The struggles of a go enthusiast in a far away galaxy

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If it's seki that means that T14 is also correct right?

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=3913

In all cases it's either gote-seki (like the solution) or b manages to kill w inside. Don't know what i'm missing.

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WEEK 2
2nd week since the return of the prodigal son

First of all my progress from 9/12-15/12 in relation to the two books i'm studying

Life and Death: ''To make one eye'' 7/8
''Half eyes'' 3/3
''Bent four in the corner'' 6.5/7
''The one-two points etc.'' 5/6
''Placement:Attack and Defence'' 4/5
''Throw-ins'' 5.5/6
''The L group'' 3.5/5

Tesuji: ''Linking groups together'' 17.5/20

From Friday-Sunday i was such a slucker i did the above till Thursday

In general i'm not a playing maniac -also hate blitz- and when i do it's probably ASR games which last over 1 hour so i tend to play only a couple of games during the week. I'll post 2 games from ASR that were left unreviewed.

was bad i think. Up to this point i believe i did ok.
After that i started being way behind in time and after move which was a huge oversight on my part i was in SD and had to play intuitively for the remaining 70 moves. I started playing aggressively which in the end paid but i was lucky to find which pretty much sealed the game. Well, he was also in byo-yomi after move 188 so he also wasn't exactly safe. All in all this game turned out to be a good blitz practice -and a mistake festival-

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=3946

As for the other game it was more clear. I sucked big time. I added some comments here and there but they're not much. As you can see i spent the entire half hour by move 95! What can i say i'm a notoriously slow player

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=3947

If anyone wants to review i'd be delighted.

[NPatel]

Here are my comments on the last game. Hope it helps.

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=3948

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Thank you Patel, it does help.

personal stuff following if you're bored just skip to the question

I read something in Ember's journal about OGA and made me think about something more general; my emotions during a game. First of all i'd like to stress how competitive i am when it comes to mind games. Since i suck at everything else in my life it seems like all i have to depend on my intellectual abilities (not entirely sure about this but it can't be far from the truth). Couple of months ago i used to be very disturbed about a stupid mistake, a misreading call it what you like and especially after a loss i thought i didn't deserve i would get very angry. In the course of a little more than a year (since my beginning) i have smashed to smithereens 3 wireless mice and a cellphone Now, i think i have long overcome this attitude but still i can't control my emotions some times and occasionally i'm aware of their physical manifestations. The most dramatic is numbness in my palms especially, when i'm in severe time trouble.

I'm just curious about the experiences of other people. A friend of mine told me about some famous KGS players (6d+) that tend to curse, leave angrily, use sarcasm to mock their opponents etc. What are your feelings? And more importantly what ticks have you observed during your games?

[karaklis]

OGA and getting angry during or after the game are different things, but they are related since they obviously have the same source: dissatisfaction. When I was still actively playing, I've never got really angry at myself, but I severely suffered from OGA, since I knew I would most probably get dissatisfied with my poor play (which always made me feel reluctant to start a game). So it seems there are two main ways to deal with the satisfaction: smashing wireless mice and cellphones, or refrain from starting games. Both are obviously not the best reactions and do not solve the problem, but I haven't found any medicine to encounter it. I will ask Ember how she got over her OGA...

[Boidhre]

OGA and getting angry during or after the game are different things, but they are related since they obviously have the same source: dissatisfaction. When I was still actively playing, I've never got really angry at myself, but I severely suffered from OGA, since I knew I would most probably get dissatisfied with my poor play (which always made me feel reluctant to start a game). So it seems there are two main ways to deal with the satisfaction: smashing wireless mice and cellphones, or refrain from starting games. Both are obviously not the best reactions and do not solve the problem, but I haven't found any medicine to encounter it. I will ask Ember how she got over her OGA...

For me OGA was never about dissatisfaction with my own games after the fact, it was simple anxiety about what my opponents would think of me or that I'd be abused verbally during a match or something. Bear in mind I can't walk around crowded public places alone without wearing headphones and listening to loud music or I'll get suspicious that others are talking about me, staring at me, plotting me harm and stuff, so I'm not exactly normal.

I've the same stuff on here, I constantly feel like my posts are being ridiculed via PM or whatever. It can happen with any interaction with others to be honest, nothing go specific. Eh, you learn to live with it or become a hermit, just how well you can deal with it will vary day to day, week to week.

Edit: Actually, specifically I've never feared losing. I've never beaten myself up over lost tournament games or similar. But I'm absolutely petrified of playing an even game with someone the same rank and being absolutely wiped off the board, not because I'd have lost but because of some kind of absurd line of thought that this would reveal me as a some kind of fraud and really I'm a lot weaker than my rank says or something. This is obviously silly, one crushing loss doesn't wipe out all the previous games that get you to a certain rank and rank doesn't really mean much in the first place anyway between two individual players but eh, anxiety is rarely rational.

[RBerenguel]

I can't walk around crowded public places alone without wearing headphones and listening to loud music or I'll get suspicious that others are talking about me, staring at me, plotting me harm and stuff, so I'm not exactly normal.

Most people are too lazy to buy headphones or worry what others will think if they wear them in crowded places...

[daal]

I'm absolutely petrified of playing an even game with someone the same rank and being absolutely wiped off the board, not because I'd have lost but because of some kind of absurd line of thought that this would reveal me as a some kind of fraud and really I'm a lot weaker than my rank says or something. This is obviously silly, one crushing loss doesn't wipe out all the previous games that get you to a certain rank and rank doesn't really mean much in the first place anyway between two individual players but eh, anxiety is rarely rational.

This perfectly describes how I used to feel before and during many of my online games. As you say, anxiety is rarely rational, but I think its causes are not difficult to make out. First of all, we know enough to know that many of our moves are bad, and all it takes is for our opponent to punish one of them to make us feel exposed as someone who didn't know what they were doing. Another thing is that anyone who has been on KGS for a while has heard some trash talk and for some of us with a thin skin, it seems to echo in our minds when we get beaten. What scared me most though was the feeling of being utterly blindsided, being rendered helpless and not knowing how it happened, and I think this goes away with time.

My anxiety gradually diminished with experience, and as I gathered it, the game losing mistakes, the sudden awful things that can happen, the cut I didn't see and so on, became less of a surprise. When I lose now, it no longer feels as if my opponent possessed some magical power or knowledge that was light years beyond me. I've seen it before. Getting caught in a shortage of liberties, misreading during a fight, seeing an unlikely invasion survive etc. It feels normal when these things happen and it's nice to see that experience causes them to happen less often. Trash talk still bothers me, but mostly because it's a distraction, a cheap trick, not because it has any merit.

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OGA and getting angry during or after the game are different things, but they are related since they obviously have the same source: dissatisfaction...

Well, yes of course that's why i wrote ''...made me think about something more general...''
The fact still remains, with OGA or not there are physical manifestations of my emotions running through a game. I noticed another one yesterday in a game against a much stronger opponent: increased heartbeat
I don't think it was because of fear or anxiety, more because of excitement i believe. So, up until this point we have numbness and increased heartbeat. What about you guys?

[Boidhre]

OGA and getting angry during or after the game are different things, but they are related since they obviously have the same source: dissatisfaction...

Well, yes of course that's why i wrote ''...made me think about something more general...''
The fact still remains, with OGA or not there are physical manifestations of my emotions running through a game. I noticed another one yesterday in a game against a much stronger opponent: increased heartbeat
I don't think it was because of fear or anxiety, more because of excitement i believe. So, up until this point we have numbness and increased heartbeat. What about you guys?

I feel that at the start of a tournament game, hands shake and similar with tension/expectation/whatever. 5 or 6 moves into the game though I've calmed down.

[Boidhre]

I can't walk around crowded public places alone without wearing headphones and listening to loud music or I'll get suspicious that others are talking about me, staring at me, plotting me harm and stuff, so I'm not exactly normal.

Most people are too lazy to buy headphones or worry what others will think if they wear them in crowded places...

Eh what? Are you making a joke or something?

[RBerenguel]

Eh what? Are you making a joke or something?

Not exactly a joke, closer to a pun I guess. My impression is that almost everyone shares this traits in some degree or another... And that quite a few people are just afraid of what others will say if they *do* wear headphones. It wasn't meant to be a dismissal, or (I expect) a bad joke on something personal. It was more like a reassurement, at least how I thought it.

[Boidhre]

Eh what? Are you making a joke or something?

Not exactly a joke, closer to a pun I guess. My impression is that almost everyone shares this traits in some degree or another... And that quite a few people are just afraid of what others will say if they *do* wear headphones. It wasn't meant to be a dismissal, or (I expect) a bad joke on something personal. It was more like a reassurement, at least how I thought it.

No worries, just over sensitivity on my part, sorry. The standard crap people with mental illness get in my country and the UK at least is "snap out of it, stop worrying about it" which is about as useful as telling someone with pneumonia to stop coughing. The rational part of my mind was thinking "no, RBerenguel has always come across like a nice guy and wouldn't be doing that kind of thing" but the wording hit a nerve unfortunately.

[Ember]

The fact still remains, with OGA or not there are physical manifestations of my emotions running through a game. I noticed another one yesterday in a game against a much stronger opponent: increased heartbeat
I don't think it was because of fear or anxiety, more because of excitement i believe. So, up until this point we have numbness and increased heartbeat. What about you guys?

I even got two for you:

Nervous stomach. REALLY nervous stomach. Be it internet or tournament games, most of the times I'll have to leave at least once during the beginning of the game for the bathroom (I'm usually ok after the opening). It is not as bad today as it once was (my record is four times during one tournament game), but it is annoying indeed and I have no idea how I'll ever be able to overcome this. I guess not only excitement, but fear as well is the reason of this. Fear of loosing, fear of playing bad moves, fear of my opponent's moves.. Among others. My only hope is that it recently got better, just as my OGA, it might get better and better in the future, too. However, if I'll ever suffer from costiveness I'll know exactly what to do. I just hope that there'll be a internet connection available. Or a tournament.

Oh, and during some games (especially with long main thinking times or during summer / when the room I'm playing the tournament in gets really warm) I turn quite red in the face, too. At least, when I'm trying really hard and when I'm reading many (long) sequences. That's also the reason why I bring a fan to most of the tournaments I attend. For me, it is not just a nifty accessory, I sometimes really need it. And I really don't care if others find that a silly habit.

Come on guys, I'm sure there is more!

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WEEK 3-5
brace yourselves, long read is coming

It's been a while since my last update. I didn't think it was worth my time writing my progress down since nothing spectacular has happened. I played only a few games and solved tsumego and tesuji problems. Also, after a couple of months of restrain i smashed another mouse after a loss...i guess habits die hard

From ''Tesuji'' i left out the chapter ''Making shape'' since it seems i have a hard time understanding the concept and the final problems since i don't want to spoil them. I will review the whole book one more time and then i'll attempt them.

From ''Life and Death'' i reached till ''The J groups'' and stopped there. I had been having increasing difficulty in solving the problems in an adequate amount of time. For many problems i would take up to 20 minutes (and some times more) to read out and this started getting on my nerves so i put that aside and focused only on ''Tesuji''. This bring me to a question i've been meaning to ask; in your opinion in order to get something like 70-80% accuracy how strong must someone be 5k ,8k etc?

As of now, i'm reading ''38 Basic Josekis'' and just started ''Attack and Defense''. I have read till page 31 and i'm already impressed with the content. This book has something that the previous lacked; depth. Maybe 38 could be excused, but as i was reading ''Tesuji'' and ''L&D'' i got the impression that Davies lacked the will of explaining those concepts. Maybe he didn't want to elaborate on those concepts. Maybe the format of those books is designed in that way to train your reading through endless examples and you'll begin to understand the deeper meaning as you go along. I'd say that ''Tesuji'' and ''L&D'' are the equivalent of a supplementary book in a mathematics course; the kind of book which has little theory and is full of solved examples whereas ''A&D'' is the work of an expert on this field, full of theory and rigorous proofs. On the other hand the concept of this book is strategy instead of tactics so the deeper thinking might be expected.
Maybe i'm just biased since i recognised myself as early as page 21 and i quote
''...like a certain player we knew whose sole purpose in the game was the destruction of enemy stones.''
and he goes on to explain in depth the shortcomings of such an approach. I think i gained a stone just by reading those pages

Despite my limited experience i have the impression that chess players tend to play that way. A reason could be that they are accustomed to the nature of that game. In chess it's much easier to attack successfully than defend. In most cases even a solid defense can lead to a prolonged fight with a seemingly passive position which would result in a draw at best. Also the prize in chess is much more profound. Attack the king and attempt to mate him (all you chess players out there who want to murder me for this sacrilege please consider the notion i'm trying to convey and not the details). So, all in all especially for all those who play this do or die style i would recommend reading this book.

As usual my statistics from ''Tesuji'' and ''L&D'' is as follows
L&D
''The first L+1 group'' 4/6 (took me huge amounts of time)
''The second L+1 group'' 5.5/6
''The L+2 group'' 2/5 (rediculously difficult)
''The tripod group'' 4/6
''The J group'' 3/6

Tesuji
''Cutting groups apart'' 7/10
''Into enemy territory'' 10.5/
''Escape'' 9.5/11
''Sacrifice to gain tempo'' 11/13
''Tesuji for attack'' 10.5/18 (last 9 problems tough as nails)
''How to connect'' 7/12
''Ignore the atari'' 5/12
''Double threat tesuji'' 6/9

From now there will be a change of context in my posts. Instead of posting games to be reviewed i'll try to post positions, tsumego, tesuji, joseki and stuff that i come across in my studies/games. Maybe this will be more interesting. Stay tuned!