So i had one of my worst streaks i've ever had in baduk, but meh, it is starting to turn around. I'm maintaining about a 58% rate against 7ks, around 50% against 6ks. I've had one of these slumps at 11k, 9k, and 8k, so hopefully I'll get another epiphany and start blazing through my games soon.

Attached are a few of my recent games.

He played an interesting opening, and I thought i was disadvantageous in the beginning but I managed to reduce his territory well enough.


Got wrecked against the sanrensei in this one.



Pretty comfortable win in this one.



As for problems, I went back to blitzing some easy problems (GGPB Vol 2 and 3) and a few problems that my friend assigned me on gochild. After this, I plan on just doing more of the LCH series.

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My Baduk Journey

Yup. Your overall opening and level of technique seem too basic.

Why is it that your overall position lacks the scale of White's? Consider that about now you seem to start thinking about consolidation.

Given just one chance to invade, I'd play O3. The right can be invaded at R12. Also you might want to play P13 to reinforce your long extension.

This kind of play is no good.

123 principle says you omit the atari.

Looks like White is ahead.

One basic framework principle: if you can, do the heavy fighting deep in the opponent's area.

A pretty good start for me in August - I'm winning often and having fun with alot of my games.

Attached is a game I played a few days ago - one of the best games I've played so far! Particularly sweet because i think i lost to this guy a total of 3 times before i played this one.




One thing is for certain though - 6ks are hard to match up against than 7-8ks. I feel that my technique amd overall gameplay is too basic, and i havent had a big epiphany yet like i had when i faced my previous slumps. I wonder when that will come!?

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My Baduk Journey

You outplayed the 6k on technical, tactical and strategical level. I don't know if that's enough for an epiphany but I'd say, continue to walk that path.

All the goodies mentioned in the comments aside, I have one major remark and a few exercises for you in this game.

Major remark:
Keep playing simple moves when ahead (see comments)

Exercises:
Black to stay connected
White to live

Solutions later, if you decided to solve those and post them here.

That was quite a reasonable game, against a fairly unreasonable opponent.

You know something about fighting. Incrementally, you need to pay attention to placing your stones slightly better. Otherwise seems fine to me.

Lesson 1 - Never play go after wine. Does you absolutely no good.


The drinks aside though, I think these next two games show the exactly the games that I need to stop playing - always following around the opponent; fearing cuts; playing passive; getting killed - in the end left with nothing. I need to learn how to resist, how to get sente back (or how to never lose it in the first place), and how to push forward.

Going to read kageyama again to brush up on this topic.

Any detailed advice on these two games would be greatly appreciated.

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My Baduk Journey

I made a careful review of the previous one and trimmed it down to exercises at the appropriate places.
I won't review wine games. What will you learn from that?

Oh no worries, i am still thinking about those exercises! As for the wine games... even if it was a wine game i felt that those games truly highlighted all aspects of my weak points in baduk - hence my asking for a review of them. haha. I can learn from every game - wine or not

here are my solutions to the exercises!

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My Baduk Journey

Sorry for my last reply - I was in a bad mood.

Your solution to the connection exercise is of course correct. It's a very interesting issue, I've written a page on my Sensei's blog about it. I think I would have made the same mistake as you in an online game and I'm intrigued as to why this is so. I hypothesize that we have a physical urge to block someone else, while in Go and oriental martial arts you need to be agile so as to give way to the opponent and use their energy against them, as in the correct solution here. Maintaining good form (straight connections) should be the first instinct, not blocking with force.

See http://senseis.xmp.net/?DieterVerhofsta ... ornVsAgile

In the L&D exercise, I would simply respond to the atari by connecting the stone. There's nothing actually and White self destructed in the game by believing there was.

Some comments on the two games:

You know, even if you hadn't told me, I would have known from a move like in that first game that you had been drinking. That or another kind of intoxication. Those two stones are absolutely worthless as they connect nothing, cut nothing, surround nothing, threaten nothing, in short they do nothing at all except for being there. Putting those stones in atari is saying "Beware, I might take two stones and make one point of territory with two moves." And this in the middle game, where an open top side can be invaded.

You played and published a very good game with lots of things to learn from. This one will only tell you that you become 10 stones weaker when drinking. A good lesson for sure but not one that needs diagrams.

Cheers (but not too many ...)

Oddly enough, I only remember one thing from Kageyama. The business about how, if you think you can't read out a straight-line sequence, you are probably wrong. I even forget exactly how he puts that.

I suppose I should resist calling this "Sakata for dummies", for several reasons. A couple being that it is half a century since Sakata peaked. Another is that I think Sakata-worship is a false trail for most amateurs. But he was stronger than Kageyama, for sure.

Game 1.

is the wrong direction since White is strong and low on this side. N4 is better.

You recover somewhat. After there is an attack with N9 and P10, and you shouldn't delay it.

shouldn't be at 3-3. This is a time for E18, which at least would make White think and count hard.

Game 2.

is too soft. Try K16. The black corner is about to die as the L-group. You must at least try to surround White.

My baduk idols are lee sedol and my dad! hehe

Here is a game I played today - this might be the 1st half point win I have ever experienced. I think ive had had a few half point losses, and win by komi as white - but never a half point win as black. This was a thrill to play. Though I was surprised that it came so close because I was rather sure that after the cut i made at O13, i was ahead by 8-12 points or so...

My comments are included. Any reviews or comments would be greatly appreciated!

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My Baduk Journey

It is midnight for me, so I'm a bit sleepy but is the white move at H3 really needed? I can't see anything so this seems to be the loosing move?

I think & were slow. My intuition for is N4.

With that said, was abysmal. Yes, contacting it was incorrect because white (should) treat it lightly and you should of course attack it.

White is happy after and looks pointless, but

is the worst move so far (very heavy, doesn't gain anything).

Your was a bad tenuki. I think black needs to pincer white right now. Pincers to look at : J4? J3? H4? K4 should also be investigated.

White has two weak and heavy groups, black has none. Your game move was a pre-emptive defense against someone who has two critical injuries.

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Revisiting Go - Study Journal
My Programming Blog - About the evolution of my go bot.

7 games, 6 losses - 5 terrible mistakes. Just unbelievable - at a loss of words with myself. Maybe im fatigued from overworking.. idk. ill take a few days off from the game and come back stronger.

Update - 9 losses out of 10 now. Thought maybe it was a 1 day thing. seems not. most definitely taking a couple days off from the game.

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My Baduk Journey

The wine games don't count. So that's 4 losses in 5 games, which is too small a sample to make for a fair statistic. The win was very convincing and as such a reference game. Pick up that game again, review it and move on from there.

So now you are trying to win by playing safe.

needs to be at or around H3 to punish White, who has played heavily. Note that this lower side area turns into White's big territory later. Undeserved.

Judging by your opponents, you are now at 6 kyu level. Your endgame needs to improve.

It's been 5 Days since the disastrous 9 ranked-game losing streak. Within those 5 days, I also had the flu and played some flu games, wine games, and a bunch of other experimental free games trying to figure out where i was going wrong/holding me back from improvement. These games were all garbage, but I did learn something. Something clicked. Here's what I've learned.

1) The biggest problem for me was always trying to play the most severe moves. Always going for a kill. These moves tended to leave me with plenty of bad aji that my opponents would pounce on - had I failed to actually execute the kill properly. I realized its better to just remove an opponent's base, make it weak, and chase it around everywhere making profit all over the board - then realize I have a 20pt lead and just cruise along to victory.

2) I was terrible at utilizing thickness. I would play FROM my thickness, in an effort to build territory - but I realized that's just terrible efficiency. I now know I need to bait them in, and let them suffocate and live on the inside if they choose to invade. Of course, I still feel uncomfortable doing this because I know that If they do live... they are getting taking alot of territory away from me - but i realize its better than playing less efficient moves that are slow in development.

3) When someone invaded my territory, I used to think - oh man there goes half my territory. But, now i realized that by invading, my opponent is creating a weak group for me to target. Using this, and point #1 above, I realized that If i can make more profit from attacking the weak group than the territory i lost, getting invaded isn't that bad after all.

4) Big Points. I was pretty bad at playing big moves - this also severely hampered my development of stones. I think keeping the proverb 'corner->side->center' truly helps me remember the importance of this topic.

But of course, my game is nowhere near what I want it to be. Here's the stuff I need to work on.

1) My endgame is garbage. I think the only thing I know is sente vs gote and the reverse sente on the edge thats worth like 8 points. lol. I need to work on some endgame tesujis or something.

2) I am still awful at invading and settling my groups. Idk when the proper timing is to invade, and if I do - i usually die This needs work!

3) Not keeping sente and following my opponent around everywhere. I sometimes play games against my opponents as if I am their pet dog or something... enough said.

4) DDK Moments. Sometimes I have my moments of brilliance in the zone where I play like a 5-3k, then i have my stupid moments where I misread easy situations, and im either cut, or left with a dead group. These need to go.

5) My attitude. Over the past 4-5 days, I played around 30 games and lost about 24-25. Of course, half of them were experimental/wine/flu games but nevertheless - while I was playing them... I wasn't having fun.

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My Baduk Journey