Three Month Trial (Hailthorn's Third Journal)

[billywoods]

Game 1:

• I prefer at E17. Then white connects, black E18, white B18 (to avoid being captured), black D13 (to fix the cut at E16), white C12 (to avoid being sealed in). White gets ten points in the corner in gote, black gets big outside thickness.
• : why?
• : your group at the top is very heavy. You can't afford to tenuki; if white gets sente out of this (which he should if he follows joseki), you're in trouble, and if you leave your new group unfinished to go back to your top group, you have two weak groups.
• : unnecessary (and maybe not sente - not sure). ( was unnecessary too.)
• : ends up in a broken shape (as you saw). Maybe D8 instead - it threatens a reduction on the left. H8 is a local vital shape point for both.
• 113 : why not N10 to take the territory? Don't risk it all to kill a stone.
• 195, 205, 211: wasted opportunities - you seem to play too fast in endgame, taking gote unnecessary and even missing large ataris.

[hailthorn011]

This was the only tournament game I was able to play today. I have to leave very soon. I have to leave so I can go watch the Royal Rumble.

But more to the point, I feel I would have had better success if was at M9 instead. Eventually I fudged things up like usual playing lousy moves. 's bottom was too huge and I really should have played down there.

Then there was the failure to connect my top left group with the rest of my stones resulting in death. I also wonder if my play at the top right was correct. What I read came to fruition and that was exactly the position I wanted as it gave me the opportunity to capture a huge center (IE before I screwed things up) and I feel at that point I was successful in that endeavor. Of course that could have just been bad for me.

I would also like to point out though that there were several times where I almost played terrible moves, worse than the ones I played I mean, but I stopped myself and questioned what the purpose of said move was.

So really, I feel like I'm learning at a very slow step by step process. Hopefully soon I'll be playing at a decent enough level.

Signed, Little Timmy (From the bottom of the well)

[billywoods]

: Blocked on the wrong side, I think - there's no need to build thickness towards the bottom side, because there's already a strong white group there taking away your potential to attack anything or make points. (For this reason, why not just at F3?)
: Clamp is okay, but look at what white does after you play it - you gain nothing but a reduction of a few points, and now you can't play B18 in sente (white will hane at B19, as you saw later, to remove your eyes). If you're worried, just B18 directly.

[SoDesuNe]

Just some quick comments : )

Overall I think you fell behind in the opening. But then White played some strange moves and you could have had a huge center by attacking White's weak group but you played too timid. In the end White just outfought you in the center.

[hailthorn011]

A new month brings new things and new goals! I managed to achieve 3 of my goals last month:
-Participate in the KGS tournament -Check-
-Play enough games to remain in Delta League -Check-
-Watch Iyama Yuta's games -Check-

The only one I failed was winning Game 3 of my series with Twitchy Go and Game 4 was postponed. Hopefully by the time that game rolls around I'll have improved. Which takes me to my next point: I seriously need to improve my opening if I'm going to get better. Aside from silly middle to end game mistakes, I believe this is my weakest area.

So I plan on spending a lot of time learning joseki in the fuseki and learning their applications. Why is this joseki superior in Situation A, and why is this Joseki better in Situation B? And why is the Joseki from Sit. A not ideal in Sit. B? And I feel I'm at a level where I can at least understand that much.I also have some study tools to assist there. Like Lovelove's fantastic lectures and Opening Theory Made Easy.

Another goal is to get out of the Delta League and advance to a higher league. This is very possible if I play consistently.

My final goal is to reach 4 Kyu on KGS. This is my biggest goal for the month. And I feel it is wholly possible if I really work on improving my fuseki. But I think I figured out why none of the things I'm being told in review are helping: I'm not playing enough games. I play a game, get a review, read over it. And then do something else. My problem is I'm not giving myself enough time to reflect properly and then apply what I've learned. So this is something I am going to work on fixing.

[Bill Spight]

Since tsumego were suggested, I can add that to my list. But I want to ask one thing about problems, is it okay if you don't get them on your first try?

I use SmartGo and it automatically tells you if you're doing it right or wrong with each move you play. So I'm under the impression it's better to get it on your first try.

Any thoughts?

If you get them on your first try they are too easy. Generally speaking, the optimum level is where you get around half of them on your first try.

But please remember that getting the first move right may not mean getting the problem right. You have to get every move right.

BTW, I wouldn't like a program giving feedback on every move. If you can't turn that feature off, let Anders know.

[p2501]

I suggest you to do some more tsumego at your level. You can easily go through 1 amateur dan purely with tsumego, even though you may know nothing about joseki or other theories.
[edit] Are you still planning to become pro?

I second that.

Besides playing a lot:

Opening Theory Made Easy is likely enough about the opening until high sdk.
Reading game commentaries by pros will further your general game sense / thinking. (go game guru has a lot of them for free)
And then a lot of tsumego. I would suggest 65% easy, 25% middle, 10% hard.

[hailthorn011]

I'm not sure how to feel about this game. On one hand, I feel it was a good result. But on the other hand, I can't help but feel my opponent missed key moves that enabled me to get the results I wanted.

[EdLee]

[hailthorn011]

Well, the last few days have been pretty bad. Stanley (my cat) was in an obvious bad state of health last week, so we took him to the vet on Saturday. He hadn't really been eating and had been behaving strangely. And we found out why at the vet: He had cat aids. And yes, it's pretty similar to the kind that afflicts humans. So I didn't really have any choice but to put him down. It really was a hard choice to make.

Stanley was a great friend.

That being said, I haven't played Go at all recently. But I'm going to try and play a few games today.

[SoDesuNe]

I'm so sorry for you lost!

I always thought cats with FIV can live for many years with proper treatment.

[hailthorn011]

I'm so sorry for you lost!

I always thought cats with FIV can live for many years with proper treatment.

The cost was far too much. If I had had the money I would have tried to get the treatment, but as it was, I didn't. I just wish it hadn't had to go that way.

[gomeditate]

So sorry for your loss. It's never an easy choice but you made the best for Stanley. Hang in there.

[hailthorn011]

So, for a more positive post today, there is something weird going on. I have been winning games rather.....effortlessly. From 4 Kyus to 6 Kyus, it seems like I'm on some kind of odd roll. I've gotten my 5 Kyu ranking back and it would seem I am well on my way to 4 Kyu. I highly doubt my game has gotten that much better (likely still full of errors), but it's weird. But I feel very confident right now.

One thing is striking me most: I seem to win more when I play fast. As y'all know, I recently discussed my problems with entering Byo-yomi far too early in a lot of games. And my results are not very good. So I'm playing faster. I'm playing instinctually. Obviously when i look back I see moves that could have been better. But it seems I win more playing fast.

But one thing concerns me about this. It could be detrimental to true growth. What I mean is I'm allowing bad habits to stick solely for the victory. I dunno. Maybe I've got the wrong idea. But in the end, a win is only a temporary joy. But strength is the gift that keeps on giving.

Any thoughts?

[Twitchy Go]

You being on a role makes me nervous about next week.

Just to play devils advocate here. If playing faster is leading to winning against stronger players more regularly, could there be some consistent mistake that comes out in your play in slow games? I know one thing I'm guilty of is reading out a long variation, finding out that it doesn't work and then choosing another move on impulse. Or perhaps you aren't fair in reading out your opponents responses? If you consistently miss the best move in a local fight for your opponent that would lead to a global loss right? So I don't think it is fair to say that playing fast equals mistakes, but playing slow results in correct play.

And I'm curious as to the time issues of your opponents, are they keeping pace in playing speed or are you finding your self with a considerable time lead? I don't think very many people are comfortable under time pressure, it takes a lot of games where your in your last byo-yomi period for a good quarter of the game before you start to relax.
\
I'm by no means a fast player. Ever since I started playing I've had a lot of fun reading out my options carefully. As a result of this I've completely avoided games shorter then 20minutes main time +some byo yomi. In addition I make an effort to be in byo-yomi before the first 100 moves(for the 25:00 main time games on KGS, longer time settings I might not meet this). Within reason, I don't waste time to meet this goal. This means I'm often in sudden death byo-yomi periods while my opponent has a good 10+minutes. And since I've had to play under these conditions in so many of my games I've gotten to the point where I feel quite at home there, and rarely lose on time.