So I was playing on KGS today and had White. Look at what happened after Black 97:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Position at move 97
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . O X X X X X . |
$$ | . . O , . . . . . , . . . O O O O X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . X . X X O . O . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X O . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O O X X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . X . O . X . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . X O . X . X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . O . X O . O X . . |
$$ | . . . . O O . X . . . . X . O . O X . |
$$ | . . O O X . . . . . O . . X X . O O . |
$$ | . . O X X . . . . . . . X . X X X O . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . O . X O X O O O . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . X . O O O O X X X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . X X O O . O O X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . X O . O . O X X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . X . . O . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Needless to say, I played P19. Black didn't put up any resistance.

I'm not proud of the rest of the game, since I thought I got up by a lot and played fairly slack, ending up winning by about 10 plus komi. But I saw that position in the top right coming and couldn't believe it.

The win bumped me back up to 6k, too, so I'm halfway from 7k to 5k. Once I get there, I'll see how I fare taking Black against KGS 4k players to see how strong I can get.

I've been winning with a lot of fighting, which I have to admit I worry a bit about since it makes me wonder whether the rest of my fundamentals are getting weak. Too many of the fights come about because I have the sense I'm behind and need to fight.

This isn't the same shape as the problem from the last page. So - what's the status after your move?

Black should have played T16?

I take it that we have consensus that Black could have played a 3 point reverse sente at T-13.

I have added some variations to the game at move 189 to illustrate the difference. It turns out that because of his status as komonster Black can hold his loss from not playing the 3 point move to 1 point. Enjoy!

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

_________________
be immersed

Here's an interesting game, that didn't involve me having to make an invasion of dubious quality. Instead, my opponent played questionable moves, and I had the opportunity to try to attack and make profit from them. It worked, but was closer than I expected. For a while I thought I was more comfortably ahead than I really was. That's probably due to letting White get H8.

(And no, I wasn't counting at almost every move. I didn't have time, and once I realized I was still ahead by a high-single-digit number of points, I knew it wasn't necessary.)

I had Black in this game.

Congratulations on your win. You played assertively, and White let himself get pushed around. A lot of players let themselves get pushed around. You can be the pusher instead of the pushee. Become a dangerous opponent.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Are you suggesting my gote move at is due to my mistake all the way back at ?

Well, the sequence after weakens the Black corner. But even if White is able to take away a number of points in the Black corner with sente by threatening to kill it, it is only a large yose. The double approach in the bottom right is bigger. So protecting the corner is a problem in itself.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I just finished another game I started on DGS before I started the study journal. I lost by ~35 points, probably because I screwed up in trying to capture a big White group. The key position is here:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Position at move 124; I have the Black stones
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . O . O X . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . O O X . X . . X O . O . |
$$ | . . . . . . O . O X . X . X . X O . . |
$$ | . . O O . O O . O X . X . O . X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . X O X X X . X X . X O . . |
$$ | . . X . X O . O . . . . O O . X X . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . X X . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . X O X . . . . . O O . O . O O X . . |
$$ | . . O X . . . . . . . . . O . X O . . |
$$ | . X O X . . . . . X O O . X X X O . . |
$$ | . O X X . . . . . X . . . X . O . . . |
$$ | O . O . . . . . . . . O O X . . O . . |
$$ | . O . . . . . . . . . . . X . O . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . X X O O O |
$$ | . . . . . X X X . . . . . . . . X X O |
$$ | . . . O . X O O X X X . . . . , . X X |
$$ | . . . O . X . O O O . O . O . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I played M14, and White easily made life. In going through the game today after we finished, I immediately spotted M13. Is there still a way for White to play after that?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . O . O X . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . O O X . X . . X O . O . |
$$ | . . . . . . O . O X . X . X . X O . . |
$$ | . . O O . O O . O X . X . O . X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . X O X X X . X X . X O . . |
$$ | . . X . X O . O . . . . O O . X X . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . X X . 1 . . . . X . . |
$$ | . X O X . . . . . O O . O . O O X . . |
$$ | . . O X . . . . . . . . . O . X O . . |
$$ | . X O X . . . . . X O O . X X X O . . |
$$ | . O X X . . . . . X . . . X . O . . . |
$$ | O . O . . . . . . . . O O X . . O . . |
$$ | . O . . . . . . . . . . . X . O . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . X X O O O |
$$ | . . . . . X X X . . . . . . . . X X O |
$$ | . . . O . X O O X X X . . . . , . X X |
$$ | . . . O . X . O O O . O . O . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I tried going through a bunch of variations, but couldn't find a way for White to live. (That doesn't mean my analysis is correct, of course.)

No; I'm not certain why I didn't see this during the game.

In addition to doing problems, are there any good ways to improve one's reading?

I've just looked at the games I've lost since starting this thread, and noticed that I've been getting into winning positions, and either missing a move to kill one of my opponent's groups, or blundering by missing that I needed to keep certain stones connected. Both of these problems I think come down to faulty reading.

If one has to lose, I'm not certain whether it's better to lose by blundering, or to lose and have no idea what went wrong. If you lose by blundering, it should be easier to fix those mistakes. But since all of us are amateurs, we have pretty substantial flaws in our games, and losing a game where you have no idea what's gone wrong is more likely to uncover those flaws.

I suppose I can clean up my blunders, gain a stone or two, and then get paired against stronger opponents who can bring those flaws to light. It's the best of both worlds.

I think problems is the best way to improve reading, other than playing games (and using those as reading exercises).

Why are you looking for something other than problems? Do you want to avoid doing problems? What is your current curriculum of problems? Are you doing many easy problems, few hard problems, a mix of the two, or none of the above? Have you gone back through previous problem books? And how often? Asking to gauge what you're looking for.

You could study pro games, and try to read out ahead of time why a pro selected a given move and how you'd respond with possible variations. This would be a bit slower, but may help if you're not interested in doing problems.

_________________
Go Books

Actually, I asked the question because I knew that if I simply asked how to improve my reading, everybody would answer "do tsumego". I was wondering if people had other ideas.

I don't get to do as many as I'd like, but that's because I don't quite have the time.

Inseong sometimes posts "Trouble Master" positions to his students. Basically, it's a whole board position with lots of aji all around. The task is to look for ways to exploit the aji and "make trouble" for the opponent.

In a sense, they are like regular go problems. But the point, I believe, was that you don't necessarily know what the objective is or what you can do in an area until you read it out.

Inseong's reasoning was that being able to read sequences was one ability, but having the intuition to realize that something is possible in a real game is also another element to reading.

_________________
be immersed

The situations that make me feel upset with myself after the game are not where I played a bad game in a position that was beyond my reading ability, but when I played a bad move because I just didn't bother to read. With the constraints that we face in time and mental stamina during the course of a game, most of us are unlikely to engage in in-depth reading on every move. In many positions we play by intuition, the recognition of a familiar pattern, or some other heuristic. I am most vulnerable to this phenomenon when I have a big lead on the board but there is some bad aji that means my groups are not entirely safe if I respond poorly to my opponent's probes. I can become overly confident / bored / whatever and allow speculative invasions to succeed or play small, unnecessary endgame moves in an attempt to increase the margin of victory when I could/should just fix the aji that remains behind.

All of that is to say, one thing you can do to improve your reading is try to recognize when to read. Tsumego can help you recognize a group that might be in danger or a possible tesuji that could lead to a big reduction, but they aren't enough on their own. You also need a healthy dose of self-knowledge. What types of positions do you tend to overlook? When do you shift to autopilot or give up trying to read the results of your moves? Fixing these holes in your game is one step to "playing up to yourself," to use Bill's phrase.

It sounds like you've already taken the first step to fixing this problem, which is identifying that you lose games from a winning position. Next you need to deliberately identify when you are likely to take a mental break from reading and try to stop yourself from making those mistakes in a game. Take a deep breath. Use the time you have on the clock. If you're really way ahead going into the endgame, fix your bad aji even if it means you'll win by a smaller amount. Pay attention to sente and gote, so your opponent doesn't suddenly begin pushing you around and causing you to bleed points. Be suspicious of the moves you play automatically. Don't play moves just because they are comfortable patterns without looking at whether the result will be good for you.

There's obviously a balance in all of this. We don't want to begin playing overly timid moves as a matter of habit, or we'll never improve our play. There are times when we will be in a position that is beyond us and need to trust our intuition (though we can later evaluate whether it was correct). But I've found that minimizing those "I could have read it out but I didn't" errors is leading to a significant increase in the number of games I'm winning.

Addendum: Kirby posted while I was writing this and communicated much the same thing with far fewer words.

-Fooling around on goquest with 9x9-go. Helped to speed up my reading.

-Tesuji problems as in the 501-book or Davies.

_________________
If something sank it might be a treasure. And 2kyu advice is not necessarily Dan repertoire..

I'm not sure there is a shortcut to reading strength. You can practice your reading in games, or via problems.

I like to compare doing problems to doing pushups (or running laps, or punching a bag, etc). It's building a fundamental strength so that you can apply it easier and quicker. Even though it may still require additional strength reserves, you're already half way there because you've trained for it.

If you don't have much time for problems, then I'd recommend doing easier problems. You can do more in a shorter period of time, and what you're going for is quantity. Anything you can read within 10-30s.

_________________
Go Books

Another interesting reading exercise. I don't know how difficult the rest of you will find it.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Black to move
$$ -------------------
$$ | . . . X . . . . .
$$ | O O O O X . X . .
$$ | O X O X . X . . .
$$ | X X O X . . . . .
$$ | . . O X . . . . .
$$ | . . O X . . . . .
$$ | . X X . . . . . .
$$ | . . . X . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .[/go]

_________________
Go Books