Life In 19x19

Thanks Charles

No need to call this weak.

I should learn how to use it then - I guess it is aiming at the side, can't be pincered easily. Is it really legitimate to play rather than taking the open corner?

Obviously you just capture

Yes - erm obviously ... . I think more than anything else I need to work on calming down and taking a minute to look at the board.

At B105, White has not being playing very well, and the game has become close.

This seems to be my mo - flap around in the beginning, take a big lead early mid game and have it dribble away to nothing by the end. Is it that I'm playing too soft/slow or missing that one key move - or is it that the weaknesses in my shape are coming back to haunt me?

My last 4 games have been nail biters:
Win 3.5 ponts
Win 1.5 points
Loss 1.5 points
Win 0.5 points

More wins than losses but it feels like tie,tie, tie, tie.

My counting is getting a little better - my final count was within 1-2 stones for the first 3 and I predicted the result for all but the last. My nerves are shot though.

Misclick revisited

S2W wrote:My last 4 games have been nail biters:
Win 3.5 ponts
Win 1.5 points
Loss 1.5 points
Win 0.5 points

More wins than losses but it feels like tie,tie, tie, tie.

My counting is getting a little better - my final count was within 1-2 stones for the first 3 and I predicted the result for all but the last. My nerves are shot though.

Close games are the best!

S2W wrote:

At B105, White has not being playing very well, and the game has become close.

This seems to be my mo - flap around in the beginning, take a big lead early mid game and have it dribble away to nothing by the end. Is it that I'm playing too soft/slow or missing that one key move - or is it that the weaknesses in my shape are coming back to haunt me?

For example, consistency after . This may be playable, but with you need to play R9 and push right along the edge to get the benefit. If the lower group is really too weak, it wasn't a good plan.

Bill Spight wrote:

S2W wrote:My last 4 games have been nail biters:
Win 3.5 ponts
Win 1.5 points
Loss 1.5 points
Win 0.5 points

More wins than losses but it feels like tie,tie, tie, tie.

My counting is getting a little better - my final count was within 1-2 stones for the first 3 and I predicted the result for all but the last. My nerves are shot though.

Close games are the best!

I have a hypothesis on this: if you try to keep the game close, you will win more often.

Reasoning: the better you become, the closer your games become (at your level). So, if level is correlated with close games, you might be able to use the correlation for reverse causality. HAHA!

Seriously, making the game close requires keeping track of the score. When ahead, it will force you to play thick moves that keep the advantage in a close way. And you should usually not drop behind too far.

The "close game" comments remind me of something Myungwan Kim said. During a game review with at last year's US Go Congress, he suggested the following strategy: If you're just a few points behind, don't actively try to make up the difference. Instead, avoid big mistakes and try not to fall further behind. Wait for your opponent to make a big mistake, and then take advantage of it. Having a small lead is probably the most uncomfortable position during a game, so the chances of your opponent making a big mistake are pretty good. Myungwan said that, based on his experience, this strategy works extremely well until you get to high-level pro play.

Just something to consider.

Well this last week I played a mixed set of games - I had a few more (not so close wins) and I was feeling pretty good until Friday night.

I got my clock cleaned - three straight losses. One I was outplayed - the other two bleh - not too close but I could have won with a bit more reading. The losses continued today - another two games down - one was a 3 stone handicap that I did not play aggressively enough - then had to make an impossible invasion to win. Handicap games as white I feel are pretty random - and pretty hard I feel around 9k (seems like there are a lot of solid players stuck around the 10-12k level. I only really feel bad because the ipod dropped out after I resigned so it appeared I was being a sore looser. I did manage to log back in and quit - but it left a bad taste.

The other loss was a close one - I need to review it still but I felt I played ok but not good. My count was pretty good though - but I need to practice it in game when I can so something about it.

I played a club match today (a special treat thanks to Australian Father's Day being tomorrow - as an Australian father of to US citizens I enjoy dual fathers day citizenship). In any case I won! A 6 stone handicap against a AGA ~1? Kyu. Having played my fellow club members a few times however it's hard to tead too much into the rank or handicap - I know their styles too well.

Anyway on to the game:

Game 13:
The blood dimmed tide is loosed: Some good play, massive blunders (on both sides!), tenacity , stupidity, victory!

Knotwilg wrote:
I have a hypothesis on this: if you try to keep the game close, you will win more often.

Reasoning: the better you become, the closer your games become (at your level). So, if level is correlated with close games, you might be able to use the correlation for reverse causality. HAHA!

Seriously, making the game close requires keeping track of the score. When ahead, it will force you to play thick moves that keep the advantage in a close way. And you should usually not drop behind too far.

Sounds like good practice I really need to learn how to count the score fast and keep track. I swear it takes me about 5 minutes to count the score once right now. :/

Dr Straw has a series of lessons on counting (linked at senseis http://senseis.xmp.net/?SteveFawthrop%2FCounting).

I as usual took a shallow dive in order to skim the cream (or maybe just the dead fish) off the top. I've been using his suggested method of counting by pairs and rounding up to 50 to judge where I am in the game - it's been pretty good so far - but I need to count more and more deliberately (at the moment I see that I have a couple of minutes left, or that my opponent is counting, and so I count - I dont stop to count as part of my game)

Dr. Straw also has more on the value of solid versus potential territory and how to estimate the difference- but for now rather than eat the whole elephant I've been working on one thing - just counting in the first place.

I seem to recall that Clausius (sp?) also has a couple of you tube intro lectures on counting and territory.

I saw your post about how to estimate the value of a move- that I suspect come naturally with dan-dom. One quick thing that can help if you are short on time is just to estimate the relative size of your territory (group x ~ size of group y+z etc). Even if you cant count exactly this can let you gauge where you stand.

Game 14

Fun game - I played much better than usual and beat an 8k. Nice little ko at the very end.

The highlight of this game was definitely the sacrifice tactic you applied at combined with the grand hane of
Suddenly the game is up for wraps.

At move 111 you seal the game by making life for your corner group.

Of course there is still a lot to say about the game. There were a few missed chances, especially for White, and you may want to learn from those. See commented game.

Thanks again knotwilg - in particular the sequence at 35 is one I commonly play so it's good to have that corrected.

S2W wrote:Dr Straw has a series of lessons on counting (linked at senseis http://senseis.xmp.net/?SteveFawthrop%2FCounting).

I as usual took a shallow dive in order to skim the cream (or maybe just the dead fish) off the top. I've been using his suggested method of counting by pairs and rounding up to 50 to judge where I am in the game - it's been pretty good so far - but I need to count more and more deliberately (at the moment I see that I have a couple of minutes left, or that my opponent is counting, and so I count - I dont stop to count as part of my game)

Dr. Straw also has more on the value of solid versus potential territory and how to estimate the difference- but for now rather than eat the whole elephant I've been working on one thing - just counting in the first place.

I seem to recall that Clausius (sp?) also has a couple of you tube intro lectures on counting and territory.

I saw your post about how to estimate the value of a move- that I suspect come naturally with dan-dom. One quick thing that can help if you are short on time is just to estimate the relative size of your territory (group x ~ size of group y+z etc). Even if you cant count exactly this can let you gauge where you stand.

Thanks for this, S2W. I looked Dr. Straw's lecture up last night; it looks wonderful. Will look Clausius up too. I might have to load some pro games up and just stage through them, estimating score, as an exercise.

Don't forget to practice this under time pressure too.

As a minimal requirement, try to assess if you are ahead or behind. Most players don't even know this much.

You can try to assess the two fundamental balances:
- who has more potential territory, i.e. the possibility to cover more ground
- who is thicker, i.e. whose groups are least vulnerable to attack

At the start of the endgame, count territories (all groups should be safe now) and decide where are the big endgame points.

You can try pro games, but why not pick your own games and make assessments after the facts? You may notice a few oddities in your play (going all out when ahead, being slow when behind). Next, do the same in your live games, under time pressure. Don't start out too ambitiously.