Surprisingly my win-rate against doge_bot_2 has drastically improved as I started to play ranked games. While I'm not quite at 50% against it yet, I'm winning a lot more than the 25% that I had initially projected, and OGS is giving me a rank at 2k based on mostly doge_bot_2 games.
Today I played my old "rival" Spectral-1k again, and I made one of those out-right blunders. It's a shame because I thought I actually played pretty well up until that point.
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$Bc
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . O X O . |
$$ | . . X , . X . . . , . . . . O X O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X X O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O X |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . O . O . , O X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . O X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . X . X . X O X X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . O O X X . X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O X O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . O 1 O O X X O . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . O , O . . O X X O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . X X . X X X O O O X O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X O X O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . X X O . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]
I still remember my thought process at this point:
1. Wow my key stones are in atari, I better capture at either N6 or P1.
2. Okay I will capture at N6. But wait... if I capture at N6 wouldn't my M5 stones get cut.
3. Okay but so what? I can probably just sacrifice M5 stones anyway. After all I had just won a huge battle on the right side. Black is supposed to get at least a little bit of compensation for losing a big group...
4. Is there way to make sure that M5 remains connected? Oh I see if I play at M6 I can create a connect-and-die shape. How neat!
5. But wait, why do I even care if black cuts off M5, isn't this game already over anyway? Just play N6 to capture!
6. But if I could connect and save M5 so easily, then why not?
7. Okay I will play at M6.
8. OHHH OOPS WHY DID MY STONES DISAPPEAR
So I was debating with myself whether it is acceptable to give up on M5 stones completely, I started to forget the very first point- that my stones are in atari.
While I don't make these types of blunders too frequently, I do wonder if I get stronger these blunders will just disappear. But then I came to the realization that even when I was a high school student I could not find a way to eradicate those simple careless errors from those easy trigonometry/calculus exams (despite the fact that I was capable of solving more difficult problems in math contests). I should just accept that such mistakes will happen occasionally and move on.