Life In 19x19

One of the things I've been doing is going through pro games, and trying to develop the habit while so doing of asking myself the two above questions before each move: a) did the other guy's move affect any connections and b) if it touched a stone in a close combat situation, how many libs do each group still have? I'm not going to go to the trouble of posting my analysis of the game, because that takes more time than it's worth, but I did notice a few things about my play while doing this.

First of all, I got slow. I was looking at the game on my phone, a great game by the way, the 4th game of the Meijin title match between Iyama Yuta and Takao Shinji, and the screen kept going black because I was taking more than a minute to look at each move. Sometimes a lot more.

Second, I noticed that my comments in my previous post about my fighting spirit were on the money. I was constantly giving up stones for dead, only to see the players revive them (though sometimes they were only being revived to be sacrificed better). In any case, I am still looking at the go board with my man on the street eyes. I do however have a hypothesis about what I am doing wrong that needs to change: My attention is on the stones, and it ought to be on the gaps between them.

Lastly, I noticed that my concentration was shot well before the game was over. Aside from improving my mental stamina, I need to learn to use my time resources wisely.

Hi daal,

Congrats on your on-going self-diagnosis and self-discoveries!

I got slow.

Perfectly natural and expected, esp. for these levels.
5-minute sleep time is vastly insufficient for pro moves.

Second... were on the money.

Congrats. But, the conclusion seems off...

My attention is on the stones, and it ought to be on the gaps between them.

To look at the stones at the expense of the libs is bad, but the inverse is equally bad and not the remedy: to see only the libs and miss the stones -- over-compensation in the opposite direction. The path forward is actually to deal with both the stones and the libs, plus more.

I guess stones shouldn't be ignored, but that's not the problem, because nobody ignores stones. When I say I should pay attention to the gaps, I don't mean liberties , but rather all the space between stones that are not Idirectly connected because this is where the weaknesses are. You are familiar with the problem of people viewing a moyo as their territory? my problem is similar. I see space that seems enclosed when I should be seeing gaps and opportunities.

Ah, yes.

As usual, there are a pile of go books competing for my attention. For a while I had been reading Masao Kato's book about the Chinese Opening, and also going through a few selected sections of Youngsun Yoon's 100 Tips for Amateur Players, but I stopped, feeling that I wanted to work on something more fundamental.

In another thread, Robert Jasiek suggested that I study positional judgement, as it is a skill that is relatively easy to learn, and one that I have largely neglected. It turns out that I have two books about positional judgement - one by Cho Chikun called Positional Judgement / High-Speed Game Analysis and the other, a book of commented games called The best of Kido: The Art of Positional Analysis. The Cho book seems largely to be about counting, and it is relatively straightforward. The Kido book consists of games commented on by professionals, with an eye on positional judgement among other things.

My plan is to play through the games in the Kido book, first memorizing the first 100 moves, and then replaying it and examining connection and liberty issues and analyzing selected positions for positional judgement following Cho's method as best I can. I will also look at the positional judgement in the Kido book after having memorized the game.

This lets me continue my plan to increase my awareness of connection and liberty issues while also learning a new skill and immersing myself in professional play to boot.

Here's the first game. It was only 97 moves long and then white resigned. It was actually pretty easy to memorize. For extra credit: The reason white resigned was that that dead looking black group can live, thus cutting off all the lower right white stones. It's white to play. Can you see how?

I often speak of not being able to judge the outcome of a situation, and am pointed to positional judgement. Today I came across an example in Cho Chikun's book on positional judgement that might make my meaning clearer. In what is apparently a modified version of one of his games (I found a similar game in GoGoD, but Cho seems to have simplified the bottom right for his book) Cho asks us to consider the proper reaction to a theoretical black invasion at the bottom left 3-3 point:
He then shows two possible reactions, one good for white, one bad. So here is what I'm talking about. I am able to read out the first outcome, and although I can't read the second, I can guess that the jist of blocking on the other side leads to white getting an outside position with b getting a small life on the bottom. What I am not able to do is to say that one is clearly better than the other. How to learn this?

Here is Cho's reasoning:

daal, if it's any consolation, making that judgement is not easy for me either. Though I will say I have been trained in "fighting spirit" to by default think the first variation is submissive and consider it lower down the pecking order of "likely goodness" than the descent (of course in some situations it could be best, but less often than descent). First of all a few things you need to know/see when judging these results:
- in the first black has the clamp atari as a large gote endgame move to take a chunk of the the corner from white (how much that chunk is can depends on the ko that follows), so white's corner is considerably smaller than it might appear;
- white can play 1st line hane threatening to take the 2 stones which prevents the clamp, but black needn't answer (and the taking or saving the 2 stones is another big endgame move next);
- the descent opens up black's left side territory, in this game the group is still essentially alive so it's not so much about making it weaker, but in other situations attacking that group later can be very important (though I have a tiny niggling feeling about if it is actually 100% alive if white later gets strong in the centre and then plays 2-10 on left). About 5 points difference here;
- in second white's corner is totally alive with about 8 points, in first it's not actually alive and you can't say it has 8 points;
- in first maybe black can invade the lower side so you can't call that solid points, note the 6-2 point threatens to pull out the 3-3 stone and that can help living. Black's checking extension on the lower right is important here (and the strength of the group it belongs to).
- in the second white gets a solid wall which helps the centre a bit, e.g. linking up to white's group there
- in the second black has maybe 5 points on the lower side, but it's not alive yet, but neither is white's 10-3 stone which could get separated (has no extension to right but a solid black group there). This is actually one of the most important aspects to me and the weakness of that white stone is what makes me uneasy to say this is clearly good for white.

P.S. In the variation where white descends after the peep black can also kosumi instead of 3rd line crawl (which allows white to take back the corner) so that he gets the corner and white blocks on the relatively small lower side. I wonder if this might be better for black, it really depends on what happens with k3 in Cho's sequence. Also instead of the atari black might think about this attachment: move 41 in http://ps.waltheri.net/database/game/61584/

Let me see if I can make the judgment myself. I only looked at the picture.

Typically the 3 moves to consider are blocking at the 3rd line on either side of the stone, one making an empty triangle, or descending to the second line and keep the stones disconnected. The "empty triangle" block pays attention to the corner but leaves aji, the other block allows for a reduction in sente but strengthens the bottom and the descent puts pressure on the left side.

Looking at the overall position, White has more territory (3 corners) but a weakish group in the middle and an open position at the bottom. Black's territory looks not as big but he's strong overall (thick). Black's 3-3 invasion looks like a probe before invading the bottom.

Considering all this, I would go for the "soft" block which creates extra strength at the lower side. Now let's have a look

I would have picked the first variation too, daal. And I don't understand why the second one is "better" either.

Courtesy of Baduk Cap and Go Eye (Any errors are my fault)...
Position 1. 'Dude's 2-10 is B-10 here and his 6-2 is F2.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X O O O . . . . . . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | . X X O X O . . O . . . . . . . O O . |
$$ | . O O X . . . . . , . . . X . X X O . |
$$ | . . O X . X . . X . X . . . . . . X . |
$$ | . O O X . X . . . . . . . . . . O X . |
$$ | . X X O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X O . . . O . . O . X . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . X . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . X , X . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . O . . . . . . X O . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . X O O . O . . . , . . . X . , O . . |
$$ | . O X O . . . . . O . X . . . X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Position 2

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X O O O . . . . . . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | . X X O X O . . O . . . . . . . O O . |
$$ | . O O X . . . . . , . . . X . X X O . |
$$ | . . O X . X . . X . X . . . . . . X . |
$$ | . O O X . X . . . . . . . . . . O X . |
$$ | . X X O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X O . . . O . . O . X . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . X . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . X , X . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . O . . . . . . X O . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . O O . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . O O O O . . , . . . X . , O . . |
$$ | . O X O X X O X . O . X . . . X O . . |
$$ | . . O X X . X . . . . . . . . . X X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

ez4u wrote:Courtesy of Baduk Cap and Go Eye (Any errors are my fault)...
Position 1. 'Dude's 2-10 is B-10 here and his 6-2 is F2.

Sorry Dave, I don't understand your post at all...

ez4u used Baduk Cap and Go Eye to transcribe your pictures into diagrams.

When Uberdude referred to "2-10", it means B10 on the diagram, and when he referred to "6-2", it means F2.

I too figured ez4u was trying to suggest figure 2 is better than figure 1, and left it as en exercise for the reader to figure out why. (I still don't see why.)

I didn't think ez4u was making any judgement on the positions, just helpfully converting them to diagrams (and yes he translated my coordinates correctly).

OK, It's Cho who says the second one is better, and pretty much leaves it as an exercise for the reader.

It's like Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, which I find as Kageyama generally saying, "Do things this way... except when you shouldn't." Oh, and you have to figure out when you shouldn't. Good luck.