Life In 19x19

Introduction

I thought it might be interesting to write a study journal. I self study quite a lot of things but I'm very disorganised about it, so I'm hoping this will help me apply myself more effectively. If I get any readers that's a bonus, and whatever their rank, if they feel like sharing their thoughts that's even better. I'm going to try and make each post focus on a single topic, even if it ends up being really short, so this one is just a summary of my current situation.

A few days ago (24/08/12) I returned to Go after about a 2 year hiatus. I assumed I'd have to start nearly from sratch but that doesn't seem to be the case. I was definitely rusty at first, as demonstrated by how when I looked at the begginer's introduction to tactics on OGS, I thought "wow that's clever", but my old KGS rank was 5k, and my current rank is a provisional 6k with no lost rated games. I think it's probably about right because I've won 2 and lost two at that rank.

So if my rank is about the same, does that mean I still remember everything I knew before I quit Go? No. Definitely not. The most obvious sign of this is that I now know hardly any Joseki (which is very interesting and deserves its own post). In fact, I can't confidently say I know any all the way through, and I'm sure there are a huge amount of less obvious things I've forgotten, so I really don't know why my rank hasn't changed significantly. It probably helps that kyu players don't necessarily understand Joseki well enough to come up with a good response when I make up my own, but I don't think that's enough to explain my rank. I've definitely noticed some surprised pauses followed by gleefull retaliations, but more importantly, if the rest of my playing had suffered as much as my Joseki knowledge, I wouldn't be beating 20ks, let alone a 6k.

The only theory I have is that knowledge of specifics is easily forgotten, but general skills are much more resiliant, so while I may have forgotten how to make a double approach on a 3-4 stone, my ability to assess good shape has remained close to what it was. This is obviously just a baseless theory, but imagining it's right says something very interesting about what makes a Go player strong. Actually, I've heard it's practice, rather than learning theory, that really makes you improve, so maybe I'm on to something.

This was probably a waste of time... I'll try and make the next post more worthwhile.

Edit: It turns out I can edit the title. I just need to think of one.

Nice thoughts, I enjoyed reading it regardless of how productive you thought it was

Thanks Topazg. That makes it feel a little more worthwhile.

Um, the only advice I can give as a weaker player is do loads of easy problems to get your reading and confidence back on track. It really is helping me get back into go after my 2 month hiatus from real time go. I look forward to reading your journal too.

Thanks Boldhre that sounds like good advice. Getting the most out of solving problems seems like it deserves quite a lot of thought. I definitely need to work on my reading, and I mean that more than everyone else who says it (and I mean that more than everyone else who says it).

I'm pretty undecided about what to write about first, since pretty much every aspect of Go seems to require my attention. For now, my plan for the next few posts is:

1)Joseki
2)Fuseki
3)Kikashi
4)Handicap Games
5)Ippoji

There are other things I want to write about as well, but these seem the most important and that's the order that makes sense to me. Expect the Joseki "article" soon.

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r

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Here's the review!

An additional comment.

Move 18: P7 puts pressure on white's stone, stops it connecting with N5 and stops black from being sealed in.

I accidently joined a 9x9 game on kgs, and though I was annoyed at first it turned out to be quite interesting. I think they're a fun way to improve your tactical playing and am going to try and play more from now on. It's not that rare for me to want more than a problem, but less than a full 19x19 game so smaller-board games seem perfect.

I've reached 4k on KGS! I can't remember whether I ever managed that before. I have a feeling that I may occasionaly have been given it only to drop straight down again, but it's possible that I've actually passed my old rank! It was a really pleasant surprise because I didn't realise I'd actually played any rated games as a 5k and I thought I'd been losing a lot more than I'd won, but looking at my past games it looks like I won 2 rated games (1 on time) and had about a 50/50 win ratio.

I did win my first game as a 4k, but twice I almost lost it due to bad reading, which seems to be a common pattern in my games. I'm goingt to try and do lots of easy problems to fix that. Nyuubi posted a link to some problems in PDF format in their study journal, so I've started working my way through the the easiest of those.

Edit: Here's the link http://tsumego.tasuki.org/?page=tsumego

Books that in my opinion could be useful:

Easy for your level: 1001 Life & Death Problems (10k level problems)
More difficult: Get Strong at Life and Death (mid sdk level I believe)
Varying from very easy to very hard problems depending on problems chosen: Get Strong at Tesuji (1 star are 25-10k, 2 star are 10-5k, 3 star are 5-1k, 4 star are dan level)

I love books though, especially problem books, so I'm biased.


Best of luck with your studies!

Thanks, I'll check them out.

I'm trying to learn to fight a lot better so I've made an account on Tygem where everyone is a blood crazed beserker. (or so the rumours say) Wish me luck.

I've now played about ten games on Tygem so I thought I'd post my thoughts. I'm playing as a 5k

My first impression was that Tygem 4-5kus are not very good at go. My first opponent seemed not to care that I was gaining a whole board lead and kept playing in the same area. I was confidently (and smugly) ahead as we moved in to the middle game, but then things started to go downhill. I fought to salvage what I could from the area I'd ignored at the begginning but my opponent kept attacking and it spiraled out of control until the game rested on the outcome of that one fight. It didn't matter that I had more potential on the rest of the board because there was no way I could make up for the loss.

It's really interesting to see how different the playing style is on Tygem, because I was honestly expecting that it would just be KGS but with more fighting. That's not the case though. The above is pretty common pattern for a 5k, and it's forced me to reassess my understanding of fuseki. Am I just fooling myself in to thinking I'm ahead? I don't think I am. I think I just dont play well enough to take advantage of that.

So what am I doing wrong when I lose despite a large early game lead? Firstly, I'm getting constantly outfought and outread on a tactical scale. I'm already noticeably better at this than when I first started on Tygem, but still my opponents spend the game shaveing away at my lead or just outright destroying me. I think if I could fight as well as a Tygem 5k I would rarely lose to one. It's almost like playing a handicap game.

The second thing I need to do is learn to pick my fights better. We've all had games where the result rested on the the outcome of one ginormous fight, and they can be lots of fun, but I don't think this should ever happen if you have a favourable whole board position. There are two aspects to this: Deciding whether to go for the kill, and deciding whether to fight to survive.

The same principles apply to both. If one player dedcides to live with a weak group, it's almost always possible (though not necessarily easy ) for the other player to profit from this. If instead of going for the kill, you put pressure on the opponents group and strengthen or expand your own, your opponent will be forced to defend and you will have profited without giving up anything in exchange. If you're already ahead it's a comparitively safe way of solidifying your lead, and if you're behind it may be the best way to build up strength for a counter attack. Conversely, if you do go for the kill and fail, not only will you likely have weaknesses that the now strong group can exploit, the fight may well have expanded until it bacame too big to lose. You've effectively bet the game on winning that fight.

THe same goes for deciding what to do with your weak group. If try to live then it's a weakness for your opponent to exploit, but if abandon it then it's just bad aji for your opponent and thus becomes a weakness for you to exploit. I recently read a review of a pro game that I think demonstrates this really well.

http://gogameguru.com/go-commentary-shi ... th-lg-cup/

Notice how black abandons the J14 stones? I spent a long time wondering why he did this, because they seem to be worth a lot, but I think I understand now. Looking at the board around move 60, it's clear that white has to attack on a large scale in order to win, but this is very hard with such bad aji. He's constantly having to worry about black connecting up from the outside, or using it to attack his weak groups. If he doesn't insist on making it live, black just has a big wall in the middle of what white wants to be his moyo. He has to kill it in order to win, but he doesn't have the moves to spare.

Lets compare this to black trying to live with the J14 group. In this situation white now has something to attack and can happily play in the centre to fix his problems and build up strength to invade elsewhere. Add to that the possibility that the group might not even survive and this is obviously awful for black.

I seem to have got a bit sidetracked... I was talking about playing on Tygem right?
In my opinion there's a lot to learn by playing there, but I think it's also important to play elsewhere. In very general terms, players on KGS seem to have a better understanding of strategy and players on Tygem are better at tactical confrontations, so play on both and master every aspect of go.

P.s. Don't ask me my Tygem win ratio.