Yet another personal preference call. Taste.

My learning curve/experience:

Ok, so my wife is encouraging me to get a nice board for myself. o_O

Keeper.

Yeah, just at the moment I'm struggling with the opportunity cost and the multitude of advice I'm getting arguing both sides of the matter. On one hand I'm a new player and should restrict myself to the cheaper sets, I agree with this. On the other hand I'm someone who really likely nice pieces of craftsmanship and aesthetics and since I intend to keep the interest going I'll probably end up getting a better board in the future if I get a cheaper board now meaning I effectively buy multiple boards.

I feel like I haven't earned a nice set yet and feel like if I got one that I was being presumptuous. On the other hand, I've experienced a social element in go that I know will keep me coming back to it. I'm second guessing myself a lot because I'm a bit low due to sickness (just a sinus/head cold thing), so no decisions being made tonight anyway! That said, my wife knows me very well and if she's encouraging me one way there's probably a damn good reason for it. Decisions, decisions.


I do realise however that it's utterly crazy to be even considering a nice set this early in the hobby! However two things spring to mind: 1) having a nice board would be a motivational factor, 2) why go against my nature? I collect nice things and tend to jump into the deep end, it's what I do pretty much. My wife knows me very well, if she's encouraging something there's probably a reason for it and any spending would come out of my personal cash not family money so it's not like anyone else would be making a sacrifice. For reference: I'm not even considering anything other than glass stones at this point, shell stones can be a reward to myself later on.

Personally I just love all thin single-convex Chinese stones. They way the just click into place perfectly and STAY there ... unlike any glass, slate/shell, agate etc. that just love to skate around the board like it was an ice rink. Get you sledge hammer out or pick the board up and wander around the house. Single-convex stone will just sit politely in the correct position, also fairly strong against the sleeve tesuji! As well as the single-convex aspect being great for study. They are also ... CHEAP!
Though I do find they need cleaning more often than my agate stones....

My "pretty" set is some stripped agate stones, fairly thin again. They look really nice but are a little too shiny, bit distracting for the eyes after a while. Slate and shell are fine to look at while playing/study and of course also look damn good, but they still slide.

Though, if you do intend on playing irl a bit / some tournament in future. Double convex stones that everyone has in Europe will help you adjust to the non-perfect positioning of the stones on the board that happens in real life games. And I know a lot of people have problems with it coming from online play! I did for a good while, constantly moving them back into their exact positions for ages!

My hates in stones... plastic and glass!

sekoj,

Yes, and multiple stones and multiple bowls. It's part of the normal learning curve.
In pretty much any discipline. I like it.

Reverse psychology.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Oh dear...




Yup. She's cunning.

Not an issue with placing the stones, its the issue I have with my habit of hitting the table with my knee, then they wander!. So personal preference due to a bad habit! I should change to the normal finger tapping or rocking instead.

At one point I started to think I could host my old little go club with the number of sets I have. Then I remembered, no one around here plays

Anyway best of luck with your purchasing decision Boidhre.

Right, just so I won't be annoying the same people over and over again for opinions, I'd like some views on the following sets:

Useful for club games and amenable to a board upgrade later on: http://www.hebsacker-verlag.de/bambus-s ... -3092.html (the thing is, some people have warned me off folding boards)

Cheap and cheerful: http://www.hebsacker-verlag.de/go-stude ... -2370.html (plastic bowls are suitable for my level but )

Interesting but not very portable: http://www.hebsacker-verlag.de/china-set-xl-p-4582.html (though, no way that board in the pictures is 2" thick)

Twice as expensive as a home set: http://www.hebsacker-verlag.de/komplett ... p-503.html (though, veneer which I dislike for no sensible reason)

What my wife was saying I should consider getting: http://www.hebsacker-verlag.de/go-brett ... m-p-9.html (jumping in the deep end... but we're talking approaching 300 Euro after stones and bowls here which is definitely non-trivial and giving me pause)

Oh, how I'm overthinking this. :/

One pro to buying a cheap board right now is that, someday far off into the future you could give your cheap board to someone your trying to get into the game. That said that last one is one sexy board.

First serious real time game in a fair while (excluding club games) and my concentration loss towards the end shows me that I left it too long. Sloppy endgame, I figured I was well ahead and just passed as I was tired. I'm pretty sure there is an awful lot of mistakes in this game. I messed up an invasion on the right and ended up living very small and giving him a lot of influence in exchange. 15k now though.

On the 33-40 sequence:

1. As a general rule, don't push unless you're going to cut. Since you don't seem interested in cutting subsequently, why not wait to push until later?

2. At 39, do you see why White might prefer to play E9?

3. And finally, 114 moves later, White accidentally protects the cut while doing something else.

In the game as a whole you seemed a little too focused on making small groups and small reductions on the first and second line while you had the opportunity to make dozens of points in the center.

Yeah, I'm not happy with my mental focus during the game at all.

Edit: Added variation at B152.

Time to play as 12 kyu, eh?

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Got a loan of a board so played a 13x13 game with my five year old son:

He won by 14.5 points after I (intentionally) reduced a large group to two liberties and asked him if it could be killed. He didn't really understand territory for the first half of the game (we really should be playing on a 9x9 board but I don't have one I want to play on) but by the end seemed to have some idea of it. I tried to turn the game into a series of tsumego for him, presenting double atari possibilities and so on. I'm not letting him win as much I'm presenting him with the chance to win and giving him a chance to figure it out for himself. I figure it might help him more than me crushing him over and over.

Thanks for the mountain of variations Bill! Loads to think about there.

A local 4d came out to visit me. We played a game on his board. The phrase "crushed like the gnat that I am" was never so apt.

That's centimeters, not inches.

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Patience, grasshopper.