PeterN's Study Journal

[PeterN]

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through about three quarters of Graded Go Problems for Beginners III
Games Reviewed: None
Other: Continued reading Get Strong at Invading

Dropping down a level of book has definitely made things feel better, and I'm even reading the majority of the life/death problems out to the conclusion wheras I think before I got to a certain point and thought 'it's got to go well for me from here'. Not sure if that feeling is just an affect of the mental beating the last book dealt to me.

Very few games played this week and none reviewed.

Finally continued reading Get Strong at Invading, I still have next to no idea of this topic whatsoever but I've got to be picking some of this up by osmosis at least. One move really surprised me and I would never have considered it. Player has a 3-4 knight's enclosure and extensions on both sides, make a dog face shape urgently. I've always tried to attack this sort of thing from the sides, and might be why I sometimes see large "unstoppable" moyos appearing.

PeterN

[EdLee]

Player has a 3-4 knight's enclosure and extensions on both sides, make a dog face shape urgently.

Diagram, please ?

[PeterN]

Player has a 3-4 knight's enclosure and extensions on both sides, make a dog face shape urgently.

Diagram, please ?

Um... yes... a diagram would have helped

$$
$$----------------
$$...................|
$$...................|
$$...X..........X....|
$$......X.........X..|
$$..............*....|
$$...................|
$$...................|
$$...................|
$$...................|
$$................X..|
$$...................|
$$...................|

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$----------------
$$...................|
$$...................|
$$...X..........X....|
$$......X.........X..|
$$..............*....|
$$...................|
$$...................|
$$...................|
$$...................|
$$................X..|
$$...................|
$$...................|[/go]

This is the position I was describing. I've only partly replicated the position, B had some further strength in the lower right and W had the opposite areas.

If B only had the stones shown in the diagram above (and I had something in the lower right) my current method of attack would be two intersection below B's lowest right hand stone.

PeterN

[EdLee]

$$W
$$---------------------
$$|...................|
$$|...................|
$$|...X..........X....|
$$|...,..X..,.....,Y..|
$$|...................|
$$|................a..|
$$|...................|
$$|...................|
$$|...................|
$$|...,.....,.....,B..|
$$|...................|
$$|................1..|
$$|...................|

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$---------------------
$$|...................|
$$|...................|
$$|...X..........X....|
$$|...,..X..,.....,Y..|
$$|...................|
$$|................a..|
$$|...................|
$$|...................|
$$|...................|
$$|...,.....,.....,B..|
$$|...................|
$$|................1..|
$$|...................|[/go]

If B only had the stones shown in the diagram above (and I had something in the lower right)
my current method of attack would be two intersection below B's lowest right hand stone.

B's lowest right hand stone is -- Do you mean and ? Or do you mean and (a) ?
Either way, your wording and thinking -- "method of attack" -- seem strange.
These are B's areas of influence. You, as , want to jump in and "attack" ??
No -- you can reduce or you can invade, and either way it is you who will be under attack.
You just try to minimize your own suffering from B's assault on you.

[PeterN]

I do mean the circled stone and 1 would be my normal method of "attack". A better way of stating it would have been my way of tackling the moyo that B's building rather than attacking it, I fully expect any stone I play in the area to come under attack.

If I was intending to play inside the sphere of influence (before reading this book) I would probably have just lobbed a stone down somewhere vaguely in the middle of B's area, probably only after B had got a few more moves to expand it, and then squirm, and die.

The book lists the stone I marked as B and W as an urgent point to stop/make the moyo solidify, but is one I would have considered too close to B's stones.

PeterN

[EdLee]

Hi Peter,

$$W
$$----------
$$.........|
$$.........|
$$...aXc...|
$$...d.,X..|
$$....1.b..|
$$.........|
$$.........|

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$----------
$$.........|
$$.........|
$$...aXc...|
$$...d.,X..|
$$....1.b..|
$$.........|
$$.........|[/go]

is a standard point because it offers W options, including (a) and (b).
Depending on the global context, is not the only choice for W's local first move -- W has others as well.
( Just a few days ago, there was a pro game where W played at (c) -- of course, the whole board situation was entirely different.
Others please correct me, but I seem to remember at (d) was one of Go Seigen's ideas. )

A better way of stating it would have been my way of tackling the moyo that B's building rather than attacking it,

Yes, that's much better, because to attack has a specific meaning in Go
which can be rather confusing for many beginners
(see this thread, post #19, a mis-understanding of "attack". )

[PeterN]

Can fully expect it to be the standard point, I just had never considered playing so close until reading that problem in the book. I guess I'd eventually have picked up on it monkey-see monkey-do style, but who knows how long that would have taken.

The book mentions D as the move for reducing the top preferentially, but was a bad idea given the specific board context.

I did at least have no intention of actually attacking the moyo

And I'm now just recently noticing a new problem in my games, I'm beginning to run out of time and even lose because I didn't notice the clock had run out (that will teach me to pay attention...). This never used to happen, I always used to have tons of time left!

PeterN

[PeterN]

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners III (95.25% correct)
Games Reviewed: None
Other: None

The book felt much easier than I remember it being and some of my incorrect answers were silly mistakes where I should have taken a bit more time, hopefully that's a sign of improvement and not memorisation so I will go back to a harder book again next week I think. It took the full ten days I go for in the two weeks to get through this book.

Been a busy week for me, so not had much time to do much else other than tsumego and play a few games, learning stuff for my new job has to come first.

Standing by my midweek comment on time, more of my games are ending up in byo-yomi, I appear to have stopped blitzing and/or playing on hope quite so much regardless of time settings.

PeterN

[PeterN]

Tsumego: Started reading 1001 Life and Death Problems again
Games Reviewed: 1 lost game, 1 won game
Other: Continued reading Get Strong at Invading

Back to the harder book in tsumego, though not yet far enough into it to be feeling the difficulty yet.

Both games reviewed were on the ASR League, the lost game was reasonably played aside from a tendancy to take small moves over big moves, and boy did it hurt my score on that one. The game I won I so should have lost, making four unconnected groups in one area.... Two of which were outright weak, and the other two while not weak as such could still have forcing moves played against them

Oddly on the invasion point not many of my games recently seem to have much in the way of viable invasions come up, lot of games were most stones are on the 3rd line.

Also saw a link the other day to a KGS analytics thing so I can actually see how well I'm doing instead of looking at a long list and going on gut feeling.

Win Rate: -

December: 55%
January: 49%
February: 71%

Something seems to be working, even if I'm not completely sure what

PeterN

[PeterN]

Progress Report: -

New rank: 5 kyu!
Tsumego: Continued reading 1001 Life and Death Problems
Games Reviewed: 3 lost games
Other: Finished reading Get Strong at Invading

Finally I made it back up to the dizzying heights of 5k, and this time I want to keep the rank rather than lose it for something like three months!

For some reason I seem to be going much slower on the tsumego this time round on the book compared to the last time, although I have a little under half the problems wrong compared to that time more or less (not at the exact problem number listed last time, so can't be accurate). Not sure if this is personal bias or not but I seem to be using reading less lately as I think I'm finally pulling back from my insane aggression of trying to kill things using multiple eyeless baseless groups, of course this has led to a couple of games where I've played hyper solid and slow and just lost on points. That brought back memories of my weaker DDK "style" and I'm thinking my play represents a pendulum with no mid-point at times.

Three lost games reviewed this week, once again all on the ASR League, one really showed severe mistakes in yose (plus a horrendous game losing misread) and a second was one of the hyper solid games (yay for a 1d not being able to kill my groups).

Did get shown a nice little invasion point which I must have seen before as once he started playing it the sequence popped back into mind but I had completely forgotten about it, and don't think I've seen it used against me for a long time as I rarely enclose high.

$$
$$.......|
$$..W.W..|
$$...B...|
$$.......|
$$.......|
$$------

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$.......|
$$..W.W..|
$$...B...|
$$.......|
$$.......|
$$------[/go]

I don't know how long it has taken me but at last I have also read through Get Strong At Invading. This was simply a read through it, attempting to answer the questions, but having no real expectation of getting them right. Aiming or hoping to just put a general sense and some vague concepts into my head which can be built upon later. I still think I have no idea on this topic, but I am at a lesser no idea than before (or should that be greater no idea ).

PeterN

[PeterN]

Tsumego: Continued reading 1001 Life and Death Problems
Games Reviewed: 1 lost game
Other: Started reading reading Get Strong at Attacking

I took a break last week from doing any studying, so didn't update then, and this week was also a bit slack, but some progress was made. The good news for me is that I didn't immediately lose my 5 kyu rank this time

I am currently on 409 problems completed and 21 of those wrong from 1001 Life and Death Problems, little else to say on tsumego.

I have started reading a little of Get Strong at Attacking, unlike the other book this one I can at least come up with ideas for what to do instead of staring at the pages blankly and guessing on almost pure chance when I started looking at it... not that my ideas are necessarily right.

Played a few games I liked this weekend, the first being this one: -

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2014/3/21/fraukuchen-PeterN.sgf

And then there was this game which was reviewed completely to my surprise by Guo Juan! (I'm assuming my opponent is one of her students or something)

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2014/3/22/snip-PeterN.sgf

From my side the main comments I received on this were: -

1 - Overshadowing so much of the game was the B group at the top which should have died and was only saved at move 217! I didn't notice the lack of two eyes in the corner so ignored it

2 - I do not know the josekis for the one and only fuseki I play as B, taking the corner with S16 on would have been correct.

3 - Trying to make stones work together but leaving dual invasion points with is not a good idea, should either have gone at the corner with a knight's move or pulled back an extra space.

4 - I let W live too easily at the top and should instead have hane'd to the left, though he should live regardless.

5 - I don't know how to respond properly to the common invasion of and should have played on top instead of J3.

6 - Poor play on the lower left group, though W failed to punish well.

7 - Assuming I wanted to kill the W stone, which I did, then S2 should have been played at Q3 for move , however I got lucky and W failed here.

8 - At S6 instead of R6 would have connected and saved me from running for far too long with a weak group.

9 - At I saved an irrelevant stone and ensured my group was heavy.

10 - The invasion at move 113 was good, though slightly misplayed.

11 - Move 123 had a nice tesuji at S15 which would have been really good to play given the group is on the verge of death.

12 - The invasion at 137 was again good, though I felt I needed to respond a few times before I could follow up on it or risk dying.

13 - I also have a bad habit of extending when atari'd when I could capture which I didn't even know was a bad habit. Two examples in this game at and 115 but it's a standard thing for me to do.

PeterN

[PeterN]

Tsumego: Continued reading 1001 Life and Death Problems
Games Reviewed: None
Other: Continued reading Get Strong at Attacking, Started reading Invincible

I'm now at 572 of the tsumego problems completed, with 48 of them wrong. The problems here are now very much painful stone by stone reading trial and error, instead of seeing a likely area to start from, which I'd have little chance of pulling off in a game as it's too slow. Not to mention most of these I would probably assume there was no way to live/kill in the first place.

No games actually reviewed this week, though I've started reading Invincible and playing out the first three games in that, it's amusing how a comment along the lines of "This is just too painful" makes me think "Didn't even realise that was bad".

Only a little progress into Get Strong at Attacking.

PeterN

[PeterN]

Tsumego: Continued reading 1001 Life and Death Problems
Games Reviewed: 1 won, 1 lost
Other: Continued reading Invincible

I feel like I'm going backwards.

PeterN

[PeterN]

Starting out badly and getting in a worse and worse mood and obstinately keeping on playing is not a good thing to do....

Calm....

Calm....

Sleep always helps though

PeterN

[PeterN]

Tsumego: Continued reading 1001 Life and Death Problems
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games
Other: Continued reading Invincible

This week I'm feeling in a much better place than I did last week, why does this game have to feel so frustrating at times and make you feel like you've forgotten everything?

I'm now at 806 problems completed with 90 of those wrong. Still getting a reasonably similar proprotion of them wrong as in the last couple of weeks, or at least not improving, but it's no longer feeling quite so arduous. I think I've gotten used to the difficulty level of them now.

I haven't played too many games this week after last week's disastrous day, and none of them have been lost, so none of them reviewed. I reviewed two of the lost games from last week, both of them lost through sheer not reading, seemingly not caring, and just playing untennable attempts to attack with a near dead group... that promptly became outright dead.

Played through another two games from Invincible, not really trying to actively learn from it per se, just playing through the stuff and hoping some of it enters my mind through osmosis.

PeterN