Life In 19x19

I have been neglecting both this journal and playing games over the last couple of weeks, due to various annoying real life interferences like marking undergrad exams and dislocating my elbow. I should be able to get back to playing from tomorrow though!

As promised, I played a game this week. One game on KGS on Wednesday and then a couple just now on Tygem. Unfortunately I had 3 losses, and they all felt a bit similar, with one misread leading to a whole bunch of my stones dying. I find it really hard not to let this completely demotivate me if every time I play one overlooked move after getting into a solid-ish position just lets me down. Is there anything in particular I should be doing to get over this? Just keep playing until I actually learn not to do stupid stuff? Any tips for staying motivated when it feels like I am just the worst?

Anyway, here's the KGS game with a few comments.

Oh, something else I forgot to mention in the previous post: working through the Cho encyclopaedia is also pretty frustrating at times because it doesn't have any answers. I think it'd probably be better just to buy a proper tsumego book and use that instead. Any recommendations on that front? Or is that a topic too done to death and I should just look at all that's been said before?

dutchie wrote: Any recommendations on that front? Or is that a topic too done to death and I should just look at all that's been said before?

Graded Go Problems for Beginners is a good series for that. The title doesn't really explain that it's much more for than just beginners too.

I'm back again, after a little longer than I was hoping! I got super busy with real life stuff and haven't had much time for playing. I've kept up with correspondence games, finished one and one approaching being done. I also got through the first volume of Graded Go Problems (henceforth GGPB...). I made it some way through the second, and decided to restart it as I'm struggling with some of them. I think I need to be more disciplined about actually checking that my instinctual move actually works.

I just played and reviewed a game on OGS. I'd mostly only been using it for correspondence games before, but I had found that it was sometimes difficult to find a game on KGS or Tygem at my level, and it was pretty much instant there, so maybe I'll play more. Here's the game with my comments:



And here's the correspondence game I recently finished, which I haven't had a chance to review properly:



Hopefully I can get back on target for my goal of SDK by June!

dutchie wrote:I just played and reviewed a game on OGS. I'd mostly only been using it for correspondence games before, but I had found that it was sometimes difficult to find a game on KGS or Tygem at my level, and it was pretty much instant there, so maybe I'll play more.

IGS is also a very good source of games at the DDK level.

Here are some comments on your first game. I thought you played very well. I like that you had a clear plan from early on -- focusing on building territory on the top, bottom, and center -- and toward that end you identified strong moves in support of those goals. Here are a few things to think about in general:

1. You do a good job of identifying key moves for your goal, but you seem to make large gote moves without thinking first whether or not there are supporting (or important) sente moves that could be made first. (move 53 for example).

2. You need to be a bit more careful with your connections. At times, you are too focused on extending and not sufficiently focused on maintaining the connection. For both moves 15 and 33, you would have done better to make a smaller extension to avoid being cut.

3. I think you are at the point where you could think a bit about how to gain moves by harassing opponent's weak stones. Moves 47 and 55 are examples of when this could have been useful. They are also examples of sente moves you can make before making other moves.

4. This is a more challenging comment, but I think it might be good to put it on your horizon. In this game, you developed a single plan early on and you were able to execute it. That is a very important step. You should feel good about that! However, part of the reason you were able to execute it was that your opponent allowed you to do so. At some point in the next few rankings, your opponents are not going to be so cooperative. To counter this, you'll need to be more flexible in your strategic thinking. For example, you might build a moyo, knowing that it might get invaded, but with a contingency plan in mind for the invasion -- such using the invasion to build another moyo somewhere else or as I illustrated in my comments, use the invasion to invade the opponent's moyo. For example, players often think of the main goal of developing a moyo is to claim the territory inside. However, that's not always true. The better way to think of the value of a moyo is that it threatens to claim the territory inside. That threat will either yield an invasion or territory, but you want to build the moyo in such a way that you will benefit either way.

Thank you for the comments BG! Lots for me to think about there. I'll try to think about finding more sente moves in my next few games.

the value of a moyo is that it threatens to claim the territory inside. That threat will either yield an invasion or territory, but you want to build the moyo in such a way that you will benefit either way.

I'd heard that sort of thing about moyos and their purpose before, but that's the most succinct way I've seen it expressed.

A few comments.

Oops, again it's been a while and I've been too busy with PhD to play any games. I played again last night and just finished posting up a review, with help from a few comments from the #go IRC channel on Freenode. SDK by June may still be within my grasp, despite my inability to keep up with my target!

Nice game. You played well! Here are some thoughts.

General areas to focus going forward:
1. Try to think about whether stones are worth saving before you save them. I think you both should have sacrificed a few in this game.
2. I think you are missing opportunities to threaten opponent's groups by not recognizing when they are weak or where they can be cut.

I finally managed to get another game in. Not keeping to anything like my 1 game a week target, but I have decided to retroactively clarify that my initial target was SDK by the *end* of June (since that's halfway through the year it's more or less what I had in mind anyway). So here is a soul-crushing game in which I snatched defeat from the jaws of what seemed like a well-fought victory in a 2-stone handicap game on KGS.

dutchie wrote:I finally managed to get another game in. Not keeping to anything like my 1 game a week target, but I have decided to retroactively clarify that my initial target was SDK by the *end* of June (since that's halfway through the year it's more or less what I had in mind anyway). So here is a soul-crushing game in which I snatched defeat from the jaws of what seemed like a well-fought victory in a 2-stone handicap game on KGS.

I can see that you are focusing on the order of development early on. And on a number of occasions you had the right idea in terms of general strategy. Unfortunately, while you had the right idea, you chose the wrong implementation at times. Keep at it and the right decisions will come. Below are some comments for you to consider. Another thing to consider is the shape of your wall on top. It would help to be more careful about not letting your opponent create cutting points or other defects in your wall, particularly in a game like this.

Hi dutchie,

cut, good.

Not so good. Drop to S5 first.
Study the local variations after S5.

OK. ( BG: was first mistake, not here. )

K17.

Study the variations if B N3.

o18.

Just a couple of days left to hit my target of SDK by end of June, I just played another game on KGS. Annoyingly my ? has returned, guess I should play a few more games to lose it.

Was a fun game, until I made several really frustrating mistakes in endgame. I'd be interested to see what best play would have made of the middle too.