A Hitchhiker's Guide To Better Go

[hailthorn011]

Hello! I said I was back in 2018 but I played on very casually for the most part. During the intervening years between 2016 and 2020 I was more interested in watching professional matches. That being said I realized some things that will enable me to improve at a hopefully faster rate than when I was truly active:

1. I work. This means I can afford Go literature and new Go board. Both will prove massively beneficial so I purchased Opening Theory Made Easy and a problems book.

2. I'm back on ADHD medication. I dunno if I really touched on this ever but I have ADHD so it has made studying and playing long games of Go somewhat difficult. Or it would lead to me making compulsive decisions which more often than not resulted in disaster. My ADHD medications help this significantly and I am able to focus a lot better.

3. ...Uh, where's the script for 3, Carl? What do you mean you don't know?

Anyway. Jokes aside. I don't have any lofty goals other than to get back to what my playing level was when I quit. And that seems to be 6 Kyu. I'm not yet sure what my playing level is given it has been so long. I have forgotten terms and opening sequences (hence getting Opening Theory Made Easy). I haven't played humans yet either so that is another thing that I will begin doing.

Here's to a jolly good show, lads!

[gowan]

There are several go clubs in VA. See: https://www.usgo.org/where-play-go?state=VA#listing Of course they are probably not meeting in person but, eventually, going to one would probably increase your enthusiasm and, possibly, help you to improve.

[bogiesan]

Need some allusions to Trillian, Dent, Marvin, Zaphod, towels, Vogons, &c.

Depending on where you live, finding a nice go set is a bit of a problem these days.

[hailthorn011]

There are several go clubs in VA. See: https://www.usgo.org/where-play-go?state=VA#listing Of course they are probably not meeting in person but, eventually, going to one would probably increase your enthusiasm and, possibly, help you to improve.

It will definitely be something for me to keep an eye on moving forward. Thank you!

Need some allusions to Trillian, Dent, Marvin, Zaphod, towels, Vogons, &c.

Depending on where you live, finding a nice go set is a bit of a problem these days.

I purchased one off of Yellow Mountain Imports. I think it will serve well for my purposes.

[hailthorn011]

This was a game I played last night while inebriated so I'm not really looking for it to be reviewed. I did study the game and I realized there were better moves I could have made. What truly intrigues me is the sequence beginning at Black 233. White shouldn't have died here but white continued to misplay here significantly. White allowed me to get away with a lot of poor play in this game.

Another interesting aspect is that I was able to beat an 11k bot so easily despite my lengthy hiatus. Either way it was a very fun game.

[dfan]

Black 223 at T9 (instead of T6) kills.

(Edit: I fast-forwarded to that particular move number because I misread your post and thought you were talking about move 223, not 233. Of course Black could have killed with T9 much earlier.)

(And one more edit after looking at move 233: I don't think you are doing your development any favors by playing bots that are so bad. Speaking from personal experience, it doesn't provide useful feedback and really encourages sloppy play.)

[hailthorn011]

Black 223 at T9 (instead of T6) kills.

(Edit: I fast-forwarded to that particular move number because I misread your post and thought you were talking about move 223, not 233. Of course Black could have killed with T9 much earlier.)

(And one more edit after looking at move 233: I don't think you are doing your development any favors by playing bots that are so bad. Speaking from personal experience, it doesn't provide useful feedback and really encourages sloppy play.)

Fair points. I completely missed T9. As for playing bots I'm mainly doing it to get a solid rank so I'm not sandbagging against people.

[hailthorn011]

My Go board from YMI arrived!

[hailthorn011]

Work really saps the energy to play games. But I am having a lot of fun with my correspondence game with jlt. I am making mistakes but I am going to do my best to learn from them as well. Opening Theory Made Easy arrived yesterday so I will begin reading that. With the two days off I have coming up I'm going to play at least 10 games per day.

[hailthorn011]

This was a fast game I played against a bot before going to work. Still amazed I'm on an SDK level after not really playing for so long lol