Memorizing Pro Games?

[Joelnelsonb]

So I've heard multiple different people talk about playing through and even memorizing pro games among other study practices. My question is what in particular is to gain from memorizing a game and at what level should a player begin memorizing pro games? Also, Being 10 kyu, would it be better to play through pro games or rather to play through low dan games and high sdk games so that I understand what's going on? The following is a game that I really enjoy and have played through about 30 times and can play up to around move 50 without looking. I can do this not because I've deliberately memorized the moves but rather because I've studied the positions enough that the moves make sense.

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/14522

[Jujube]

The consensus here is don't bother until you are strong SDK. The time you spend (hours and hours) playing through and memorising a single game is equivalent to potentially hundreds of problems, or several chapters of a tesuji book, each of which cover positions from many, many different games. I strongly believe that my own path to improvement will come from:

• Improving reading (E.g. 1001 L&D problems)
• Building an intuition for vital points/tesuji (e.g. Tesuji)
• Improving middle game theory (E.g. Attack and Defence)

[oren]

Better to play through pro games.

[xed_over]

The consensus here is don't bother until you are strong SDK.

I don't think that's the consensus here. I think its closer to we're divided on the subject.

I personally think its useful and helpful. But your mileage may vary.

[quantumf]

The consensus here is don't bother until you are strong SDK.

I don't think that's the consensus here. I think its closer to we're divided on the subject.

I personally think its useful and helpful. But your mileage may vary.

Indeed. What is almost certainly true is that the stronger you are, the more value you can take out of them. But at almost any level beyond beginner, you can get something from pro games. What that is will vary, but you may get inspiration, motivation, ideas, joseki's, shape, and more. My personal impression, based on my experience, and the experience of a good friend who never got stronger than about 22k but still loved the game, is that playing thru pro games helps connect you to the go world (and the history of go if you play thru old games), and is thus enjoyable in it's own right, regardless of any learning value. This works better if you are able to actually play out the stones on an actual board.

Having never learnt more than a couple of games, and forgetting them within a few days of memorizing them, I can't comment on how valuable that specific technique might be or when it will prove valuable.

[Joelnelsonb]

I guess I should specify: what I mean to ask is if there's actually a benefit to memorizing the games rather than just playing through them, trying out variations and studying the positions?

[Bill Spight]

I guess I should specify: what I mean to ask is if there's actually a benefit to memorizing the games rather than just playing through them, trying out variations and studying the positions?

Maybe.

When I was learning go I avoided relying upon memory. However, I now suspect that I would have done better to memorize problems and variations from commentaries. Pro games? Maybe so.

[emeraldemon]

Memorize a few games and report back to us!

[Uberdude]

How about posting a commentary on moves 1-50 of that pro game you liked, explaining your understanding of the moves, giving some other good and bad move choices with reasons. Did you think they made any mistakes?

I expect that, and the discussion it generates, will be more useful and interesting than rote memorization.

[Bill Spight]

How about posting a commentary on moves 1-50 of that pro game you liked, explaining your understanding of the moves, giving some other good and bad move choices with reasons. Did you think they made any mistakes?

I expect that, and the discussion it generates, will be more useful and interesting than rote memorization.

In addition, the last 50 moves are more likely to be determined than the first 50 and less open to debate.

[Abyssinica]

I would say first 100-150 since the middle game is so important.

[GOing2]

I was told to play through pro games to alleviate fear. The professionals tenuki in very different ways than a kyu level player like myself. What I think is important on the board is not what a professional thinks is important.

I also found that replaying a game from memory immediately after playing the game helps with understanding my emotions.

(This is my first post in this forum, I apologize if I made any mistakes.)

[Calvin Clark]

If it keeps you interested in go, by all means do it. I loved pro games from the very start and the yearly GoGoD CD was my Christmas present to myself. I would just use the GoScorer and go through guessing the first 50 moves or so. After 3 passes I pretty much remembered those 50 perfectly, then I went onto the next game. I did this for every game played between Nie Weiping and Ma Xiaochun, so I wound up playing a lot of 80s moves in the 2000s. I probably had an 80s haircut to match. I'm not sure exactly why I picked those two pros, but I think I was looking for some kind of rivalry so I wouldn't see 100 different styles. Even today I think that's a good idea, but for modern games the pairings are more diverse as the top players change so much. Natural enemies are harder to find. I may go into the deep past and do Chitoku / Genjo. I've done a few of those (actually I study endgame more now) and it is certainly mind-opening how poorly modern games prepare me for understanding older opening moves. Endgame is endgame though, so at least that's (mostly) timeless.

Is this the fastest way to improve? It is certainly not. I spent years winning openings and losing middle games, despite later studying further into the game. But it kept me excited about go and I did not quit. A few years ago at the USGC a Korean pro put up a knight's approach to a star point followed by the large knight's answer. He said this used to be traditional in ancient China but it went away for a long time until one player brought it back into fashion. He asked if anyone knew who and I immediately said Yu Ch'ang-hyeok. (Which he considered the correct answer). I don't think he expected that, but it's one of those weird benefits of seeing a lot of pro games. I studied many Yu Ch'ang-hyeok games when I was in a dark phase thinking I would be doomed to be an attacking player forever and would therefore at least have to learn to do it well.

Do you want to improve the fastest? Sure, go into a closet, do tsumego for a couple of years, then come out, shave and start playing. There are people who have done it, but unfortunately I think they skipped the shaving part. The risk is that you won't want to play go anymore, which is why I say it is better to do what you love.

[Shenoute]

My answer would be along the same lines than Calvin Clark. I've always replayed a lot of pro games, memorized some I found very interesting and forgotten them after a few days/weeks. Has it been useful ? Maybe but I'll never know how I would have done without that. The main point is that I love doing it and it plays no small parts in my enjoying go.

[BramGo]

It's a good thing to have a continious flow of fresh ideas, new inspiration, new opinions, new moves, new strategies.
Pro games do contain a lot of information.

When I study pro games, I like to use a real board.
But I put my laptop next to it. I tend to use a database system (e.g. kombilo) to compare the moves of different pro games to each other. I often start studying 1 specific game, and then end up studying a different one.

I'm not sure if this counts as studying pro games, in a way it's maybe more like studying joseki, fuseki, ... at the same time.
I must admit that my way of study feels a bit like "cheating", maybe studying professional games the conservative way does teach you more about all phases of the game. But this computer-aided way of studying does save me a lot of time.

I tend to select games from positions that often occur in my daily games. I do try to combine this by actually playing a lot of games.

But it's important to replay what you have learned, again and again and again. Not just that same day, but day after day, week after week. And still you will forget most of what you've learned eventually. But if some of it sticks, it's a success.

E.g. here's a convenient sequence that I recently discovered, from this way of studying: