Thanks, man It's good to have a reality check sometimes. I guess life has been a little crazy, after all. It's just life to me.

Oh, and, yeah... I admit it: I sometimes have unreasonably high expectations of myself

Update:

Sadly, I haven't jotted down all my Go work, so much of it is lost in the mists of time.

Baduk TV English Review
I signed up for Go Game Guru's "Baduk TV English" on Thursday (I think), and I've been enjoying it greatly. Mostly I've been watching and replaying through the different shows, so here are the reviews of the series so far:

I've played through three episodes of "Becoming 5 kyu" and one of "Level Up to 3 kyu". I'm getting better at playing through lessons like this; I feel like the joseki and board positions are starting to stick much faster.

I've watched (but not played through) two more episodes of "Level Up to 3 kyu" to see if it is substantially different than "Becoming 5 kyu", but really, they are pretty much the same kind of thing, just a different teacher with a different style and a different set of favorite joseki.

"Level Up to 5 dan" is pretty much the same thing, just focused more on the Chinese opening, and played a little faster. It also has a super-star host! The best attacker in the world: Yu Changhyeok! I've watched (but not played through) these, just to see if they were understandable, and they definitely are. Really, they are the same kind of show, all of them. I'm not sure why the different levels have been tagged onto them. Anybody can learn from them, high level or low. Of course, this may change later in the series -- I am currently only 3-8 episodes into any of them. But really, they all seem to use the same sort of formula: take an opening, learn several fuseki variations and why those variations are good. Then learn the invasions and other common variations.

"Becoming 9 kyu" is actually much simpler and much more basic. It starts out slower than the other series, and tends to focus on some very rudimentary things. Sadly, only 7 episodes (out of 30) of this series are translated so far, so I can't tell you if there is anything new to learn in there. Out of the first 7 shows I only learned about 4 or 5 new things. However, if you're still trying to reach 9 kyu -- it's probably a good investment of time.

The surprise hit at my house is "Attacking Vitamins". My five year old does not quite read yet, and the show is subtitled, but she still loves to watch it. The short segments, fun opening credits, and approachable host really hold her. A few of the episodes with longer attacks, like the ones focusing on particular player's styles, she gets bored with. Really, to her, it's about the short variations.

I have not been able to play through "Attacking Vitamins" because if I pause the show, my little girl immediately unpauses it. Also, the setups for each problem are typically mid-game, so setting them up is difficult, and it's sometimes hard to remember which stones I've added, so replaying several times can be difficult. Still, I'm excited that my daughter like it despite not being able to understand it.

I've looked at a couple of the "Classic Tsumego" episodes, but they go so fast that I can barely keep up. Also, the problems are so complicated, I don't really understand them half the time.

I've only watched one "Best Game of the Day", but it was amazing -- so many intricate variations! You REALLY have to be fast with the pause button and have a good memory for moves, because there is so much to learn. "Searching for Exquisite Games" is very similar, but slower paced, and I did not find the one show I watched anywhere near as enlightening. But I reserve the right to be wrong! I've only watched one of each.

So far I haven't watched any of the following series at all:

1) "Perception of Meijin" - similar to "Best Game of the Day" and "Searching for Exquisite Games", I believe, but mostly title matches. This is based solely off of guesswork.
2) "Kim Seongryong’s 007 Lessons" - I am thinking this is all trick moves and such. Sounds like fun. Haven't tried it, though.
3) "Classic Tesuji" - I was put off by "Classic Tsumego" being so over my head, so I haven't looked at these at all.

$20 bucks per month is pretty steep. I will have to see if I keep sinking as much time into it as I have been; if so, it's worth it for me. It's basically all I watch right now. If that changes, so will my evaluation of its value.

Currently, here are my disappointments with the service:
1) Unless I am completely wrong, there is no iPad app. Watching it on Chrome on the iPad is a little clunky, and it's hard to switch episodes. You currently have to toggle out of full screen, go back a page, drill down to the next episode, and then hit play. There are no play lists.
2) There are no episode summaries on the "Level Up", "Becoming", or "Attacking Vitamins" series. Instead, the full transcription is posted. It would be nice to have a short thumbnail three-sentence summary for each episode, so I don't have to wade through the transcript to see if this is the episode I'm looking for to replay something. But I know that is a lot of work.
3) Sadly, the "Level Up to 5 Dan" series is still being translated. It is one of the most interesting things on the site, as it addresses a more modern fuseki and has a superstar host, so I really would like more of it. Translation can be, of course, incredibly hard to do and time consuming. I understand there's only two or three folks over there, and they have to hold down the whole fort, but, man, what a great series to be behind on. To counterbalance this: "Becoming 5 kyu" is an AMAZING series, and almost all of it has been translated.

Training
As I said, most of my training has been replaying episodes of Baduk TV. Also, over the weekend I did 400 and 250 basics problems from EasyGo on separate days. Somewhere in there, I had a day of 13 intermediate tsumego from Tsumego Pro and another of 80 or so tsumego from SmartGo.

I also played a lot of 9x9 computer games. Thursday/Friday I was horrified by how terrible I was on 9x9, with my OGS account sinking to 18 kyu from 17, and many losses. Saturday and Sunday I focused hard on taking the pressure off and figuring out what was going wrong on 9x9.

What I learned:
1) For some reason on 9x9 I have a tendency to make a plan and then play it out regardless of what the opponent is doing. I don't seem to do this on bigger boards as much. Ironically, being aware of the issue was NOT enough to fix it. Over and over again, I would find myself doing it, usually when the computer captured a group I thought was secure because I had completely ignored all of the last six moves it had played to surround it.

2) Even if Tengen is supposed to be the optimal play on 9x9, I have no idea how to use it. Almost immediately after giving up o Tengen and playing Komoku, I started winning again. I guess I just don't understand how to use Tengen correctly. I am trained o taking corners and sides, and using Tengen, even on a board as small as 9x9, is like trying to speak a foreign language.

It took probably a hundred games or so, but I finally tamed my problems, and now MFG says I am 6kyu. I am NOT, of course. And this is entirely based off of 9x9 play. But it's encouraging. I'll have to go back onto OGS and try it out and see if I can make some rank gains to make up for getting slaughtered before.

Honestly, though, I am tempted to learn some 5-5 joseki just so I will have a better idea on how to use 9x9 Tengen. I hate having to play down to my own ability.

My Weakness at 9x9

I think I have discovered something about the secrets of "my success", if you can call it that. I have been using OGS to play 9x9 games only, and I seem to be stuck around 17 kyu there. Ironically, I'm still hovering at 9 kyu on KGS. It seems that 9x9 -- which has a lot more complex fighting and end game moves -- I am not particularly good at. So I'm guessing that the vast majority of my success comes from Fuseki! This would make sense, since I study Pro games a lot, and a lot of the variations for a pro game are in the opening.

So now I am at a strange point. I need to get better at fighting (which I assume is "middle game") and I need to get good at end game. But I don't really know about how to improve either one, other than just playing a lot of 9x9. The thing is, just playing, I am sure, is not enough to have really significant and fast games.

I need to be doing drills for fighting, beyond just tesuji and tsumego. I need drills on capture races, end game tesuji, and probably some other things I don't know what are. I need commented pro 9x9 games to study and memorize. I need special techniques to use, or that will be used against me (like monkey jumps, etc).

I am not sure where to get this kind of material. Do I need to be looking at getting a pro teacher to find a swift and elegant path forward, so I can avoid the common rabbit holes?

The other possibility here is that 9x9 has so little to do with 19x19 that to study it in depth would be to waste my time and go down a rabbit hole of itself. This thought bugs me because I was doing so well on 19x19.

So I am conflicted, and unsure of how best to move forward in my studies.

Study

Speed Baduk Books
"Speed Baduk" 2 and 3 (no one has 1!) came in, and I am tearing through them at a rather amazing clip. I did 100 pages of material last night, and there are about 6 problems per page. Even given a page here or there for (brief) explanation and concentration puzzles, I easily did 500 problems. This information is very similar, but more instructive, to the problems in EasyGo that I love so much, and each book is a little more in depth, progressing at a steady rate. In short, I like them quite a bit.

Baduk TV English
Yesterday I played through one episode of "007", aka "Punishing Trick Moves", on Baduk TV English. It's a very interesting show. The format is a little strange.

In the first half of the show, one trick move is presented, and several variations on how to defeat it are shown, including one basic, easy to remember variation, and two more advanced but much more profitable variations.

In the second half of the show, an amateur game is presented, and the beginning fuseki is examined, with percentages shown for how often a pro does a specific move and how often an amateur does, and why the amateurs are wrong. Interesting stuff. A short sequence is then discussed in detail.

The first half of the show I found very intriguing; the second half, well, the jury is still out. If it helps my fuseki and my win rate, I will love it to death. But I'm not sure it will.

Games
Anyway, here are my most notable losses. My wins are against primarily 18k or worse players, and are a walk in the park. 17k or lower I seem to lose horrendously, and that needs to stop.

First game
Against a 12 kyu who by name seems to focus primarily on 9x9:


Second game:
Against someone who almost guaranteedly was sandbagging at 15 kyu. I lost by a lot, and then he kept giving me free stones until I won. No telling what his real level is.

Also, I gave him one free point late in the game -- I took a ko when my corner was dead and there was no way to save it. I realized this. I think I took it out of spite because I knew I'd lost.


Third game
This game shows that I am terrible at stopping invasions. I threw and extra stone back at 3-3 when I had one to spare, but it still was not enough to secure the corner. I obviously have NO IDEA how to stop a backfield invasion in 9x9, and, unlike 19x19, there's no where to get compensation!



Really, like I said, I'm just embarrassingly terrible at 9x9, and I don't want to be advice/corrections/etc welcome.

A few quick comments:

For game one, at move 5, attaching on top at D6 is the only move. Black separates white and will force white to live small in the corner. Black will then dominate the board, possibly after a small sacrifice. Alternatively, white will give up that stone, a clear loss.

For game two, at move 25, black's bottom left is already alive. The top right is not. Push once with D8, threatening to connect, and then live in the corner with something like H7.

For game three, when white plays the 4-4 on top of your 3-3, just extend, maybe along the top. It's not clear to me how white will live easily, but black should be able to get a keima extension on at least one side and not need to worry about his black wall, which is busy denying white eyespace. Also, at move 3, black has a favourable fight if he just hanes on the outside.

It does look like the surest and quickest way to improve is via 9x9 games. However, playing 19x19 games you can also address your weaknesses. It is important to play stronger players and review your games. It is a good idea to try and find the game losing play. That is not always so easy on the 9x9, since often the losing play occurs early in the game when there are many variations to explore.






It does seem like Spectrum engineered a win for you. He gave you a chance to make life in the top right corner, and later the chance to make a ko.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Bill, Skydr, thanks! I've been through your feedback several times already, and will try to find time to play through variations at lunch.

I feel that SamT must be some kind of a Go genious I'm not just saying this to win points, if we help, I really believe we may be seeing at least a 5 Dan player within a couple of years.

_________________
On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

Thank you I certainly don't /feel/ like a genius. It's just a lot of hard, deliberate work. Drills and drills and drills and pro games and pro games and pro games and then playing and reviewing and playing and reviewing and playing and reviewing.

My wife complains that my Go-Life balance is off. And it is. On a slow day I spend two hours studying.

I've gone off on some tirades about Deliberate Practice before; I've used it to become good at lots of different stuff -- Kung Fu (28 medals in Taijiquan, Baguazhang, Xingyiquan at various international tournaments), Writing (some pro sales on short stories, big-name agent, but no book sale yet), sword fighting (just came in 7th in single short-sword at a national tournament with 153 competitors), speed archery (briefly got down to shooting 3 arrows in 1.5 seconds; I am rusty now and shooting about 1 arrow per second) -- and I'm trying to apply the same sort of learning technique here.

But Go is so vast, it's very difficult to identify the individual skills I need to practice. Even when I think I'm on the right track, there's just too much to work on. If I get better in one area, my skills slip in another. I am not a cloistered monk, and I do have to work for a living AND keep my family happy (per my wife, the last one isn't going so well), so it's hard to find all the time I need to really sink in.

I would certainly love to be 5 dan in the blink of an eye. Really, I'd like to go beyond -- beat Lee Sedol and Ke Jie in a game or two -- but such things are dreams. If I'm able to get that good, it would be a long way away. And what are the chances I won't be distracted by yet another hobby before I get there?

Training

Last week I spent going through Speed Baduk 2 and 3. I have finished 2 and am right next to the end of 3, and I have ordered the rest of the series, so I'll resist the urge to repeat myself. I've discussed these books before. Sadly, it will be at least a week, maybe two, before my other books come in.

Yesterday I reviewed the first two lessons of Becoming 5 kyu. I pretty much have them memorized now.

I also reviewed the 13th Nogshim Cup game Kim Jiseok vs Piao Wenyao ( https://gogameguru.com/baduk-tv-videos/baduk-tv-demo-kim-jiseok-vs-piao-wenyao-13th-nongshim-cup/ ). I've only gotten about a quarter of the way through. There are so many opening variations discussed and so many invasions, it's taking me a long time to memorize them all.

This took most of the day to do, no time for problems or even games. Once I had them all pretty solid, it was disappointingly fast to play through everything. Like 15 minutes. Why does it take so much effort to learn such a tiny amount of information?!

Today has been a disappointment learning-wise, but not fun-wise. I am at McD's and the wifi is too slow to play Go or even watch Baduk TV/Youtube/whatever. I am stuck replaying what I learned yesterday on my board, but it's hard to focus. Mostly I am busy moving the go board around and teaching kids to play go as my daughter brings them out of the play set and to the board.

She keeps telling the adults that not enough people play Go in America, so she has to teach all of her friends because it's a fun game.

I realized this morning that it may have seemed really arrogant to say my goal is not 5dan, but to play and beat Lee Sedol or Ke Jie. But I think if you don't have a bloody-minded determination to reach a high goal, and if you don't keep ratcheting up your goals, you'll be satisfied too easily and let your training go slack.

As evidence, I present a snippet from Go Game Guru's translation of Episode 3 of "Becoming 5 Kyu", used completely WITHOUT their permission, but definitely within the bounds of fair use:

"Hello everyone. It's time for 'Becoming 5 Kyu'. I'm Shim Wooseop.

Suppose that your opponent is 5 kyu, and is stronger than you. If you try to gain all his knowledge and study more to beat him, is that enough to catch up? Is there a better way to beat this 5 kyu player?

The answer is simple.

Set your goal to become 3 kyu instead. Then you will be closer 3 kyu than 5 kyu. Stick to your goal and lets study together."

So... There it is. Right now I am trying to be 7 kyu, and then I will try to be 5 kyu, then 3, and, if 5 years or a decade from now my progress has been amazing, perhaps then I will attempt my end-game goal to beat the great masters. I will keep that goal in mind now, so it helps give me that little bit of extra drive, that extra urgency and speed to my studies.

I disagree. There was an experiment back in the twentieth century with farm workers manually harvesting fields. The control group simply harvested fields as usual. The experimental group harvested fields in which poles had been set up in a straight line down the fields, spaced at even intervals (10 feet, IIRC). The group with poles in the fields worked more quickly. Each pole acted as a new goal to be met.

So if your goal is to become 5 kyu, setting your goal to become 3 kyu is like removing the pole at the 5 kyu mark. Really, it is counterproductive.



That's more like it.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Hmm-- I feel that it's a lot more complicated.I'm definately someone who compares himself with top proffesionals a lot! I'm working towards the level of the very best of the very best it's a good counter to negativity, stopped me nearly completely from worrying about ranks, convincing yourself "yes it can be done" no matter how stupid it sounds, is a good motivation. After recently adopting this "aim for the stars" appraoch it has certainly produced some good results however, I then went to the other extreme, for example, getting angry at myself every time I felt a move i made wasn't at pro level (the actual result of the game didn't matter so much)-- which is pretty much all of my moves. Now, having high standards is all nice an well, but...

Anyway, this is where Bill "Opening Master" Spight's analogy comes in. I'm supposed to be running 5k every week to maintain some thing which I don't really have, fitness (which in turn improves my readimg ability, but shh, that's a secret ) but I've been slacking up these days (running a 5k in a snails pace time of ~28m isn't exatly the time to be slacking up, heh ) however one thing that's well known withing the long-distance communnity (5k is long for my lazy legs) is to split the race into separate parts of acheivement, rather than run jusy trying to to the whole thng at once in your mind. Otherwise, you may give up or lose confidence sooner or later by the mere enourmity of the task-- as in memorising pro games, split the game into managable slices.

But what does this have to do with goal setting? What do we conclude?

Part 2 coming up, I'm using my android sorry for invading your journal with such a long post

_________________
On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

I remember when a new teacher was told that three of her students in her class where geniuses, star pupils. And it was no lie-- A's were coming out of their ears and nose and fingers. Except, nobody knew they were these geniuses-- until the new teacher for that class had come in. Turns out that these children were some of the worst peforming kids of the class, lower quater. This was actualy an experiment to see wht would happen if a teacher believes that certain students were very capable from the onset. Apart from being shocking at first, what does this extreme example tell us? Many, many things I'm sure, but a few are quite obvious. I'm going to open up a new topic for this.

Ps: Mr SamT, is it possible to adopt a more passive way pf studying-- for example, instead of spending hours studying pro games in the day very slowy (western method) try going over large amounts of pro games over and over again as fast as you possubly can just before goung to bed (korean yuengsoon/insei), forcing your brain to speed up while storing vital sjape knowledge in your brain.
Do the same with tsumego-- lots of easy problems as fast as you possibly can before retiring, and because your trying to train reading speed, and not necessarily depth, and because you're trying to memorise basic shapes, DO look at the answers, getting them right isn't so important. With harder tsumego, it's the complete opposite-- do them them in the day, and avoid looking at the solution as long as you can.

Anyway, I think you may end up seeming to to be spending less timen on Go, but improving faster than you do now! Whwn you find yourself stuck at a rank, a new change-- be it mindset or training-- might be in ordr

_________________
On Go proverbs:
"A fine Gotation is a diamond in the hand of a dan of wit and a pebble in the hand of a kyu" —Joseph Raux misquoted.

So I have "Study Go" on my HabitRPG. My wife looked over my shoulder as I clicked it today, and said: "Why do you even get credit for that? Do you get credit for breathing too?"

---

Books

My Speed Baduk books came in, everything but #4 and #9. Sadly, I am supposed to be on #4. I have done some problems in 5, 6, and even 7, but 7 is very challenging. I got a whole page of problems wrong -- the third page in!!! Also, 5 and 6 leave me un-confident as well. I am constantly afraid I'm coming up with the wrong solution. Despite my hesitancy to peek at the answer book on problems I should be able to solve, I will just have to break down and check because otherwise I will never know and just reinforce my wrong knowledge, and that is the exact opposite of what I'm after.

One thing I love is that there are lots of capturing race and liberty counting exercises in the books, and the series as a whole focuses on very granular skills -- using atari to connect or save stones, use a throw in to win a capturing race, etc. This means if you drill the series consistently, it really fits into the "deliberate practice" paradigm.

My major concern is that by its very format, the series doesn't have a lot of room to EXPLAIN some of the concepts -- thus me flubbing a whole page of problems in book #7. Of course, this hasn't happened to me very often before, and once I got antsy enough to look up the answers I understood exactly what the problems were looking for: good style.

All in all, it's been a good experience.

Baduk TV English:
I am working through Becoming 5 kyu Episode 3. There is one 30-move long joseki variation in particular that is giving me fits trying to memorize, but I will get it done. Otherwise, I have the show down pat.

I watched another pro game yesterday. A best game of the day exhibition match between Gu Li and Lee Sedol, just before their Jubango. It was pretty entertaining right up until the announcer said, "This fight is so complicated, it is beyond words". I watched a little farther, but after that point, I learned very little -- because they couldn't explain it. Not very useful!

I also watched some sort of double game tournament last night on Baduk TV live. It was pretty entertaining, but very disturbing to see how young these kids really are. Unfortunately it was in Korean, so I don't know who the players were. I think there were at least two of the four named Lee -- based on the two letters of Korean I can read.

I kept waiting for another show to come on after the tournament, but after about 15-20 minutes of the same 3 commercials, I gave up.

Other Studies

I stayed up overnight doing another Disaster Recovery test. During the downtime, when server replication was catching up, I went through 20+ pro games relatively quickly on SmartGo Kifu, mostly Xie He, Ch'oe Ch'oel-han, or Shi Yue. I slept soon after, but I don't feel miraculously stronger today, sorry Elom . Still, just SEEING thousands of Pro games is certain to give you a small edge on someone who has seen very few.

I did stumble into an interesting escape tesuji that Ch'oe used. He played a one-point jump to get ahead of the group chasing him but then it followed and peeped the one point jump. Instead of connecting directly, he played Kosumi forward from the one point jump. If his opponent had tried to cut, it would have failed, and Ch'oe would have stayed two moves ahead. Very clever.

I'm sorry if my verbal description is unclear, but I haven't yet learned how to make a simple diagram.

Games
Due to all the overnights for work, and the overnights due to my daughter having a fever, I have not played any games -- I am not awake enough to play well, and I do not wish to frustrate myself. Assuming I gain any semblance of control over my own sleeping schedule again, I am looking forward to trying out my new Capture Race skills and Shape skills from "Speed Baduk"

Questions
Are there any more series out there like Speed Baduk, which are focused on drills for specific skills?

I would like a book that would break down and go through and train all the common tesuji, with a bare minimum of theory (I feel like Speed Baduk is a little too light of theory, but, I prefer it to the one Tesuji book I looked at (Tesuji and Anti-Suji, I think), which seemed way too verbose. I am not interested in Theory Go, rather I am after Practical/Applied Go.

Go needs more of this, IMHO:
Here is a skill, here is how it works, here are 10, 20, 100 practice problems.

Life
We are settling into the house well. The builder still needs to fix the roof, but most everything else is perfect. We are buying furniture. Everything is much nicer than before the fire, which makes me feel strangely guilty somehow, like I have profited from my own misfortune.

My daughter went on her first field trip yesterday and came back covered in a rash. it seems she is allergic to hay!

Training
I focused on ploughing through half of Becoming 5 Kyu, doing what I call "pre-watching". Basically I'm just watching it, not playing along, so I can see what the concepts are I will be learning and see where the series is heading. Once I have watched them all, I will go back through episode by episode and try to memorize everything.

My daughter watched several episodes of "Becoming 5 Kyu" with me, and I did not translate anything, and she cannot read the translations (and she doesn't speak Korean). She just watched a friendly man put stones on a board, I guess. She did seem very interested, though.

I went through about 60 pages of Speed Baduk 5 and the entire capturing race section of Speed Baduk 6. Only last night did SB4 finally come in. I will start working through it as well. At an estimated average of 4 problems per page, I did only about 240 problems over the last few days, a little slower than normal. I think that's to be expected, considering the problems are getting harder!

Just for giggles, I have been using Elom's idea of stepping through 20 or so pro games every night VERY VERY quickly just before bed. It's an interesting idea, targeted on increasing your subconscious pattern recognition, but I am not really sure if it helps. Sounds like your typical "learn with no effort" mumbo jumbo. Still, I love watching the pros fight it out.

Games
I went to Dallas Go Club last night and played Mark Smith, the resident 8 kyu, again.

As you may remember, he was the very first person I ever played a game with at the club, and 4 months ago he gave me 9 stones and still beat me. We've had 3 other games since then, at even handicap, but with me getting black:
Game 1 - he won by 40+ points
Game 2 - he won by 20+ points.
Game 3 (last night) - I won by 18.5 points (I think*)

This is my first win against an 8 kyu, and I am very excited about it. But, honestly, this has been one of my major goals -- to beat the guy that beat me in my first game -- and now I need a new goal.



As always, I've put my own thoughts in, but I am not very skilled. Comments/corrections welcome (actually: more than welcome, sought-after!)

Goals:

My goal in this game was to try out the "Becoming 5 kyu" openings I had studied. That went off the rails pretty quickly as my opponent did several things I did not expect. However, I did find the knowledge from the show valuable at several points. I wanted to see if I could build a large moyo, and he let me do that, but I was also trying to figure out how to play peaceably and avoid fighting (I like to fight, I'm just not very good at it yet). I think I accomplished most of my goals.

-----
* At the club we stopped counting after finding a 20 pt difference and never subtracted his Komi, either. For this score, I am relying on the GNUGo score estimator, and I don't really trust it -- it actually says I won by 18.7 points. That's right, point-seven. So obviously something is a little shady.

After , C7 becomes the key point of shape round here. there would be OK; there is a sense that White's play is just about sente, because White at C7 pushed Black right down. But White never plays there at all.

is obviously big, and Black has no clear advantage.

OK, this kind of plan is worth trying.

Dropping back to O15, a light play that is terrorial after White plays heavily, seems better than pushing on from behind.

Don't like. R7 can go for a bamboo joint, but in fact just connecting may be best.

is quite nice as an idea, but now Q11 looks right.

I'd play one point lower.

Seems to be wrong direction. Think about O4.

Well, we are not now going to have a dynamic middlegame, it seems. Black at C4 is now urgent to restrict White.

Should be decisive.

Thanks, Charles!

Wonderful feedback, as always!

At :W20:, the series I have been watching on Baduk TV seems to say this move is much smaller than approaching at R14. I thus interpreted his move as a mistake, or at least sub-optimal. I admit that I may be mis-interpreting what I learned, as this precise board position is never actually discussed.

Anyway, even though I thought it was a mistake, I was unsure how to punish it. I did the two one-point jumps in an attempt to, leading directly to this strange game. Likely I should have just finished my double-wing formation and then done a one-point jump if he had not invaded by then.

I agree that is suboptimal, but I think that Baduk TV is exaggerating for effect. Perhaps Black has a clear advantage at the pro level, and a slight edge at the dan level, but this is a kyu level game. One advantage of is that it is easy for White to handle.



If is suboptimal, it is self-punishing. A simple small knight's response is probably best. A double wing is also possible, but allows White to complicate things with a double approach. If you are ahead, generally it is good to solidify and simplify.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Btw move 39

You read wrongly, white 40 at r7 then s10.



What? His approach is huge as it uses his influence in the bottom left to make a big moyo on lower side. What actual position was there on Baduk TV? I really don't like giving up the lower right corner for such an open moyo as it not only loses in the corner but also means it's harder to invade the lower side if o3 is strong and q4 is dead, there's no chance for counterattacks. But if you do want to tenuki the apporach how about 5-5 when he double approaches and then knight's press on the right side when he 3-3s?

I am not surprised I read wrongly all the time! At least my reading is slightly better than my opponent's in this game. There were several instances where I noticed he misread by a few moves, where I did not. I am lucky that he didn't find this solution. His reading is not always so far off base!



Here is a pared-down summary of the series, without going into details and rendering the videos superfluous:

The board position at above seems to occur in my game along the top at move 19. I am sure the context changes the import of the situation, but this board position is what I was judging from.



To be perfectly clear: Baduk TV did not tell me to do that, not at all. I was under the impression that that white preventing the double-wing and splitting up the black Moyo was very important. I was trying in my inexpert, clumsy way to exploit what I perceived to be a tiny advantage. But perhaps the timing of the board position changes the reality.

(Edit additions:)
Please note that I didn't exploit the advantage well, if there was an advantage, because I didn't quite know what to do. This resulted in 1) failure to respond to an approach out of greed to make a perceived/unreal profit elsewhere, 2) sacrificing a corner stone that probably didn't have to be sacrificed, 3) saving stones that should not have been saved, resulting in giving away a side I didn't have to give away!

I, too, was afraid of the openness of the moyo. I was very shocked he didn't jump into the middle of it and try to live early on. I am sure he probably could have torn it to pieces had he tried, but he did not.