Replaying Pro Games

[Jonas]

You can memorize moves best, when they make sense to you. So if you are stuck at a special place this is a mark that you've problems with this move and should study it.

[CarlJung]

You can memorize moves best, when they make sense to you. So if you are stuck at a special place this is a mark that you've problems with this move and should study it.

With that attitude you'll go very far.

[usagi]

The recent Kong Jie-Lee Sedol game interested me, so I decided to try replaying it, seeing how easy it would be to memorize. [...] Playing it out on a board definitely forces you to think about the moves in a more tangible way, but it isn't impossible to do so using an SGF Viewer so long as you make the effort to learn the game in a more interactive way.

I could comment on this. I've done some research into methods of teaching and learning and (without being able to say more specifically) you use different areas of the brain to process information visually, and physically. I mean, that a pure visual form like clicking in a .SGF does work well in conjunction with a physical method such as placing stones on a real board because you're learning in different ways, and they reinforce each other. The brain processes an abstract top down picture of a goban very differently than the physical moves of placing stones on a goban, with the touch and sound associated with that as well. In short, if you want to learn well from replaying pro games, it's best to play them out on a real board as your basic practice. But any further, it does help to replay them in other ways as well.

[keithlard]

Replaying games on a real board is great, but I have found that SmartGo Pro iPhone's "Guess the move" feature is a lot of fun. While replaying any game you can select "guess" mode and you have to click where you think the move is. If you are close but not correct, SmartGo shows a green cloud of points around where you clicked, indicating the region that the move is in. As you continue making incorrect guesses, the cloud gets smaller, until only one possible point is left.

If your guess is in the wrong area of the board altogether, a red cloud shows you where the move "isn't". If you click a point and it turns blue, it means that the move was played, but not yet.

It's very satisfying when you get the move right first time in a pro game. Also, if you run through the game a few times, you become much better at recalling it correctly than if you were just browsing through it with a standard SGF viewer: it forces you to think about the sense of what is happening on the board.

[k1ndofblue]

Replaying games on a real board is great, but I have found that SmartGo Pro iPhone's "Guess the move" feature is a lot of fun. While replaying any game you can select "guess" mode and you have to click where you think the move is. If you are close but not correct, SmartGo shows a green cloud of points around where you clicked, indicating the region that the move is in. As you continue making incorrect guesses, the cloud gets smaller, until only one possible point is left.

If your guess is in the wrong area of the board altogether, a red cloud shows you where the move "isn't". If you click a point and it turns blue, it means that the move was played, but not yet.

It's very satisfying when you get the move right first time in a pro game. Also, if you run through the game a few times, you become much better at recalling it correctly than if you were just browsing through it with a standard SGF viewer: it forces you to think about the sense of what is happening on the board.

That sounds prtty cool. I might have to upgrade the version I have.

[Bantari]

It's a well-known thing that how fast you can play through a game on a real board using only one or two diagrams is a rough measure of your go strength.

I've never been convinced by this. Doing lots of this sort of work speeds you up no end. I've known EGF 4 dans take 20 minutes going through a pro game with 3 diagrams (one per set of 100 moves). It normally takes me about 10 if I'm just playing it out and not analysing, and I understand T Mark Hall, with his work for GoGoD, generally takes 4-5 minutes per game.

Perhaps it's relative to the individual. Just imagine how much stronger you need to be to do it in 1 min

I bet a top pro can do it in a fraction of a second.
The only reason top pros do it much slower in public is that the air friction would set their clothes aflame otherwise.
But at home, when they can take off their garments, I hear they average 189 GPM (Games Per Minute)!! But maybe that's just rumors...

I shudder to think how fast Chuck Norris would be.
He would probably have the game full on the board before he even glances at the diagrams!
Now, that's what I call strength!

[John Fairbairn]

I shudder to think how fast Chuck Norris would be.
He would probably have the game full on the board before he even glances at the diagrams!
Now, that's what I call strength!

Where've you been? Zatoichi could slice the board in half, put it back together again and rearrange the position so fast that no-one even knew he'd drawn his sword - and he was blind.

[Bantari]

Where've you been? Zatoichi could slice the board in half, put it back together again and rearrange the position so fast that no-one even knew he'd drawn his sword - and he was blind.

Awesome.
Seems there are depths within depths which I am not aware of yet.