Mike's Motivational Tools

[Mike]

Oh wow, time really flies with go doesn't it?

I came back from the gym around 9PM and figured I'd relax before my own games by checking out something to review in the KGS Teaching Ladder(I like to do this as their simpler games are a nice distraction and it helps people out in the process). I picked a game between a 12k and a 13k which upon first inspection should be ending any moment with black being dead all over the board. It didn't though.. Black seemed to know he had lost and he he started to play seemingly random moves all over the board. The game continued for like an HOUR after it had "ended" and in the end it was nearly 400 moves and black playing things where white could pass 5 times in a row before he needed to add a move. And I'm using the word "needed" very lightly here, as he could've let black kill half of his stuff and still win on points... Really rude stuff. It seemed to be because white had spent all his time getting a good early game and was on 30 second SD while black had 20+ minutes. Attempting to win by time...

Anyway, it eventually came to an end and I offered to review it for the white player. Black didn't stick around, not that I would've wanted him to. At first I figured I would just point out some really big mistakes, as there were several of those, but it kinda started to move on to smaller and smaller ones.. And then the fuseki.. And pretty much every move after that. Then a 1k came a long and we started to play out long variations and semeais for things that "could've happened" and eventually I started talking to him about other things he needed to improve on and ways to improve on them and.. Well it was 11:30PM when I next looked at the time. And I hadn't even had anything to eat after the gym yet. Dang it.

I don't know what it was, but somehow I just got really into that "teaching session" if you could call it that and in the end I was creating shapes on an empty board to show examples for things I was talking about and all that.. O_o

Anyway, I'm now exhausted and going to eat something. I won't be playing my games today, but honestly, I did SO MUCH reading in that thing I don't think it's a huge loss after that anyway.

Phew.

[Mike]

I'm beat right now. So tired. I should've stopped after the first game which was still ok. I'm actually just not going to post the second game.. And no, I'm not trying to hide an embarrassing loss, I won it, but it was too stupid to even review. My brains sometimes just switch off when they think I'm playing against a weak enough opponent.. I got the impression that my opponent was actually just a child, so, off they went and I just clicked around like a dumbass while arguing with people about luck in go in the EGR =/

First game was fine though.

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1305

[Mike]

I'm still alive! And haven't stopped, in case anyone reads this still

I've been pretty much unable to play a proper blitz game since the KGS server move. The server is so unbelievably laggy now, I just do not feel comfortable playing 10 second blitz.

In addition to that I had some kinda stomach flu stop me from playing for a while as well, but I still did other go related things. Reviewed games for others, watched lectures, reading practice etc.

I also joined the Nordic Go Academy and November league should be starting this week and I had a test lesson with Jan Simara.

Sooo, basically.. Keeping busy with go, hopefully improving. I'll be posting my slower games here later when I'm not doing all these other things and what not.

[Tami]

Hi Mike,
Hope you are feeling better now. I thought the game with Zaragorou5 looked well played - you seem strong in the fuseki. Maybe it's the effect of playing Lee Sedol's games?

I kind of liked your heuristic about "Attacked by a non-territory gaining move, defend; if not attacked severely, take territory elsewhere". I thought you might be interested to know that in the Japanese go books, the guiding principle is necessity. If you don't need to defend, then you should not defend. So, even if the attacking move does not gain territory, and is not too severe, then you might do better still to ignore it and take a big point elsewhere.

You talked about an "embarrassing loss". This reminds me of someting Antti Tormanen said on his blog about being an insei in Japan - according to him, the insei are taught that losing is "not shameful" and that you should always try your best. So, if insei don't have to be embarrassed about their losses (and they are playing at a serious level) then perhaps we should not worry too much about making mistakes and getting beaten in our games?

[Mike]

Hi Mike,
Hope you are feeling better now. I thought the game with Zaragorou5 looked well played - you seem strong in the fuseki. Maybe it's the effect of playing Lee Sedol's games?

I kind of liked your heuristic about "Attacked by a non-territory gaining move, defend; if not attacked severely, take territory elsewhere". I thought you might be interested to know that in the Japanese go books, the guiding principle is necessity. If you don't need to defend, then you should not defend. So, even if the attacking move does not gain territory, and is not too severe, then you might do better still to ignore it and take a big point elsewhere.

You talked about an "embarrassing loss". This reminds me of someting Antti Tormanen said on his blog about being an insei in Japan - according to him, the insei are taught that losing is "not shameful" and that you should always try your best. So, if insei don't have to be embarrassed about their losses (and they are playing at a serious level) then perhaps we should not worry too much about making mistakes and getting beaten in our games?

I think any possible "strength"(which I don't admit to having yet ) is more likely to just be from all the years of studying when my main focus was early game and joseki. I've forgotten most of the specific patterns and such because of the long break, but I guess some of the "feel" for it can remain.

It's easy to say "don't be embarrassed" and harder to actually not be. It's not just generic losing or anything like that, it's when I play a game that had so little thought put into it.. Honestly the only word that comes up in my head is embarrassing, meaning I do not want other people to see it. I don't mind people seeing me lose by 200 points as long as I did my best or tried to, but sometimes I play too tired or otherwise just not focused and the result is something horrible that no one should be subjected to and makes me wish KGS had a "permanently erase this game from existence" button

[Tami]

I know how you feel, trust me. It is easier said than done. But that's part of go's challenge, isn't it? To over come shame and fear and pride and all the other negative emotions and to do your best.

[Mike]

Haven't posted a game in a few days, so on these 2 I really went all in with the reviews. I think. Well, there's a lot of words in them so.. Yeah.

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1309

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1310

I have been so unbelievably tired day after day that it has made studying a nigh-on impossibility. I hope it passes and I can get on with it.. Until then, I'm mostly just doing reading practice in other peoples games.

[Mivo]

Hey, Mike. How is the studying going? You've been quiet for a while and as several points you mentioned resonate with me, I was wondering how your study plan works out. My problem is that whenever I dive into Go with a more dedicated and demanding plan (two hours of tsumego, four Blitz games, some slow games and 4-8 memorized games a day is very dedicated, and demanding on one's time), I burn out quickly, feel like I "failed again" and then stop playing for a few months. (And then inevitably regret it!)

I do actually have to ask.. Where do people get their pro games these days? I tried searching for them, but go4go seems to have very few games available ...

Where did you look at go4go.net? They have a steady supply of new games every week. I subscribe to their weekly delivery service, and there doesn't seem to have been a decreasing number of fresh game records. I just checked and you can view and partly download new stuff there. (Subscribing, which is about 10 Euro a year, I believe) also gives you access to a one-file download of all of their ~30,000 game records. Besides GoGoD, this is the source I feed my database from.)

[SoDesuNe]

(two hours of tsumego, four Blitz games, some slow games and 4-8 memorized games a day is very dedicated, and demanding on one's time)

Why would anyone want to do all that? ^^
I think this is too focussed on doing something which should lead to improvement instead of focussing on improvement in the first place. Of course players vary in their training of choice but I would rather ask myself, what sort of exercise is the most efficient one for me?
Your plan sounds like: I'm doing EVERYTHING! Maximized input, maximized output! But now, I think, that won't work that way ^^

Personally, I benefit the most from Tesuji-problems. If I solve problems on a regular basis (more like 20-50 a day than two hours straight), I become stronger. Worked everytime so far.
Playing games leads to some improvement, of course, but I think it only gets efficient when a stronger player reviews them. I do this occasionally with games that are special (small loss, difficult question of direction...) in my opinion. But only with slow games.
Replaying/memorizing professional games... yeah. I still think that's a waste of a lot of time ^^ But that's just me. I tried it now two times and both times I felt nothing but above mentioned waste of time.

I'm more of a doer. If I stumble in my games I will work on that but working on something I didn't experience so far (or not to a greater extent) is like moving the windmill by hand when there is no wind. Inefficient and not meant to be.

So, all I want to say is, look at yourself, see what really fits you and stick with it. Don't try to do EVERYTHING, as you say, it only leads to nothingness ; )