The problem I have with reading ahead...

[Suji]

Okay, this problem stems from my exclusive chess days, and I really don't know what to do about it. Since I've gotten used to playing by my intuition at chess, it's somewhat carried over to Go. Here's the problem: I read ahead with a sequence that I consider best and make my move. The opponent thinks and makes a move that I didn't even consider. Thus, all of my reading ahead did me ZERO good. I then have to "waste" more time thinking about my next move, and when I make my next move my opponent makes ANOTHER move that I didn't expect.

This is my problem with reading ahead. When I read ahead, it's usually wasted time as in my opponent doesn't even reply with what I had expected. Most, if not all, of my plans become moot. I know that both Chess and Go are two player games and that this can and will occur, at least occasionally. How do you guys deal with this? How can I fix this?

(Obviously, one answer is to get better. )

[jts]

I think it depends partly on the nature of the problem.

How quickly do you use up your main time? If you aren't in byo-yomi until the endgame, you're playing very quickly. You have plenty of time to slow down and consider alternative moves by your opponent, and how you'll respond to them.

If the problem is that your opponent is responding to your forcing moves in unexpected ways, maybe you should spend some time studying tesuji. Is it things like, "If I peep here, he has to connect... oh damn, he made a bamboo joint in sente instead!" It may be that your opponent has to connect, or cut, or what have you, but you aren't yet familiar with the broad variety of cat-skinning techniques available in go.

If the problem is that you think your move is sente and he doesn't, well then, you have yourselves a disagreement. Re-read, and figure out whether you should follow up on your threat or respond to his.

So, the possibilities: (i) You should read more slowly and thoroughly. (ii) You know that your opponent needs to do X, but you need to learn more ways for him to do X (i.e., learn new tesuji). (iii) You think your opponent needs to do X, but actually X isn't the biggest thing on the board right now.

But in general, if you think your opponent should do something and he doesn't, that should make you happy, since even if you have to do some more reading prima facie it seems he's made a mistake, and now you can crush him and drink honeyed mead from his skull!

Helpful?

[daniel_the_smith]

You have to read broadly, not just deeply.

...although even at my level I still get surprised occasionally with moves I didn't even consider. Until the shapes are all in your head it's just not possible to consider every reasonable possibility. But you might try to read 5 moves 3 moves deep instead of 1 move 15 moves deep.

Edit: sometimes right before I play I'll ask myself: how else could he answer this? Also, if you found a sequence that heavily favors you, ask yourself how you would try to get out of it if you were the other guy.

[Chew Terr]

I think part of it is, expanding the scope of moves you look at. With that, I think experience just helps you better consider what moves your opponent might play. For example, if you've never seen a tesuji, you'll almost never expect your opponent to play it. With a combination of practice playing and maybe some tesuji problems, you'll better anticipate possible moves, so you'll better know what to plan for. But I'm sure this 'unexpected move' issue will just never go away entirely.

[Bill Spight]

Okay, this problem stems from my exclusive chess days, and I really don't know what to do about it. Since I've gotten used to playing by my intuition at chess, it's somewhat carried over to Go. Here's the problem: I read ahead with a sequence that I consider best and make my move. The opponent thinks and makes a move that I didn't even consider. Thus, all of my reading ahead did me ZERO good. I then have to "waste" more time thinking about my next move, and when I make my next move my opponent makes ANOTHER move that I didn't expect.

This is my problem with reading ahead.

This is a great learning opportunity. If your opponent not only makes a move that you did not consider, and it was a good enough move to throw you for a loop, you have learned something.

I suspect that your problem lies in the phrase, "reading ahead". Perhaps you are reading too deeply, and not broadly enough. (Obviously, if you are not even considering the best candidates, you are not reading broadly enough.)

For technical reasons having to do with short term memory, humans handle depth first search better than breadth first search. So go ahead and read deeply. However, taking a cue from Kotov, at each step identify all of the good candidate moves that you see. (You have to trust your judgement. You can't read every branch of the tree.) As you get better, you will be able to prune better.

OC, studying tesuji and life and death will help you to identify good candidate moves and prune bad ones.

Good luck!

[Chew Terr]

One thing you can try to do to improve on this in the mean-time is related to common advice for playing patiently. You know how one common piece of advice for hasty players is 'always consider at least two options?' How about this: when the move seems important, try to consider at least two moves for your opponent. That way, while you still may not find the move your opponent goes with, at least your search will be broader. And who knows, the second move you look at could be the one your opponent was planning on taking advantage of to use the game.

[phrax]

I feel your pain. I found focusing on improving my prediction helps a lot. I generally do that by looking for shape moves, thinking about typical proverbs, and typical tactics. I've found these general guidelines go a long way. I also tend to read lots of moves very shallow, and only go deeper for the 1 or 2 (if any) that look really nice or really scary.

Another method I use is to channel my inner Lee Changho. I like to simplify a situation when possible (although our definition of "simplify" is drastically different). I like to find moves where my opponent only has 1 or 2 really obvious responses. This helps me to read deeper, since I know the likelihood is must greater they'll play that way.

When all of this doesn't work, I just cut and hope for the best

[fwiffo]

I don't disagree with anything said so far, but I also I don't think there's too big a mystery here... The key is practice, practice, practice. Do lots and lots of problems and play regularly. Your reading will get faster, broader and deeper. You'll get faster at homing in on the promising moves and discarding non-working lines.

[snorri]

Hmm. You're not quite saying that your opponents are finding good moves that you didn't consider...

In the kyus at least, often you didn't consider your opponent's move because it's a bad move. If that is the case, I wouldn't say your reading is wasted, although it can feel that way. It's exercise to prepare for the time when your opponents will make better moves.

I wouldn't worry deeply about being surprised by the moves of weak players, as long as you can continue and handle them. The time to cultivate the feeling of surprise is when seeing moves in games of strong players that you'd never consider in a million years. When going over a professional game, for example, you should try to guess some candidates for the next move. If the pro plays something you'd never consider, you may have to go ahead a few moves and then look back to see the purpose of the move. Even then, you may not see (usually because the reading is too hard or the relevant line is avoided) but that's okay. The mere exercise will open your mind to more possibilties.

[HermanHiddema]

For technical reasons having to do with short term memory, humans handle depth first search better than breadth first search.

Very interesting, I did not know that, though I do experience it sometimes.

I've had to learn to avoid the sunk cost fallacy in this context. Often, when I've invested a lot of time into reading a variation very deeply, I tend to want to play it, regardless of whether I liked the result of my reading or not.

[fwiffo]

...sunk cost fallacy...

This. I usually feel like each time I improve a bit it's because I finally am able to resist playing a particular kind of move that I am able to read out as bad, but have a hard time not playing.

[daniel_the_smith]

...sunk cost fallacy...

This. I usually feel like each time I improve a bit it's because I finally am able to resist playing a particular kind of move that I am able to read out as bad, but have a hard time not playing.

What still gets me from time to time is reading out something, being unable to completely read it out but thinking it 65% probably doesn't work for me, and then playing it anyway because I want a fight or think it would be cool. *Wanting* a move to work doesn't actually *make* it work.

But I've also done my fair share of "oh I read this move and it was bad but I'm out of time so..." *plays random move*

I think nowadays if I'm reading something and it starts to get complicated I stop and try to find something simpler, for either me or the opponent. Only after I'm certain the simple stuff doesn't work do I try the complicated stuff. That's much more efficient.

[yoyoma]

...sunk cost fallacy...

This. I usually feel like each time I improve a bit it's because I finally am able to resist playing a particular kind of move that I am able to read out as bad, but have a hard time not playing.

I have the opposite experience usually. Many times I see a simple answer first, then do a bunch of reading trying to get another move that tries to do more to work. Finally I realize it's just not going to work and connect against the peep or whatever.