Life In 19x19

joellercoaster wrote:I have a new aphorism:

Have a baby, become two stones weaker.

So this appears to have been only temporary. Weirdly, due to the fragmented schedule and snatched moments of downtime, I have been playing correspondence moves more consistently across each day (although my tsumego has dropped to zero). I think this has somehow affected my brain, and it has more of its Go processing stuff paged in at the front more of the time. I have done no study, I haven't had time to watch live games at all, and the idea of playing through pro games is a distant happy dream. I am watching videos while I commute, though.

As a result of the just-playing, I feel stronger. OGS agrees and has me in the middle zone of 4k after a 9-1 run through 5k.

What is this stronger feeling, subjectively? I think it's a few things:

1. Patience. Instead of just attacking things that look weak until the attack runs out of steam, then examining the wreckage, I am reading out further the likely consequences - then instead of jumping in, I am fixing the things that would cause the attack not to work and waiting for a better opportunity. Sometimes the opportunity never comes, but generally it does - and when it doesn't, fixing the problem turns out to have been important later anyway. This feels like I am playing more "slow" moves, but I'm also trying to generate a better rhythm - Nick Sibicky's mentioned a few times that idea of alternating slow and fast, and it seems to be paying off. Go is a marathon, and I think I had been trying to sprint through it. "The loser is the one who makes the last big mistake." See also "don't chase pretty ladies"

2. Adventures. Outside fights, I'm enjoying giving opponents more options. "If you take this, then I'll have this" type situations. I don't have to force a single outcome; I should understand that I can't control the game and actually shouldn't try. I've had a couple of games with quite exciting larger trades going on now, and it's really enjoyable. Especially the winning as a result part

3. Fundamentals. Someone said something like "a 1 dan player is just someone who has a good grasp of the fundamentals", and I think I'm starting to see how that can be true. Each time I've become stronger lately, it's because I've understood a little better some simple rule that is available to all beginners, but whose application turns out to take practice. And I understand so few of these basics that I could keep learning them for a long time. This makes me really happy.

Go is really hard, but each improvement is an extremely simple thing. I just hope the new ones don't start pushing out the old ones.

Today I learned: all the patient play and good shape in the world won't help you if you mis-count a [edit: game-deciding] capturing race that you initiated by a stone. Being in a correspondence game somehow makes this even worse.

Here's the game that caused the above comment - it started a long time ago, and came to a sudden conclusion when I had otherwise been feeling pretty good about the game until then.

But:

I have regrets about and think my opponent let me off the hook with his wide pincer. Even so, the sequence to seems dubious for White.

The shoulder hit at seemed like a good idea at the time. And indeed the end result was OK for me but it occurs to me that 1) I hadn't thought too hard about a followup and 2) there were better ideas.

I had this idea of making Black choose one of his vulnerable groups to get attacked. Actually this never happened because he just sealed off the large corner, and the group in the middle was completely alive.

At I was feeling very comfortable and in comments, my opponent assessed the game similarly. But, sometime during the ensuing attacks, I fatally misread. Some time after Black 113 I should have realised I needed to kill the corner immediately. But now, looking back at it, I am not entirely sure I know when that was - it wasn't a simple miscount, and I was actually in trouble sometime before I thought.

Help?

(Other more general advice on the game gratefully received, as always)

[edit: Loss #104 ]

Have gone on a bit of a losing streak; busted back down to 5k on OGS.

I suddenly feel like I don't have any idea what's going on during games.

I just lost one by a half-point, looking back it was littered with overplays and glaring weaknesses - my patience has evaporated and i keep making these heavy-handed attempts to kill things.

Still can't read worth a damn.

Go is hard y'all

Prescription: stop playing so much when I'm playing this badly. Go back to the tsumego - I still haven't finished GGPFB 3. Then, when I'm feeling better about that, try learn a bit about attacking and defending, since I clearly understand nothing about those things.

joellercoaster wrote: I suddenly feel like I don't have any idea what's going on during games.

Welcome back to the club.

Prescription: stop playing so much when I'm playing this badly. Go back to the tsumego - I still haven't finished GGPFB 3. Then, when I'm feeling better about that, try learn a bit about attacking and defending, since I clearly understand nothing about those things.

Bonne chance!