DieterVerhofstadt/BasicLawsOfGamesmanship

Sub-page of DieterVerhofstadt

Many people care about their rank. Me too, although I can hate myself for it. It becomes much easier to climb up the ranking if you admit you care. It also becomes easier if you observe some basic laws of gamesmanship, before blaming another loss on your go skills:

  1. Do not resign. Instead hang in there until your opponent loses on time or blunders under time pressure [1]
  2. Do not lose on time [2]
  3. Do not make silly mistakes. Just keep a certain concentration level.
    • Not drinking is important.
    • Not playing while half asleep is too.
    • Not playing while doing something else is too.
  4. Do not make smart but equally devastating mistakes [3]. If you look for the exquisite move, instead of playing the normal move, you probably end up with a bad move.
  5. Check your network connection and make sure you're playing during a stable period. [4]

Notes

[1] "He who blunders last, loses the game." It's nothing to be proud of perhaps, but recently I played a tournament game in which I was dominated the whole game. I kept playing and was able to keep the difference under 10 points, but this was also because he managed his advantage solidly. Then he blundered in byo-yomi and made another mistake due to the consequent dismay. He was clearly the stronger player, but I won.

[2] Don't play super-blitz and if you do, manage time rather than moves. At the other end of the extreme, I recall a handicap game without time constraints where the fellow kept playing in a lost position and thought for ages before moving. I lost patience, concentration, and a big group in atari.

[3] See also /the philosophy of mistakes.

[4] There is probably nothing I hate more than playing a move, watching my opponent run out of time, then getting a game result that it was me who lost on time.


This is a copy of the living page "DieterVerhofstadt/BasicLawsOfGamesmanship" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2012 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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