How can I avoid playing BORING games?

[Fllecha]

Hi all,

I woould like too get some help as usual, but this time is a very particular question. The problem is that I play boring games. I truly hate when I win this way (see next game) because I am not improving. I play like a peasant that tills the soil every game I play: take the corner, go on the sides, hope to get more territory. The most exiting moments are when my opponent is behind 30+ points and try to make some random invasion and I try to kill him.

(Don't comment this game, the question is another one) I am black.


It's a win but again it's boring game. As I noticed there are empty space everywhere, big extended territory, high score by both players. That's not high level go.

Consider now this blitz game between to mid-dan players.


All a different thing: almost no holes in the goban, hard fight, all concentrated in the middle, life and death here and there, fun everywhere, no time for peasantery like dig and harvest the sides, slow extension, bases, static joseki and stuff like that. W15, W18, W60 looks to me very slow but they are fihting moves. In a game I wouldn't ever consider that, and I try to enclose my cornes instead... why it's wrong?

Now I am a 5 kyu and I know that I can't understand the game as a dan player but what are the guidelines to play like them? I don't mind losing tons of game. What I have to do to set me free from hoe the ground and be a true warrior? Why dan players don't take the corner, then side and center but they fight like streach territory isn't the big factor? There must be guidelines, I can't belive that one has to improvise.

I know that:
1) I don't have to surround territory like the proverb but anytime I do that I f---k up the game and my opponent quietly take the profit
2)Ok I do lots of tsumego, and in fact when some fight arose I erase my standard-kyu-opponent but most of my game can't even get closer to a fight.
3) I routinely watch high dan play on Pandanet and I try to develop som fightingh style... but not enough. Do I have to study pro games?

Help, what I have to do?

[PeterHB]

1. Games where you win don't teach you how to improve. They just confirm that your current habits work against people of your own level. If you want to learn, study the games you lose. Then after studying the games where you lose, if you still can't understand why you lost, ask stronger players for comment on those specific games.

In your example game you won, so you don't have anything to worry about. Clearly successful strategy.

2. Invade like a loony. The example of your game has one approach move (B5) and then diving into the corner (B9) near the beginning. Apart from that, you didn't invade. You just made moves that extended from your previous living stones, staying connected.

Now look at the dan game. They invaded and got cut, right, left, and center, all the time, and lots of stuff died, every 15 moves or so. The dans were a pair of honey badgers. Honey badgers don't care. Wanna fight? Bring it on!

Remember, Alpha Go is happy to win by 0.5 and is a honey badger. He just doesn't care. Find your inner honey badger.

There is a motorcycle racer called Guy Martin who said something like "If you ain't crashing, you ain't trying." The idea is you don't know where the edge of what is possible is until you start crashing. If your groups aren't dying sometimes due to invading too deeply, you ain't trying. Practice isn't competition. So take risks in your practice games to find out where the edge really is, not where you think you have been told it is.

With time you will find dual purposes to invasions. Invading just to live is a way to lose. Invading to cause one of the opponents groups or walls to get split off and not have 2 eyes, while you cut your way out or live, is an invasion with a purpose.

Once you get comfortable with invading like a loony, then you can move on to sabaki and the use of aji. You make choices about which strings, that could have been parts of groups, to sacrifice, perhaps with a squeeze. You do this where you are out numbered by opponent's stones, where you have learnt you are at risk of dying, or living miserably with just 2 eyes of territory and bullied all around.

[Joaz Banbeck]

...I...take the corner, go on the sides, hope to get more territory....
...what are the guidelines to play like them?...

1) Go for influence rather than territory for the first 100 moves.
2) When the opponent's group gets two eyes, ignore it.
3) Cut whenever you can.
4) If you can't cut, pincer.

[Tryss]

In your game, moves like 63 and 65 are boring.

In this situation, you could go for the kill, but choose the boring "I'll take the points, you can live, the exit is this way"


Cut first, think later !

[Bill Spight]

Some boring comments.

[Joaz Banbeck]

...
5) When you cut, use it to attack. Don't chicken out for small profits. Keep the opponent off balance.

As an example of a chickenshit cut, see #70 between those two dans in the game above. If white had played F8, he would win easily.

[Bill Spight]

Hi all,

I woould like too get some help as usual, but this time is a very particular question. The problem is that I play boring games.

{Snip}

Now I am a 5 kyu and I know that I can't understand the game as a dan player but what are the guidelines to play like them? I don't mind losing tons of game. What I have to do to set me free from hoe the ground and be a true warrior?

All a different thing: almost no holes in the goban, hard fight, all concentrated in the middle, life and death here and there, fun everywhere, no time for peasantery like dig and harvest the sides, slow extension, bases, static joseki and stuff like that.

You have answered your own question. (Emphasis mine.)

[Fedya]

The most exiting moments are when my opponent is behind 30+ points and try to make some random invasion and I try to kill him.

I'm no stronger than you, but it seems the obvious way for you to make your games more exciting is to play stronger players and try some arbitrary invasions.

[Fllecha]

thank you guys, now I tried to follow your advice.

Here I tried to do some corrections at my boring moves

[Knotwilg]

I looked at the game. It's a hard game to comment because

1) the opponent (white) did not try to win
2) your comments are all about whether or not the moves are boring and it's a theme that I don't find particularly interesting

You make good points about

- ajikeshi
- unnecessary gote
- overconcentrated stones
- small plays

But you sometimes call a move boring, while I would claim it's plain wrong: 45, 65

Other times your moves are correct, while they could be called boring, like when you keep his central stones separated with 57, 59

All in all, the theme "boring" is fuzzy for me but any way to think about the game will teach you something.

[Calvin Clark]

It takes two to play.

[Calvin Clark]

By my previous post, I mean simply that you can't just decide to play a fighting game. A stronger opponent may just decide to negotiate or play bigger moves rather than fighting you. Play them anyway even if you are defeated by boredom.


Maybe try an exercise that Janice Kim recommended. Play each move in a different quadrant of the board, as long as you can stand it. It is surprising
how long this can go on.

[jeromie]

Here are a few things I think can make games exciting while also (eventually) contributing to your development as a player.

• If you have an idea of something that might work, try it out even if it's not a move you know.
• Play on the edge of your reading ability. In other words, if you think a group is safe, don't play an extra move to save it "just in case." If you think a stone can live in a tight area, try to make it work. Take this principle all the way to the end game, and I guarantee you'll have some high heart rate moments.
• Be willing to sacrifice groups. Making a big trade is almost always an exciting moment in the game.
• You could also try approaching every corner move your opponent plays before taking the empty corners. This may not be the traditional order of play, but it's not bad (see some of Go Seigen's games) and it's more likely to take you out of your comfort zone and lead to some early fighting.

[Joaz Banbeck]

9: This invasion is a mistake, IMHO, unless you already have strength in the upper right...because...

16: What would you have done if your opponent had played R7? If he had, he gets a group with influence northward while you get a corner of modest size. This is only a good deal for you if his newly formed group has no prospects to the north.

I suggest the more conventional S4 at move 9.

27: I agree with yor alternate suggestion at move 27. It is probably better even if issues of boredm are not being considered.
Q13 is too close to your strength, and is therefore inefficient.
For the relief of boredom at move 27, N15 is interesting too.

[shoryuu]

Be more aggresive and play moyo style (all or nothing play really makes your palms sweaty).