I have a hypothesis on this: if you try to keep the game close, you will win more often.

Reasoning: the better you become, the closer your games become (at your level). So, if level is correlated with close games, you might be able to use the correlation for reverse causality. HAHA!

Seriously, making the game close requires keeping track of the score. When ahead, it will force you to play thick moves that keep the advantage in a close way. And you should usually not drop behind too far.

The "close game" comments remind me of something Myungwan Kim said. During a game review with at last year's US Go Congress, he suggested the following strategy: If you're just a few points behind, don't actively try to make up the difference. Instead, avoid big mistakes and try not to fall further behind. Wait for your opponent to make a big mistake, and then take advantage of it. Having a small lead is probably the most uncomfortable position during a game, so the chances of your opponent making a big mistake are pretty good. Myungwan said that, based on his experience, this strategy works extremely well until you get to high-level pro play.

Just something to consider.

Well this last week I played a mixed set of games - I had a few more (not so close wins) and I was feeling pretty good until Friday night.

I got my clock cleaned - three straight losses. One I was outplayed - the other two bleh - not too close but I could have won with a bit more reading. The losses continued today - another two games down - one was a 3 stone handicap that I did not play aggressively enough - then had to make an impossible invasion to win. Handicap games as white I feel are pretty random - and pretty hard I feel around 9k (seems like there are a lot of solid players stuck around the 10-12k level. I only really feel bad because the ipod dropped out after I resigned so it appeared I was being a sore looser. I did manage to log back in and quit - but it left a bad taste.

The other loss was a close one - I need to review it still but I felt I played ok but not good. My count was pretty good though - but I need to practice it in game when I can so something about it.

I played a club match today (a special treat thanks to Australian Father's Day being tomorrow - as an Australian father of to US citizens I enjoy dual fathers day citizenship). In any case I won! A 6 stone handicap against a AGA ~1? Kyu. Having played my fellow club members a few times however it's hard to tead too much into the rank or handicap - I know their styles too well.

Anyway on to the game:

Game 13:
The blood dimmed tide is loosed: Some good play, massive blunders (on both sides!), tenacity , stupidity, victory!

Sounds like good practice I really need to learn how to count the score fast and keep track. I swear it takes me about 5 minutes to count the score once right now. :/

Dr Straw has a series of lessons on counting (linked at senseis http://senseis.xmp.net/?SteveFawthrop%2FCounting).

I as usual took a shallow dive in order to skim the cream (or maybe just the dead fish) off the top. I've been using his suggested method of counting by pairs and rounding up to 50 to judge where I am in the game - it's been pretty good so far - but I need to count more and more deliberately (at the moment I see that I have a couple of minutes left, or that my opponent is counting, and so I count - I dont stop to count as part of my game)

Dr. Straw also has more on the value of solid versus potential territory and how to estimate the difference- but for now rather than eat the whole elephant I've been working on one thing - just counting in the first place.

I seem to recall that Clausius (sp?) also has a couple of you tube intro lectures on counting and territory.

I saw your post about how to estimate the value of a move- that I suspect come naturally with dan-dom. One quick thing that can help if you are short on time is just to estimate the relative size of your territory (group x ~ size of group y+z etc). Even if you cant count exactly this can let you gauge where you stand.

Game 14

Fun game - I played much better than usual and beat an 8k. Nice little ko at the very end.

The highlight of this game was definitely the sacrifice tactic you applied at combined with the grand hane of
Suddenly the game is up for wraps.

At move 111 you seal the game by making life for your corner group.

Of course there is still a lot to say about the game. There were a few missed chances, especially for White, and you may want to learn from those. See commented game.

Thanks again knotwilg - in particular the sequence at 35 is one I commonly play so it's good to have that corrected.

Thanks for this, S2W. I looked Dr. Straw's lecture up last night; it looks wonderful. Will look Clausius up too. I might have to load some pro games up and just stage through them, estimating score, as an exercise.

Don't forget to practice this under time pressure too.

As a minimal requirement, try to assess if you are ahead or behind. Most players don't even know this much.

You can try to assess the two fundamental balances:
- who has more potential territory, i.e. the possibility to cover more ground
- who is thicker, i.e. whose groups are least vulnerable to attack

At the start of the endgame, count territories (all groups should be safe now) and decide where are the big endgame points.

You can try pro games, but why not pick your own games and make assessments after the facts? You may notice a few oddities in your play (going all out when ahead, being slow when behind). Next, do the same in your live games, under time pressure. Don't start out too ambitiously.

Game 15

A close-ish one. I really seem to loose in the late midgame. I'm thinking I need more higher level games if I'm going to get out of this 9k rut - so I've started a few 4k matches on dgs. Is anyone up for a dgs teaching game?

Dig a hole, fill it up.

Bleh - been knocked back to 9k from 9k+. Fittingly enough I lost my last game by 3.5 as white in a 3 stone handicap match and a Komi of -5.5 against an opponent with 28000+ games. Which is to say ...?

I'm not sure if I'm getting stronger - I definitely lasted longer this time at 9k+ than the last time I was there, but I was so close to 8k a few weeks ago and now ...

It is frustrating. My frustration stems in part from loosing. Actually mostly from loosing if I'm honest. But I'd say a good part of it (or at least the part my self righteousness likes to fixate on) comes from the uncertainty regarding a solid metric against which to judge my progress. If I play against a club account does the rank reflect their strength? On one hand maybe not - they could be weaker or stronger. On the other hand these accounts don't seem unreasonably rated - for the most part I don't tend to loose by too much or win by too much either. My losses are usually self inflicted rather than preordained by my opponents vastly superior play. So perhaps the rank is an accurate reflection of the club zeitgeist (or perhaps just that X kyus play on the X kyu account).

Outside igs my in person games have been getting better. I can give our resident 6 dan a run for his money with 8 stones and can beat our club president a 1 kyu with 6 stones. In both cases though I feel that I'm getting better at besting their styles of go - against another two players who knows.

Oh well if the ranks are reliable then it shouldn't be too long before I get back to 9k+, and if they are not I shouldn't stress too much about the change - after all I'm playing the same level of opponent as before (an once I learn to beat one of them no one will be able to stop me and I will become a pro).

^{If I'm super honest - lack of sleep and a beer probably didn't help tonight's game either.}

In itself this is completely insignificant.



Never mind. Did you actually change the metric of wins for a metric of close games OR wins?



There is not a single doubt in my mind that this is temporary variation in an overall increase of strength which will reflect itself in rank.



Then stop losing. Do what is required to start winning. One of these measures is not to throw away victories like the previous one, by allowing a corner to become seki. The major reason for this is "late in the game, strange things happen due to shortage of liberties". If you care about overall improvement, learn whatever you like. If you care about winning, focus on things that make a difference.



Correct. If you can handle the "close losses + wins" metric, try it. Otherwise, do everything to win.


If you care about this, then check out before accepting a game against them.



Celebrate these victories, don't belittle them.



I'll comment on your game too, if you wish. Otherwise:

• don't resign
• don't lose on time
• don't play in unfavourable conditions (time, kind of opponent)
• count liberties and pay special attention in the endgame when liberties become scarce

Game review

Only if you are a reasonable individual with a healthy perspective on the importance of the outcome of an anonymous game with a random stranger half way across the globe.


I guess what I wanted to highlight was that it's the uncertainty of not knowing what level I'm playing against that I'm struggling with and more broadly the uncertainty of judging my improvement.

Here and elsewhere I've read several players complain of sandbagging and the impossibility of playing against club accounts. Personally, (most if the time I don't really mind) - I play all comers with the hope I'll get stronger playing stronger players and will beat up on educate the weaker ones. But recently I have been getting that nagging thought - maybe you are stronger maybe you are playing against a secret dan or that one precocious 14 yr old who has the ghost of a long dead ... But I digress. Objectively though my games do not seem that unbalanced. Which then leaves my oscillating mind to the thought that I might equally likely be playing against weaker players - and still loosing. Indeed it seems that both possibilities are likely if a club has a single joint account. [/overthinking]

In any case given that club accounts exist how does one judge their performance against them? Are they truly harder, just more random, or pretty much the same as every other account? I had thought to check my own games - but I think the sample size is too small. Instead I'll try experimenting on unwilling voluntiers and pick my victims rather than auto-matching. If my theory holds that club accounts are relatively equally ranked I should come back with my tail between my legs (and go back to those easier club accounts). If there is a big disparity - 8kyu here I come.

---

In all seriousness knotwilg thanks for your words of encouragement - and excellent reviews which are more than I deserve. I had indended my original post to be a slightly pholosophical reflection on the source of my hopefully temporary frustration. On later reading though I realize it come across more as the petulant whining of a sore looser (which was probably accurate).

Hehe ... The best laid plans of mice and men ... I spent 20 mins challenging equal ranked players with under 1000 games but to no avail. Looks like it's auto match all the way.

Don't think I don't know the feeling. It's more daunting to play an opponent with a free will than a bot. And it's even more daunting to play an opponent with a free will and unpredictable strength, I can imagine.

I'll always remember the quote by David Mechner "Really. Look; now I'm a 6-dan. Who cares how many games I lost when I was 5-kyu?"
See http://www.mechner.com/david/go/ in the section "attitude"

It's easier to say this when you are 6d. But if you believe that one day you should be able to make it 1d (and I'm absolutely certain anyone who is smart and diligent enough to appear on this forum, can) then the above quote should inspire you to treat those games against club accounts not as ego contests but as opportunities to play a wide range of players.

Back in the days where I started playing, the Internet didn't exist. We had to do with 6k masters in our club, only on a Monday!, or the occasional dan in a tournament. Be grateful your progress starts in an era of Go servers, anonymous and unpredictable as your opponents may be.

I know that feeling when a stupid endgame mistake loses a game, which should have been easily won. Just recently, I managed to let my opponent connect two big "dead" groups with each one eye in the last moment - a single move worth almost 100 points LOL (I thought about posting it in my "messy games" thread, however it's too embarrassing ).

However there is also a positive aspect: One of my local club members told me recently that a characteristics of strong players is that they instinctively recognize weaknesses of certain shapes / positions. If you learn about weaknesses "the hard way" such as the late corner seki in your last game, the memorizing effect is probably higher than if you just red about that shape in a book (I have to admit that I probably would have also fallen for the seki, but now I took a close look on that shape ). In short, those painful losses seem necessary for establishing a feeling for weak shapes and thus become stronger.

I should not play on Fridays - two losses: 0.5 and 3.5 points. Need to work on crosscuts - that was all my opponent played in the first game and it tore me up - lucky the rest of his game was poor or I would have been well behind. In the second game I had a healthy lead but lost most of a corner (which should have been all of the corner but my opponent didn't press the advantage.

I'm thinking that reading is my biggest weakness at the moment in two regards:
1. The obvious: I need to improve my reading - it seems it's the key to getting better at any level.
2. The slightly less obvious: I need to apply my reading to my own groups not just those I'm attacking.

The basic pattern of my play at the moment is:
1. Muddle through the opening (I feel that I usually do ok and it is rare (though not unheard of) that I really muck up.
2. Do well in the early mid game
3. Obliterate my lead in the late mid game
4. Do ok (but not brilliant) in the endgame

1 2 & 4 could do with improvement - but my goal is to try to fix the biggest problems first. 3 I feel is symptomatic of my reading errors. Some of 3 is poor whole-board judgement - i.e. chasing after areas that are too small. More though it seems it is from a plan that goes bad or an "invulnerable" group that turns out not to be. Both of these problems seem to stem from a lack of tactical (small scale) judgement more than overall strategy. So better reading would help - but as important is applying that reading.

Thinking back over my last couple of games I've had moments where I've recognized a danger - but not checked it closely enough ("my group looks a little thin - hey I can attack over here!) the other symptom is not empathizing with my opponent - or underestimating them (" that's a funny looking move I wonder why he wants me to play there? Oh well let's play it and find out"). The silly thing is that usually my opponents intentions are pretty clear (hint: think of two words that sound like "kill everything") and yet I too often don't spend the time to work out how they intend to carry out their nefarious plans.

My plan:
1. Be a little less aggressive and a little more attentive to my own weak groups.
2. Respect my opponent's attacks and their potential attacks.
3. Try to appreciate the reasons behind their moves

In short my new strategy is to crush my enemies with peace, love and understanding.

Game 16
Bout time we had a win. Actually after dropping down half a rank my win rate is up - not surprising really given how close my matches have been. I was thinking of posting this game under the title "remember your training and you will survive" ... And then I did the review...
It's not all bad - I did manage to incorporate a couple of nice little local plays I'd picked up from this site which I wouldn't have otherwise considered and I did pay a lot more attention to my opponent's intentions and the weaknesses in my own groups. However I still got too aggressive in the late mid game and created situations where I could easily have thrown the game away.

Still - I have to admit it feels good to crush my opponent after all those piddly losses.