How do you "force" yourself to read and think

[emeraldemon]

Francis Meyer came to a tournament in Boulder a while back (2nd place in U.S. open 2010, only losing to Myung Wan Kim). He played VERY slowly, using the entire 45 minute allotment in the first 50 moves or so. He spent most of every game playing 30 seconds per move on his last byo-yomi, and never once played the move before the 28 second mark. To me I think playing so close to a time loss every move would be more nerve-racking than helpful, but it was certainly inspiring.

[Suji]

Francis Meyer came to a tournament in Boulder a while back (2nd place in U.S. open 2010, only losing to Myung Wan Kim). He played VERY slowly, using the entire 45 minute allotment in the first 50 moves or so. He spent most of every game playing 30 seconds per move on his last byo-yomi, and never once played the move before the 28 second mark. To me I think playing so close to a time loss every move would be more nerve-racking than helpful, but it was certainly inspiring.

This is one extreme, but I'm on the other extreme, playing fast, like mic. This guy must have nerves of steel, being in time trouble all the time, or really confident that he won't make a reading mistake. Personally, I'm afraid of losing on time, and that's why I play fast.

I think once you know the reasons that you play fast, one can correct it. You just have to fix the problem at the root.

[tapir]

Find someone you don't want to lose against.

To be honest I don't know anyone whom I *want* to lose to Do you?

- mic

I really mean it. There are people I just don't want to lose against (in my case everyone who ignores my forcing moves without outreading me but relying on me messing up the follow up). Learning to accept defeat is wise, but only after going all out against them.

I don't believe that you have to rely on tricks to make yourself read, if only you take the games you play seriously. If it is online play, playing the same players repeatedly or playing in some sort of formal or informal league may help, playing only ranked games is useful as well.

[xed_over]

I've recorded several US Congress games of MyungWan Kim, and he plays the same way... never even moving his hand toward the bowl of stones until the last 1 or 2 seconds.

But you guys misunderstand... they're not even playing "close to a time loss" as you or I might see it. Compared to most people's blitz games, 30 seconds is an eternity (and US Congress games are usually 60 second periods, IIRC) -- and its forever renewable to boot!

Most of the time, they already know where they are going to play, having already read it out earlier. They're just not throwing away that valuable "extra" time to keep reading even further (including using their opponent's time also). And if they really do need more time, then they just play a timesuji -- forever renewable, remember.

With byo-yomi, they have all the time in the world!

[rubin427]

Imagine your teacher has just now walked up behind you and has begun observing your game. Imagine your teacher has found the best move and is willing you to find it also. "Keep looking. Find the best move. Go is about finding the best move." You can hear his voice in your head...

... or maybe I'm the only one hearing voices.

[snorri]

People keep talking about this like it's a reasonable thing to do, and it may be in serious IRL tournaments where some money is at stake, but I wonder how many have seriously tried it online.

If everyone starts using every drop of byoyomi, games are going to get pretty long if it's Japanese byoyomi. Think about it. Let's say an average game is 240 moves or so. At 30 seconds per move, that's 2 hours, and that's assuming no main time. With 45 minutes main time, it could get to 3.5 hours. Okay, that's an extreme case, but even if you assume a player is playing at byoyomi pace during main time so that hitting byoyomi isn't so jarring, that's still 2 hours (i.e., up to move 180 in main time, last 60 moves in byoyomi for both players. I'll bet most people who play a 0:45 + 5x0:30 game on KGS don't budget 3.5 hours. (Or 3 hours in the more common 0:30 + 5x :0:30 setting.) Many don't even budget 2 hours. But oh, no, the real problem on KGS is escapers, right? Hmm.

Time systems that encourage you to waste time on trivial moves are evil.

FWIW, one thing I did was pretty extreme. I actually used a screen capture program to record my online games while I was playing. I would talk to myself while playing about what I was thinking. Later on, I'd review the recording with my spoken comments. With 20-20 hindsight, it's pretty enlightening to see where impulsive moves are made and how much they cost if they are mistakes. I didn't feel that burning myself out on every move was the solution. That's too tiring. Uniformly adding more thinking time everywhere isn't really the solution, IMHO. I just tried to learn to short-circuit the playing reflex in situations where more thinking is indicated. I was also amazed at how much I was following my opponent's playing pace, too.

Impulsive moves are mental problem. People play them even in Malkovich games, so I'd don't think the clock that's the issue. If you can understand what your thinking when you play them and get rid of, say, 80% of them, you play almost as fast as before.

[Chew Terr]

A Starcraft example: There was recently a Day 9 Starcraft cast about shifting priorities. Basically, the topic was this: when you are trying to improve, you have a laundry-list of items that you want to practice. In Starcraft, this is various macro elements, unit control, scouting, creep spread, and so on. In go, one could count reading depth, remembering to keep strong groups, opening ideas to try, and so on. In either case, the point is that you can only strongly practice so many things at once. Beyond that, things just kind of fall off your radar. As a result, when you want to improve at something, shift it to the top of your priorities. As a matter of fact, be willing to do so at the cost of everything else. For example, in the podcast, a player wanted to focus on creep spread (for the purpose of the example, you don't have to know what that means). He focused on it so fully that he was unable to control other aspects as well as he normally could. He even lost the game that he may not have otherwise, because while his units were being destroyed, he continued to spread creep. At the end of the game, though, he felt great, because his one goal had succeeded very well. After practicing like this, in theory, his creep spread will have improved, even when he spends less attention/effort on it. Similarly for go, if you pick one thing to work on for a game, you can reward yourself based on that. Spend a few games where you just try to make sure you read at least two alternatives for every move- even a known joseki. If you do, even if you lose on time, you will know that you improved. Losing on time, in a way, would be a great mark of success (though it would point out something else to work on for later). Basically, if you occasionally spend a whole game JUST trying to improve on this, it may be easier to work on. If reading depth is only number four on your list of things you think of all game, it's much easier to lose track.

[mic]

@ChewTerr

That sound's like a good idea. I'll definitly try it in my next games.

[Horibe]

Find someone you don't want to lose against.

To be honest I don't know anyone whom I *want* to lose to Do you?

- mic

Actually there are many. Whenever I attend a tournament, of course I want to win, but I also want to play stronger people. Ideally, I want to win those games too, but, in reality, by wanting to play them, I am, at least as a statisticaly realist - wanting to lose to them.

[daal]

So, what are your strategies to fight a bad habit (in general) and especially not thinking/reading enough?

Cheers,
mic

The first step is clearly to recognize that such a problem exists, which you seem to have done. Then I think it's useful to think about what situations exacerbate the problem. One thing I have noticed, is that if I have an impatient, quick playing opponent, the likelihood is greatly increased that I too will play too fast. This may also be a bad habit, but it's not the number one problem, so one of my solutions to improve my thinking/reading habits, is to play slow opponents. How does one find them? I have two suggestions: First is the ASR League, where I've rarely found an impatient opponent. Second is to play on IGS instead of Tygem or KGS. I don't know why it is, but players of my level just tend to take their time there.

[ez4u]

I have had this problem for as long as I have played Go. Recently I have given it a lot of thought because I feel it is a fundamental barrier to success in more serious games (whatever those might be for you). I have concluded that there is more than one problem involved:
*On the one hand there are the issues of depth and accuracy versus breadth and vision. But that is the topic of another thread!
*On the other hand there is the question of time management. This really has to be practiced in games. It is certainly true that you can only practice using longer blocks of time while playing games with longer time limits. At the same time, the basic issue of time management comes up in every game. To take a stark example, when you play a blitz game with a single period of 10 seconds per play you know exactly what you have and it ain't much. However, as mentioned elsewhere, if you watch the 8-9d's play blitz, you notice that they do use their time carefully. You can do the same.

Part of it is thinking about it in advance and deciding how to use your time. What can you do in 10 seconds and what can you not do? If you are like me, for example, you can not accurately count the board in 10 seconds. Decide in advance that you are not going to waste any time doing that. What else? You are not going to recall that complex joseki that you were fond of a couple of years ago but have not used since. In fact you are not going to read out any complex corner fights in the early going because there are too many possible branches to read through in the time available. And so on.

But those are things you won't do. It is much more important to decide what you will do. Why? Because you really want to practice doing productive things rather than just practicing not doing impossible things. What you would practice in 10 seconds should be different than what you would practice in 30 seconds just as what you would practice with 40 minutes main time should be different than what you would practice with 5 minutes main time. So what? So be happy if you have the opportunity to regularly play under a variety of different time limits. I personally do not think that playing a lot of longer games is the best way to improve. If you improve at your time management, you should improve across the range of time limits. In any case, plan ahead! Prepare a little plan for different time limits. That means you are not just floating if there is a game offer with different limits than you have thought of yet. Having a plan written out in advance will also help you objectively review you games later. In your 10-second game perhaps you decide that your basic plan is to spend half you time on an immediate local response to your opponent's last play and half your time on non-local possibilities. Now sometimes when the stones are in contact, you can't afford to spend any time on the non-local possibilities. If you develop the ability to hold your plan in your mind even when you are under pressure and mentally keep track of the extent to which you are falling behind in your global assessment, that by itself will probably be a major improvement in your ability to handle the wider game (I know it would be for me! ).

One thing that won't work is deciding how to use your time and then just doing it. Time management is like reading, it will require practice. And the more you expect to need it in high-pressure situations like formal tournaments, the more practice it will require! Unlike reading, however, it can not be practiced outside of games. In that since it should perhaps have a higher priority than other practice when you play.

[Knotwilg]

Dave's story is wonderful and other people make very valuable contributions too. Here's my addition to those:

The problem of playing too fast can be translated as essentially wanting the game to be over. It's like runners who exhaust themselves by running too fast and not enjoying it. They run to improve their physical condition, not because they enjoy it. They care about the result, not the process.

In go the game result is win or loss. The process is playing and learning. If you really enjoy thinking about Go, then there is no need to rush the game. When it's over, the joy is gone. Unless ... deep down you're on the drug of victory. Then of course, you want that drug as soon as possible, even at the expense of a loss!

[mic]

In go the game result is win or loss. The process is playing and learning. If you really enjoy thinking about Go, then there is no need to rush the game. When it's over, the joy is gone. Unless ... deep down you're on the drug of victory. Then of course, you want that drug as soon as possible, even at the expense of a loss!

I think you have a point here. I thought about your remark this weekend and you're probably right that I'm more interested in victory than in having played a beautiful (albeit possibly lost) game.

I'm going to change my point of view, although this could be quite difficult. I remember that L19 had a discussion on it, but can't find it. Any hints?

- mic

[gaius]

If everyone starts using every drop of byoyomi, games are going to get pretty long if it's Japanese byoyomi. Think about it. Let's say an average game is 240 moves or so. At 30 seconds per move, that's 2 hours, and that's assuming no main time. With 45 minutes main time, it could get to 3.5 hours. Okay, that's an extreme case, but even if you assume a player is playing at byoyomi pace during main time so that hitting byoyomi isn't so jarring, that's still 2 hours (i.e., up to move 180 in main time, last 60 moves in byoyomi for both players. I'll bet most people who play a 0:45 + 5x0:30 game on KGS don't budget 3.5 hours. (Or 3 hours in the more common 0:30 + 5x :0:30 setting.) Many don't even budget 2 hours. But oh, no, the real problem on KGS is escapers, right? Hmm.

Snorri, I have never understood this point of view. If you don't want to budget 2 hours on a game, then why on earth are you starting a 45 minute + very generous byo-yomi game?? A few years ago I sometimes played long games online, and it always surprised me that some people were actually annoyed that I used all of my time. They shouldn't complain, they just shouldn't have accepted a game with those time controls! These days I don't have the time and energy to play long games online, so I just don't start long games. IMO, something like 10 min + 3*20s byo-yomi is excellent for casual fun games when you don't want to blitz, but also don't want to agonise over every move.

In a long game, I believe a serious go player should do everything in their ability at every move to avoid oversights as much as possible. Of course, you will not use every last second of byo-yomi at every move, but it doesn't hurt to use most of it whenever you can. Until you get to high dan level, there are not that many trivial moves! Even playing small endgame well can be very complicated. Playing like this is very exhausting indeed, but it does wonders to your tournament performance and really helps you progress because you consider every move seriously. And isn't progress one of the things that makes go so much fun?

[OtakuViking]

I think reading shouldn't be forced. It should be a natural part of your game, and the way to make it natural is to do tsumego and ask yourself what your opponent is threatening with his moves.

Asking yourself while playing 'can I tenuki?' 'Should I tenuki'? 'What would happen if I tenuki'd? etc should prove very helpful.