A beginner's journal of little interest

[Boidhre]

Thank you Bill and Ed for your comments.

Ed, you're completely correct, not extending there was spineless.

Bill, you're correct, I just wasn't paying attention to the whole board, a key problem of mine at the moment.

[Boidhre]

A game with TwitchGo. I was completely outplayed. I think I'm around 10k KGS strength at the moment, if that.

Too many slow, over-concentrated moves in the opening, waiting far too late to reduce White's potential on the left. Poor choice of pincer in the bottom right I think as well as me playing terribly down there and giving him a huge turn. Some horrible misreads too. Still, an enjoyable game and has put me in the mood for more.



Ignore the variations, I was just looking at the bottom right situation with GoGoD to see what mistakes I made and I'm too tired to go edit the sgf file and remove them.

Take home points from the game:

a) Need to fight smarter/better in the corners.
b) Need to reduce my opponent's potential as a matter of priority rather than taking territory for myself.

[EdLee]

a) Need to fight smarter/better in the corners.
b) Need to reduce my opponent's potential as a matter of priority rather than taking territory for myself.

Suggestions:
(a*) Fight smarter/better everywhere, on every single move, not just in the corners.
(b*) If reducing/invading is good for you, do it;
if just building your own moyo/territory is good for you, do it.

[Boidhre]

Perhaps I approach go with the wrong mentality. I focus too much on the life of my groups and not on the game board itself. I don't think it's an issue of doing too many tsumego, this was observed in my play back when I was 22k. Hmm, maybe I need to experiment with a less passive/defensive style? I don't know. Looking over today's game with oren, I went for life when I was behind pretty much sealing the game for my opponent, this is the kind of mentality I need to challenge I think.


In heath news, I'm pretty sure I'm depressed at the moment from my sleep disturbance, lack of concentration, negative outlook on life and so on. Doing problems and playing games is taking the edge off though, which is nice.

[EdLee]

I focus too much on the life of my groups and not on the game board itself.

If we focus on any one thing to the exclusion of everything else, we're in trouble.
Most of us have this problem, I think.
Focus too much on a single leaf, we lose sight of the tree;
focus too much on a single tree, we lose sight of the forest. (*) Cliche, cliche.
We're trying to see everything. Both the local and the global.
I'm blind most of the time.




___________
(*) Most recently encountered in Vagabond by Inoue Takehiko.

[Boidhre]

If we focus on any one thing to the exclusion of everything else, we're in trouble.

Yes, and it's a very hard instinct to untrain. I find it somewhat easier on a real board to take a step back and look at the global situation but I still have a lot of problems there. I very much think this overly local focus of mine is going to be a serious barrier to progress for me.

Edit: At least I can see it as a problem in my game in reviews and after making moves. That's an improvement over the blind ignorance to the issue that persisted before.

[skydyr]

As a side note, putting all the stones on ones side onto the 3rd line is usually not the best idea, as they're slightly more robust against cutting if you mix it up between the third and the fourth, and it gives you much better moyo potential and influence, because it's more costly for your opponent to cap.

Also, in the beginning, it's fine to choose to ignore white's approach to the bottom right and take the other corner. If you're worried about the taisha (I remember it came up recently), you can approach the top left as a ladder-breaker to get into a more simple variation, and if your opponent persists in attacking your bottom right corner, just play in the top left and exchange.

[Boidhre]

As a side note, putting all the stones on ones side onto the 3rd line is usually not the best idea, as they're slightly more robust against cutting if you mix it up between the third and the fourth, and it gives you much better moyo potential and influence, because it's more costly for your opponent to cap.

Also, in the beginning, it's fine to choose to ignore white's approach to the bottom right and take the other corner. If you're worried about the taisha (I remember it came up recently), you can approach the top left as a ladder-breaker to get into a more simple variation, and if your opponent persists in attacking your bottom right corner, just play in the top left and exchange.

Yeah I was having a bad fuseki day I'm afraid.

[EdLee]

Yes, and it's a very hard instinct to untrain.

It's discipline (some may call it strength). Yes, bad habits die hard.
If you discipline yourself to do some kind of checklist on every move, it should help; for example:
- do I have any weak groups (force you to look globally)
- does my opponent have any weak groups (force you to look globally)
- is it good for me to reduce or invade (force you to look globally)
- is it good for me to just expand my moyo/territory (force you to look globally)
- what's the score (force you to look globally)
etc. etc.
If you do this consistently, it becomes a good habit,
and (hopefully) with some positive reinforcements, eventually second nature.

[Boidhre]

I'm mostly at the moment preparing myself mentally for the long grind that will be the next few stones. I feel like my progress has stalled this past month. Regardless, this doesn't really bother me much, I quite like the idea of having to work for each stone! Now if I'm stuck for several months at some kyu level I'll definitely be eating my words (replace that if with multiple whens to be honest!). But I wouldn't mind having a stable rank for a while to give me a chance to consolidate what I've learned so far in a stable environment rather than one where I'm constantly faced with changing handicaps before I mentally feel ready for the change. I don't feel like I have to race anyone, I just need to work to improve my strength, mindset and general knowledge of the game and the rest will hopefully take care of itself.

Not that I'm pessimistically saying that progress will definitely be slow, I just expect it to be an awful lot harder from now on and want to prepare myself mentally for that to avoid disappointment etc if my rank stays fixed for a while. Not that I don't want to improve quickly, I'll work to make that happen as best I can with a family etc. I just don't expect that to happen in the SDK ranks.



So as always a plan!

1) Play more games. This will happen naturally as my club starts to meet twice a week in two weeks. hopefully I'll be able to deal better with my personal version of online go anxiety too.

2) Study! I'm working on tsumego mainly at the moment and some shape problems. But mostly tsumego, I feel my reading is weak and I notice elementary mistakes in my reading when doing problems. My theory reading is mostly for fun rather than progress. But I badly need to finish working through Tesuji by Davies, I'm not finding it the easiest of books to get through unfortunately.

3) Get lessons/teaching games. Well I've gotten a few lessons from Murugandi on KGS, mainly because we get on quite well since we met at an Irish tournament. Do I need lessons at my level? Probably not. Do I enjoy lessons? Very much so. Topazg is also giving me teaching games which I'm very thankful for.

4) Play stronger players on reduced or no handicap. I do this anyway at the club. If anything my problem might be not playing people my own level even.

[skydyr]

There are also valuable lessons to be learned from playing weaker players, especially with handicap. A lot of the time, a stronger player may avoid something you are in the process of working on because it's become second nature to them and they read its appearance and adjust before you know it might occur. Also, playing against a handicap teaches you how to play lightly and efficiently, and how to complicate the game when you're behind.

Not to mention that it's good karma to help people the way others have helped you

[Boidhre]

There are also valuable lessons to be learned from playing weaker players, especially with handicap. A lot of the time, a stronger player may avoid something you are in the process of working on because it's become second nature to them and they read its appearance and adjust before you know it might occur. Also, playing against a handicap teaches you how to play lightly and efficiently, and how to complicate the game when you're behind.

Not to mention that it's good karma to help people the way others have helped you

I agree. I just don't know that many weaker players, I try to give teaching games when I can though.

[Boidhre]

Too depressed at the club to play a full game. Concentration just couldn't take it. Annoying.

[Boidhre]

So I should update properly on the club because we had new players! This is a rather big deal in a tiny city in a country with a tiny go community.

They both got a lot of small board games in and had a lot of fun from the way they've been going on about it in Skype this evening. This is great since one of them is the friend I talked about earlier as having been bitten by the go bug.

So my friend had his first ever win at go, B+15, 4H 9x9 against an EGF 6k, which is nice within 10 games of go! We'll have the new college season starting soon and we're hoping for a new bunch of players to join up. It's wonderful seeing people take up this game with enthusiasm.

My go style was described as "old man go" by the other newbie after he'd played some games with the others (I play like how he'd expect an old man to play, safely). This amused me greatly. The same new player made a bet with me that within six months he'll be beating me even. Makes life more interesting with a bet on the line.



I am depressed at the moment. My concentration is terrible. This obviously affects my go, as well as life in general. Nothing to do but batten down the hatches and get on with things as best I can. I can't see myself playing much serious go like this, I play 10 moves and then don't know what to do next, it's extremely frustrating. But I can do problems I suppose (badly) and other forms of go study if I make an effort. My outlook on life has been very negative the past few days, to the point where I question life's meaning and such. We'll see how things pan out, I'll call my psychiatrist in the morning and see about getting a script for Lithium sooner rather than later, being off mood stabilisers is just not panning out well for me right now. Anyway, I'm not sure when I'll next post a game as I'm not in a fit state to play at the moment but I might whine a bit about being depressed, we'll see.

[Yukontodd]

But I badly need to finish working through Tesuji by Davies, I'm not finding it the easiest of books to get through unfortunately.

I really dislike this book too. I have been having much better luck with "Get Strong at Tesuji". It's almost entirely problems, six problems per page with brief answers on the flip side, all levels mixed together but graded with one to three stars. If it's too hard now, you'll maybe like it better than Tesuji once you hit sdk.