducing around the board.

Studying shape can also help, to some degree, since bad shape creates weaknesses even if it gets a couple more points.

[Phoenix]

"Attack and Defense" re-seconded.

[Joaz Banbeck]

One of the biggest causes of losing groups that I have seen among kyu players is the tenacious defence of stone that should just be abandoned. Any time you have an urge to defend a loose stone or two, ask yourself how much it would cost you to lose it. Then see if you have a move elsewhere that is bigger. ( Keep in mind that it is usually gote for your opponent to capture - and gote for you to save it. )

[Annihilist]

One of the biggest causes of losing groups that I have seen among kyu players is the tenacious defence of stone that should just be abandoned. Any time you have an urge to defend a loose stone or two, ask yourself how much it would cost you to lose it. Then see if you have a move elsewhere that is bigger. ( Keep in mind that it is usually gote for your opponent to capture - and gote for you to save it. )

This helped a bit, and Attack and Defense (whether you are reffering to the concepts and/or a book) is definitely worth a look for me. Thanks guys

[EdLee]

I find the middlegame difficult to understand, and I'm not good at it. I don't really know why.
So this thread is for a discussion of improving one's middlegame.

The usual suspects include (but are not limited to):
- shape problems
- reading skills
- direction problems
- tesuji problems
- life-and-death
- capture race
- ko
- important versus unimportant stones
- positional judgement
- counting skills

Instead of discussing all these issues in the abstract,
get your serious games reviewed, one by one (by good teachers/reviewers).
This is one way to find out where your problems lie, what are your weakest areas.
Only when you realize where your problems are -- specifically, not abstractly --
will you start to understand why you are not good at the middle game (or any other parts of Go).
Then, you work on fixing these problems, one by one. This is one way to improve.

[otenki]

-> as I'm not so strong please take my comments with a grain of salt.

I totaly agree with Ed on taking the more practical aproach by letting a stronger player review. Howhever I do think I can give a few general tips to try out and get better.

I personaly almost never get to endgame so I'm not so good at it. And my fuseki/joseki is terible because I find it hard to read things in the beginning. Joseki can be really hard to read for me.

Howhever usualy I make it up in midgame against players of the same strength.

I did a few things to get better at midgame:

-My first tip would be NOT to read attack and defence before you can read decently. There is no point in learning how to make profit while attacking if you do not understand the vital points of groups. Attack and defence will not tell you. Do learn what a splitting and leaning attack is though.

- Like it! Do not feel scared or frustrated when someone is attacking, take the oportunity to read well and see if this attack is not from a weak group so you can counter attack. Looking at a few games of Kato Masao helps
- Try everything out. Some players will (especialy around 2-5 kyu kgs) tell you that lots of stuff you do is not by the book. But go is not that simple and especialy in midgame you just have to read a lot and see what works. Even if it looks wierd to those who only play on pattern recognition.
- Play on the tygem server, this forces you to fight everywhere and always. Even in endgame.

My last tip is maybe a bit controversial but I would like to give it anyway:

- Play lots of games where you try to capture a big group. This means playing very agressively and read a lot. The controversial thing about it howhever is that it can become a bad habbit. You will not think about profit anymore but just about killing. Nevertheless I think it is a step you must go through before you can attack to make profit instead. The reason for it is that you don't know what the killing moves are to threaten if you did not go through the first process. And in that case if your oponent can read the move well enough then he will ignore and counterattack for example.

I wish you all the best on your midgame journeys

Cheers,
Otenki

[peppernut]

One of the biggest causes of losing groups that I have seen among kyu players is the tenacious defence of stone that should just be abandoned. Any time you have an urge to defend a loose stone or two, ask yourself how much it would cost you to lose it. Then see if you have a move elsewhere that is bigger. ( Keep in mind that it is usually gote for your opponent to capture - and gote for you to save it. )

I have simliar weaknesses as the original poster, and I just want to say that Joaz's advice is good ... but it also applies to *groups* that should be abandoned.

You will lose stones, and you will lose groups. Finding a way to use the aji of those groups to get something else locally, or take sente to tenuki, and you can lose fights and still win the game.

[Uberdude]

One of the biggest causes of losing groups that I have seen among kyu players is the tenacious defence of stone that should just be abandoned. Any time you have an urge to defend a loose stone or two, ask yourself how much it would cost you to lose it. Then see if you have a move elsewhere that is bigger. ( Keep in mind that it is usually gote for your opponent to capture - and gote for you to save it. )

I find it rather ironic that Joaz said this now, as although it is true that hanging on to stones that should be sacrificed is a problem, the reverse can also be true. For example right now in his Malkovich game against Magicwand he just sacrificed some key cutting stones.

[Twitchy Go]

I really need to echo the idea of getting your games reviewed. Recently I was able to get a high dan to review a few of my games(and even play a teaching game) and he was able to show me a problem in my play. Apparently I'm very bad at choosing/handling reductions and invasions. Once he pointed it out, I could see why this was an area of my go that was losing me games and can now work on it.

[Loons]

I think this phenomena I notice in my own games is related:

"But I was clearly winning! How did this fight I lost even start? I will find my mistake."

...

"Oh, I played thinner than I could handle here, which is retrospectively why I looked like I was winning by so much".