Two games from IGS, been doing well but not played as much as I'd have liked (work and daughter with stomach flu will do that heh).

Also, it looks like the Norwegian National Championship will be held at the last weekend of October so that will be fun! I've played once in a tournament before as a 12k (this was in april I think) so it appears I've improved! How much remains to be seen.
Tips? How to go about to ensure I play at my best? I probably ought to play a few pro games on a real board (as I never get to play on the real thing anyhow, just practicing visualising over a board will be good I think) or something if nothing else. Should I practice some fuseki to force my opponents out of the ever-present kobayashi / mini / micro / chinese stuff? Or practice against allowing them to happen?

Probably overthinking it heh, but I want to do my best. The last tournament was very fun, Guo Juan was there to review our games and held a lecture after each day - and I also got to play Simen Agdestein - A chess GM and Magnus Carlsen's former coach and mentor (and brother to his current manager I think) whom I beat with him getting 9 stones (to be fair, he'd just learned the game the previous weekend or so).

Also the two games, one where my opponent played weird in a way that didn't work out and one where I show the most pathetic fighting spirit and only salvage the scraps after him blundering in the endgame (and it wouldn't have been enough if he had komi). I really need to work on my fighting spirit I think, I dismiss my opponents weaknesses too easily and become to fearful of my own.

The bad game where I won by getting lucky:


The game where I won since my opponent played weird (note - I'm very slack and submissive once I feel comfortably ahead, bad practice but when I'm playing my desire to win beats out my desire to learn):

The single best thing you can do at this point to improve your performance in a tournament is to get a good night's sleep before your games. I'm completely serious.

Good luck!

21 & 39: capturing a single stone is often not that important
53: keep it simple
65: surround
113: shape issue
119: very creative move!!

"Quoted for truth", as they say.

Most of us learned around 15k that you shouldn't worry about capturing or defending first-line stones until the endgame, unless they really affect the strength of groups.

At around 5k you learn that the same goes for second-line stones. You can pick up a lot of sente at this level by letting your opponents gobble up single stones on the second line.

Of course it is a different story when losing that stone would turn your strong group into a weak one.

Yeah, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger goal I find - in the reviewed game for 21 I lost oversight by trapping myself in a pattern I'd planned out earlier without considering what else I could get for myself. 39, I thought it would destabilise his group more than it did, but like you show Knotwilg - the clamp is much superior for that purpose.

The double hane at 64 is one of those moves I really should see by now. I think the only thing I read was L13 L12 M11 L14 K13 M14 but then I could connect at M17 and be fine I think (and more out in the center since I don't think he has time to move his L12 stone immediately.

I'm glad you corrected 113 - it's something I did on reflex, but the reflex is wrong in this case (like you show, high would have been better and without the danger of the squeeze).

Thanks a lot for the review and advice Knotwilg - and your tips Dfan, I know sleep is important - too bad my body tends to disagree just before stuff like this or exams hehe.

EDIT: For any who might know - how are the IGS ranks compared to KGS? About par or weaker? I can still adjust my rank since I'm (?) feels about the same I guess but with a lot of variance in terms of style etc I guess.

The best rank comparison data is here. If you scroll down to the "IGS - KGS" graph, you will see that at kyu levels IGS ranks are a little stronger; 5k IGS seems to be around 3k KGS on average (though of course there's a lot of noise). You can also compare to EGF if that's what the tournament will use.

upper left opening is favorable for White

41: avoid being surrounded & cut

49: avoid plays which can be cut strongly at short distance

70-80: good come back

95: a desperate measure

119: cut on a large scale

How very accurate to describe 95 as desperation - it was indeed - I was annoyed at my slack move at 93 (where I could have peeped him instead) and just wanted to salvage something, anything. Amusing that you can read that from the game heh.

119 is the collapse, and what I mean by no fighting spirit. I was afraid he'd cut off my reducing stones for some reason... Also, yeah, the quality does degrade at one point - fortunately his even moreso than mine.

Again, thanks for the review!

EDIT: Also, I found the upper left very difficult, I didn’t know joseki, and I think I got blinded by him letting me connect to my C13 stone. I’ve looked at the position more with Leela and it really dislikes the black result (I did as well) - and the final straw was the C17 atari, without which black could have gotten a more even result.

Strange game, while I think my opponent had a clear goal in mind he didn't reply correctly and was overly submissive I think. Also, I think I kind of blundered away the game at one point in the lower right corner? If he cuts after he takes away the outside liberty after I descend?

Anyway, I played very slack and overly cautious after I knew I had the win unless I died (except for the blunder) - but after my center group lived he didn't have any way to come back I think.



I'm also curious about the exchanges on the right side at the start of the game, did I continue for too long? How much is too much given his two weird approach stones?

I'm not sure about 'too long'. Maybe white could have haned one move earlier.

The first move I have a bit of a quibble with is which seems too close to thickness. I think black could ignore this and be fine, or at least respond much more aggressively.

The kick in response to the corner approach is a bit weird, and the hane at E2 I'm not sure about. If black cut instead, black gets a low side and a decent corner for a ponnuki. On the other hand, that ponnuki is in the middle of black's proto-moyo. The result as played, though, feels bad for black.

Did you consider the nose hit at ? I don't like and as they seem to leave black with a heavy-ish target. Some sort of lighter jumping-out move to get a bit of space and shape seems called for instead. Of course when your opponent proceeds to push you into his potential territory where you can easily make eyes, it's not bad at all.

is horrible. After this the game is incredibly one sided and not worth commenting.

Thanks a lot for your comments!

I agree with 28 - I thought since he played O2 instead of P3 I could make him be more defensive about things in the area. Leela wants me to play the double-hane at P10 which I considered but dismissed for some reason (looked too dangerous). What I’m always afraid of in these types of games are these large-scale counting games where the board gets sliced into large areas so I wanted to break up his formation in some fashion (for example I detest playing against the sanrensei where they pincer both my knights move approaches and I take the corners - even though I know it’s supposedly fair for white).

For 42, no I didn’t think about the nose hit, I considered the descent at L3. Won’t black just play J4? K3 J4 J5 K4 K5 then if he plays L3 I descend K2 and capture the two stones and he takes L4? Hmm, yeah, It looks like a good way to make shape - it’s one of those moves that I dismiss when I see I don’t guarantee a capture, but I need to be better at looking for ways to make shape I guess. It works kind of like the driving tesuji?

And yeah, after 61 and my weak group getting shape and eyes I didn’t see a way for him to come back baring a blunder (which I think I did at 174)

28 may be a little ambitious but it's not clearly an overplay. There is aji. I do like the 42-46 moves.

Is 58 really sente? Fortunately Black thinks so.

When White gets the atari at 66, the game has become very favorable.

At 70, I would hane, not peep. The peep has no function in terms of influence (neither has its successor later) and the aji of the hane is destroyed.

All in all, a nice game of reducing influence, building your own and use it to make territory elsewhere (at the top).

Ah, and here I was afraid of the hane there, but I guess if he cuts I can fight and be happy. And yeah 58, I regretted it but got lucky - I think it was too submissive of him to respond as the move doesn't provide safety for the white group and I'm more under pressure than he is so he should resist. It was sort of a "stuck on a plan" kind of play, since I had planned on playing it after I played 44 - but it's just a potential forcing move that doesn't really give much strength or shape to my center stones.

Ach, a slow weekend for Go... I have however acquired the Crazy Stone Deep Learning app for my phone, finally replacing GnuGo as my phone AI heh, and so far I'm pleased with it.

In the ranked mode it's put me down to 3k now after starting at 5k, but what that means in KGS terms I'm not sure - I suspect the AI is prone to a certain type of error players are not? Also, it is very center happy - it will often push from behind on the 5th line - but then again, it doesn't always feel that good with a 50 point corner after it has a wall across the board.

So since friday - total games: 9
5k, +29.5 win
5k, win by resign
4k, loss by resign (stupidly I played for a 1 point Ko I didn't need to win and messed up my reply to a threat and lost 20 points)
5k, +0.5 win
5k, win by resign
4k, +2.5 win
3k, win by resign
3k, lose by resign (ugh, I try to clamp and live underneath after the keima attach hane draw back joseki after a one-space high approach to his kobayashi formation, that's another weakness when playing on the phone, I'm more prone to stubbornly continue when I know it doesn't work...)
5k (2 stones for AI), +1 win

Anyway, I'll try not to play too much on it because it really degrades my concentration, in practice most of the games I play are blitz interrupted by a few longer breaks when I think I see something. But anyway, it's better than GnuGo and having the ability to analyse games in full or move by move is very cool (though I do wonder at the quality of the analysis when I set it to a low time per move). Also, games against people are more fulfilling, nerve wracking and ultimately a lot more educational for me.

Little to update recently, but I'm posting mostly to hold myself accountable heh. I'm still playing weekly teaching games and a lot of games on my phone (trying my best not to blitz or play thoughtlessly, to moderate success).

For my phone I put it at 1d and play it even, and I'm closing in on beating it without assistance - I typically beat it when I play but that's with somewhat liberal undos, some to explore variations but mostly to play sente endgame instead of these one or zero point gote moves I'm drawn to.

Also I find it's very helpful to play out a variation that I think is good, then compare the win rates from before, often I think something is good but the evaluation disagrees and that's been really nice, makes me better at evaluating the exchanges I make and picking a better direction / goal... I really need to start going through "The Endgame" though since that's a bad weakness of mine I think.

Some IGS games and OGS games but not enough, and today a game against a 5k on KGS which started out a bit eh (I really really dislike the sort of framework vs framework game we got into) but then he made some really questionable exchanges (in the top left for example, and playing the extension instead of the jump in the upper right (I think at least - move 105), and basically playing too fast and loose to let me get away with (literal) murder (of stones). Good to have a game where I felt in control though, even if it might have been an illusion - he really did play too fast, and I did too - I was certainly not careful enough in my reading so it may be I was in deep water at one or more points in the game and just didn't see it.

So, no game today (yet) - however, the Norwegian national championship is fast approaching (this weekend), and a vendor will be there with a lot of books and such - and since I just completed the Jump Level Up Series and am quickly making my way through Get Strong at Tesuji (doing well, but I'm often missing on the easier ones rather than the harder heh. Good practice though!).

So, Lee Chang Ho's Selected Tesuji and Selected Life and Death Problems (6 books for each series). Anyone got experience with these? I looked around in the books subforum and they seem to be recommended - but do they compare well to Graded Go Problems for Beginners? I just want a problem set that will last me a while. Also, the Life and Death series is lacking volume 3 - that will bug me to no end, but if they are good I'll still get them - however could it be problematic if they are made to be progressively harder? If so, maybe just get the tesuji ones and some others for Life & Death.

I'll post a game I played against my phone though, which I'm quite happy about (since I won against CS on 1d, and didn't use undo or analysis, not that I've managed to repeat the performance however) - but looking back at it, two things strike me, one, the top invasion, could black have killed me there? I think maybe I tenukied prematurely, and second I think I was losing until I suddenly spotted a double atari in the endgame, so I'm thinking it was a fluke and the computer maybe was too slack because it considered itself ahead? I played very differently than I'm used to, with the possibly very premature invasions - but yeah. Comments are very welcome

The LCH books are excellent and are a good match for your current level; the easiest problems will be solvable on sight (GGPB 2 level), the hardest ones will be too hard for now, many will be challenging.

They're not quite in order of increasing difficulty, which is slightly unfortunate if you want the challenge to increase monotonically.

I haven't looked through your journal to see if you already have 1001 Life & Death Problems, but that's the other one I would recommend at this level.

Nope never done that one, so I'm guessing that'll go on the pile as well heh - is there sufficient overlap that 1001 Life & Death covers much of the LCH life & death? If so I might just get that + the LCH tesuji series.

I have mostly used vol. 1-4 of the tsumego series but I like it very much. I use it when I want to get my reading skills back after a long time without doing tsumego.

The shapes are generally "fresh" (I mean that you don't get the L-groups or others 'classics') which helps to keep the series interesting. Another thing I like is the fact that many problems have a slight tweak, meaning that the obvious move doesn't work. This is great to help stay focused.

Unlike dfan it seems to me that each volume is slightly harder than the preceding one. I can do vol. 1-2 rather quickly (but still reading every variation) and without mistake but have to slow down and be more careful for vol. 3-4. But maybe, like the comment above about the 'obvious' moves, this is just due to specific gaps in my tsumego knowledge/reflex.

maybe play on top of b's stone at D6, to build the bottom and counter his center influence?
is generally considered bad, I think, because it weakens the k4 stone too much.

They're fairly different. The 1001L&D problems are more artificial, which I didn't like at first but it means you get a lot of good reading practice. I think they're both worth going through.


I did say "They're not quite in order of increasing difficulty." For example, if I recall correctly, volume 4 of the Tesuji series is pretty easy.