Life In 19x19

So this a new topic that I'm delving into. If anyone has any great resources they want to share with me, that would be wonderful.

So, I just kind of want to get people's idea of how their minds work in looking at other games. Here is an example:

Sorry for such a big picture, maybe I'll get the hang of adding attachments one day. Haha! But anyways, How's your positional judgement? Who's ahead? Which groups are weak? Which groups are dead? Let's discuss!

It would be black's move next.

I guess that when first looking at the board my mind "works" first in two ways:
1) looking for settled territory
2) looking for dead groups

It might not exactly be 1) and then 2) since looking for settled territory often involve spotting dead groups.

About the game you put a picture of, my train of thoughts went a bit like this:
"So, white has three sizeable corners, black has only one. And there is komi...I guess black should have some territory in the center to compensate. Well, he has some but is is not that big. And black's group on the left is unsettled so he may not even be able to use his sente to do something interesting. And...wait!? Does black have two dead groups?! Ok, so it seems white is way ahead."

It takes quite a bit of time to write (and read) that but the whole thing took, I don't know, 10 seconds maybe.

Of course, this is only the first, rough analysis. Then I spend time checking positions to see if there are defects and unseen stuff (for instance, is the atari at 15-6 troublesome?, is this black group really dead?, what if black does not play first on the left?, etc).

Cho Chikun has published a nice little book I like very much on positional judgment.

I hope this helps.

In your position, you need not count territories but life+death status assessment is sufficient.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?search=position ... type=title brings up some typical discussions.

We're talking about something that can be a decision-making tool; or simply informative (what is the score?); or a source of troublesome questions.

What experienced players typically make of it is a type of "management accountancy" tool, factoring in though concepts like open-ended versus one-off gain. Generally getting hold of what is "big" and "small" helps greatly; for example in judging when you can dodge away, and when you have to hold your ground.

The position:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

Regarding this particular position, the black groups on the right side center and the center near the bottom are dead.

The black group on the lower left side is weak, but may be able to live by pressing on the white left side group.

The white left side group is weak, but not too much because of the weakness of the black group below it, and everything else is alive apart from that lone white stone in the middle.

White can handle black at P7 without too much trouble, it looks like, and can easily cause trouble at H13 and O14. Black M2 might be a bit tricky, particularly in combination with P7, but white should be able to kill or make two eyes with the inside group.

Also, black has lost unless he can kill the weakish white group, but I seriously doubt he will be able to. Black's territory has holes and isn't that big, while white's is solid and white has killed several black groups. I haven't bothered to count or anything so crass.

It looks like black has played a lot of inefficient stones... The two at E14 and F14, the empty triangles by H9 and O8, etc. White doesn't have anything quite so egregious on the board.


As for how I made the diagram, I used Drago to create the position, then exported as ASCII with the settings for Sensei's Library. Then I pasted it here and stuck the

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go][/go ] tags around it. Took maybe 5 minutes at most including looking up how to do it.[/go]

You guys are awesome. Thank you so much for the responses!

Is Drago a standalone program?

You can get it at http://www.godrago.net/.

There are other programs that will do the same thing, this just happens to be the one I use.

If you have an iOS device you could also use Baduk Cap to make an SGF from the photo. Not sure about the minimum iOS version requirement though.