Think and Grow Strong

[Fedya]

Lamentably, I appear to possess a very special talent for choosing the worst possible move whenever confronted with a new joseki.

You're not alone. It seems as though every time I'm confronted by a move I haven't seen before and have to resort to playing from first principles, that's when things start to go wrong.

[Tami]

I've started playing around with streaming in the last few days. It certainly adds a bit of a frisson to the experience of playing online, and it is definitely harder than it looks. My original angle is to mix in a bit of chess with my go streaming.

Last night I attempted to incorporate a theme: "War and Peace". My idea was to play one game in a peaceful manner, and the other in a deliberately maximalist style. In go the peaceful manner meant not getting into avoidable fights, but rather just taking big points so long as it did not mean playing submissively (there is a difference between avoiding fighting and just obeying orders). In chess, the idea was to play prophylactically: keeping the position stable and healthy, and wait for the opponent to overextend before taking advantage thereof at a later stage. Conversely, the maximal approach to go was to have been to try and play the biggest point, no matter what the risks - if I had to fight to get what I wanted, then I would fight. I don't mean just being an unreasonable clown by this, but rather being uncompromising: i.e., if one is leading by 10, then it would not do to win by 9. In chess, I meant going for middlegame checkmate.

What was interesting for me was to discover how hard it can be even to stick to one single "strategy" in a real game. The first go started peacefully enough, but after I misread something in an early corner exchange, I found myself in serious trouble - and the only way out was to "shake" the game by attacking violently and stretching my groups to the limit. I won, but I should not have done. The "peaceful" chess game started off quietly enough, but my opponent more or less invited me to launch a sacrificial mating attack. Even Petrosian (my favourite chess player) would flatten his opponents like a juggernaut if they asked for it, after all.

The second go game was meant to be warlike, and followed the "script" somewhat more closely, but with the lamentable ending of me losing by 8.5 (I am playing at 2k on IGS and was white up against a 3k, to whom the server made me give a 5.5 reverse komi). It was difficult indeed to make decisions about exchanges while talking and fending off sleepiness (past midnight and apres sauna). The second chess game was supposed to have seen me playing like Rambo, and I played the Najdorf as Black to this end, but found me stoically avoiding his attack, and just mopping up when he went too far.

It was a lot of fun for me, even if I only had one viewer LOL (and that was only for a short time!). I consider it a kind of practise. The lesson was that go (and chess) is a two-player game: the situation is always changing, and you cannot inflexibly play according to a pre-conceived strategy, be it ever so simple an idea.

There will be more streaming, but for the time being they will be live-only. I'm not prepared to upload footage until I'm a bit more polished in my presentation. It's probably the way that I'm wired, but I am not much of a multi-tasker (even though I am a girl). I don't know how my brain processes work most of the time, and trying to describe them in situ seems to interrupt the mechanism, but perhaps the more streaming I do, the more I will find a viable modus operandi.

I think we are in a very exciting era in go. Since I came back, I have seen the game is changing before our very eyes in the wake of the AI revolution. I don't know how Go Seigen did it, the flexibility of his play and various ideas of his that I've read or read about seem to have be truly prescient. The new go seems to be much more flexible and open-ended: probe and counter-probe, plays across the whole board, escalation rather than settlement. Even at my lowly level, it's not the same game I was playing five or six years ago!

And talking of different games: I am glad that I have started playing on servers other than KGS. For a start, I don't worry if I lose a game on IGS, as it's not going to cause me some incalculable cost, and I know that if my vanquisher went on to have a bad day then he's not going to drag me down in his wake. Same with Tygem and Fox. And the style on each server is subtly different: KGS players do, indeed, seem somewhat textbook (although the above-mentioned flexibilty seems to be percolating through to it), while IGS players seem to love the influence, while my limited experience of Fox and Tygem suggests an almost comical love of FIGHTING. It is almost as if Fox, Tygem, IGS and KGS each other a completely different game, but played with the same equipment.

I'm coming to believe that a good way to approach learning is to "learn and forget". Study hard, study casually, study here and study there - and then forget about it. What will remain is a kind of residual knowledge that will serve you well when you need it. Sometimes, the more you try to improve, the more you get in your own way. There is a lot to be said for simply taking in as much data as you can, and then leaving it to the unconscious mind to sort out over the months and years. I reviewed Yang Yilun's Fundamental Principles of Go recently: it's full of specific principles and full of concrete variations. I remember them pretty well, but I feel that they will do me the most good when I don't remember them at all. By this, I mean that I won't be effortfully recalling the variations during the game, but rather the appropriate ideas will be coming to me effortlessly - because I've already done the work. That's what I mean by learn and forget. Who actually remembers what's in a language textbook once you can speak a language? Do any of you non-English speakers ever think about the days when you laboriously wrote "I would like a pen" in your copybooks? I certainly don't think about the days of "Sumimasen. Shitsurei shimasu. Eki ha doko desu ka" very often or even "Yasui uisuki ga amari suki deha arimasen" (from Japanese in 30 Days, by the way, a highly recommended book for beginners).

I'm now 1k again on KGS, and seem about right at 2k on IGS (and this matches the Worldwide Rank Comparison Chart on Sensei's Library). I think as this summer draws to a close, and I have to start focussing my energies primarily on my work, that I can safely say that I've succeeded in de-rusting myself, have acquired a new passion for the game, got over the fear of losing, and can feel a definite sense of development in my play. And I've discreetly assisted two people in their own go journeys. So job well done. Feel free to pat me on the back!

[Bill Spight]

The first go started peacefully enough, but after I misread something in an early corner exchange, I found myself in serious trouble - and the only way out was to "shake" the game by attacking violently and stretching my groups to the limit. I won, but I should not have done.

Of course you should have. You upped your game and met the challenge. As Victor Mollo says, par is an unworthy goal. Omedetou!

I think we are in a very exciting era in go.

Me, too.

Since I came back, I have seen the game is changing before our very eyes in the wake of the AI revolution. I don't know how Go Seigen did it, the flexibility of his play and various ideas of his that I've read or read about seem to have be truly prescient. The new go seems to be much more flexible and open-ended: probe and counter-probe, plays across the whole board, escalation rather than settlement. Even at my lowly level, it's not the same game I was playing five or six years ago!

The 20th century was the century of Go Seigen. Not only was he a towering presence as a player, he changed the way everybody else played. The 21st century will be the century of AI.

I'm coming to believe that a good way to approach learning is to "learn and forget". Study hard, study casually, study here and study there - and then forget about it. What will remain is a kind of residual knowledge that will serve you well when you need it. Sometimes, the more you try to improve, the more you get in your own way. There is a lot to be said for simply taking in as much data as you can, and then leaving it to the unconscious mind to sort out over the months and years. I reviewed Yang Yilun's Fundamental Principles of Go recently: it's full of specific principles and full of concrete variations. I remember them pretty well, but I feel that they will do me the most good when I don't remember them at all.

That's a good strategy. From what I've read recently, a good time to review is when you have almost forgotten what you are reviewing. That's a good trick if you can do it.

[Tami]

Well, I'm just streaming and recording my streams as a way of practising my simultaneous playing and presenting skills. It's not at all easy for me. It's even a little mortifying to think that Haylee can not only play go to a vastly higher standard while explaining it, but she can also do that while explaining in a second language. I think her English is better than mine, at least when I'm trying to play go! Hats off, too, to Peter Svidler, who can play chess beautifully while giving a wonderfully witty English commentary.

Perhaps I shall attempt to stream while explaining in Japanese. That should be hard - and it will definitely be funny.

Anyway, this is the first of my live streams that I'm happy to share. My twitch handle is gotamsin, in case you're interested in following me.

I was pleased with this effort for three reasons:

1) I managed to keep up a fairly cogent commentary
2) I kept my cool when things went wrong (as they usually do when I stream go)
3) I made a prediction - and it came to pass (just call me "Nostratami")

If you know more about SLOBS (the software I use to stream to Twitch), please could suggest how it is that I only get the Panda Egg display once I start playing? I wanted the webcam and tip jar and chat box to be shown, too.

Any tips on how I could improve my style? If I can't be very instructive, I would like to make it fun. What are the good points? What are the weaknesses?

Thanks!

[Tami]

I shall do another stream at 2PM on Wednesday, 5 Sept (UK time).

I'm finishing off the holiday with O Meien's Zone Press Park. I'll write a review soon. It's a very hard book in some ways, but it's a welcome counter-balance to the other things that I have read over the Summer.

[Tami]

I've been having a lot of fun strolling around the "Zone Press Park". My IGS rank has risen to from a starting point of 2k to 1d and I seem to be holding my own quite well. It seems that the books that I read earlier in the Summer (Life and Death, Attack and Defence, Fundamental Principles of Go, and Get Strong at Joseki) gave me a good foundation, while Zone Press Park has given me a totally different perspective - an alternative, whole-board oriented way of seeing.

The most difficult thing is trying to apply a large-scale style when playing with the White stones. After a couple of unfortunate episodes, I decided to investigate how O and Takemiya play with White. If I can come up with general conclusions from this exercise, I would say that

1) They make use of an early tenuki to catch up in pace of development (so, White might approach a corner and then play away)

2) They use sabaki technique to establish a base for playing on a larger scale later

So, in a nutshell, one's first priority with White is to perform a kind of neutralisation exercise. You have to take the sting out of Black's development before you can start thinking in terms of getting a big area for yourself. This is just my subjective view, though, so take it with a pinch of salt.

I bought the O Meien yose book the other day, although I haven't been able to spend much time with it so far.

I have been coming up with my own practical theory of endgame, by the way, but I feel too embarrassed about my lowly level to go into details about it. It's just that, ultimately, you actually have to come up with your own style and your own way of thinking, because outside of the concrete (i.e., the L-group is dead), there is so much that depends on how you interpret what you read and what you see. However, at least I know that I am a dan player now. And I'm starting to find a feeling of identity as a go player: "these are my colours, and I'm nailing them to the mast". It might not be the very good go, but it is my own go.

To whit:

* I play for scale. If you outscale me, then it means that I don't believe you!

* My stones are a team. But the death penalty is in effect for those who can no longer function effectively in the team!

* I don't believe in sente. I play where I want to, so long as the costs are acceptable.

[Bill Spight]

My IGS rank has risen to from a starting point of 2k to 1d and I seem to be holding my own quite well.

めでたい、めでたい！:)