Life In 19x19

I haven't posted here in a while (has it really been nearly two months!?), mostly due to the fact that the school year started back up and I had less time for go during the busy first few weeks. Things have settled back into a regular rhythm, so I've been able to play a bit more go lately. I had a run of poor play (including at least one bad experience where I was harassed for playing "too slowly", which made me very self conscious about my play for the next several games), but I've been able to turn things around. I've had several pleasant games on IGS recently, so I think I'm going to play enough games to stabilize my ranking and participate in the sports accord / Pandanet cup online tournament.

I was able to share the rules of go in one of my classes in honor of Learn Go Week. I then made the students write a program that would draw a goban and allow a user to place stones on it. One of my students used to play frequently (he'd apparently been as strong as 5k at one point), so he challenged me to a game after class. I won because he was a bit rusty, but the game was quite fun!

I'm posting an interesting game I played a little over a month ago. It's not one of which I'm particularly proud… my wife got home around the time I was entering the endgame, and my already poor endgame skills were made even worse by distraction. I also grew impatient with my opponent playing inside what I viewed as secure territory at the end of the game, which led me to dismiss a real threat a little later on.

But for all of its faults, this game is interesting for one particular reason: this is the first game I played where the ruleset made a difference in the final result. I was playing on IGS, which I thought used Japanese scoring. However, a quick perusal of these forums (and my own game record) shows that IGS scores the eyes in a seki. At the end of this game, my opponent had one point in the eye of a seki and I lost by one half of a point.

Why did you not mark the stone at E1 dead? It is not technically part of your seki (it's dead inside your eye) ...

Marcus wrote:Why did you not mark the stone at E1 dead? It is not technically part of your seki (it's dead inside your eye) ...

Huh. I hadn't noticed that before, but you are (of course) right. I was so frustrated that I had allowed my opponent to form a seki (by passing, no less), I missed that stone in the counting phase. I didn't notice it when I reviewed the game, either. Oops!

I've been reflecting on my improvement in terms of the number of games played rather than the passage of time. I discovered go sometime in 2011, but in the first two and a half years after I learned the game I played fewer than 100 games. I began 2014 at around a 12 kyu ranking (on KGS), and I made the decision to engage in the discipline of regular play throughout the year. I played nearly 200 games in 2014, and I ended the year with an 8 kyu rank on KGS. It's clear that my progress has slowed down (in terms of stones gained versus games played), but I'm also still steadily gaining strength. An old google search turned up an estimate of 1000 games for most people to reach 1 dan… I'd say I'm on track.

Here's a game I played this week that felt like a good representation of my go (or perhaps a representation of my good go). It's still full of kyu level mistakes (I am still a kyu player, after all), but I felt good about the game at the end.

There are some minor mistakes that you will probably get rid of with a little more experience.

Like move 64 would have killed at B19 (throw in before reducing from the outside). Or 212 is gote while there's still sente moves.

If you manage to fill another 200 games this year, I'm sure you'll end up improving even more. It's inevitable, really.

Thanks for taking a look!

I didn't see the killing move at 64 (thank you), but I did realize move 212 was bad as soon as I played it. I often bleed points in the endgame; it's one of the areas where I have the most obvious room for improvement.

Some comments:

Thanks for the comments, skydyr. They're quite helpful!

In particular, I think they give me some clarity about the proper direction of play in the middle game. I can often identify tactical errors after I've made a blunder (though there were certainly instances where they went unpunished in this game, so your comments there are helpful, too), but it's easy to overlook strategic mistakes when I'm reviewing a game that I've won.

There are a few areas where I've noticed that I am weak relative to my level:

• Endgame
• Ko fights
• Super aggressive ("Tygem-style") players

One of the common elements in these positions is that they demand split attention. I can't just look for the best local move (though of course I flub that sometimes, too), but must consider multiple tactical fights at the same time. I'm not sure there is a great way to train this skill besides trying to be mindful while playing games. Tsumego can help me evaluate the local positions more quickly and more accurately, but it's when those local fights get knotted together that I start making foolish mistakes. I'm going to try to be more careful in these kinds of situations going forward.

It's been a long time since I posted in this thread, but I'm going to pick it up again for a while. I'm going to spend some time focusing on the opening. I have a two part plan for doing this:

• Choose a single fuseki to play in my games as black and a single fuseki as white.
• Study the joseki and other positions that arise in the opening while playing those fuseki.

I won't be able to stick with this one hundred percent of the time. In particular, I play a lot of handicap games and that will throw some of my plans out the window. But I think that temporarily restricting my play style will help me to more quickly understand the positions that arise.

My plan is to play this as black:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +--------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . .|
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . , . . . . . , 1 . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . , . . . . . , . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ +--------------------------------------+[/go]

(I did consider choosing to play 3 on the star point, another opening I like, but decided to try the double 3-4 point for now.)

most of the time I expect this to continue as follows:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +--------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . .|
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . , . . . . . , 1 . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . .|
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . , . . . . . , . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ +--------------------------------------+[/go]

As white, I like to play one star point and one 3-4, like this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ +--------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . 1 . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . , . . . . . 3 . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
$$ +--------------------------------------+[/go]

Here I'll probably either face an approach to the stone in the upper left corner or have to play against a Chinese fuseki or sanrensei.

Obviously my opponents won't always play two star points, but there are very few openings I face where these moves are bad.

Here's a game I played as black last night.


A few of my own thoughts on the game.:

• I tried a slightly looser pincer for move 7 (probably not too good).
• Looking at Josekipedia after the game, move 9 was almost certainly the wrong response. My opponent didn't punish my choice, though, so I got away with a decently sized corner. Of the variations shown in Josekipedia, I think I like the hane at P2 the best. The others lead to some very complex fighting, which I suppose I should get used to if I'm going to start on two 3-4 points and regularly plan to pincer. That will be another way this experiment can grow my game.
• My play in the upper left corner looks reasonable. I didn't have this sequence memorized, but it shows up in Josekipedia. I ended up with a decent corner that wasn't boxed in, which was my goal.
• I'm not sure if move 29 was good. I had a lot of choices here, since my major groups were all settled. I wanted to break up white's territory before expanding my own framework (mostly because having stones in that area would make fighting easier later), but I let white quickly settle the lower left corner and the group in front of my corner. I'd love any comments about the appropriate direction of play at this point.
• Move 40 by white was interesting. The sequence that follows wasn't standard (per Sensei's Library), but it seemed to work out okay for me. White got thickness, but I made territory on the right and sketched out potential territory on the top. And white wasn't totally without weaknesses, which came into play later in the game.
• Move 141 was probably a mistake on my part. It gave me something to attack, but I don't think the overall result worked out in my favor. If I had saved the three stones, I think I would have had about 9 more points on the top, while white would have had about 11 points in the center. As it was, white got 3 points in the center plus the three captured stones, so it was a net loss for black.
• 239 and following were nice for black, but 249 should have been at E4. It didn't matter because the game was over, but I need to make sure I have the discipline to have the proper follow up after a nice sequence. Sometimes I can get so excited that I capture a few stones that I stop looking for good moves. That's a bad habit.

jeromie wrote:Here's a game I played as black last night.

Your opponent didn't have much of an idea how to attack you: can usefully be L5, and the weak group on the left side was let off the hook. is bad style.

Charles Matthews wrote:

jeromie wrote:Here's a game I played as black last night.

Your opponent didn't have much of an idea how to attack you: can usefully be L5, and the weak group on the left side was let off the hook. is bad style.

Thanks for your comments. I agree that I got let off the hook too easily. Were 29 and/or 71 in the wrong place, or were they ok but I should have expected much harder fighting?

What would have been a better choice for 47 to keep pressure on white's group?

jeromie wrote: Here's a game I played as black last night.

Question about - I would certainly move it to the left, since White is so strong to the right.

Black at G3: seems orthodox, but White at J3 then seems to cramp Black quite effectively.

Black at F2: one of my pet odd ideas. Black at C2 next would be good, so presumably White plays from the left, say at E3. Then Black at J3. White is hardly going to make the narrow extension at L3 next. Black seems to have a base.

- the normal idea is to play this one to the left.

- seems to be playable at C9, which has some potential above and below (rather more rugged version of the same miai principle).

Thanks, Charles. Glad to see that I was in the right vicinity. One point makes a big difference, though!