Life In 19x19

Hey all! I'm starting playing go again after a very long hiatus, around 10 years. I played off and on for a period of two years as a kid, probably six months combined, and bounced around 15-13k at the end.

I got back into it because a friend of mine went on vacation to Tokyo and visited the Kiin. That set me off on a Hikaru no Go rewatch (still holds up), and got me super excited! I then found the NHK Cup videos on Youtube and that really made me want to actually seriously play this time. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it stick, just because I'm also racing bicycles this season and that's gonna be a time suck, but I'm gonna try. One of the things I think will help is finding out about the Yunguseong Dojang. That's definitely the perfect amount of structure without too much commitment for me, and I think would be super helpful both in making me stronger and having the fact that I paid money make sure that I set aside time for it. But I definitely can't afford it right now (gotta build up my track bike/oh God race fees), so I'm aiming for the fall season. I'm not quite strong enough for it yet anyway, but it feels attainable if I work for it.

Replaying pro games has always been my favorite method of study, and I like to use the SGF but also play along on a go board. I'm a very intuitive person in general (which will be a barrier once I get to a higher level), and this helps cement the plays more deeply for me - both from a physically playing it myself perspective, and seeing what works and what doesn't in a game setting vs. isolated incidents in a book. Aside from my intuitive tendencies (which also translates into playing fast), I have a really hard time with the opening. I'm not sure why, but I'm working on it.

I've started off playing on KGS again, and since at the time I couldn't remember my rank, I just played ranked games will bots until it stabilized at 14k to avoid sandbagging. And now I just played my first non-bot game in ages, which was also a handicap game which I can't remember having played as white before. I played very fast this game, but slower than I had been with the bots which ended up being blitz games just because I got into that rhythm. I definitely used my opponent's thinking time to actually think, though. I felt very much like I was flailing during the opening, and was generally not sure how to handle the handicap stones. So, as I do, I attacked. I think my victory was more out of my opponent making mistakes and me capitalizing on that rather than me making solid plays.

We didn't get a chance for a full review as they had to leave, but we did review a bit and apparently Explaining Things was the bit that unlocked the part of my brain capable of reviewing games. I had never really been able to do it when I was a kid, though that may have also been a big factor... Anyway, after they left I pretended they were still there and I was Explaining to keep that part of my brain on. Game is below.

Nice to meet you! Cool to see you're into racing bikes, are you in a Cat division?

Nice to meet you too! It's my first season doing sanctioned racing so I have to start at the bottom, but I should move up fairly quickly since I'm a bike messenger/race alley cats. I'm going to do mainly fixed gear criteriums, alley cats, and cyclocross, maybe track and gravel. I'm helping run a chill race team for WTFs (women/trans/femme) that only requires 3 races but I'll be doing way more than that because I have no chill.

Really, that's my problem. There's so many things I want to do (racing, go, art, music), but I don't have time to be intense about all of them and so stuff just falls by the wayside because I can't decide.

Hello I am back from Work And Depression Hell! I've been watching NHK Cup videos and stuff online, but played again against a person for the first time in a while today. Here's the game:



I had an absolute blast but I think I may have been the pig in Never Wrestle With A Pig. Complicated fights are a blast! But it's pretty much the only thing I'm passably good at. I feel like I flail through openings - see how I immediately started a fight? I wasn't even really trying.

I actually wasn't trying to kill that big group in the middle - my aim was trying to create life for all the other groups, and it kind of happened in the meantime (even me boxing it in was more about building some influence on the left side). The lack of eyespace for that group was definitely present in my mind, but it wasn't the main thing I was thinking about.

Another thing I have issue with is the bad habit of playing fast, and while we did play this game really fast, I DID spend more time thinking than usual. I also do normally lose some groups in the fighting, which I didn't at all this time.

And I am bad at both counting, and bad with assuming that higher rank = Stronger, and... something I'm having trouble articulating. That people usually start out with influence, then solidify into territory, then invade. I'm not as good at dealing with invasions, so I try to take as much as I can get before that. That Stronger players are good at coming back from behind, so if I'm ahead that doesn't mean I'll STAY ahead, so I should try to take as much as I can get? I don't know. But either way, in recent games this has lead to me really, really punishing more than I think I should.

So, things I need to work on: opening OH GOD OPENING, counting, and backing off.

Hi Kasai,

Maybe not so good; this atari hurts your left side;
maybe just extend is better.

Maybe too much...

...what if W cuts at P4 ?

What if you atari-cut at R6 ?

S6.

R6.

What if W cuts at Q9 ?

What if W cuts at Q9 ?

What if you block at R12 ?

What if W turns at R12 ?

W cuts at P16 ( threatening P14 double atari ) and ladders your Q16 stone.

What if W ataris R10, and if you connect at Q9,
W pushes at S10 ? What happens to this capture race ?

Right after black move 146, white had a chance to capture black J8 group. Can you see the correct play for white? Given that, what should have blacked played at move 146, to prevent the capture AND seal the white group in at the same time?

wolfking wrote:Right after black move 146, white had a chance to capture black J8 group. Can you see the correct play for white? Given that, what should have blacked played at move 146, to prevent the capture AND seal the white group in at the same time?

I didn't see that! G8? Creates a bamboo joint, and if white connects at H9 then can box in with the original move?

kasai wrote: I didn't see that! G8? Creates a bamboo joint, and if white connects at H9 then can box in with the original move?

Yes! Isn't it fun that you get to win the game twice, one in real time and one in review

Oh dang hi I'm back! Lot's of stuff's been going on, I was briefly in the AYD last year but definitely didn't have the game experience (or found whatever I need to do to play longer games with my ADHD) to really benefit from it yet. And then a bunch of financial stuff happened and I needed to quit.

My life's started to stabilize, so I'm back to playing! I'm at a new receptionist job where I'm allowed to do whatever as long as I drop it the second the phone rings or someone walks through the door, so I've been hanging out on OGS a lot with correspondence games. I definitely bit off waaaaaay more than I could chew with group ladders and am overwhelmed with the amount of games, so once I finish off what I have I'm going to limit that a lot. One of my greatest weaknesses is impulsivity and lack of reading, and I found if I have a bunch of games at once I'm even more impulsive even if I technically have three days to make a move. I've also been on Go Problems and go4go.net a lot. I also joined a bunch of 13x13 and 9x9 games and I have no experience with those and lost baaaadly which I think has me quite underranked (KGS says 8-11k right now, I'm 19k on OGS).

I haven't had time to sit down for a live game, but I'll report back later! I'm also going to try to go to Minneapolis's go club, now that my Mondays are free, but something's come up every Monday since I've been free so who knows.

Allow me to present.... a shockingly huge blunder in a game I was winning by a lot. It's all the way at the end. Perfectly encapsulates my weakness as a go player - not paying enough attention!

Ooops! Was that a live or correspondence game?

Technically correspondence, but we were both online and playing it like a live game. I had gone into "okay, yose, time to clean up" mode because I thought that was connected. It was super not.