Yeah. Spring break happened and summer vacation coming up warm weather in general less people online.

As always if anyone here ever sees me on KGS and wants a friendly game let me know your from lifein19x19 and we can play and learn together. Be prepaid to answer questions if I have them and I will do the same. Especially beginners. I know how hard it is to find someone to help out a first if your only place to play is online.

_________________
Nobody's perfect. Well there was this one guy, but we killed him...

Anyone have advice on analyzing your own games for a beginner player? I'm trying to figure out what my mistakes were, but it just seems like with stronger players my mistake was that I couldn't see 25 moves ahead.

Set goals when you play. OC, the ultimate goal is to win the game, but there are subgoals along the way. Then see how well you did in accomplishing those subgoals. If you did not succeed, see if you can figure out why. Even if you do not figure it out, it is worth the effort.

Good luck!

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

If you can consistently and accurately read 25 moves ahead, you can beat 95% of the people here. Did you mean 2-5 moves ?

Get your serious games reviewed, here or on KGS, etc.

I know they aren't actually reading 25 moves ahead, It just seems that way sometimes (e.g. I'll think an invasion should be killable and my opponent ends up making it live and my position collapses). Of course, there are also more simple tactical mistakes I make that you only need to see a few moves ahead to execute, but I'm better at finding those kinds of mistakes when I go over a game I played.

Have your serious games reviewed, here or on KGS, etc.

Thanks for everyone's help. I think I've seen the writing the wall at this point and I'm giving up Go in search of a different hobby (lots and lots and practice doesn't help me get below 30kyu, supposedly absolute beginner level, on OGS) but it's nice to know there's such a great community of helpful people here!

Hi GoRogue, You're welcome. Come back any time.

It's not uncommon for beginners to be a bit lost when starting to play 19x19 games. Why not focus on smaller board sizes for a while? (9x9 then 13x13)

Try to play against igowin. It's free, it won't judge you if you make mistakes, once you are more comfortable playing 9x9 then focus on 13x13 for a while.

Do not use OGS to measure your strength as a beginner as 30k there is very broad and includes many stronger players. Some (e.g. Bill) will say beginners shouldn't worry about rank but I can understand wanting to see a number changing to give feedback and encouragement of progress (I did and still do). Try KGS instead, though the beginner ranks there probably aren't as meaningful as they were a few years ago due to fewer players.

I heartily agree with this. Ranks on OGS are, I think, separated by much less than a stone elsewhere, since most people play correspondence games there. I would not be shocked if there were mid-level DDKs (say 15k) on KGS who were 30k on OGS.

I wouldn't be suprised if ogs 30k included literally everyone from 7d to actual 30k. It's like Tygem 18k.

Everyone says to try KGS, but unfortunately the client will not work on my computer. I think part of the reason I can't improve much is that I was never a good visual thinker. It's really too bad, because I find myself very drawn to games like chess and go, but I have 0 aptitude for them because my visualization is so terrible. Maybe someone has overcome this and can give me advice? Anyway, I'll probably get back into it later when I have fewer "real-life" responsibilities to worry about.

Dsaun frequently says he doesn't know how to read, but that he knows shape and can go into a fighting situation and be fairly confident that his position won't implode.

Well, you have to understand that when he says he doesn't know how to read, he means that he doesn't read as deeply as some other people at his level, or that he doesn't want to put the effort in to read more deeply. Obviously he has some expectation of the outcome of situations.

I hate to be trite, but it may be that you simply need practice. The more you play a game like Go, the more you will learn which shapes are strong, and which are weak. From there you can hopefully begin to read out a position. But don't expect that to come right away. Sure, there are some people for which reading out a position comes naturally; however, that doesn't mean that you can't improve with practice. I know I have!

This thread reminded me of what Catalin Taranu said in this interview

I remember the first question that came in my mind when I first discovered the game...
The question was :

With a position like that :

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +-------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . , . . . , . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . , . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . , . . . X X X |
$$ | . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . X . . |
$$ +-------------------+[/go]

is black territory that one :

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +-------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . , . . . , . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . , . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . , . . . X X X |
$$ | . . . . . . X ? ? |
$$ | . . . . . . X ? ? |
$$ +-------------------+[/go]

or that one

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +-------------------+
$$ | ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? |
$$ | ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? |
$$ | ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? |
$$ | ? ? ? O ? ? ? ? ? |
$$ | ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? |
$$ | ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? |
$$ | ? ? ? ? ? ? X X X |
$$ | ? ? ? ? ? ? X . . |
$$ | ? ? ? ? ? ? X . . |
$$ +-------------------+[/go]

and what about the white stone, is it a territory if there is a white stone into the territory ?


I was thinking at that (not so far away) time that two eyes was an advanced concept that I had to learn later...

This really deep understanding of the game helped me to complete quite fast the proverb : "lose your 50" (or is it 500) first games (against Igowin for me)...

_________________
Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

My answer would depend on what you mean by "visualization is so terrible". There's a lot of reading advice out there which suggests that you should be able to "see the stones on the board" as you're reading. I can't do that, not even a little. I've come to understand that this doesn't mean that I am not able to read out the patterns ... it simply means that I'm not processing the data in a visual manner (I also can't picture people's faces or visual details of a given location, no matter how familiar; this was an interesting quirk that led me to abandon my research into memory palaces since most memory palace advice I've read tends to heavily rely on the ability to picture a tangible, detailed location in one's head ... a feat I cannot seem to accomplish).

Having given this a bit of thought, I believe that I read on a go board in a similar fashion to reading a language (bear with me, I've never explained this before, and I don't know how accurate the metaphor really is). I learned (slowly) to read by starting with basic 2- and 3-stone shapes (akin to learning "letters" in an alphabet). Discovering the term Haengma and its implications really helped with this basic start to learning to read (for me, at least).

From there, combinations of basic shapes began to emerge in certain patterns, like ladders and nets (the "words" in my metaphor, or at least the more basic ones; consider these like the first words a child will learn). There are many variations and nuances to these, and to other similar "basic" combinations of shapes, but, like a child learning to speak, I don't know all the differences in usage and meaning.

Finally, basic shapes start to combine and affect other shapes across the board. Understanding these interactions is like understanding a sentence or paragraph in our new language, and is much more difficult. I can't say I understand too many of these right now. I'm still a child learning his basic words and how to use them.

With the above in mind, I tend not to "read ahead" in the traditional sense (or not very often; I find reading ahead very taxing, and frequently make mistakes because I "see" nothing). Instead, I read the board as it is and find whatever current meaning I can see. As I build my vocabulary, I learn new ways to use the words I've learned, and I add to the vocabulary I have with each game.

As you might imagine, this is an incredibly slow way to progress in skill. You will not reach shodan quickly using this method. I mean, I still haven't reached it, though I'm quite a casual go player, so I'm probably not a good role model.

So, that's my reading method. It would be interesting to hear comments on it, and on the metaphor. Fire away with your comments/criticism!

This might be one of the most useful posts I have ever read.