Understanding

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Sat Oct 25, 2014 12:37 am

A Brief History of Primes -- a nice non-technical lecture -- by Manindra Agrawal.

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Sun Oct 26, 2014 3:43 am

Joseki myths, posts 11, 13 -- kyu question about joseki and mid-game mistakes.

Joseki myths, posts 34 through 37 -- "understanding".

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Sun Oct 26, 2014 6:10 pm

From Joseki myths, post 18:

Bantari wrote:It might be that as a non-native english speaker I am...

Important piece of information.

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:03 am

A nice quote, from post 133 of this game thread:

Bill Spight wrote:We have thick and thin, heavy and light. Thick and light are good, heavy and thin are bad.
Nearly everybody gets the metaphors, few players understand the concepts.
Most dan players can fairly reliably tell the difference between heavy and thick, between thin and light, but we all get it wrong at times.
If it were easy to explain these terms verbally, virtually every SDK could get it right.

Most amateur play, IMO, is heavy. And often it is heavy without trying to be thick, which is a real shame.
I think that in part it is a question of attitude. To consistently play lightly requires a flexible attitude.
It is possible to make thick plays and to treat those thick stones lightly.

( emphases added in blue )

As usual, these are different levels of understanding:

No clue;
A little clue;
Hear of the terms, the metaphors, etc.
Different levels of execution, from kyu to low dan, mid dan, high dan, etc.
Different levels of teaching it.

A recurring theme: talking (verbally) and doing (actually playing the move) are two very different things. (Post 3).

daal · Post by **daal** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 3:24 am

EdLee wrote:
Hi Fedya,Are you looking for some general heuristics on
when to do some general thing (run out), and when not to ?

( Please see also understanding, starting from around posts 51, 52. )
Fedya wrote:I feel as though I've had a lot of games where things seem to go wrong
the minute I do some general thing...
There is exactly one game in this thread (so far).
People have posted their comments, suggestions, etc.,
about certain moves specific to this game.

If you want to know your mistakes in your other games,
you need to have them reviewed. One by one. Move by move.

There is no way to know your mistakes in your other games
unless you have them reviewed, one game at a time, move by move.

There may be one underlying mistake in all your games.
There may be a few.
There may be many.

My bet is the problems lie in your basics. Basics shapes, basic tesujis, etc.
And in bad habits. The only way (I know of) is to have your games reviewed.
Find out your problems one by one, move by move.
Fix them one by one.

Hi Ed, what's the difference here between red and blue?

Quotation reference: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... 58#p176558

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 3:53 am

Hi daal, interesting question.

I seem to remember we chatted on KGS some time ago,
and I shared with you some of my background experiences.
That may or may not have helped with some of these issues.

This is one of my current understandings:

The only way (I know of) is to have our games reviewed.
Find out our problems one by one, move by move. Fix them one by one.

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Thu Nov 20, 2014 7:07 am

From this thread.

wineandgolover wrote:could you please publish coordinates on your turn? It makes the comments far easier to follow, because not everybody diagrams every time.

Hi W&GL,

( Disclosure: W&GL and I know each other in real life.

)

Here's an unfinished version:

___________________

Thanks for the suggestion.

Short reply 1:

Short reply 2:

Short reply 3:

Longer reply:

Let's do an experiment.
Open your iPhone > Clock > Stopwatch.
You'll be asked to locate a few points on the next hidden board, and time how long it takes you to do so.
When you're ready, click Start on the Stopwatch, then click Show:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$Wc $$ ----------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ -----------------------------------------[/go]

Locate: P4, Q15, G7, C16, o10, D5, J14, N8.
Click Stop. Note the lapsed time.

Same drill. Reset your stopwatch. When you're ready, click Start, then Show:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$W $$ ----------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . g . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , b . . . . , . . . . e , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . d . . . . . . . . . . . a . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . h . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . f . . . . . . . . . . c . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ -----------------------------------------[/go]

Locate: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h.
Click Stop. Note the lapsed time.

Same drill, and final board. When ready, Start & Show:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$W $$ ----------------------------------------- $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . x . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . x . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , x . . | $$ | . . . . x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . x . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ -----------------------------------------[/go]

Locate all 8 (x)'s.
Click Stop. Note the lapsed time.

This is an honor system: please report your 3 elapsed times.

For the reader, it's faster and more accurate to spot a letter or marker than to find a point by coordinates.
For the poster, it's more work to make a diagram than to refer to an existing one in another post.
The poster spends extra time to make a diagram compared to using coordinates. Call this Tp.
The reader spends extra time on coordinates compared to letters or markers. Call this Tr.
One question: how does Sum(all Tp's) compare to Sum(all Tr's) ?
Coordinates keep the intersections clear of letters or markers.
When someone refers to a diagram in another post, that post may end up on another page -- we don't know individuals' forum-display preference.
Coordinate ambiguities: uppercase 'o' v. 'O' v. zero '0'; uppercase 'i' v. 'I' v. lowercase 'L' v. 'l' v. digit one '1'.

There are some trade offs. But basically I think coordinates are tolerable as a last resort: example, kibitz in a real-time live KGS, and they don't want to clone the game. Another case: to force the reader to look for a move on the board for their benefit, as in a forum game review.

Otherwise, I feel each commentator of a Malkovich should provide their own diagrams, without coordinates, with letters and markers, inside their own post, so there's no need to refer to someone else's diagram(s).

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Thu Nov 20, 2014 8:43 pm

Bookmarks:

B2: -------------------------------------------

B3: --------------------------------------------

B4 --------------------------------------

B5: -----------------------------------------------------------------

Ootakamoku · Post by **Ootakamoku** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 5:16 pm

Here is my personal history of go.

But before that, some relevant background. At the age of 25 I had an accident and hurt my head. Ever since I've been chronically sleep deprived, no matter how much I sleep Im always tired. Maybe because of this my generic memory is bottom 10% of the population, and my working memory fluctuates between 2 and 8. However my spatial memory is top 1% or thereabouts.

When I was about to turn 30 I was introduced to go by a friend. At first I only played against computer program igowin on 9x9 board for about 2 months. My first 19x19 game was on KGS. It took me 15 games to reach solid 9kyu on kgs, another 130 games to reach 6kyu, 175 more to reach 4kyu, 140 more to for 2kyu and 80 for 1kyu. This was over a span of 14 months.

During that first year, I played a fair number of games against stronger players, and had many of my games reviewed by those stronger than me (mostly in KGS Teaching Ladder room on KGS). I never liked solving tsumegos, but I didn't mind training my intuition by doing repetitive simple tsumegos for hours on end. By my estimate I did around 40000 tsumegos during the first year, tho most of them were ridiculously easy ones, such that you can solve in under 3 seconds each, just click on vital spot and tsumego done. I mainly did tsumegos at https://gochild2009.appspot.com/. I also went occasionally to play at the local go clubs, which have fair number of dan level players. At some point I started going over pro games, guessing every move, placing my guessed move on the board, before looking if my guess was correct, however I'm not certain if I did this during the first year or only later.

After I reached 1kyu I unfortunately took a detour, I started playing against bots. As playing against bots didn't cause me to stress out as much as playing against humans. I reached KGS 4 dan level approximately one year later, and some time after that 6 dan level playing against bots giving high handicap. Unfortunately this didn't translate to any significant strength gain when facing humans. I reached EGF 2 dan 3 years after I began playing go. After the first year, I played more live go at local go clubs and participated in an online go school (now defunct nordic go academy). I liked re-playig pro games, often times blind where I only saw the most recent move and kept the state of the board in my head. Whenever I replayed pro games I always tried guessing the next move before looking what it was. When strong 9x9 bots became available I started playing those, as substitution to tsumegos. During all this time I always played slow games, never faster than 30 sec byomi. All told, I feel like I more or less wasted several years, not doing the two things that were important, tsumegos and playing against humans many hours per day.

Around a year ago (it's now been 6 years since my first go game) I started playing regularly (every day an hour or two) against humans and sort of doing tsumegos (maybe 30 minutes per day). I say sort of doing tsumegos because I don't really spend effort solving them, I just memorize the answers. At first I played on WBaduk, losing a fair share of my games as 4 dan, eventually making it to a strong 6 dan level, however I stopped playing at that point. Reason was I first got hooked on fast games on 9x9 at http://wars.fm/go9 which evolved into 19x19 blitz games on KGS. At first I was only KGS 1 dan at blitz! Over the span of 6 months I've progressed to the point where I now have 65% winrate as 3 dan, I hope I can continue to progress if I just keep at it. However I'm conflicted as during the past 3 years I have made virtually no progress, at least according to EGF statistics. Then again, I played a lot less during those 3 years than I did when I began playing go and made actual progress.

It's good to keep in mind that ranking systems aren't all equal. KGS ranking system used to be approximately 1 stone easier when I started out playing than it is now days. Also WBaduk ranks are roughly 3 stones easier than modern KGS ranks.

My method of learning, is usually trying to simplify my mistake to something else than just "I got outread in the fight". Maybe it's; I should have taken care of the weak group, I should have recognized this shape weakness, I should have prepared for this before attacking, I should have spent effort reading this part, etc. I rarely put much effort into sequences or never to be seen again fancy pants solutions to problems. I try to be pragmatic regarding what I should know at my level, I wont fault myself for messing up a complicated life and death but I might fault myself leaving my group too weak. I put a lot of faith into proverbs and rules of thumb, double extension from hoshi is good, if one extension from hoshi approach immediately, if two extensions from hoshi invade corner. etc. I don't really care if they are incorrect some of the time, as long as following them guides me in a way that overall improves my results. During my first year, I often won the games with direction of play, losing the actual fights.

Life In 19x19

Understanding

Re: Understanding

Re: Understanding

Re: Understanding