You probably talked with my friend, the other participant from Greece. I didn't play any football (luckily since my buddy told me that a few players got injured)

For those that haven't read the book ''The direction of play'' by Takeo Kajiwara i strongly suggest you to do so. This book is simply fantastic. I'd say that it's appropriate for SDK players and probably more suitable for 5k-1d players. As the title suggests it focuses on strategy and direction of play rather than tactics, so if you feel lost during fuseki or middlegame like me, then this probably might be good for you.

As i was watching a pro game the other day i remembered a few passages from the book. What surprised me is the total disagreement between what Kajiwara says and what the pro played. Supposedly black in the game should have built a superior position from the opening, yet he lost (the positions are not exactly identical).

Firstly, i made an sgf file incorporating the comments from the book. I didn't want to go in too much detail, since it might be considered plagiarism, but you get the idea.



Now, as for the game, here are the details
[2015-12-24] 41st Japanese Kisei, preliminary
Mukai Chiaki 5p (Black) vs. Ishida Yoshio 9p (White) W+R (6.5 komi)

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/52051

If you can't open the game this is an sgf with the first 20 moves (not going further for the same reason as before)


Black lost eventually, but still...Why did white play so bad in the opening and let black get this position (btw Ishida is no slouch either)? Aren't pros supposed to think very hard even in the opening? If white is fine in that position, is Kajiwara wrong? Sure, the book was published in 1979, but this is not a matter of a new joseki, it's just direction of play, this hasn't changed that much. As you can see, the game is not some short of blitz, it's in the preliminaries of Kisei. So, what is going on? What am i supposed to get from this game? Who should i trust? Am i overreacting?

I'm feeling so lost right now.

Kajiwara is best taken with a grain or two of salt, as he tends to use strong words to emphasize his point.

While games can be won or lost in the opening, this is far from the usual case, particularly at the professional level. Obviously Kajiwara considered the position in question to be favourable to black, and he is using it to illustrate a general point (don't play a 3-4 with the open side facing a strong opposing position.) But even if it's quite favourable, that may just mean that he thinks there's a 60% chance of the favoured side winning.

It's also worth considering that the book was written some time ago, and with the constant research into openings, a line may have been found that leads to a favourable situation for white, or at least a more even result.

Don't worry.

I actually met Kajiwara at the Kitani Dojo. Not that we hung out, or anything. Kajiwara was brilliant, and came up with some original plays and analyses. But he was also a jokester. Not that he was joking in his book, but he had a tendency to exaggerate.

Also, a number of ideas about the opening that were current in Japan in the mid-20th century have been questioned, if not refuted, by pros in China and Korea. I think that Kajiwara may well have approved of the iconoclasm.

Anyway, here is an SGF file with a few thoughts about .

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Still here, still struggling with my daemons. So, what's new?
Since March i reside in Germany, ''doing'' my M.Sc. The last couple go meetings back in my hometown before i left were spectacular to say the least. More than 10 people were attending them and in the last one i was present we were about 20 people! The European team championship has ended and Greece has come 10th in League C (by far our best season).

On a personal note, since the last update of the journal, not much has changed, still play on DGS exclusively, solve tsumegos from time to time and once a week visit the local go club. This Saturday i'm attending the annual local tournament. This will be my first tournament in 2 years so i'm curious about my level and a bit worried about playing with limited time. I borrowed ''Fundamentals Principles of Go'' by Yilun Yang and plan to play a couple games in the next days. My real weakness is fuseki so i hope i'll get some good ideas from the book.

I'll be posting again some of my games and some problems. As i stated in a previous post i would like to give back to the community as much as i can. In the next post the solutions of the problems will be given plus a new set of problems.



i would welcome any comments/reviews of my games (when i play on DGS i keep notes which appear at the last move)

[quote="1/7,000,000,000"]



i would welcome any comments/reviews of my games (when i play on DGS i keep notes which appear at the last move)

Here I thought White would win when I saw . Interesting ideas such as J3 or M5 go away when you simply make White solid here.

At , White has the advantage, though I don't think this is the right point. Soon J11 will look better. Playing at G6 is not nice (heavy, gote, bad shape). At again I thought White should win.

So, it turned out to be closer than I believed.

Here I thought White would win when I saw . Interesting ideas such as J3 or M5 go away when you simply make White solid here.

At , White has the advantage, though I don't think this is the right point. Soon J11 will look better. Playing at G6 is not nice (heavy, gote, bad shape). At again I thought White should win.

So, it turned out to be closer than I believed.

I went 3-1 in the tournament as a 5k. I won against a 7k,6k and 5k and lost from a 5k so i'm not overly happy about that. At least i won a prize because of the 3 wins and managed to grab a volume of the 2nd volume in the workshop series by Yilun Yang. In 3 of the games i was behind in the fuseki and as to be expected i was always the first one to go to byomi. In my 3 wins i managed to kill huge dragons. They were basically all in situations, if i couldn't kill those dragons, i would have lost all games. I used to play like that back in the day, but i'm trying to change that to no avail for the time being.

So this is what i have learned from the tournament
1. My opening is very weak for my lvl and i need to improve it. I have to learn certainly more josekis too.
2. My time management is appalling.
3. I have to stop going all in and trying to kill everything

these are the big ones, other weaknesses i spotted, counting score and learning when there is no point to keep attacking.
The only way i see to improve is to start playing again on kgs,wbaduk,tygem; DGS isn't cutting it anymore.

As promised, i give you the solutions to the previous set and a new one
This set is probably best suited to mid DDK players




ps. the solutions are mine, so if you think i made a mistake don't hesitate to contact me