meersan

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I'm a Complete Beginner who started playing Go in July 2006. This game is really cool! I'm a member of the AGA.

Current status: wading my way through tsumego
KGS: [ext] rank inflation++

Go books links

My go library

Go chronicle

2007-02-12 - From the seki page:

[Diagram]
1-eyed Seki  

2006-9-22 - Added books section since I refer to those links again and again.

2006-9-08 - Last week I had the feeling there was something missing in my play -- incontrovertibly true -- but now the question seems to have expanded far beyond that. Lately I've had a nagging feeling that I don't understand anything about Go, that I've internalized/memorized tricks and techniques without actually learning anything. While probably accurate, it's quite unnerving. It doesn't seem to affect me when I play, only when I think about Go in other contexts. I don't think I understand what I'm actually doing when I connect stones or make groups. What does it really mean to surround an enemy group or secure territory? It would be nice if this lingering uncertainty leads to some sort of breakthrough or something. Maybe I need to learn to look at the board in a different way.

I can now beat Dariush and IgoWin in even games on a 13x13 and 9x9, respectively. It's almost time to buy a 19x19 program with more features. Finished Graded Go Problems For Beginners vol 1, Learn To Play Go Series vol 4, and Opening Theory Made Easy. Ploughing through vol 2 of the former and rereading the latter two.

2006-8-26 -

2006-8-15 - Library update:

Favorite books so far: LTPG 2 and 4, OTME, and of course GGPFB. TSBG is really good but very dense going at my level.

2006-8-01 - Received my AGA card in the mail, yay. I guess I'm still confused by timezones: I'd decided Zahlman's Sunday KGS lecture began an hour after it actually did, so I missed the first half hour. Enjoyed the bits I could. Finished reading Kageyama's Lessons In The Fundamentals Of Go. I can honestly say I only absorbed around 2% of it, but it feels like an important 2%. I'm now working on Bozulich's The Second Book of Go. The chapter on handicap Go is extremely interesting!

2006-07-26 - The lesson of the evening was "look for big moves and play them before tiny (or meaningless) ones". I continued my beginner's myopia with a not-very-good performance on KGS -- there was only 1 move I sort of liked. However, a friendly SDK player was kind enough to review our game afterward. I play with a friend of mine on KGS and I have a feeling our games will be much improved. Also started playing out the review games in Learn To Play Go Vol 3.

2006-07-24 - I think 30 kyus like myself suffer from 'newbie blindness', an inability to perceive the board as a whole or even specific groups in danger. We try to concentrate, but we lack the ability to discriminate, so we fail to observe the blindingly obvious :) Becoming stronger at Go must be like learning how to see the board farther and deeper. I had a lot of fun playing a friend on KGS tonight. Much joy when I noticed myself counting up ko threats (or such I imagine them to be termed) during a game. Received a shipment of books from Kiseido on Friday. I'm currently in the middle of Graded Go Problems For Beginners Vol 1. I think it's already had an effect on my ability to concentrate, read, and 'see'.

2006-07-21 - To revise my opinion from yesterday, maybe playing against 'good' bots is OK. they can be good at punishing newbie tactical mistakes like allowing a group to be captured. Just stay away from the undo button.... It looks like these 'Go diary' things are pretty common. I've seen them in other user pages.

2006-07-20 - I think playing against bots is a really bad idea for new players. It enforces bad habits that a human opponent would exploit right away. Defeating a bot is meaningless and may even be destructive to the brain. ;) I made an account on KGS and invited some people who are also new at Go to play me online. The client is really sugoi -- it makes it very easy to review games. Working my way through Learn To Play Go Vol 3. I also want to reread book 2 again.

* [ext] http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/orient/go/learn/golearn.html

2006-07-16 - Horrors, after my sole remaining PC went kaput on Friday the 14th, I was forced to purchase a new one. That aside I spent a fine weekend playing go and writing. The go set I ordered arrived. That means I have actual go stones to practice with, rather than the pennies and upside-down Scrabble pieces I'd been using. I've done the first 50 30-kyu problems on [ext] Go Problems. After I solve a problem I like to play through the different possibilities to make sure I understand what's going on. I just barely started reading Learn To Play Go Vol 3. I've now read the 2nd book three times; I understand around 80% of it... it would be nice to have a way to organize the different goals and approaches to moves. It's hard to choose from alternatives, and some of the examples leave me mystified. Lines of play that are apparently obvious to the author are not so obvious to me. Maybe I'll post an example here, if I get a chance.

2006-07-13 - I've now played [ext] Dariush around 30 times. I've continued my losing streak all week, though I've had a couple 9 handicap games where I'm pretty sure Dariush resigned, but I may just be imagining things (there doesn't seem to be a clear 'resign' option). Dariush seems to always make the same reply in certain situations. Also, there seems to be a strange issue where Dariush will tell you that you cannot pass even when you did not try to. Today I want to tackle the 30 kyu problems on [ext] Go Problems and finish my first readthrough of Learn To Play Go Vol 2.

2006-07-12 - Played my first game against a real, live human! When I visited my mom today I brought along the practice board that just arrived. She has also never played before. We worked our way through the first couple chapters of Learn To Play Go Vol 1, then played a 9x9 game. I don't have any Go stones yet so we ended up using Othello pieces from a set I bought when I was working on my senior AI project at uni. This worked pretty well until we ran out of pieces... happily, we were already in the endgame by then. Mom has a very logical brain due to countless hours playing suicidal levels of sudoku; she picked it up very fast and we both enjoyed ourselves. Among the mistakes I made was a classic beginner error, the Chapel. Ah, the shame. At the end of the game I had a lot of fun reviewing how the game had progressed. I challenged Mom to recreate the game with me from move 1; we made it to about ply 16 before we fell apart. I can see where a human instructor would be a huge help.

2006-07-11 - Still working my way through Learn To Play Go Vol 2. This book is exactly what I needed, it ties things together in a way that makes me more confident about how to play an actual game, as opposed to randomly placing stones on the board. I have the feeling I'll be rereading it a few times... It's one thing to understand material as its presented, but to be able to integrate that into play seems to be another matter. In an actual game it's hard to see the forest for the trees. Yesterday I was very confused by scoring and counting territory so I spent some time reviewing those rules. Just discovered [ext] Go Problems. What a great resource!

2006-07-09 - Finished Kim's Learn To Play Go Vol 1. Started reading Vol 2. When I do the exercises I feel encouraged because I'm able to see the correct move without difficulty. However, I wish the book would display the correct answer immediately rather than showing the incorrect ones first, as is sometimes done. I'm worried my brain might start to reinforce bad ideas by seeing the incorrect moves too much. (Perhaps I'm being paranoid.) ... Played my first handicap game against Dariush with 9 stones and got completely crushed. I have no idea what to do with the handicap stones. This is the only game I've played where you can know the rules and still have no idea how to play!

2006-07-08 - Started reading Kim's Learn To Play Go Vol 1. Downloaded [ext] Dariush and played my first game on a 13x13 board as black, no handicap, 6.5 komi and Japanese scoring. Wow, I got pummeled and I have no idea what's going on! Played 4 more games in this way to equal effect.


meersan last edited by meersan on February 13, 2007 - 00:09
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