Last night I watched a teaching game. The teacher is a little stronger than me and the student is a little weaker. The teacher is a strong influence-oriented player, and she plays a 3-3 stone to "handicap herself" against much weaker opponents, and commented that she had done so before noticing that his rank--she doesn't play the 3-3 point in even or close to even games.
So her student, a 14k, made a series of comments about how silly he thought the 3-3 point was. "Yeah. 3-3 is not a great opening" he said.
So I played him next while the teacher watched. I played two 3-3 points as white. Never done that before, but was kind of fun ^.^ My opponent played one 3-4 point, one 4-4 point, and large knight's enclosure on the 3-4 point.
I may start experimenting more with the 3-3 point as white, but I'm not sure I should increase my already reasonably strong emphasis on territory.
(Hicham, 6k KGS) I played double 3-3 with White for about half a year and had good results with it. But it is not an easy opening I think. Often you have to invade quite deep or make a big dragon live. But you have to believe in your cash points and in your yose skills. if you start playing, you should try to learn most of the 3-3 joseki. They are relatively easy and few in number, but a surprising number of kyu players dont know these joseki. It is definely worth a try! And for the comment of not being a good openin, if it was bad why was it so popular in the 60's? Might be that it is a bit too slow nowadays for the pro's, but I doubt that this changes anything for us mere mortals.
These are the first ten moves of the previously mentioned game. was my attempt to split down the middle, though I think one point above it might have been a bit better.
was to make a base, and W0 was a light approach attempting to build from my 3-3 point on the lower left (I'm not sure if this was the right approach, but I liked how it looked in a whole board context and it seemed to do several things at once).
I was wondering, however, what is a good continuation for black from here?
At the club there is a player, a big fan of Takemiya, who I have been progressively going down in handicap against (I just beat him in three consecutive games at H3, so it is time for me to drop to H2; I think he is 7k on KGS). He is currently on a quest to memorize every 4-4 point jeongseok.
When playing him, if you ask him why he made a move in a corner pattern, his reply tends to be "it's joseki."
He breathes, lives, and loves jeongseok. I've seen him teach jeongseok, as a set, to someone who hasn't even picked up the stones to play yet.
So, last night online, I was teaching someone involved in the "Shodan Challenge." She was having trouble with basic fundamentals--cutting and connecting, staying ahead, basic instincts, etc (of course, a stronger player looks at my game and the cycle continues, but more on that later).
I tried to teach by pulling out a jeongseok library, picking some seongseok I'd seen and/or played before but that she was unlikely to have ever seen. Then we went through them, move at a time, with me asking her at each step for the next move and discussing potential reasons for one move over another.
Good exercise for me, but I was thinking that I've done it too--where you play a move "because it is joseki" without even thinking about why that move is jeongseok and why that move might not be the best one given a whole-board context.
It is amazing how much even a 13k or a 16k can get through a jeongseok that they do not know just looking at local patterns.
That all having been said: David Mechner says that jeongseok provide a kind of "mental shortcut"--they let us make moves knowing that it is a good move in a local context (assuming we've studied the context for the jeongseok) and can worry about variations without trying to read everything at every step.
So maybe, as amateurs in the study of jeongseok, a balance is necessary--not strictly memorization, not strictly study without memorization.
One thing I've found interesting is how endgame skill and rank correlate. I was discussing this with a player I take 6 stones from: when he plays me or when the aforementioned person plays him, he makes up a lot of territory with a strong sente (or at the least "pseudosente" where the opponent thinks that it is sente and responds anyway) endgame. This leads to the feeling, as the weaker player, of being pushed around and helpless against White's moves (when that happens a little closer to the midgame I will generally get restless and try to initiate a trade, but tend to still fall victim in the endgame).
So, when I play someone stronger than me, the endgame pushes me around. When I play someone weaker, the scene is reversed: they follow me around and I dominate the endgame (though probably not as much as someone who has studied it in depth at my level--I'd rank my midgame skills right around "average for my level.")
I've decided that, by-and-large, I am not going to worry about anything but the very basics of endgame. A little counting, the basic differences between types of sente (sente, double sente, sente with a twist of lemon, etc), and leave the rest and the endless practice. I figure that if I am making multiple 20-30 point mistakes in the middle game and in L&D for my groups, it is worth more effort to study aspects of those than it is to work on playing a perfect endgame.
Of course, endgame does have the advantage of that it can be played perfectly from any given point, so I may revise my view on that later, but for the moment I am going to stay away from the many books relating to the subject.
Took a few days off from KGS, came back totally unable to win. I would ignore perfectly reasonable (and big) moves in order to fight for a handful of points of territory. I couldn't make due against a san-ren-sei at all, my reading went to hell, and I just in general sucked. I would get behind, turn more aggressive, and then lose the game.
Okay, so my first game after I came back was against someone with a [-] rank who has beaten 9k in his record.
This, unfortunately, set me off guard and shaken for my next game. I played a 14k who whipped me around (I got behind, then I turned more aggressive to try and make up the difference... and it just went downhill from there).
This was followed by a game against a 13k that I was a bit behind in, but nothing unreasonable, when he got disconnected.
So I disconnected a while and then played a 12k. Lost this one too.
My play was just weak, I was completely misreading things and just flat-out not thinking about moves.
Finally, after too many losses, I played a 14k and won by a handful of points. Then played a 12k. Had this game lost, then my opponent made a mistake and we both misread a life and death problem for a 20-25 point group. I misread that it was killable, he misread how to defend it.
Then I missed a rather large oiotoshi of my opponent's that I should have by no rights missed seeing, but by that point I had already won, so anything extra would have just been lagniappe.
Maybe things will be better tomorrow.
Last Wed I was talking to a Shodan with a group of others, and he said that the best way to improve is to pick a style and play it consistently, then when you stall or need to work on something specific adapt and try something new for a while, but don't change your style around every game.
He, and most of the other players at the club, are Takemiya fans and tend to play for influence. I'm not particularly--I prefer fighters and territory-oriented players--so my style is somewhat different. In even games they start with san-ren-sei (or at least ni-ren-sei), I start with Mini-Chinese, etc.
"Common wisdom" is that your opening should be a mix of both, which I've been trying for (sometimes more successfully, sometimes less successfully).
There is an exception though. I tend to play for influence where I am taking a 3+ stone handicap. So I play the san-ren-sei, then play moves such as a diagonal from a 4-4 point.
In my last 6 stone game against a shodan (score B+7.5) white managed to take all four corners, I just made up for it on the sides and in the middle.
This got me wondering, if part of the reason that I "overperform" in person is that, when playing with a handicap, I already have all of the influence I need and they are competing with their weakest game for something I'm a little more comfortable with the strategies for (territory).
When I first played, over two years ago now, I played a lot against GnuGo. It was less intimidating than loosing against a real person, and it was an adequate way to learn some of the fundamentals.
Sure, there are some bad habits you pick up from computers (or, more precisely, you don't tend to get significantly better on the overall except against computers, who have a unique style all of their own), but there are bad habits from any path that have to be trained out. The price of knowledge is pain.
This process lead to me being very good against computers, however, so I tend to play a few stones stronger against them than I would otherwise. Some of the skills I picked up transferred to playing humans, some didn't, but I lost most of it when I took a longer period off than I had been playing.
That said, now I find playing computers, on the overall, boring. It just isn't the same without a person on the other end of the goban/computer putting effort into the game. The intensity changes.
So recently, just as an experiment, I went back to it. Still not particularly applying myself compared to when I play a person but at least paying attention.
I've improved. I used to take stones, now I can give it two stones in most games.
Some observations about gnugo's style though:
Just some random observations from a handful of test games and two semi-serious games against gnugo.
I was playing a game where I made some earlier mistakes and ended up giving my opponent a huge moyo. I successfully fought for and got a living group in his moyo with a shobute (after misreading a ladder I could have exploited and losing a large group because of it) and then went on to kill one of his corners (that got surrounded by me in the process of him making his large moyo).
So his play got progressively... slower.
Pro players spend most of their time in the beginning of the game. By the endgame things tend to fly a good bit faster.
Similar is true of most amateur players (though at my level they seem to take more time in the middle game and kind of fly through the fuseki and late endgame).
At move 201 he had 16 minutes left on the clock, but five byo-yomi periods of 30 seconds each. He went into those byo-yomi periods on move 233. He ran out of time on move 246 and left without a word (for reference I had 20.5 minutes left at move 201, 18.5 minutes left at move 233, and 17.5 minutes left at move 246; yes, I play way way too fast--though not quite *that* fast since I also use my opponents time to think).
One thing that I've noticed is that there are both tangible and intangible improvements in strength. Tangible improvements are those things that I pick up that I can clearly link with improvements in my game.
Examples:
Intangible gains are those situations where I am improving, but I can't link it to improvements in any specific areas or anything that I know I've picked up.
The latter tends to be a slow-but-steady increase, the former tends to lead to "mini-epiphanies."
Just a thought I had, too tired to really elucidate any farther.
To test out the double-elimination code wms ran a double-elim 9x9 tournament tonight that I entered. Had a blast and lasted 4 rounds (losing to a 4k and a 1d, beating a 25k and a 12k).
In a close game earlier I had a rules dispute over a bent four in the corner that would have decided the game.
My opponent, when I mentioned the rules, demanded that I play it out and prove that it was dead. I refused. This argument continued for a bit, then after insulting me, and me offering to get a second opinion from the EGR, he escaped.
After the game I pulled the game into an SGF editor and checked. I could remove all of my ko threats (at a loss of -1 points per ko threat) and would still win (albeit by very little). So the outcome would have been the same either way.
I see two schools of thought here, similar to the schools of thought over whether to allow undos for mistakes. Do you ignore the rules because it is "just a game" or do you think it violates the "spirit of the game" to ignore the rules that the players agreed to beforehand?
I don't personally see a problem either school of thought so long as the player is consistent, e.g., either it is always dead under Japanese rules or it is always played out regardless of who it favors.
(Hicham) A while ago I had to play out a bent four at the end of the game, cause my opponent thought it was seki.My opponent had to pass more then fifteen times while I filled all the ko-threats. But as I always open games with chinese rules this was no problem:) Chinese rules rarely encounter trouble like this, the only thing is that you often have to remind people that they are playing with chinese rules and that they have to fill the dame.
I just played out the longest working ladder I've ever played out in a game. 25 steps altogether.
I lost another game, dropping me to 14k, then I won my next game (a 2 stone handicap game against a 12k), pushing me back up to 13k.
Right now it seems I have two major flaws in my play and that I won't get stronger until I overcome them.
Something I've noticed in doing L&D problems is what I am terming the "memorization effect"--where some combination of moves to solve this particular life and death problem occur immediately because the person has memorized that specific position.
I'm not convinced that this is truly a bad thing on the overall, it means that if that pattern would occur in the game it could be recognized and dealt with. OTOH, it means that they provide substantially less practice reading as one does them again and again and more with shape recognition.
By this logic, if one needs to work on reading problems the solution is to use new problems--be they easy or hard for the person to solve. If one needs to work on shape recognition, the focus should be on previously practiced problems.
Am I far off the mark here?
Benjamin: I think you are very right with your observation. This might also the point in the old debate whether at all or when to look at the solutions: After you looked at it, you already "know" the problems shape, so you can't really improve your reading with it anymore, just your "intuition", which has to do with shape memorization. On the other hand, if you don't use the sol at all and just do the problems over and over again until once you know it, it will have maximum effect on your reading ability, although you don't learn shapes so much unless you repeat also the problems you already solved. This is the way that I believe is best, as you learn reading at first and THEN start to remember the shapes you already understood, instead of memorizing something you don't really understand.
I've been on a fairly solid losing streak recently--losing 6 of my last 7 games. Today I finally broke the streak, but made a 30 point mistake where I got greedy and didn't read something out (story of my life lately, it seems).
That said, my rank on KGS has been remaining mostly stable at 13k despite the losses. Hopefully this signals a break in the streak.
Done with that book for now. That was slow going. I'll probably come back to it latter after I get past 10k.
Next it is back to Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, though I've taken a detour into Janice Kim's 4th Book (Battle Strategies) and Otake Hideo's Opening Theory Made Easy to refresh myself on some of the basics I seem to struggling with in my recent games.
Still spending the majority of my study time on game review though.
Right when I am about to go up a rank, I can't seem to win. It is almost never right after I go up, it is always right before. I'll be winning along fine, doing exceedingly well, and then suddenly... I can't win any longer right at the point I am about to go up.
Anyways, I've lost my last 4 by huge margins. Time to get some sleep and see if tomorrow is any nicer to my Baduk game.
Now to see if I can keep it.
UPDATE: Nope, lost a game against a 13k. Weird game.
Recently I heard about the "Shodan Challenge"--basically trying the seemingly impossible task of making it to Shodan by the end of the year. While I haven't registered or done anything official in that regard, I'm considering making something of a play for it. Even if I fall short, I want to see how far I can get if I really push myself.
Some people are paying professionals to tutor them to help themselves get there. I'm going to take advantage of the lectures that pros give on KGS, but I think I am going to eschew actually paying for private lessons--instead I'll take teaching games when they are offered (and give them when I can--"with rank comes responsibility") and take advantage of my GTL membership to submit games for review.
That having been said, shodan is just a milestone, not the end of a road. One thing I was discussing last week at the local go club was that, in martial arts, "shodan" is basically where your training begins. In Go, I've heard it said that it really is no different--that in the grand scheme of things, an amateur shodan really isn't all that strong.
Well, compared to a strong amateur or a pro--not compared to me! :D
I should emphasize--despite the milestone markers, this isn't so much about rank as trying to improve as much as possible in a year. "Rank" isn't a factor: It is a matter of pushing myself basically as far as I can get in the year's time.
I. Hate. Life. and. Death. Problems.
Alright, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I've printed the 200 problems from the second level (5k-15k) of the Korean Problem Academy and doing them every day until I get to where I can solve the 1k-5k set (level 3) "almost instantly" (as Janice Kim recommends), then I will move on to that (and doing 50 fewer problems a day, a goal!)
Shaydwyrm: Do you have an efficient method for printing out life and death sgfs, or did you just print them all one by one?
nachtrabe: I copied the jpgs for all of them, one at a time, into an
OmniGraffle document, then save them as a PDF using the print function and the Black and White Quartz filter under ColorSync?. It was very tedious and the jpgs are different sizes, so it looks kind of strange at points, but it works.
Hicham? It will get tedious, I can assure you. I have been reading Life and Death, the book, for 3 months now. Restarting for the 4 time soon. I still lose games cause my groups die, but i can see the simple stuff a lot sooner then I used to. So, go for it! It hurts and gets boring sometimes, but it helps.(Hope you dont mind that that I write in your blog, but this way you know that people read it and like it:) )
nachtrabe: I don't mind, I actively encourage it :) I enjoy seeing people's comments.
This is going to hurt, but after playing a game earlier today where I nearly lost three of my groups to sloppy L&D reading (as well as a 6H game against a ~3 kyu at the local club because I lost one group), I think it is necessary and will really help me.
That doesn't mean I am going to like it, but as Grandmaster Hampton says: "The price of knowledge is pain."
I just finished Attack and Defense by James Davies and Ishida Akira. Other than some problems with the diagrams (black triangles not showing up on black stones, for example) it was a thoroughly excellent book. I managed to get 16 out of the last 20 problems correct, though sometimes the subtleties of the reasoning escaped me. One of those 4 mistakes I had right, but changed my mind from what my instincts were telling me.
Unlike the other two Davies books I have, Life and Death and Tesuji, I found this one to be a fun read that I enjoyed working with (I also really came to enjoy Sakata's games after encountering him in this book and looking them up at Gobase).
Other than doing Life and Death problems, I'm going to try and make it through the rest of Tesuji and then reread Lessons In The Fundamentals Of Go, using my book on Haengma as a release from Tesuji's monotony when needed.
Then... we'll see where I am and what I need to work on.
Haven't updated in a while, but I've been practicing! Less so since school started (no more 100+ games a month), but I still try and play a rated game every day.
I've stalled a bit in my progress, but I don't think I am on the plateau yet, I still think I am improving.
I was absolutely shocked that the Jeongganjang Cup didn't have a page here, so I added one :)
In that vein, Team China won it this year, thanks in part to the addition of Rui Naiwei to an already strong team.
The Chinese team consisted of Rui Naiwei 9p, Zhang Xuan 8p, Xu Ying 5p, Ye Gui 5p, and Cao Cheng? 1p. Ye Gui was particularly stunning, winning five consecutive games against Umezawa Yukari (of Hikaru no Go fame), Hyun Mijin, Yashiro Kumiko, Kim Eunsun, and Suzuki Ayumi? before being defeated by Yun Yeongseon.
Korea fielded Park Jieun 5p, Yun Yeongseon 4p, Lee Minjin 4p, Hyun Mijin 3p, and Kim Eunsun 1p. Park Jieun managed to make it through Xu Ying and Zhang Xuan to play Rui Naiwei for the cup, so a good showing for Korea.
Japan finished third, putting into play Kobayashi Izumi 6p, Yashiro Kumiko 5p, Umezawa Yukari 5p, Mannami Kana 3p, and Suzuki Ayumi? 3p.
One trend I've been following with interest is that towards statistical analysis of patterns occurring in Baduk games. I believe this kind of analysis is worthless for us as amateurs and, while it may be interesting, should not be taken too seriously.
There are a few reasons for this:
I played a series of games where I was experimenting with tenuki. Taking Janice Kim's advice, I tried to do it on every move. First thing I noticed is that doing so is difficult, it is entirely too easy to get caught up in local battles or to forget what I am trying to do.
Sometimes it really seems like a threat is good too and I can't find an equivalent threat anywhere on the board. I know Jiang Zhujiu choked on his tea when he saw a sente move in an amateur game, but... Other times, especially with contact plays, it just seems wrong somehow to play away from the situation. I'm not sure that such is a bad thing beyond that it doesn't work for my experiment ^.^;; Some endgame moves are also difficult, though I have given myself a little more leeway with things like life and death, ladders, nets, traps, etc.
Anyways, it really seems to be a good experiment. Refreshing if for no other reason than that I have to consider every move a little more closely since I am looking for where else I can play on the board and trying to figure out the relative values of different threats.
Now if only I could divorce my mind enough to where I really could play an entire game without replying...
I dropped down to a 6 stone handicap against a shodan at the local club, this is the same handicap that a 7 kyu at the club takes against him, when I take a four (soon to be three) stone handicap against that same 7 kyu. Gotta love nonlinearity.
My current study regimen consists of a lot of going over my own games--good bad or ugly--and reading books. I am also doing easy L&D problems, but nothing harder at the moment than the 5k-15k problems in the Korean Problem Academy.
One thing I've been noticing in my recent games is that if I make bad shape--knowing that it is bad shape--even if I have a clear tactical reason for doing so or think I can sacrifice one of the stones in the bad shape, I get abused and things turn out worse than I thought they would.
The solution? Make good shape. Avoid diagonal jumps, avoid cut knight's moves and one point jumps, empty triangles, and all of that jazz. Find a way around it.
Of course, that is easier said than done.
Shaydwyrm: I'm not sure I would agree that diagonal jumps are bad shape; in fact, they can often be just the opposite. In general, when using them, you just have to be prepared for the possibility that it will get cut through. I find that the most understandable use of the diagonal jump is as a capping play, aiming to to let your opponent push through the gap (running through dame points) while building influence on the outside. On the HazamaTobi page there are some illustrations of its use as a sacrifice tactic as well, as a way of making good shape.
In an effort to make my life easier when working with Korean books and to try to encourage a local Korean player to give more lectures, I have been compiling a table of terms in Korean, Japanese, and English (PDF).
A few notes:
Today I didn't play a game for a change. I've played 30 games in the past 7 days (21 wins, if that counts for much of anything), so I kind of feel entitled. Still I managed to do some work on L&D problems and review a few of my past games.
It has been a month since I haven't played a game online, and even then I've played games in person on those days, so I don't know how long it has been since I truly took a day off from playing.
I was pleased to see Rui Naiwei won (by resignation) the first title match round of the 6th Female Myeongin. Cho HyeYeon swept last year's 2-0 and so is defending this year.
Not, mind you, that I want Cho HyeYeon? to do poorly--I am quite pleased to see her doing so well and really hope to see her contending for the open titles soon. This time around though, in this title, I want to see Rui Naiwei take it :)
Cho HyeYeon? was the 3rd youngest person to turn pro out of the Hankuk Kiwon (the two others being Lee Changho and Cho Hunhyun) and is currently one of two of the highest ranked women (the other one being Park Jiun) out of that system.
The second game will be on 4 January 2005.
I have been in a handful of games where there has been an extended broken ladder. When I misread the ladder and played it out (it happened once), I resigned immediately, but I haven't been so fortunate with my opponents, many of whom continue even after misreading ladders as long as 21 steps.
Some even seem to use it as a tactic, and I know at least one person who could read the ladder and followed it anyways hoping I would chicken out.
Thankfully, these games have all ended in my victory--either by resignation or by a lot of points--but when faced with a broken ladder I am often confused how to go about taking the best advantage of it.
Should I take the cut points immediately? Is there a "best methodology" for taking them out to keep from making my opponent thick where I don't cut? Is such even a problem?
Hopefully for keeps this time.
Despite being rated at 15k on KGS I seem to play at around 11-13k at our local club, depending on who I am playing (there's a 7k there I am going to go down to a 3 stone handicap against soon; and an 11-12k that I play evenly against).
So I played the 7k in an even game. I was told after by another player (2k?) that my "whole board thinking" was probably better than my opponents, but that my tactics sucked and I was getting ripped to shreds locally. It also highlighted that my analysis capability for L&D problems is... well, pretty much nonexistent.
Probably from not doing enough problems just in general. I kind of think of L&D problems like doing homework.
So in response I've started working my way through ''Tesuji'' in the hopes that it will improve my reading and my local "not getting sliced to ribbons" skills. We'll see where I go after that (maybe the rest of Life and Death), but I've been kind of itching to get started with a couple of books on Haengma...
There is a player in Louisiana, I believe it is Dr. Lee, who believes that amateurs up to the dan ranks shouldn't study the endgame. He claims that, when you are making multiple 20-30 point mistakes in the middle game, the handful of points you might get from studying the endgame simply aren't worth it.
At Sensei's Library and elsewhere, such as by some peoople at my local go club, I have been told that one shouldn't study joseki, or that an individual shouldn't study joseki until s/he hits 10k.
I've seen people go so far as to say that "If there is a person out there that beats you at nine stones the study of fuseki is useless".
I've seen lots of people say to postpone the study/memorization of pro games.
Some say that one shouldn't even start on a 19x19 board until s/he is competent on a 9x9.
About the only thing everyone agrees that everyone needs to study are L&D problems, but even here I see advice vary (especially among amateurs, from what I have seen pros seem to consistently say that one should focus on "easy" problems).
At the lower kyu ranks not only does there seem to be no real consensus on what to study (much less how to study), but there seems to be no real consensus on what not to study, but with a lot of people believing that you should postpone studying just about everything it seems until you are "good enough to play."
The strongest player at my club gave this piece of advice, and I've taken it to heart: "study what you enjoy until you plateau, and then break down and study what you don't enjoy until you overcome that next hurdle."
Is there a point to this rant? Probably not, but if you read this let me know your thoughts :)
Nathan: First of all, I've enjoyed reading your blog - it goes to show we can all learn from each other, no matter what the rank difference is. You seem dedicated and have great enthusiasm, which is essential for making Shodan (which I'm sure you'll get to one day!).
To address the above, I disagree with Dr. Lee - the endgame is worth studying. If you make 5-10 moves in the endgame which lose say, 5 points each, that's alot of points to lose! Endgame tesuji is not essential (until you're closer to Shodan) but generally knowing where the biggest points are is important.
Before reaching 10 kyu, you should at least know a handful of star-point joseki such as the invasion at 3-3. After that, I'd say study joseki which may arise from the fuseki you like to play.
I think there is benefit from going over pro-games to get the feel for the flow of the stones. This might be difficult as a double-digit kyu at first, but once past 10kyu, I see no harm if it is helpful. I know from my experience I've learned alot playing through pro games. I recommend players who's style you like.
Studying lots of easy tsumego seems to be universal from the pros. 'Nuff said!
It is important to enjoy what you are studying, or else you won't learn anything. And BTW, the above advice is distilled from my pro-level sensei, so there should be some truth to it ;-)
I'd be happy to review some of your games for you if you like, just leave me a message on my homepage here. Just remember this when you are 7dan and I need my games reviewed :)
nachtrabe: Hi Nathan! Thanks for providing your insight and for your offer, I will certainly take you up on it. :-) I'm glad to know someone is enjoying this exercise besides me.
Well, I am on one of those Losing Streaks from hell. I just can't. seem. to. win. It happened right about the time KGS decided I was 15k. Recently I've seen some signs of it breaking (getting a game reviewed by a 6k helped a lot), but I still am having difficulty winning.
My play has become "listless" and empty, my moves seem less motivated. I've been taking short breaks where I put the game out of my mind entirely, maybe I need to take a longer break...
Then there is also David Mechner's advice which I've found good in general: when I am a 10k, no one is going to care how many games I lost as a 16k. When I am a 5d, no one is going to care how many games I lost as a 5k, much less a 10k or a 16k.
Now I just have to keep telling myself that...
This is a problem I solved in my game that I was proud of myself for getting. Okay, so it isn't all that impressive--just a gote seki--but I managed to read it out step-by-step before playing it, so I am hoping that this represents an improvement in my reading ability (I never used to really look for making seki). Maybe my time with the Korean Problem Academy L&D problems is paying off :-)
I should note that my opponent decided on the seki rather than the ko ( at a).
Made 16k today on KGS. This time it happened overnight while I was asleep, though I knew it was coming soon.
Observations on climbing in rank:
Well that was interesting.
I had badly misplayed the beginning of a game. By move 80 I had 23 stones that were either already captured or in positions where they would end up as prisoners--most of them in positions where they wouldn't even give opportunities later in the game.
By move 100 I had a center-facing wall on the 'F' line that was breached by a white spear thrust, a large moyo (only 6 white stones had been played on or to the east of the centerline), one area in the southeast corner that was pretty solid, and the rest of the moyo was wide open to invasion. I was sure that I had lost, but decided to play it out a little ways--I did have a huge moyo after all, and I do love to fight...
Some moves later, I get a lucky break--my opponent makes a mistake and lets me cut a 1 point jump, separating her spear thrust (and her living group) from the bulk of her stones inside my moyo (most of which are a part of a floating weak group).
This got me reflecting on the level of our play and how it changes even during the course of a game. When we get ahead in a game by a lot--such as the player in my "honor" post below did or I'm sure my opponent did in this game (awww, this guy is no good, look at how badly I'm abusing him!)--we have a tendency to become complacent. This complacency is deadly--underestimating your enemy is a good way to end up slaughtered in both real life and in the game of Baduk. On the other hand, when someone is playing poorly and and seriously behind many people have a tendency to "crank things up a notch."
Games in those situations are analogous to fighting a cornered animal--the person you are going up against suddenly becomes extremely dangerous, and failure to recognize such is a good way to end up losing. I see both sides of that a lot in my games, and it really does affect how you play and whether you win.
I should mention that I've lost to this more than I've won to it, this is just the most recent example ^.^;; I think I need to adjust my mindset that until time runs out, my opponent resigns, or both of us pass my opponent should be treated as lethal.
Well, I lost a game because of a stupid mistake. I spotted the weakness....
...and then decided to replace one weakness with another (rather than create eye-space by playing at a, but nooooo, I couldn't do something fancy like that).
unkx80: Time to train your intuitions on shapes?
Tderz: Black b (better than c, because no ko threat b) must (will !) become your second nature.
Now, I read this out to be either a ko for life or a seki. My opponent decided on the seki.
Tderz: You yourself have the option for life too ...
=
![]()
= 2 points in gote (perhaps better than zero points (seki) in Sente)
That was enough to shift the points to my opponents favor. If my opponent had gone for a ko I might have won the game in the ko fight. A seki was guaranteed.
Live and learn. Now the trick will be not doing it next time ^.^;;
I should mention that the only reason I got into that position was because I committed a classic d'ohsuji and ignored a threat that was worth 4 or 5 points (assuming I had defended correctly) to play a 1 point half-sente move somewhere else on the board.
Honor is a very big thing for me in life, but it is one of those things that is hard to define. A code of conduct, yes, but there is more to it than that--something both intrinsic and intangible to the nature of Honor. At the same time cultures can each have their own individual codes of honor that are independent and even mutually exclusive to one another. It hasn't ever even been the same between Korea, China, and Japan.
I was reflecting on this because earlier today I watched a game between two Swedish players (he is 17k and played white, "she" refers to black for the sake of clarity and is 18k, H1 game on KGS). One person had so completely dominated the game that the KGS score estimator said she was 121.5 moku behind. Most of that territory was wrapped up in the center, mind you, where he had strong influence on most sides.
There is a Chinese proverb that says that "corners are gold, sides are silver, center is grass." I tend to overemphasize it, but there is still a lot of truth in it. My experience has been that center territory is very fragile and difficult to defend when it exists at all. Anyway, enough 17k speculation.
She made a last-ditch effort to win and did what I would consider a shobute--a do-or-die invasion to the center. This wasn't deep in the endgame--territory hadn't been completely sealed off yet though they were probably in what most would consider yose. Still, an invasion was still viable and I wouldn't even exactly call it speculative, since there was a lot of room there to live in (an 8x10 loosely enclosed box without a stone in sight except for one of hers).
That said, it has been my experience that a floating center invasion generally very tricky, and with proper play he could have probably blocked her. He couldn't defend properly and she went on to find life by connecting with a small center facing group that was trapped (and presumed dead) against one side of the center. By bringing the two groups together she found eye space where none had existed before.
Having miraculously secured life, she began to press outward and managed to reduce the center to virtually nothing and through aggressive-but-reasonable play exploited some weaknesses to expand her corners and sides.
Final result: Black won by 5.5 moku at move 257. An impressive turnaround from a game that had been thoroughly lost at move 89.
Afterwards the loser went off ranting about how terribly he played in that game and, after his opponent had left (who I felt obligated to tell that she played well and it wasn't all about him) talked about how she "had no honor" and how "unhonorable sic?" she was and how he lost all will to play after such "unhonorable" moves.
Now, I generally consider speculative invasions to be annoying and a waste of my time when my opponent does them, and I admit I've berated myself after if one succeeds, but at the most extreme I consider them impolite. Not dishonorable. I have lost the will to play before, but it is generally around move 300 when we were busy reducing my groups to one-point eyes and not by move 99 before the full endgame has actually begun. Suffice it to say, I thought the White player was way way out of line and simply making excuses.
Anyways, enough of my rambling. This all got me thinking (back to the original point) about honor and play. There are certainly rules of honor in war, and rules of honor in personal conflict, and Baduk is analogous to both, so what is a suitable "code of honor" for this game? Would such a code relate entirely to your behavior off the board--perhaps in the details of how you treat your opponent, or not visibly losing your temper--or would it also extend to how one plays? Are there "honorable" and "dishonorable" ways of playing as well? What moves, exactly, could be considered "dishonorable"?
Any thoughts?
Brent: Personally, I would define dishonorable action as "doing something outside the established parameters of conflict in order to gain an unfair advantage". So, for example, if you had agreed to a sword fight, pulling out a gun and shooting your adversary would be dishonorable (remember that scene in Indiana Jones? Although technically he did not agree to a sword fight, so...). As far as Go is concerned, then, something like a sleeve tesuji would be dishonorable; but making invasions (even speculative ones) is well within the rules of the game and therefore quite honorable. Now, of course, one could argue that in addition to the established technical rules of Go, there are additional, mostly unspoken "rules" that govern "polite" play, e.g. resigning when you are obviously far behind, not making obviously doomed invasions that only work if your opponent blunders miserably, etc. But since these really only amount to cultural customs and not rules, I think you can call them impolite, perhaps, but not dishonorable.
PS We should play sometime. (=
ilan: Man, I am envious, I live for games like that! Please tell me the person's name so I can play him with an unrated account. On a less personal note, I should point out that at the 17K level, players do not usually understand what is definite territory, so the invasion was very likely not too speculative. I recall an even game I played with a 14K (probably equivalent to KGS 17K now) some time ago, and it was going sort of OK for him until I successfully invaded all his moyos. After the game, he made a reference to my 'slimy' invasions, as if to say that a moyo is definite territory. If you post the game, then this can be verified. I note that you are referring to Baduk in this diary. I have been playing almost exclusively on Dashn for the last couple of months, so I am used to having every single territory challenged, and vice-versa. Finally, I should say that I still have no understanding of 'influence' as used above.
So this came up, where I played the marked white stone. I had read it either turning into a seki or a ko-for-life (either of which I was fine with--picnic ko for me because I'd be back where I started if I lost). My opponent immediately resigned though and declared that it was a "25k mistake" that put him in that position.
It does look tough to live without a ko and not in a seki, but I'm not yet convinced it is impossible given perfect play... Will have to look at it later, I can't think straight right now (input is also welcome, if anyone reads this).
As far as wins/losses go, I haven't gone immediately to a losing streak, but I am not winning 80% of my games either. My games are tougher (though I'm not sure how much of that is mental) and smaller mistakes are deciding them. We'll see how this holds up with time.
Brent (19k KGS): Here's my attempt... it's probably wrong, but that's how you learn, right? (= After , if White plays
at
, then
at
lives. So
, and then Black must connect at
, otherwise White can play there and seki results. Then White destroys an eye with
, followed by
.
prevents double ko and then
starts a ko for the life of the Black group.
What do you think?
Coconuts: Your diagram looks pretty good, Brent, but there is no reason for Black to give White the advantage of capturing first. White must start the ko at 8 herself, and Black takes first. Black need only play to start the ko if White wins the game with a seki (achieved by White playing the 1-1 point). As for
at
...
I thought this was seki at first, too, but unfortunately for black, he is dead. Black cannot play on either of white's liberties without dying, but white can play inside black's corner eye to capture.
nachtrabe: Those are basically the solutions I came up with. This is one problem I came across though when I wondered about ...
Something the strongest player who attends Wed night at my local club said that when he played other people at his level, he would get cocky because his strength is in the opening and so he would often play a stronger opening, and he has to remind himself that his opponents are the same rank as he is because they are stronger in other areas to compensate.
This is a good lesson about how an opponent who is nominally the same overall skill may not have the same set of strengths and weaknesses, and it was something I was strongly reminded of in my game earlier. He played a non-traditional fuseki, letting me do whatever I wanted, but by the end it was a close game who's results would depend on the rest of the endgame and if I could keep sente.
Just made 17k on KGS, now the difficulty of my games should increase a notch and I'll probably start losing again (I had been on a winning streak, winning 40 of my last 50 ranked games).
Most people seem to have fallen a lot with the ratings adjustment--I fell a little, but not appreciably.
I have a friend who fell two stones, but we were playing H1 (no komi) games and I could consistently beat her, so she needed a handicap (she was also on a losing streak against her other opponents). This is a Good Thing™, now she will get to play people who actually are her own strength and break her losing streak. Of course, the way our ranks our situated now she is going to be getting a five stone handicap next time she plays me (she fell another stone after I beat her with a three stone handicap, then I went up to 17k...) o_o;;
After hearing Janice Kim say that you should always try to not respond to your opponents moves but look elsewhere on the board, no matter what your strength (her analogy was to compare Go to a giant game of chicken), I have been making a conscientious effort to "play away" and tenuki more often in my games. Still can't quite bring myself to do it as often as I probably should be, but it does seem to help my game a lot.
She also said that the "right level" of problem for Life & Death study is the kind that you can solve "almost immediately" when you look at it, because those are the problems that tend to occur in games and you need to develop your instincts for recognizing them. She went on to say that, even for high-dan professionals, the right level would be "Graded Go Problems For Beginners, Volume 4". This made me take another good look at the problems rated for my level at the Korean Problem Academy and I have been using them for practice in recognizing basic shapes. I'm also looking at the Level 2 set, since I'm not all that far away and most of the problems there fall into that same category of things I can solve "instantly."
My theory on this is as follows:
Updated the SL page here with snazzy stuff such as a table of contents. I kind of feel foolish, putting this much work into a page when I am so lowly in terms of my play--one of those "finding new ways to celebrate mediocrity" things. I suppose if it keeps me working at it though and focused on the goal, it will work out fine in the end.
Recently I've been winning most of my games on KGS and am getting close to the 17k mark. I have also been told by several opponents that I "seem much stronger than 18k." My guess is that my winning streak will stop when I hit 17k and that I'll start a losing streak until I improve again.