Memorizing Games of Professionals

[cuttingblue]

would you recommend the master play series over invincible?

[dankenzon]

the Go level required to really start enjoying and understanding Invincible is without a doubt single digit kyu.

the master series may be more helpful to read if the player starts memorizing or re-playing Cho Chikun or Lee ChangHo games since with it you will havew guidance to understand better the games. also, the amount of variables in Invincible in order to fully undestand and analyze the game is huge.

More than memorizing, understanding the style and replaying understanding what the player is looking for and getting used to better shapes works better.

DKZN

[tapir]

To improve my game I am considering to memorize a dozen games of professionals. I am not sure yet whether a game commentary is necessary to get the reason for a certain move, but it surely can't hurt. To get a high variety of games, they should satisfy some criteria:

- different professionals
- different, but common and modern joseki
- different playing styles (e.g. fighting games, moyo games, furikawari games, cool tesuji...)
- at least two thirds of the games should include yose

Which games would you suggest for this purpose?

My language teacher told me: Memorizing may be not en vogue now, but it is still as efficient as before. That is
Magicwand may be correct with "we memorize by association." but he probably never thought about building the associations by memorizing. (Note: I got it wrong, MW seems to be one of the rare commentors who support memorizing.)

The worst thing what can happen to you, is that you get some interesting ideas. (But of course if you hate it, don't do it.)

One of Alexandre Dinerchteins websites told me to study Yu Bin. I found this advice useful.

[entropi]

If memorizing pro games is useful, why is memorizing joseki bad?

[Magicwand]

If memorizing pro games is useful, why is memorizing joseki bad?

pro games are usually correct move on that situation.

joseki can be misleading because some josekies are not a good move on some situation.
that is why there is a saying "memorize josekies and forget them"

[entropi]

If memorizing pro games is useful, why is memorizing joseki bad?

pro games are usually correct move on that situation.

joseki can be misleading because some josekies are not a good move on some situation.
that is why there is a saying "memorize josekies and forget them"

Yes, but the idea is not memorizing the games (and/or joseki) for the sake of remembering them later. The exercise is trying to make sense of the correct moves, thus learning shapes, correct judgement etc. If you do that properly with joseki, then the same effect should also be expected, no? The additional effect of joseki would be understanding the "local" shapes in a simpler manner.

[topazg]

I see no problem with learning full joseki sequences by rote.

Cho Seok-bin has recommended that mid dan and stronger players should learn joseki sequences in an interview (I forget which, sorry ).

I feel the key is not to get into your head "this is joseki, so it's always good" - as long as you can stop this, and then visualise the joseki and its result in the context of the board, learning them makes sense.

It's also worth studying deviations to josekis too - when you sit there thinking "Why not cut here instead of there?" for example, it's good study material too. For one thing, you may find a few sub-standard local results which have a different impact on the board - useful for a) learning when you can deviate, and b) how to punish deviations that shouldn't have happened.

I've learned loads of joseki sequences, and quite a few "if you have a stone over here, then you can get a good result from this approach by playing this joseki" sequences.

[TMark]

A couple of years ago I reviewed a kyu-player's game and, about 8 or 9 moves in, he said "I played this because it is the joseki". I then showed him a different move in the same situation which would change the way the game developed and asked him if he liked the shape that was left. The point was that there is no single joseki that early in the game that must be played out by rote, but you do need to learn a number of josekis by rote, in order to recognise the shapes that will be reached. Then you can decide which shape you want to achieve.

Best wishes.

[Apoah]

This thread is long dead, but I found it interesting as my primary method of study is to memorize pro games. I tend to follow a certain player (currently Kim Junghyun).

My method is to memorize the game until I can no longer make sense of the moves (usually 100-175 moves) Pro End games are too confusing for me to understand.

As I am learning the game, I will try to find the rhythm. Games normally have a flow to them with subtle places that seem to break the game up into segments. This is usually centered around fights or tenukis. As I find this rhythm I will play the game in all 4 orientations.

In other words, I will play the game as far as I know it, then clear the board and start again only rotating the first move and then playing the game in that orientation. Once I have gone all the way around the board, I switch colors and do the same thing. So black's moves become white's moves and so on.

This is very time consuming, but I am in no hurry. I feel that I begin to see certain shapes and genera positions appear over and over throughout the games and have started to be able to differentiate higher level (intentional) play from lower level fumbling.

One interesting thing that sometimes happens is that sometimes I will accidentally slip into a sequence from another game or switch diagonal corners and end up with a game that is a hybrid of 2 or 3 pro games. to me this is encouragement that the fundamental concepts are being learned.

I have to respectfully disagree with those that don't think this type of study is beneficial. There is a conversation that takes place between players over the board and tapping into that conversation at a professional level on a consistent basis sets the stage for even a weaker player to begin making better choices in their own games.

My two cents, anyway.

[entropi]

This thread is long dead, but I found it interesting as my primary method of study is to memorize pro games. I tend to follow a certain player (currently Kim Junghyun).

My method is to memorize the game until I can no longer make sense of the moves (usually 100-175 moves) Pro End games are too confusing for me to understand.

As I am learning the game, I will try to find the rhythm. Games normally have a flow to them with subtle places that seem to break the game up into segments. This is usually centered around fights or tenukis. As I find this rhythm I will play the game in all 4 orientations.

In other words, I will play the game as far as I know it, then clear the board and start again only rotating the first move and then playing the game in that orientation. Once I have gone all the way around the board, I switch colors and do the same thing. So black's moves become white's moves and so on.

This is very time consuming, but I am in no hurry. I feel that I begin to see certain shapes and genera positions appear over and over throughout the games and have started to be able to differentiate higher level (intentional) play from lower level fumbling.

One interesting thing that sometimes happens is that sometimes I will accidentally slip into a sequence from another game or switch diagonal corners and end up with a game that is a hybrid of 2 or 3 pro games. to me this is encouragement that the fundamental concepts are being learned.

I have to respectfully disagree with those that don't think this type of study is beneficial. There is a conversation that takes place between players over the board and tapping into that conversation at a professional level on a consistent basis sets the stage for even a weaker player to begin making better choices in their own games.

My two cents, anyway.

I must say that's a strange (but interesting) way of studying. I cannot say it is not beneficial because I have never tried something like that. But considering the time you have to invest in that kind of study, I have strong doubts about its efficiency.

Maybe one more thing: with that kind of study you would not learn how to punish certain kind of bad moves because pros never play them. But, on the other hand, such moves you would anyway learn from your own games.

Who knows, maybe that's the natural way of learning. Like a child learning his mother language. He has no idea about grammer and makes millions of mistakes at the beginning but improves slowly and consistently.

Anyway as long as you have time and you enjoy it, there should not be any problem.

[Apoah]

Yes, that is exactly how I look at it. Like learning a language or music. Go is very musical to me.

Most importantly, I really enjoy the process and it is more of something to pass the time than active studying. There is such beauty in pro games that can only be unlocked with many, many replays. At my level there are many confusing moves and it is very gratifying to to finally come to some kind of answer as to why a move was made. Even if it is wrong, that is the process of go, right? Constantly working on an assumed logic set and actively adjusting that logic as your understanding of the game grows?

On reflection, perhaps what I do isn't study as much as it is fun. Like someone who can sight read music sitting down to play a Beethoven sonata. They aren't "practicing piano" per say. I do not think I would suggest this to someone as a way to study.

Then again, if I ever hit 5d, perhaps other people will see it differently.

[Lady_Light]

Doesn't it take all the fun out of playing a game if your memorize all the moves? What kind of challenge would that be. Plus, wouldn't that take a lot of time to try and figure out what kind of moves your opponent would be making without actually having the opponent there? I am just confused.

[Dusk Eagle]

It would be absolutely impossible to memorize Go in the same way Tic-Tac-Toe can be memorized. It's even impossible for computers: there are more possible games of Go than atoms in the entire universe. No, Go is way to hard for any human to truly achieve perfection at it. This topic is about memorizing individual games between two professional players (players who, for the most part, have dedicated their lives to the game). The theory being that you can learn to emulate good moves if you see them often enough.

While I definitely believe studying/memorizing pro games has benefits, I personally think that other methods of study may be more efficient, such as doing tsumego. I also think you might plateau prematurely if your only method of study is pro games.

[LovroKlc]

It would be absolutely impossible to memorize Go in the same way Tic-Tac-Toe can be memorized. It's even impossible for computers: there are more possible games of Go than atoms in the entire universe. No, Go is way to hard for any human to truly achieve perfection at it. This topic is about memorizing individual games between two professional players (players who, for the most part, have dedicated their lives to the game). The theory being that you can learn to emulate good moves if you see them often enough.

While I definitely believe studying/memorizing pro games has benefits, I personally think that other methods of study may be more efficient, such as doing tsumego. I also think you might plateau prematurely if your only method of study is pro games.

I am not sure how useful is memorising... I mean, when I review a game in detail, I remember a good part of it, and that should be enough probably...

[Bantari]

It would be absolutely impossible to memorize Go in the same way Tic-Tac-Toe can be memorized. It's even impossible for computers: there are more possible games of Go than atoms in the entire universe. No, Go is way to hard for any human to truly achieve perfection at it. This topic is about memorizing individual games between two professional players (players who, for the most part, have dedicated their lives to the game). The theory being that you can learn to emulate good moves if you see them often enough.

While I definitely believe studying/memorizing pro games has benefits, I personally think that other methods of study may be more efficient, such as doing tsumego. I also think you might plateau prematurely if your only method of study is pro games.

I am too tired to do research right now, but I think the issue is not really how many 'possible' games there are, but how many 'feasible' games. I mean - even on move #1 there are 361 'possible' moves, but only what - 9 feasible moves? Or a a few more? In most position, I seldom consider more than 5 moves, and the same probably goes for the top players - although the 5 moves they consider might be different from the ones I see. Granted, there is a problem of narrowing it down, but still - most points in any position can be really dismissed out of hand even by beginners.

If this 'feasibility' factor holds even in some approximation throughout the game, the actual 'feasible' game tree of Go might be much narrower than people usually claim.