Life In 19x19

A couple of more from Okigo jizai.

Two more.





When I was learning go one piece of advice for high handicap games was to attack around 30% of the time and to play defense around 70% of the time. I never followed that advice, myself. One thing I like about Okigo jizai is that it is mostly about how to attack. Often a play will combine attack and defense. Since Hattori hardly ever has Black simply defend, it is also about how to sacrifice.

These posts are wonderful, Bill...now that I can get online again. My power was just restored after a long, cold, dark, night. Also, I had my car's heater fixed. I am attaching a picture to show what the issue was.

Two more from Hattori, each with a theme.

I know that I said I would post some more computer games, win or lose, but with my loss of power Friday and Saturday, I never got around to playing MFoG. For the first weekend in months, I didn't get around to solving any problems at gochild or goproblems, either. I have been playing two semi-quick correspondence games on OGS, though. And I picked up an iPad mini to practice Go problems on while my classes take tests. (It almost goes without saying, but this is football season. And my wife is also into the game, so we typically watch 2-3 games together on Sundays, depending on whether my Bears or her Steelers play. She'll never tell me what Steeler she dated, or for that matter, what Piston, before we met.)

Thanks to Bonobo, I finally figured out why I couldn't get my journal and many other pages to load. (I changed the preference to 10 and then just 5 posts before I got certain pages to load.)

I'm having fun working through the included problems in SmartGo Kifu and looking at some sample pages from SmartGo books. So far, I have neglected studying any pro games, even though I purchased GoGoD for the game database. I think that I will start with Shusaku and hope that I absorb subconsciously (or implicitly) some better feel for shape and direction. In fact, I'll probably try moving some of those GoGoD games to my iPad to study while giving tests this week.

In addition to my Malkovich game with Ed, I am playing two correspondence games at OGS. I believe that I played pretty well for maybe the first 30 moves in those games, but I know my play rapidly deteriorated in the middle game. Win or lose, if my opponents give me permission, I will post them in this thread. (Something I never felt obliged to do with Many Faces of Go. ) Maybe reviewing pro games will help me some with the middle game phase. I guess James Davies' Attack and Defense is really the book I should study next. Other than Sakata Eio's The Middle Game of Go, which looks like it contains just a few deeply analyzed games (probably way over my head), and Michael Redmond's out-of-print ABCs of Attack and Defense, Davies' book looks like the only choice on this subject for my level. Meanwhile, I should get back to reading Breakthrough to Shodan--thus far, I believe it has given me a somewhat better idea of how to use handicap stones. (Also, playing maybe twenty or so handicap games with MFoG!)

If you don't hear from me for a while, it probably means the next polar express slammed through here. I thought that we were not supposed to have any more winters like the early-to-mid 70s!

Aidoneus,

1) Since one of the recent versions, SmartGo Kifu contains the GoGod Games, IIRC

2) Yeah sure, feel free to publish our game here, no matter how embarrassing it will be to me I’m also curious to read any comments.

Cordially, Tom

I'm still having problems loading pages. I went down to 2 posts in the User Control Panel, changed browsers, and restarted. I don't know what my problem is, really. Very frustrating!

Aidoneus wrote:I'm still having problems loading pages. I went down to 2 posts in the User Control Panel, changed browsers, and restarted. I don't know what my problem is, really. Very frustrating!

Always good to know which pages these are.

See also here: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... 14&t=11048

And perhaps it’s time to revive this thread.


Greetz, Tom

Aidoneus wrote:Win or lose, if my opponents give me permission, I will post them in this thread.

Please do with mine as well, I would welcome the feedback!

Well my hubris shows, I must be destined to remain a very weak DDK forrrrreverrrrr.

Doing lots of Go problems has not translated into better play. And taking handicaps with MFoG all the time hasn't taught me anything about playing in an even game. Also, I still have no idea how to invade or defend against invasions. (I think I am long overdue picking up Attack and Defense, since I recall it covers these topics.)

In the following loss to Bonobo, I had no idea how to play after Black played at tengen on move 7. In fact, I have no idea how to play against san-ren-sei (sp?). I figured our game was closed book, and in any case I didn't have time to look up anything online about this opening. After my first approach move, Black moved out toward the center and it seemed like an excellent idea to make full use of tengen. Having paid a penny, I kept adding more pennies till move 22. Bonobo told me that the score estimator said that I was ahead at that point. (I still haven't used this feature, especially as I think that assessment was ridiculous.) My 22 was something of an act of desperation to reduce, but it just resulted in a local loss. For awhile, I thought that I might be able to use the threat to save my netted stones as a ko threat, but that never materialized. I just sort of gave up (or mentally collapsed) with my last actual move, hoping to come back later and fix around where Black played.

It seemed like I looked at invading somewhere on top the whole game but couldn't make myself pull the trigger. (Yeah, I have never invaded in my life!) I understand the general idea of reducing when the score is close, so I get playing near a sector line; I don't get how to invade, however. I'm guessing that I should just try it and learn by failure? Also, I still haven't studied (really, haven't hardly even skimmed) any pro games. Maybe seeing how invasions are handled would help as this is just terra incognito for me--full of terrifying chimera. I'm still playing my other game at OGS, though I've fallen behind. I'm determined--hah--to hold on to more mental resistance.

Thanks, again, to Tom for highlighting some of the things I need to study--for all the good studying seems to do me.

Thanks, Bill

Is the last move (by B) missing for everybody or only for me? Trying to upload the SGF …



No … this is odd … you can see B’s last move (E5) on http://online-go.com/game/1039048 (and if you like, you can just try the amazing review feature on OGS )

Anyway, IMO the game was far from decided, and I was quite afraid (and enjoyed the game a lot!)

Cordially, Tom


<edit>

I tried to upload a repaired SGF — w/o curly quotes and curly apostrophes, but apparently this doesn’t help. Trying to clear out the issues with the OGS team to see where the mistake is.

</edit>

Some comments.

Thank you for your comments, Bill. I especially need to look at your suggested third-line attachment at move 20. That is the sort of invasion I've never seen in my computer games. Maybe I can find some examples in pro games for possible sequence ideas.

Payday, today. I just purchased four SmartGo books: Davies' Attack and Defense, Kim's Learn to Play Go, vols. 4 and 5, Battle Strategies and The Palace of Memories, and Bozulich's Mastering the Basics, vol 5, The Basics of Go Strategy. Somewhere in there I hope to learn more about invading and defending against invasions! Next purchase is probably Invincible, though I wish the 1971 Honinbo Tournament was available in SmartGo format, as I've read how good it is. (I always enjoyed chess tournament books!)