Memorizing Pro games

[LokBuddha]

what pro games are good to memorize? I asked a strong player and he said memorizing pro game is one way to get stronger. But I have no idea which pro game is most beneficial to learn from.

[emeraldemon]

This topic has come up before, a quick search found these threads:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4837

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1214

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4355

This overlaps a lot with the "who were the greatest players" question, and has many of the same answers. I would suggest looking for commentary, it will help a lot I think.

[xed_over]

what pro games are good to memorize? I asked a strong player and he said memorizing pro game is one way to get stronger. But I have no idea which pro game is most beneficial to learn from.

Its one way, but arguably not necessarily the best way (though I enjoy it a lot).

Rather than picking one or a few pros, how about picking a title/tournament?

It takes me a while to play though and memorize one game, so I picked the NHK cup where you can have one new game to memorize each week.
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~bg2t-tkg/nhk/nhk.html
I print out each week's game on Monday morning, then read it on the commute home, and then spend some time playing out on a board at home.

I don't worry about keeping them in my head for longer than a week though. Usually just playing it out once or twice (from paper), and most of the game is already in my head. It mostly just helps playing through and getting a feel for good shape, etc.

But on the other hand, NHK games also may not be the best games to learn from, because they are quick-play games (fit in 1-1/2 hour TV time slot).

[Laman]

i've heard that older (i assume 20 years and more) Japanese games are best to learn from, because they are simpler and easier to understand than recent ones

specific choice is not so vital in my opinion, just open sensei's, pick a name, read something about the player and if you like him, replay some games. and every game is played by two players, so if you find some of your player's opponents interesting, try some games of them and someone else...

on the other hand, choosing present players is attractive because you can follow his career, cheer for him and get always fresh games. but i prefer slow games to fast ones (though it is improbable that pros under time pressure would make mistakes similar to my one's with any time)

[bogiesan]

There's a scene in the novel, First Kyu and it goes something like this: "I have memorized a wonderful game. It will surely help me win the tournament. Here, I shall lay it out for you." "You fool. Memorizing moves is useless. You only know the order. This was a game played by artists; you must understand deeply why each stone was placed."

[Pippen]

My question is: Should one memorize the whole pro game or only about the first 100 moves? What is more efficent? What do senseis recommend to inseis?

p.s.: With "memorize" I really mean to learn the moves and being able to play the game out of your head. I hope to gain a better feel for fuseki and directional play by it.

[karaklis]

I think that strongly depends on whether you want to learn to play a better endgame. Probably it is more efficient to learn the first 100 moves, as these are usually bigger than endgame moves, however as we all know that the endgame is often neglected, learning especially this part of the game has its own benefits.

FWIW, I am wondering what would be the best method of learning a pro game. Just memorizing the moves it possibly not enough to get the most out of the pro match. My idea would be to check for every move what are your own ideas, maybe 3 to 5 move candidates, then prioritize them so that you have your found own best move. Then compare it to the pro move and try to find out why that pro move is better.

Other ideas?

[Pippen]

I think that strongly depends on whether you want to learn to play a better endgame. Probably it is more efficient to learn the first 100 moves, as these are usually bigger than endgame moves, however as we all know that the endgame is often neglected, learning especially this part of the game has its own benefits.

FWIW, I am wondering what would be the best method of learning a pro game. Just memorizing the moves it possibly not enough to get the most out of the pro match. My idea would be to check for every move what are your own ideas, maybe 3 to 5 move candidates, then prioritize them so that you have your found own best move. Then compare it to the pro move and try to find out why that pro move is better.

Other ideas?

Just in the process of memorizing the moves you will get a feel how to play. I usually need to go about 5-10 times over a game to memorize the first 100 moves. To do that you need anchors like "Ah well, at this point he played tenuki there, despite his moyo not finished". This anchors basically tell u the story like "don't overfocus on your moyo, but look at the whole game".

[SoDesuNe]

I memorized pro games a while ago and after a couple of games, I just needed two to three playouts to remember the average 150 moves (I skipped the endgame). The biggest problem was always to remember Kikashis, respectively their timing.

Well, after I memorized five or more games, my memory of previous games started fading rapidly, so I ended up needing more energy and time to keep previous memorized games fresh than to learn new ones. I finally stopped at around ten games because progress (memorizing new games) was too slow.

So, I think one should differ between memorizing pro games and being able to replay them like one day or two or to keep like 100 games in mind, which I read on Antti Törmannen's blog Inseis should do.