Road to my 100 first go loss: I ask for some commentary

[Jujube]

Oskar Korschelt's Theory and Practice of Go. Although this last book was published back in the 19th century, it is easy to follow and the book by Arthur Smith is based largely on this one.

I agree with this post apart from this. (And I'm personally not a fan of reviewing games at this level, but what do I know).

These two books are horrible. Especially the Korschelt book.

I don't know how it sounded in the original German, but the book has been translated into what I can only describe as ham-fisted, wooly, terse windbaggery, and I have no desire to read it again. The first time put me off this game for several years!

I'm not sure Korschelt knew what he was talking about, either. He seems to regard the game as an interesting but inferior version of chess. He doesn't really tell us anything about joseki, tesuji, yose, handicap strategy... I could go on.

Just... don't buy the book. It should have died a long time ago.

[oren]

Just... don't buy the book. It should have died a long time ago.

I like it for the historical perspective. It was also the first Go book I ran into, but I agree with you about not reading it to learn Go. There are far better intro books out there.

[Jujube]

Now I understand why it's imperative to hane: it avoids monkey jumps...

No, those 2 hanes have nothing to do with monkey jumps.

can you elaborate this (the meaning of that hane) or is too much an advanced topic for me? I think basically that thouse type of hanes simply " fairly share the corner"...

Speaking as a 12kyu (so I could be wrong) the hane is big here because:

Black to play & hane: settles black's shape,
White to play & hane: can take away Black's base and chase him into the centre, White gaining by building on the lower side.

Monkey jump is a large knight move onto the 1st line, played in the endgame as an invasion tesuji.

[Fllecha]

Hi all.

Bad game with white due an un-orthodox opening by black and obv my stupidity. As usual, in the decisive moment i cannot find the bigger move, and I play passively and I lose control of the match. I really hate myself literally when I play this way, but we still have 93 games to improve...

GAME 7

[Fllecha]

hi all,

A nervous game with white, eventually in tilt I misplaced a stone and the whole position collapsed.. I learn to try to avoid such cutting game because one has to watch always everywhere. Another lesson to learn is that if you have both flanks of a base wide open it's impossible to defend. Simply one has to grow from a base or invade more wisely.

GAME 8

[Fllecha]

Today a bad loss but as usual a lot of lessons to learn. As usual I played a very good opening and that's a plus because I made a little progress at least on that and I feel a little more confident. I learned a lesson on a famous joseki: if you are a beginner be careful on the joseki you choose.
In the middlegame I increased my advantage and in my review I found a monkey jump that I didn't play: next time for sure. At a certain point the bot attacked my corner and I was sure on defending it but eventually I misplayed due to inexperience and my etire position collapsed. In the end I learned another lesson: beware of cutting points!

GAME 9

[Charles Matthews]

Today a bad loss but as usual a lot of lessons to learn.
GAME 9

It turns out that should be on the fourth line at Q14.

Before tenuki, Black should omit the slide at . This is an example of the disadvantage of fixing the position.

at 3-3 seems the best available play to me. If you don't like the result, play the wedge at C11, not the approach at C14.

should probably be immediately at M12, to challenge White's shape. The top side is growing too fast now.

would look much better to me at C10. White plays well from here on.

[Fllecha]

First of all thanks to mattews for the comments, nice for me

Now another game, probably one of my favourites. I think I played better than usual and eventually I won by a small margin. I managed to invade in white position and I made it play some toothpaste that weakened his position. I am training myself on invasions since I still have no clue when and how to do.

as usual mucho obrigado for any comments, and since I hit 10% of my planned game do you notice some progress on my go?

GAME 10

[EdLee]

Hi Fllecha,

If your plan is just to build the right side, then this seems submissive. Block-attach at L6 -- why not ?

Like this -- why not the same with ?

H12 -- get out first. Don't get closed in (unless you have no choice; or, it's very good for you).

Your thinking is a bit strange: you ARE pushing from behind, and that's because you missed the jump out at to H12.

K10. (Or, even K11 push-and-cut).

This software setting could be a bit soft -- it doesn't know how to attack/kill you.

Important: W has had the local sequence (for a very long time): B12 hane, then B11 connect to kill your eyespace there in sente.

[Fllecha]

Hi all and thanks EdLee for commentary. I worked on your advices with some variation.

Now I am a bit ashamed and embarassed for the next game: I lost like a player at his first go game. But for every lost game, as usual, one can learn an important lesson. In backgammon we say "It's simple to make a good move: think about a very bad one and make the opposite".

This the main issue: I AM TOO PASSIVE. If you want to know why read the spoiler, otherwise jump to the question.

I play chess and backgammon, and once you reach a certain good level, as I have,you notice that beginners and many intermediate players simply have no patience and go for blind attack. One experienced playe simply waits and spoil its weaknesses and win the game most of the time. Of course, no way that passive play wins in chess, it's the opposite! It's a sort of active defence, but keeping the position stable and reinforcing, most of the time you win because oponent loses patience and blunder. More or less of course, but my personal stile is basically "control" not "attack" In go I noticed that this NEVER pays off

Before presenting the game, can someone indicate me player/games/articles in which I can learn some fighting games invasions from the white side? I play (like a beginner) trying to enclose territory but I know that it's wrong but I don't know any othe way to play go... can somebody tell me how to abandon this bad habit?

As usual, thanks in advance.

GAME 11

[skydyr]

Hi all and thanks EdLee for commentary. I worked on your advices with some variation.

Now I am a bit ashamed and embarassed for the next game: I lost like a player at his first go game. But for every lost game, as usual, one can learn an important lesson. In backgammon we say "It's simple to make a good move: think about a very bad one and make the opposite".

This the main issue: I AM TOO PASSIVE. If you want to know why read the spoiler, otherwise jump to the question.

I play chess and backgammon, and once you reach a certain good level, as I have,you notice that beginners and many intermediate players simply have no patience and go for blind attack. One experienced playe simply waits and spoil its weaknesses and win the game most of the time. Of course, no way that passive play wins in chess, it's the opposite! It's a sort of active defence, but keeping the position stable and reinforcing, most of the time you win because oponent loses patience and blunder. More or less of course, but my personal stile is basically "control" not "attack" In go I noticed that this NEVER pays off

Before presenting the game, can someone indicate me player/games/articles in which I can learn some fighting games invasions from the white side? I play (like a beginner) trying to enclose territory but I know that it's wrong but I don't know any othe way to play go... can somebody tell me how to abandon this bad habit?

As usual, thanks in advance.

GAME 11

I thought you did a pretty good job figuring out where the big issues lay.

A few suggestions:

This should probably be high, at D6, to work with white's chinese formation.

This is fine, though you could also consider P16.

Part of the goal of the chinese formation is to encourage black to come in here on unfavourable terms. It might be better to expand the white moyo instead. White probably owes a move in the top right at some point too.

White's play here has been fine, but for this move, white should finish splitting black's group off and stick his head into black's moyo, with a move like L9 or L10. The same applies to .

Here, black has reduced white's potential, but white is strong in the center. It's time to reduce black. One idea is the shoulder hit at K4, which should let you build a decent group in black's area while putting pressure on black's lower left group.

:42: K17 or the like would be fine.

At the point where you resigned, white still had chances. You may have been able to cut off the long string of black stones on the left side, and black's top group could also be attacked. It's also not entirely clear that black would be able to kill an invasion into his moyo at this point.

[tekesta]

Hi all and thanks EdLee for commentary. I worked on your advices with some variation.

Now I am a bit ashamed and embarassed for the next game: I lost like a player at his first go game. But for every lost game, as usual, one can learn an important lesson. In backgammon we say "It's simple to make a good move: think about a very bad one and make the opposite".

This the main issue: I AM TOO PASSIVE. If you want to know why read the spoiler, otherwise jump to the question.

Here's a video, in 2 parts, that can introduce you to the idea of generating territory through attacking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqYNNjuhrTk

There are some pros that play in an attack-oriented style. Right off the top of my head I can think of Gu Li, Hon'inbo Shuho, and Awaji Shuzo. Below is a game between Zhou Rui-yang, a strong pro player famous for never having received professional training until later in his career, and Gu Li, currently one of the strongest pros in the world, with Gu playing as White.



The idea behing attacking a weak group is to threaten to kill it, not actually kill it. The opponent whose stones are under attack has to defend them, while in the process you get territory. Playing a moyo-oriented game in the style of Takemiya Masaki or Go Seigen (!) means fighting all-or-nothing much of the time and building your whole board thickness. Hon'inbo Shusaku was good at using thickness and fighting to defeat stronger opponents. Below is one of his games against Gennan Inseki, one of the strongest Japanese Go players of the 1840s.



Kobayashi Koichi is known for playing a territory-oriented game, but his games show a lot of fighting to avoid falling behind; if you just enclose territory, your opponent is sure to get outward influence, so you fight in order to prevent as much as possible the outward influence from being converted into territory. Below is a game from when Kobayashi was one of the strongest players in the world.



As for playing White, I recommend looking at games by Hon'inbo Shuei. For the last several years of his life he played only White, so his games with White are considered good study. Below are a couple of his games. Shuei plays as White in both.





The secret to control in Go is to take advantage of whatever happens on the board and use it to accumulate small advantages as the game progresses. Without this, even the fiercest attack in a game of Go will fail, as friendly forces have to be in place before an attack can be carried out. The fuseki is important in this regard as it will determine the availabilty of friendly groups once the middle game fighting starts. In Go, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and a stone is only as strong as the group supporting it. The Imperial Japanese Military in the early 20th century knew this and much of their strategy was informed by the game of Go. So much so that in World War 2 the US Military ordered its strategists to study the game in order to better understand Japanese military tactics and strategy.

[Fllecha]

The video is really good and opened my mind on the direction of play and attack: from weak to strong.. nice one!

Thank you guys.. sometimes is frustrating being without experience and play badly. I try to study the games you posted, since they are quite interesting. I noticed some good stuff that may be inspiring but you know it's hard to immediately put in practice. I noticed for example that white sometimes play contact play where I would have played distant controlling play. This afternoon I would start study and tonight probably i'm gonna play another time, maybe changing opening.

[Fllecha]

Hi all... a bit happy today, I played a passable game with white and after a tought match I won. Ok both me and the bot made some errors, no excuses on that, and most of all I missed a really big move on the bottom that almost cost me the game. I managed to kill a big group that was alive and even on that spot I almost messed up my game.

But the big win is basically the opening: I put a stone at san-san and another in the 3-4 point and my corner were stable for all the game, giving me the opportunity to attack and play whatever I wanted. I messed up a joseki on the up-right corner, but I played an active game and I am proud of that.

as usual I wait for your kind comments

GAME 12

[Fllecha]

Hi all.

I tryed to change opening with black, just to keep experimenting and I tryed to play more agressively... The game was somewhat nice until I made an unforgivable blunder that make my wall collapse. As usual, another lesson learned. Thanks for commenting if you find some time.

GAME 13