121-144 without remarks. Some are real reading exercises, most just 1 variation to check.

Still good food.

Funny.

_________________
be immersed

145-168

It helps me to post this, in order to keep up the tsumego rhythm.

Problems start to become repetitive in a gentle way. Best way to ingrain the knowledge, I guess.

Good thing would be now to focus on finding opportunities in games to take advantage of these tsumego.

I completed the first 192 problems and then played a game. Would I see the difference? Would it matter?



Still too easy on tygem I think. But I won by a kill, so L&D problems may be paying off!

Based on the thread on studying relentless, I played another game on tygem, studied 24 more Hitachi go problems and replayed anotehr game by Otake:

attempt 1 - 3 tries for each move, then peek
attempt 2 - likewise
attempt 3 - 1 more try for each move and analyze the mistake

Remembering doesn't show understanding: sometimes I remember the moves which I don't understand. And it's the moves I understand which I want to play earlier than they're played in the actual game.

Here's the final analysis, including 18 misses out of 170 moves: 8 in the middle game and 10 in the endgame.

Hitachi problems 241-264. This part is much more difficult than earlier ones and I missed several of them.
It will make sense to redo the whole series once I'm done with all 1000+ ...

I also replayed another Otake game.

Hitachi 265-288.

In another discussion, John F. questions the use of doing tsumego.

In my next few games, I'll make a mental note of when I'm reminded of any of these tsumego I did.

edit: I'm including a problem from the Hitachi collection

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ -------------------------
$$ | . . . . . a . b O O . .
$$ | . O X X X O . . X O . .
$$ | . O O O X . X X . O . .
$$ | . . . . X X X . . O . .
$$ | . . . O O O O O . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

At first I found this problem very difficult. I couldn't find the vital point. My intuition drew me towards A or B. Then I got remineded about the fundamentals of L&D: expand eye space first.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B ------------------------
$$ | . . 1 . 3 b 2 c O O . .
$$ | . O X X X O a . X O . .
$$ | . O O O X . X X . O . .
$$ | . . . . X X X . . O . .
$$ | . . . O O O O O . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

I read this. White connects his stone. After White needs to prevent a ko. One starts seeing a possibility.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B ------------------------
$$ | . . 2 5 . 3 8 1 O O . .
$$ | . O X X X O 4 6 X O . .
$$ | . O O O X . X X 7 O . .
$$ | . . . . X X X . . O . .
$$ | . . . O O O O O . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Next I tried to prevent the connection with maximal expansion and read this. Black gets close to shortage of liberties but not close enough.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B ------------------------
$$ | . . 2 7 . 5 . 1 O O . .
$$ | . O X X X O 3 6 X O . .
$$ | . O O O X . X X 4 O . .
$$ | . . . . X X X . . O . .
$$ | . . . O O O O O . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

I tried to use where White had played and found life

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B ------------------------
$$ | . . 2 . 7 4 6 1 O O . .
$$ | . O X X X O 3 . X O . .
$$ | . O O O X . X X 5 O . .
$$ | . . . . X X X . . O . .
$$ | . . . O O O O O . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

We get a ko again.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B ------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . 2 1 O O . .
$$ | . O X X X O 3 . X O . .
$$ | . O O O X . X X . O . .
$$ | . . . . X X X . . O . .
$$ | . . . O O O O O . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Unfortunately, I didn't pursue this path of reusing the opponent's move because I got tired. I tried and found the same ko, so I got convinced was the solution.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B ------------------------
$$ | . . a . . . . 1 O O . .
$$ | . O X X X O 2 b X O . .
$$ | . O O O X . X X . O . .
$$ | . . . . X X X . . O . .
$$ | . . . O O O O O . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

If I had continued and tried here - which is where Black played before, I would have seen that Black dies here. A and B are miai.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B ------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . 2 3 O O . .
$$ | . O X X X O 1 . X O . .
$$ | . O O O X . X X . O . .
$$ | . . . . X X X . . O . .
$$ | . . . O O O O O . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

I would then have tried at what has clearly turned out to be the vital point. It's not a very favorable ko for Black but it's his best possibility.

What am I trying to prove with all this?

- I will probably never encounter this shape in my games
- But I might encounter something similar and may think of the vital point faster
- Tsumego makes you practice the principle of trying the variation where you play where your opponent would answer, or vice versa.

Replay of an Otake Hideo game. After 5 iterations I know it by heart (the last two were needed to memorize the particular order of forcing moves).

Highlights:

Opening

10: White plays the unusual high move, presumably because the diagonal opening has disturbed symmetry and the top is important.
31: Black plays the unusual attachment, to stress the lower left corner, at the expense of White strength at the bottom, which is presumably overlapping

Middle game:

57: Black ignores a shape wrecking move to fasten the attack on White's invasion of the right side
61: Black activates a cutting stone in order to separate another White group and have two targets to attack
97: after the difficult to remember forcing exchange of 95-96 Black wants to weaken White's second group again, in order to continue the double attack. However ...
98: White counterattacks and weakens the group that separates the two
112: White connects his groups on a large scale after a few forcing moves.

Endgame:

135: Immediately Black goes for mutual damage
136: White "punishes" Black for his play elsewhere, in the most beautiful way of making equivalence. This is truly "the" highlight of the game.
170: after a long sequence of sente moves, a typical endgame consequence of Otake's thick style, Otake takes 2 stones and this is a declaration of victory for me
175: Black resists by playing a reverse sente move
192: in a grand display of fighting spirit, White lives with eyes instead of connecting on neutral points

Full review:

You will see here the compound variations of all 5 iterations to predict the moves, giving myself 3 attempts in the first two runs, 2 in the 3rd run and only 1 in the last two runs.

Highlights: Black gets off a bad start but White plays a few soft moves and Black gets back into the game. I (Black) manage the middle game quite well and eventually play a tesuji to capture the cutting stones.



Anyone knows why this file is corrupt? COmes straight from cgoban.

The file contained a number of [1d]s. I removed the brackets.

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

We're the end of december and although I will probably play a few more games, I want to recap on 2016.
Many study journals talk about what they want to do. Few record what they have actually done. This record may give an honest view on what can be achieved in a position like mine

1. Circumstances

- I am at the peak of my professional activity, having recently become the manager of a group of 40 people in a major company
- I spend quite some time with my family; a lot has happened since 2013: when you're past 40, it's not all laughs
- I have Go only as second pastime, the first being table tennis

After family, work, table tennis, larger family and friends, Go is probably only my fifth focus area.

2. Playing

I played 30 games on KGS this year and 35 on Tygem. That's slightly more than 1 per week, but in reality they come in chunks.
On KGS I became 1d and on Tygem 3d (but if I played more, I'd probably rank higher, my record being 32-4

3. Tsumego

I did about 300 Hitachi go probmems, the elementary ones. I plan to continue.

4. Pro games

I replayed games by Gu & Lee, and about 5 by Otake.

5. Reviewing games on L19

I spent a lot of time on L19 reviewing games by PlaySlow, Majordomo and others. I don't think it contributes a lot to my playing strength. I probably do it mostly out of a desire to communicate, to teach and to be of value to someone else. I like to see people improve. I like to see bad play be replaced by good play. I noticed this in table tennis as well: I probably like teaching more than playing but on the other hand I believe one needs to be a very good player before one is entitled to become a teacher.

Thanks to Bill, Mitsun, Uberdude, ez4u and others who have cared to review some of my games and study reports.

Happy studying in 2017!

So that you know that reviews are not useful only to one person at a time, I should let you know that I enjoy reading your reviews of other players' games. You have a good way of pointing out the important issues and areas for improvement in a way that is not overwhelming. Thanks!

Halfway through the year, I must admit I haven't studied at all. I see two major reasons:

1. I made a conscious decision to concentrate on the things that are currently important to me and only one pastime fits in, being table tennis.
2. I seem to have been negatively affected by Alphago's successes. Rationally I'd have expected that the new fuseki opened up by Alphago would be more stimulating than anything but emotionally the defeat of humanity (if I can put it so dramatically) may have actually discouraged me.

I've played a few times for distraction, mostly on Tygem where I got to 4d and yesterday also on KGS where I had dropped to 2k?.

I don't plan to study in 2017. There is simply no time for that to be done well, so I rather wait until my retirement to pick up Go seriously again or my capricious nature may decide otherwise.

Good luck! I experienced a similar feeling, and haven't been studying at all, lately. In some ways, I miss go, and want to get back to it. I'm not quite there, yet, though. I've personally been spending a lot of time listening to motivational speakers. My favorite these days is Tim Ferriss.

Hasn't helped my go life at all, yet, but it's put some perspective on life.

_________________
be immersed

Can be fun but after a while I found motivational speeches to become too much of a substitute for actually doing something. Youtube is a vice!

The best thing about MS is indeed that they can give you a completely new perspective on life. The worst is that they all fall prey to selection bias and narrative. "I did this AND I became successful so IF you do this too THEN you will become successful". We know from set theory that this is wrong logic and likely even untrue.

My favorite book is Kahneman's "Thinking fast and slow". It's scientific AND it gave me a new perspective on life.

I agree on this point.

For me, it's been more of a matter of feeding my mind positive information as opposed to the negative input I get from reading the news, etc.

Even if my actions aren't directly affected, the positive words just make me feel better.

_________________
be immersed

A decent game with a lot of focus on shape. Highlights at 139 and 158.
I tried to remember what I thought about at each move where I considered some alternatives.
It earned me a 3d rank but that's more due to the law of small numbers.

Any comment welcome, also if you are lower ranked than me.

Congrats!

Your self-comments are pretty thorough. You are stronger than I am. I enjoy how you look for miai options.

It's kind of sad that this line went out of fashion, as is such a cool tesuji here.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Old joseki
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . O 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X , X O . . . , . . . . . , O . . |
$$ | . . X O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

It seems like C8 was a possible resource for black for much of the early middle game. Is there a reason you didn't take it? Maybe the a - b exchange loses a bit of territory for black?

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Moves 43 to 43
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . O O X X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . O . O . 1 . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . b . O O O . . X . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . X X X . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . X O O O . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X , X O X . . , . . . . . , O . . |
$$ | . . X O O X O . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

At the end, I'd really, really want to play instead of the game move at 'a'.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Move 117
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X X . . . X X X O O O O O . O O X . |
$$ | . O O X X . . O O O X O X X O O X . . |
$$ | . . . O . . O . X O X . . . X X X . . |
$$ | . O O . . O . . . X X . X . . . . . . |
$$ | . X . O O . . X . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X X O X X O X . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . X O O O O O . X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . X X O . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X X . O . O X , . . . . . X . O . |
$$ | . . O X . O . O . X . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . O X . . . . . . . O O O . . |
$$ | . . . O O O X . X . . . . X . X . . . |
$$ | . . O . X X X O . . . . . a . . X . . |
$$ | . . X . X O O O . . . . . 1 O . . . . |
$$ | . . X , X O X . . , . X . X O , O . . |
$$ | . . X O O X O . . . . . . . X . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . X O . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I vaguely remember. How does it continue? Like above? Or can Black play 3 at 4?



The 1-2 exchange is really bad for Black's eye shape in the corner. Now the cut at "a" becomes much severer.



Shape wise, I agree. I dismissed it because of the severity of the cut at 6. The stones at the bottom are to be sacrificed, by principle. I wanted to keep the sacrifice small.

But looking at this position again, I'm not so sure anymore and you made a very good point.

Thanks a lot for your comments!

(Just for your info: download the sgf of your latest game not working)