Cho's All About Life and Death is structured according to shapes, similar to Davies Life and Death. Cho's book has more different shapes. Cho's book (two volumes) is available from Amazon, however, it is a print-on-demand type scan of the original and several reviewers have commented that the print is not beautifully clear as the original Ishi Press edition was. The Nihon Ki-in dictionary of Life and Death by CHo Chikun has been superseded by a new version by Cho U, which has a lot more information. It is usable even if you know no Japanese just by looking at the diagrams https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%9F%BA%E6%9 ... 4818205970

多分張栩の本買うかも知れないけどお金もちではないから決まる前にもう少し研究やりたいと思います。

If the Cho book is anything like the Tesuji dictionary by Yamashita, though, I'd be very tempted. I like the way lots of different techniques are systematically presented in that book. But, as I said above, money isn't as freely copious as it used to be so I have to think much more carefully about new purchases. It makes me sad, really, that while teaching English in Japan I was quite affluent and was able to buy lots of books and other things on a whim, but now that I'm doing something of much more value I'm having a much harder time getting paid (and here's a good time to mention that I have a lovely CD out on Amazon and all other reputable online retailers - plus a few less reputable ones - of beautiful compositions that will enrich your lives... ).

Ooh, I've just noticed that KGS has promoted me overnight to 2k. That's so sweet of it.

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

There are certain things that make life worth living.

The music of Josquin, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, a child's smile, being in love, Earl Grey tea, BBC/HBO Versailles, the insanely Baroque prose of Aron Nimzowitsch...

And now I'm discovering what go is really all about. The aim of the game is to play well. It is very difficult indeed to play well, and there are myriad ways to play well, but the satisfaction from playing to the best of one's ability on any given day far transcends winning and losing.

This is why I've started playing and studying the game again. I have finally comprehended it after nearly twenty years. Learning a tesuji or L&D pattern is not about improving your win rate (which should be 50% anyway), nor about increasing your rank, but because learning a tesuji or L&D pattern is interesting all by itself.

Since my return, I have noticed that KGS has changed in one way: there's a lot more bad behaviour than there used to be, as far as I can see. A few years ago, escapers were few and far between - but it has happened to me quite a few times in the last few weeks. And fewer people greet you properly than before. If only they would understand that go is not a means to an end - it's an end in itself.

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

That really resonates with me, and I thank you for the reminder!

Finally, the summer vacation has begun.

I have only two main projects that I wish to work on. Now feels like a heaven-sent opportunity to improve my go. So that's project No. 1. The other is to compose a polychoral Magnificat for a composing competition that I wish to enter.

I'm noticing a real effect from having spent the last few weeks patiently studying with the help of a physical go set. The patterns are actually registering in my mind! As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I was able to imagine the different notcher formations, door groups and so on and play through them mentally.

The funny thing is that now I look back on it, my progress slowed down at precisely the time I got it into my head that it would be a good idea to try to read the examples in my go books purely mentally. To some extent, perhaps that also had a positive effect: I don't find it difficult to read. But - and it's a big but - I would always be looking in my games for opportunities to read, and would get frustrated if I could not see some forcing sequence or other. I think too much mental practise has the strange drawback of making you unable to see the wood for the trees. You end up being able to see some fine plays, but not being able to engineer a situation in which to play them.

In contrast, I'm just beginning to find a subtler approach. In a recent game, I recognised the potential of an opposing group to become an unsettled notcher, and bullied the opponent mercilessly. I actually messed up quite badly in the finer details (it was not killable, but I let him live more generously than he deserved to), and STILL made a lot of profit despite my clumsiness! The game was a comfortable victory.

I have also been going over some of my defeats in light of John Fairbairn's rather amusing imagining of me on a jolly old partridge shoot. I found that it was kind of true! So, I have been attempting to play a lot less directly of late: making more probes, leaning plays, kikashi and more distant attacks designed not so much to kill outright as to restrict ("semaru", I think). I'm making good progress up through the 2k level now, so perhaps I can reach 1k (again) before too long. The more important thing is that I really do feel stronger, irrespective of what my KGS rank is.

I've worked my way through Davies's Life and Death and am most of the way through Attack and Defence. I have found both books revelatory. As I said above, the act of playing over the examples has impressed me much more deeply than merely reading them through off the page. And I find that mental reading has become easier, because I have the physical experience now to support me. It IS like playing a musical instrument! You could attempt purely mental practise of playing the guitar (or, for me these days, the organ), but it won't do you all that much good. However, if you learn the correct form on a real instrument, and THEN use mental practise, then one thing supports the other.

To give myself a structure, I've set myself a "reading list" based on the books I already have. I plan to work on two books at a time, with one chosen for its focus on details, and the other for more generalised applications. L&D is obviously a details book, but as already explain, I'm finding that those details crop up in as useful way in real games. A&D is more about general strategy, but it contains quite a few specific exchanges that are well worth knowing, and, naturally, principles are much easier to use if you have a mental library of real examples to back them up with.

On the general list, I plan to progress to Strategic Principles of Go (Nagahara), which is a book that I've read (but not played through) many times. I fully expect it to have a much deeper effect on me this time around. Then, I would like to go through Reducing Territorial Frameworks by Fujisawa Hideyuki. I've owned that for the last 17 years, and whenever I've read it it's just caused my mind to boggle. It won't this time around, however, because I shall be playing through the diagrams and not trying to follow the numbers mentally. (This is, I suppose, a much belated realisation that I'm not as clever as I would like to be, and so have to do things in a more humble fashion. Could that really be the breakthrough that I've been searching for for so long?)

On the specific list, I have the Nihon Kiin Tesuji dictionary, attributed to Yamashita Keigo. That should probably keep me going through the whole summer. After that, maybe I shall obtain Cho U's L&D dictionary.

A non-go book that I am currently reading, but which I have already found to have useful go applications among other things is Steve Peters's The Chimp Paradox. It has helped me to understand why you can't just play by instinct (which would be a mistake attempt to go to Daniel Kahneman's System I). This is because our minds are not JUST the rational, reasoning part and the automatic system, but ALSO a more primitive beast that is an atavistic survival of the simian brain: in other words, we have the human (logical, verbal, a bit slow, System II), the computer (automatic and lightning fast, System I) and Bonzo (somewhat faster than the human, highly emotional and aggressive, and definitely not very good at playing go, chess or whatever). The key is to learn to keep Bonzo under control, so that the human and the computer can work together.

I like to tell my "chimp" that it is allowed to watch while I play go - and cheer me on - but it is NOT allowed to play. Likewise, while I was singing a complex solo part yesterday morning, I told my nervous chimp that it was just going to be a spectator. It was unbelievably calming.

What happens when you go on tilt, is that you basically allow King Kong to take over. The chimp desperately wants to win, because winning confirms its status in the troop, while losing puts it lower down, with consequent loss of mating and feeding rights. For the chimp, it's a fight with severe consequences and not a game. That's why tilting is so miserable, and is often accompanied by rudeness and aggressive behaviour. I am coming to think that the appropriate corrective action is not just to walk away and take a break (the usual advice), but also to talk to King Kong and tell him that a) we're NOT in fact in a terrible fight for status in the troop and b) if he really, really wants to get better rights and status, he'd be much better off leaving it to the human and the computer to play. Good instinct is when the computer sees something it knows and lets us act on it automatically. Bad instinct is when the chimp runs amok choosing moves because they appear to lead directly to the desired goal (it's not very bright, you see).

That's the thing which relates to my previous post: the human within us likes to win, of course, but is much more interested in go as an endlessly fascinating game. It's the chimp who has the potential to spoil that enjoyment. That's perhaps why bad behaviour is more common on the Net than in life. Nobody wants to be seen acting like a chimp at a go event (and before you remind me, I have been there too ), but the possibility of letting your inner apebeast get loose while playing in the privacy of your home is a much more clear and present danger.

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

I would be grateful if perhaps you would look at these games and please add to my comments:





I would like to know whether I exhibit any obvious weaknesses (or strengths for that matter!). Thank you

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

Some LZ evaluations about the begining of the game :

After move 10, B winrate is 43%, down from 46% at the start, so it's absolutely playable for humans

LZ don't like the cap (-2.5%), she would prefer to play E9 instead

But the first huge mistake by black is : your winrate goes from 46% to 35% by playing the wedge. For LZ, D8 is the only move possible.


Then white make several mistakes on the bottom side, and at move , the game is even.

At you should double hane (a -12.5% winrate loss, dropping from 50% to 37.5%)

is not the correct move locally, C8 is better :



is not a good shape : white can play at F7 to capture your two cutting stones

Why play if you tenuki without playing F4 ? (LZ think F4 is really important and would play it nearly at every occasion until white kill the aji with move 130)

Thank you to both Ed and Tryss for the game reviews.

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

I was wondering about having a go (no pun intended) at doing a bit of streaming. Obviously not to attempt to teach people how to play go better, but just for fun and entertainment. I think that I'm quite good at articulating my thoughts, and I am told that my speaking voice is pleasant to hear. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in viewing?

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

Seeing the clamorous reception with which my proposal to start streaming was greeted, I have decided that perhaps I shall see if I could become a bit stronger before trying that. It's something that would be fun for me, but perhaps waiting until it would be fun for you is the best option.

I feel that I am indeed becoming stronger, although it is hard to tell whether I'm becoming stronger than I was before my hiatus, or just stronger than I was when I came back. Whichever is the case, I see that my KGS graph has generally travelled in the more pleasurable direction over the last month.

I have finished reading both Life and Death and Attack and Defence. I am finding L&D to be particularly rewarding as I am much better able to foresee which groups are going to get into trouble and therefore make suitable plans. The main gain from A&D was a new appreciation of the fact that strong go players don't just play straight-ahead, direct moves of the kind that often work so well in chess (other chess players will know what I mean: those situations where you just tie your opponent to the defence of a weak spot, relentlessly pile on the pressure, and then crack them by changing direction or sacrificing). Instead, kikashi and leaning plays, inducing moves and other methods of engineering the fight to your advantage are crucial. (This is not to say that similar techniques don't exist in chess.)

I am working through Nagahara's Strategic Concepts of Go now, and have been trying to settle on another book to provide contrast. I tried In the Beginning, but did not find it very helpful; somehow, it does not seem to address the kinds of things that arise in my game. I also tried the Nihon Kiin Tesuji dictionary, but while I enjoyed it to an extent, I began to get the feeling that it was too specialised for as weak as player as I am at present. Likewise, while I found Fujisawa's Reducing Territorial Frameworks to be quite rewarding, again I began to feel it tends to be just too advanced for me. And, as I have been working through these, a little light has been gently coming on within my mind. That is, I have become more and more aware that the most interesting parts of the books have been specific variations and examples, rather than the verbal discussions attached to them. In particular, sections such as Nagahara's chapters on aji and kikashi contain examples of joseki explained move by move, with helpful variations showing what might happen if such and such a move were omitted. What I found particularly interesting is that the concrete variations make the verbal explanations easier to understand - and not the other way around, as one might have expected. In other words, one can generalise from the specific; but past a certain level, it is almost fruitless to attempt to work out specific lines of play from general advice. This is the reason why checklists, proverbs, "thinking techniques" and what have you cannot, by themselves, take you to a high level. Indeed, if they could, then we would all be competing for the LG Cup! The secret is that there is no secret

To put it another way, you could say that, for instance, a kikashi is a forcing move that produces a response and which, furthermore, leaves behind aji for later. Armed with that, you might be able to make up your own kikashi for a certain portion of the time; but, unfortunately, you would probably also find yourself making aji keshi moves and thank-you moves and even just "pass" moves that have no effect on the opponent. In contrast, if you study known examples of kikashi (i.e., moves that are commonly accepted as such), carefully exploring the effects and variations, then you would obtain a better grasp of what a kikashi really is, and from that a better feeling for using that device properly.

Added to this insight, has been the realisation that the people who beat me simply know more about the game than I do. One of my conquerors very kindly explained to me one of my joseki errors, and showed me how to play better. It was not so much that he had a better idea of the appropriate strategy (though that was probably the case also) as that he had better tools at his disposal. So, I think the way forward is to set about acquiring more knowledge.

From my recent experience, I understand that the kind of knowledge in Reducing Territorial Frameworks and the Takao Tesuji Dictionary is too fine-grained for my level of play. It's like reading a manual on Bach's use of retrograde canon before you've acquired an understanding of chorale harmonisation. Given that the joseki examples in A&D and SCOG have proven revelatory, and given that I frequently have trouble achieving a satisfying start to a game, I've decided to work on joseki for now.

A structured approach seems helpful. While I am lucky enough still to have a good memory, I cannot just absorb things at random like a child anymore. I do own a copy of Rui Naiwei's joseki book, but it is hiding somewhere, so I've settled on the Get Strong at Joseki series, which I also happen to own. I think I shall go through the sample joseki in the first section of each volume, practise with them to get a good idea of what each moves means, and then when the dust has settled go through the problem sets. After that, I shall either give Rui Naiwei another look when it resurfaces, or use Kogo's.

Incidentally, I must re-iterate my point about using a real board. There is no doubt about it, at least as far as I'm concerned, go patterns really do register much more strongly in the memory when physically played out. I know there are people who can learn from their computer screen or smartphone, but such devices tend to make me zone out; in contrast, the board and stones lodge in my mind.

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

Hi Tami,

Congrats on your on-going discoveries and adventures!

I also find using a real set to be very helpful.

If I may, a few comments on concepts in go.

First, your experience with playing with a real board and stones fits in with Piaget's theory. Consider the problem of verbal definition. (Not Piaget's approach, BTW.) If you look up a word in a dictionary you get a definition using other words. If you understand all the other words, fine. But if not, you can look up the words you do not understand. And if one of those definitions uses words you do not understand, you can look those up. Etc., etc. There is always the possibility that you will end up with a definition that uses words that you do not understand, but that you have already looked up. To use a dictionary you have to have words that you understand without a verbal definition, or, as in mathematics, you must have some undefined terms.

Piaget says that everyone has certain non-verbal concepts or ideas that he calls sensory-motor schemata. When I was in grade school our teachers told the kids not to count on our fingers. I think that Piaget would say that the kids were right. By counting on their fingers they were making use of their sensory-motor schemata. Later they could and would build more abstract schemata on top of their sensory-motor schemata. In go, playing with a real board and stones helps to build sensory-motor schemata. It also provides a rich experience upon which to build memories.

What is a concept? There is no one answer, OC, but one useful definition for game play is that a concept is a strategy. So what is a strategy? For these purposes a strategy is a situation response pair. (Obviously, strategy means something else in relation to the phrase, strategic concepts in go. ) For instance, a basic concept in go is that of a capture. The situation is a stone or group of stones of one color with only one dame, and the capture is filling that dame with a stone of the opposite color and removing that stone or group.

Now, one representation of that concept is the set of all stones with one dame along with the play that captures them. This representation is non-verbal, and rests upon the sensation of seeing a stone or group with one dame and the motor response of filling the dame and removing the stones. Another representation is the verbal definition. The verbal description of capture is not only concise, it allows us to capture stones in configurations that we have never seen before. Something that generalization from examples is not guaranteed to do. (OC, the concept of capture is so simple that I expect that pigeons can learn it through generalization pretty quickly. For pigeons the motor response might be pecking on the dame point in a picture.)

Many of the high level (i.e., strategic) concepts of go do not allow us to reliably apply them to novel situations. Unlike the concept of capture they are not well defined. For instance, the concept of kikashi relies upon the concepts of sente and aji, neither of which is well defined. (Actually, there is a well defined sense of sente, but one that differs from how most players understand the term. ) As a result, even pros may disagree about whether a play is kikashi or not, as Sakata has remarked.

Obviously, ill-defined concepts can be useful, or go players would not have developed them. And they do allow us to find good plays in novel situations. However, developing the judgement to apply them well can be a daunting challenge.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Hi Bill,The cliffhanger worked.

Perhaps I've been throwing poor old (?!) baby out with the bathwater. (It's a good job that I'm not a parent, isn't it?)

That is to say, maybe general principles are useful after all; but, paradoxically, they tend to be more useful to those who know more about specifics. What I'm driving at is hard to explain, but among other things that I have been noticing from my defeats to better players is the way that they make their stones work together. Now, I've heard that many times before, but it's from seeing it arise from my more skilled partners' joseki choices and from those occasions when they break away from other principles that I get a deeper appreciation of what that particular piece of general advice means. That is, the one who has a more comprehensive and thorough competence with individual weapons is better able to apply broader ideas.

Actually, I suppose this only equates to what I wrote in my previous post.

Anyway, I only the energy for the one game this evening (90 minutes of solid organ practise took quite a lot out of me earlier on), but I tried very hard to play each stone in relation to the the earlier ones that I played. Of course, my play was inaccurate and weak; but it was good enough to build up a substantial early advantage (an unusual experience for me these days). I then made a very bad mistake and found myself on the back foot for the rest of the game. But the happy thing was that despite this, I had just enough in the tank to sputter home to a 0.5 point win. My very bad mistake was, appropriately enough, a move that disrespected my earlier stones!The game, in all its grisly splendour, is here:



It may be a simple thing, but knowing that the UR corner would resolve to an L+1 came in very handy. It's the kind of thing I would have been uncertain of before I read L&D properly. Again, knowing just that little bit more about L&D shapes and eyes is beginning to pay me back.

I'm not a very good player, but for the first time in many years I am experiencing a tangible feeling of growth, and that is making go more enjoyable than it has been for a very long time. So, "Yea, I say yea". (Sharpe's Rifles reference there for British TV addicts among you).

By the way, what is that definition of sente? Bill, you old tease!

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

I know this is two weeks old, but what's the answer to ?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Application 1
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . 1 O X O . . . .
$$ | . . X O . . . . .
$$ | . . X O O . . . .
$$ | . X X X O . . . .
$$ | . O X O . O . . .
$$ | . . O O . . . . .
$$ | . O . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Take the stone?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Application 1
$$ ------------------
$$ | . 3 . 2 . . . . .
$$ | 7 1 O X O . . . .
$$ | . 6 X O . . . . .
$$ | 4 . X O O . . . .
$$ | 5 X X X O . . . .
$$ | 8 O X O . O . . .
$$ | . . O O . . . . .
$$ | . O . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Hi jlt:

Very good. You may have some words of encouragement for daal. viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15922



What I had in mind was the definition of sente used in evaluation. That definition is well defined.

I have given this some thought, and have decided to give an operational definition. Instead of relying upon verbiage, what concrete steps do we take to take to decide that a position is sente? These are steps we take to evaluate a position.

Here is a position. It's unfamiliar, but easy to evaluate.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ----------------------
$$ | a O . O . O . O . X .
$$ | . O X X X X X X X X .
$$ | . O 1 O . O . O . X .
$$ | . O X X X X X X X X .
$$ | b O 2 O . O . O . X .
$$ | . O X X X X X X X X .
$$ | . O 2 O 3 O . O . X .
$$ | . O X X X X X X X X .
$$ | c O 2 O 4 O . O . X .
$$ | . O X X X X X X X X .
$$ | . O 2 O 4 O 5 O . X .
$$ | . O X X X X X X X X .
$$ | . O 2 O 4 O 6 O . X .
$$ | . O X X X X X X X X .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

The position to evaluate is the corridor at "a". The other corridors show positions derived in the evaluation of the same corridor, assuming certain sequences of play. The evaluations of the corridors except for "a", "b", and "c" are obvious. How do we evaluate them?

My preference is for this to be an interactive exercise, but if you just want me to continue by myself, let me know.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Hi Bill, Thanks so much.