Life In 19x19

I think it's important to realize that thick and thin are not terms that can really occur in isolation, but rather describe a group in terms of the other groups on the board. Without looking at the nearby groups to make relative judgments, it's hard to say if you are thin, thick, or just overconcentrated.

I was shodan before I was fairly confident of being able to tell the difference between thick and heavy on the one hand, and light and thin on the other.

As for the pro game, the sequence starting with looks rather complex to me, with the players making offer and counteroffer. Deciding what to play is difficult, I think.

Bill Spight wrote:As for the pro game, the sequence starting with looks rather complex to me, with the players making offer and counteroffer. Deciding what to play is difficult, I think.

I have to admit I only looked at and the following moves to , which seem very natural to me. Not naturally to be played out but laying there as a possibility. (Yeah, I most likely made it myself very easy with just looking at this sequence ^^)

This isn't a particularly active journal, but I've been active in other ways. A few weeks ago, I started a thread called "too many go books sinking the game boat". In it I lamented about my game falling apart while taking in new information, and a number of people responded that this was part of the learning experience, and that it takes some time for new ideas to sink in, and this seems to be the case.

The book that captivated my interest most has been Vital Points and Skillful Finesse for Sabaki by Yoda Norimota. In it, he presents a situation in which a tesuji for sabaki is called for, and usually offers a choice between two moves. the central idea of the book is that one's judgement of what sort of move is called for is dependent on the strength of the surrounding positions. Although my finesses are still anything but skillful, I have been paying more attention to how early decisions affect the relative strength of groups. I am noticing how my interest is shifting from getting a big chunk of territory somewhere to taking care of my groups and looking for opportunities for keeping an opponent's group off balance.

I'm a bit tentative about trying to put my new knowledge into words, because go concepts are rarely as simple and clear cut as they might seem when verbalized, but I am feeling confident because a number of tidbits are starting to gel. In another thread, I talked about what sort of mistakes cause me to lose and I've latched onto two passing comments that have helped me get a temporary handle on two of these problems.

The first is something that Michael Redmond said when he was visiting the UK, which was that "a group on the edge or in the corner enclosing about 6 points is often unsettled, and should be given priority when looking for potential targets for attack or defense." Not considering this - particularly with regard to defense - had been the cause of at least 3/16 of my losses. I've started considering this, and a few disasters have been averted.

The other was a comment by EdLee made during a review of one of my games. It referred to a corner exchange, and Ed said" "You want the outside." Now this is really too simple to be applied generally, and indeed, one of my painful observations in the thread about the books was that in good go, judgments about results are based on comparing potential sequences. Nonetheless, despite it being just one criterion for judgement, one is better than none, and I have been asking myself if a sequence leads to getting the outside or not, and whether or not my conclusion is right or wrong, at least I am trying to make a judgement.

Recently, I chimed in on a thread about getting over one's wall and said that I was identifying mistakes, but not eliminating them. My goodness, what if this isn't the case. Suddenly, 4ks are no longer looking like unbeatable go gods.

daal wrote:"You want the outside." Now this is really too simple to be applied generally...
...at least I am trying to make a judgement.

[ My emphasis on generally. ]

Exactly. That's also one thing I learned the hard way.
When people write notes on a move, like "Extend," "Hane (head of two)," "Capture (ponnuki) instead of connect,"
"Connect," "Bad shape," etc., what's unwritten but implied is "for this specific situation!"
So in that example, when I wrote "You want the outside." I meant "In this particular situation, you want the outside."

Otherwise, all the notes would read like this:
Extend, in this case.
Hane (head of two), in this case.
Just connect, in this case.
Take (ponnuki, instead of connect), in this case.
Cut, in this case.
Bad shape, in this case.
And so on.

As a kind of counterpoint to Ed`s remarks about making case-by-case judgements, I reckon a lot of improving involves learning how to do things consistently (as well as knowing exceptions!).

Take standing on one leg. It`s easy to do for a short time under no pressure, but the more distractions that are added (people chanting "left-right-left-right" or throwing eggs at you), the harder it becomes.

Go is obviously much more complicated than standing on one leg. However, there are many concepts and techniques you already understand to some degree. The problem is developing the ability to remember the right ones at the right time and applying them consistently. In other words, to get to the main point without being diverted by all the distractions of fighting, zokusuji, time pressure and whatever else. I think this ability comes with constant review of the basics and, especially, with a lot of effortful practice.

So, like standing on one leg, much of what you require is not so hard in itself, but it`s the learning to do it under pressure that makes you strong.

By the way, I think you`ll soon be whooping 4k derriere. Just keep it simple and shapely, read calmly and wait for all their mistakes to rebound on them.

As some of you may know, for various reasons, I play on several accounts. Kind of funny that within a few days, one of them dropped to 6k while the other advanced to 4k (yay!) Here are the two games:

Dropping:


Climbing:

daal wrote:As some of you may know, for various reasons, I play on several accounts. Kind of funny that within a few days, one of them dropped to 6k while the other advanced to 4k (yay!)

Do you use one for slow games, another for fast? If not, I'd love to know your various reasons.

wineandgolover wrote:

daal wrote:As some of you may know, for various reasons, I play on several accounts. Kind of funny that within a few days, one of them dropped to 6k while the other advanced to 4k (yay!)

Do you use one for slow games, another for fast? If not, I'd love to know your various reasons.

They are probably mostly silly reasons, grounded in insecurity, but I have one account for "serious games" (the one that got to 4k), I have one that I consider a learning account (the one that dropped to 6k), I have another for when I want to play but don't have much time (still 5k), I have an old one that I hardly use, but I like the pic, I have another that I hardly use but I like the name (and rank drift has me at 2d, which is fun for kibbitz. :p)

As to the insecurity, There are times when I've lost a few games in a row, and I'd rather not watch that rank plummet, so I play my next games on another account. I also tend to feel self-conscious when people watch my games knowing that I'm the one who posted something stupid like how I get bored during games or how I broke into the 4k ranks. Go is stressful enough without the psychological factor of worrying what people think of daal's style, so I prefer a bit of anonymity while playing. Speaking of which, it might be time to start a new account.

It's been more than three years since my last post here, and since then I haven't improved at all. My working assumption has been that I haven't improved because I have already gotten as good as my talent will allow. In a thread where I wondered aloud about why some people never reach shodan, a number of people chimed in to point out that there was probably room for improvement, and suggested a few areas to work on and some ways that have proved fruitful for them. Here is what I want to do:

1. Before anything else, I have to reduce my blunder rate. This means I need to develop the habit of examining how each of my opponent's moves affects connections.

2. I want to improve my fighting and my fighting spirit. while these are two entirely different things, I think they go together. If I can get better at fighting, it seems natural that I will be able to do the right thing and not back off from a fight.

3. I should improve my awareness of sente and aji.

4. I need to devote time to studying. The solution that I see is simply to spend more of my go time to studying as opposed to playing. Of course not playing at all is not good, so what I want to do is to get the ratio of study to play up to about 3 to 1.

5. There are lots of things to study, and while none of them provide a silver bullet, they are all good. Fortunately, I enjoy most forms of study, so I am going to try to divide my time between:
a) Doing problems
b) Looking at pro games with my professional advice method
c) Working through books playing out the examples on my board.

Sound like a plan?

I went through a lot of trouble today to look at a pro game and then write what I was thinking. It took me an hour to go through the first 70 or so moves, and after that I got tired of thinking. It took almost twice as long to write down my thoughts. I won't do this very often, as this doesn't seem to be a great use of my studying time, but I thought it might help anyone interested in my progress to better understand my weaknesses. Here is a game, which I chose at random from the Go4Go collection. The moves I would have chosen are all marked with an A.

I learn 5 things from this analysis:

1. You are as good in predicting pro moves as I am.
2. You were very focused on predicting how the pro would play. Have you tried this in your game? "How would a pro play?" I think you thought of moves in this game you wouldn't tink of in your own;
3. Your self assessment of your capabilities is pessimistic. Count again how often you agreed with the pro and include the "obvious" ones. Celebrate success, even when it seems trivial.
4. When the pro surprises you with a move, I think I have a bit more conceptuality in the bag to explain it. For example, when White connects instead of decending at the top, I think he sacrifices a few points to reduce Black's sente potential at either top left or top. Aji is a big theme in pro games.
5. But again, it could be I have more confidence in my capacity to analyze after the facts.

Nice one!

Knotwilg wrote: 3. Your self assessment of your capabilities is pessimistic. Count again how often you agreed with the pro and include the "obvious" ones. Celebrate success, even when it seems trivial.

Yes, this occurred to me too, but then I thought: There has to be some reason I'm not a pro

I've just re-read the thread about why some people don't ever reach shodan, and it's interesting to note that most of the suggestions focused on attitude. Winning is not necessarily a matter of better technical skills, but rather often one of staying focused. In baseball they talk about keeping one's eye on the ball. In go, the ball isn't moving, but then again, instead of one ball, you have hundreds of stones, and you have to keep focused on the changing shapes for a long period of time without any lapses.

I've been thinking a lot about my attitude when playing, and how to improve it. Simple things first. Here are two questions to ask myself before each move:

1) did my opponent's last move affect a connection?
2) if my opponent's touches a stone in a close combat situation, what are the resulting liberty counts.

I think if I can do these two things consistently, I will eliminate most of my blunders, and that should improve my win rate.

Another suggestionm, passed along by Koosh, also focused on the opponent's moves - he say to ask yourself if your opponent's move is bad, or if it is even sente. He also reminds us that most moves do have a purpose, and they should not be dismissed lightly. I suppose the question could be:

3) what was the purpose of my opponent's move?

There are also two other aspects of the game that I would like to pay more attention to, but I'm not sure how: sente and fighting spirit.

I essentially only think about sente when it is utterly obvious, and I think that making it a more conscious element of my game would improve my play. I unfortunately don't yet have a clear plan how to go about doing it. I suppose I could ask myself every move if I think that my intended move is sente or not. I'm curious how other people have internalized this important concept.

Likewise, I would like to improve my fighting spirit or as John Fairbairn says, focus. He writes about a related concept kiai:

John Fairbairn wrote: Although kiai means a yell, ultimately it's from martial arts and is about matching your opponent's ki (spirit; Chinese qi) with your own. In both martial arts and go that often means matching a strong attack with a tenacious or stubborn defence. It simply means you don't let your opponent overwhelm you, physically or psychologically.

Knotwilg also defines the term fighting spirit:

Knotwilg wrote:Fighting spirit embodies:
- not accepting defeat and finding ways to come back
- not expecting easy victory and keep putting pressure on the opponent
- critically assessing the opponent's play, in particular whether it should be answered (see how I avoid "sente")
- sometimes even deliberately ignoring his play in order to get the (mental) upper hand (see how I avoid "tenuki")
- not backing off in a fight because you don't know what will happen if you continue while backing off shows a clear loss
- overall the willingness to confront the opponent head on and not just desire either a cruising victory or a shameful loss

I think that my path to better fighting spirit is to remind myself that I cannot use my untrained eye to look at a go board. What I mean is that one's everyday emotions can be misleading, and when the situation gets difficult, when a group gets cut off or surrounded, I can't look at it with your man on the street eyes, but rather with my go player eyes, the ones that look for weaknesses in the opponent's position and search for the tesujis to take advantage of those weaknesses. Likewise, when my opponent is on the ropes, I mustn't assume that he will just fall over all by himself, but rather that he too will fight like a tiger and that I must beware of his claws.