Life In 19x19

balmung wrote:the games I was refering to our on my current account. many levels of play have passed since the games you saw.

You could always post one for analysis - particularly one where you thought your fighting skills were good and the rest of your game let you down. It would be interesting (for you hopefully!) to see the assessment of some of the dan players here on whether they agree or not

daal wrote:It is not the player, but the stones they play that decide the game. Humility and respect are not only virtues, but for a go player elements of his strength.

Thanks, I think that's what I was trying to say in a lot more words.

daal wrote:But the problems remains the same: you are playing too fast, and you seem to believe that you should be winning games simply because you think you are better.

No that is innacurate. I only think I should win game is when the player plays alot weaker than I normally do, and I'm not losing from playing fast by it self I'm losing from arrogance and tunnel vision. I personally don't care if I have lost a game if I played it to the best of my abilities.

I remember I played a 5 kyu I lost to by like 10 points and I made two major flaws that would have won me the game. One flaw was dealing with an invasion properly, and that probably could of gone either way but it would of gave me the lead. The second flaw was not playing the correct move to kill a large group of his that would have ended the game. Even though I missed these moves I had taken my time and did not care that I lost I rejoiced.

The fact is I love my loses when I and my opponent play our best, and that is because your loses of your best ability games improve you the most. Wins truly have no meaning for the context of improving.

My arrogance comes in when I lose a game playing horribly, and knowing that win or lose I can play better than I did.

If your average moves are 5 seconds per move then you are playing too fast, at least if you want to improve.

Playing faster than 20 secs per move on average is most likely too fast. Play your next game with 50 minutes + 5x1:00 byo-yomi, and don't get to yose in your main time. Use it to read. Read everything, everywhere. Assess every open area of the board, read the likely variations, and then read again, for each move you want to play and one alternative in each local region. Find ways of doing combos that will allow you to get two results that complement each other. Then move. You should average about 7 or 8 moves (your moves, not total moves) for each 5 minutes, so by move 150 or so in the game you hit byo-yomi. From this point, make no moves in under 50 seconds. Again, read, re-read, and read things you don't expect your opponent to play but could be plausible "just in case". Every time you are in a difficult situation like a group hanging in the balance, deliberately use a whole period and then just over 50 seconds in the next period too.

If you don't have the patience for this attitude, you don't have the patience to improve. If you really want AGA shodan, focus and don't let yourself play fast unthinking moves, ever.

What's your current KGS account handle?

Tommie wrote:

balmung wrote: Are teachers as hard to find as I hear (...)

This seems to be a misconception.
Anyone better than oneself can be a teacher.

(...) or are they plentiful?

Visiting a local club and losing to stronger players is learning.

Yes, plentiful.

No club nearby? Only internet? Many teachers starting from 4 US$/hour or 20 USD/h for some professionals.
Check out in senseis.xmp.net.

balmung wrote:

Tommie wrote:This seems to be a misconception.
Anyone better than oneself can be a teacher.

In some cases yes, but as most college students and been shown is that You can be a genius in your field with no ability to teach.

Balmung, you are changing your original quote from teachers (hard to find?) to (very, very rare) geniuses,
of which then some could be bad teachers.

From what I see in the first part of your thread, I get the impression that you are pre-occupied how good/strong or bad/weak you are.
Near the end you ask

Is there anyway to learn patience and to overcome my emotions. ?

I suggest you to look into Janice Kim's study plans (Janice Kim is 3p professional).
http://www.stuorg.iastate.edu/cygo/How% ... Go%201.pdf
http://www.stuorg.iastate.edu/cygo/How% ... Go%202.pdf

There she writes:

"Lastly, don't worry too much about your rank (...).

My personal experience was that I never knew how much I was improving, or even if I was improving at all. When I first went to study in Korea I think I was probably about 4 kyu, and the first time I returned home after several months, I competed in the US Open as a 6 dan, winning three and losing three games. I only mention this because when I started my teacher was giving me a 5 stone handicap and I was losing, and when I visited home he was still giving me a 5 stone handicap and I was still losing, (...)

Go is so varied that I don't think we ever get to a point where we really know what we are doing, but we can learn how to think and approach each new situation with a clear mind. So try as hard as you can not to think about your rank, which is really only a limitation.

We can all play 2 to 5 ranks better than what our technical rank may be anyway. If you follow a go study program like this, I feel confident that you will reach the dan levels more quickly than you hoped. "

I second Joaz. Post a game for review. You will get more helpful advice.

balmung wrote:

daal wrote:But the problems remains the same: you are playing too fast, and you seem to believe that you should be winning games simply because you think you are better.

I only think I should win game is when the player plays alot weaker than I normally do, and I'm not losing from playing fast by it self I'm losing from arrogance and tunnel vision. (...)

I remember I played a 5 kyu I lost to by like 10 points and I made two major flaws that would have won me the game. One flaw was dealing with an invasion properly, and that probably could of gone either way but it would of gave me the lead. The second flaw was not playing the correct move to kill a large group of his that would have ended the game.
(...)
Wins truly have no meaning for the context of improving.

Some of your words are so true.

However, that is again ... tunnel vision. It would not have ended the game, as the opponent would
- objectively know that you both could be wrong (e.g. the group is alive as it stands, connectible, has aji, is seki, too small, ko material, etc.),
- have no clue*,
- being ignorant,
being arrogant and therefore
- simply play on.

With other words, as often said in post-game discussions: "this would have been a different game".

Free yourself from this obsession, accept your whatever-status-quo-rank
OR
try to improve by self-study a/o learning with a teacher.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*In a team championship I played against s.o. about 3 stones weaker. From about the 50th move, I think I am winning.
With move 86 he allows me to attack his second group in ko for his life).
With move 106 the issue is settled, his group is technically dead with only remaining 3 liberties.
He chose his option to chase my cutting groups (into his prospects of moyo) - which I gladly accepted. I win both chases.
With move 152 I put his 26-stone group in atari, just for safety, as I wanted to exclude the distant imponderability of a kind of approach ko of him.
Quite late he plays a 'meaningless' ko involving one of my earlier cutting groups and two kos (he takes one, I can take the other and so on)
At move 261, Black made hastily his last move in byoyomi, I took a picture of the game situation, adjusted his clock,
replied (wrongly) to his move ... and realized my error
I should have taken out the 26-stone group, which is since 110 moves in atari, not 'make 1 extra point'.

During the whole tournament game (1h + byo) he played moves inferior to mine (my evaluation), was forced into byoyomi quite early
playing 1 hour in it,
while (different than usual) only entered it after the incident. Eventually, I lost by only 18.5 points.
He was ignorant enough not to realize that he'd lost otherwise.

Why do I tell this? It sounds similar to your story.
I do realize that this loss is entirely my responsibility, as Go is a marathon and with every single move we should be on guard,
as (with an overlooked atari) it can be over in an instance.

I even didn't bear a grudge against him, as I recognized a habit in his tenacity which is close to mine.
(Not just resigning 'because you committed an error' or 'are behind' in our own faulty evaluation.
Give the opponent opportunities to commit errors too.
If 50% of thos 'lost' games can be won, then the overall winning percentage has increased to 75%).

We, you, I have our playing strength including these incidents and habits.

Balmung, I repeat my invitation to a Malkovich game, I'm really curious to see how strong you are. FYI, I often times feel I am stronger than my rank too, but until I can prove it on the board it doesn't count for anything.

Aphelion wrote:Balmung, I repeat my invitation to a Malkovich game, I'm really curious to see how strong you are. FYI, I often times feel I am stronger than my rank too, but until I can prove it on the board it doesn't count for anything.

i have seen your game and you were stronger than your opponent.
do you want to play a game with me?
how many stones do you think is good? let me know answer to both question.

Yea, I'll play. How do you feel about 7 stones? I am around 4-5k, but I haven't played many games in a while. The handicap will be a little low but I think its okay for a Malkovitch game.

Aphelion wrote:Yea, I'll play. How do you feel about 7 stones? I am around 4-5k, but I haven't played many games in a while. The handicap will be a little low but I think its okay for a Malkovitch game.

set it up and i will start playing.

Aphelion wrote:Balmung, I repeat my invitation to a Malkovich game, I'm really curious to see how strong you are. FYI, I often times feel I am stronger than my rank too, but until I can prove it on the board it doesn't count for anything.

I can but be warned I do not have alot of time to dedicate to the game so it will take over a week to finish. My ranking varies on kgs between 9th and 7th kyu because of infrequency of games. I normally play 5 kyu's with 2-3 stone handicaps, and have good games, but since this is a game on here I request an even game with 6.5 komi japanese rules. I have never played a malkovich game, and would like to know how to hide my thoughts like we are required to do.

balmung wrote:

Aphelion wrote:Balmung, I repeat my invitation to a Malkovich game, I'm really curious to see how strong you are. FYI, I often times feel I am stronger than my rank too, but until I can prove it on the board it doesn't count for anything.

I can but be warned I do not have alot of time to dedicate to the game so it will take over a week to finish. My ranking varies on kgs between 9th and 7th kyu because of infrequency of games. I normally play 5 kyu's with 2-3 stone handicaps, and have good games, but since this is a game on here I request an even game with 6.5 komi japanese rules. I have never played a malkovich game, and would like to know how to hide my thoughts like we are required to do.

Malkovich games can last longer than a month, often. The point is to just get your thoughts straight and organized before each move.

There's a hide button at the top, underneath the bold button. If you can't find it, type in:

["Hide]Hidden text["/Hide]

Without quotes, will become:

Haha, I'd expect a Malkovich game to take at least a months to finish. I will make the thread in the Malkovitch section, to hide your thoughts just put them in hide tags like this:

.

Also, seeing how there is a rank difference between us, how about we compromise with me taking White with no komi?