Studying Go in China

Uberdude · Post by **Uberdude** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 12:48 am

Bill, in your A white can answer d18 at e19 to save two points on the top as the f17 cut is not a problem afterwards, unlike in Hushfield's. But black could then tenuki that as it is a slightly beneficial exchange as white follows up with extend rather than ponnuki to save the c18 stone which means black now gets a19 in sente. Complicated!

So if black plays d18 early enough that he would then tenuki e19 white should tenuki d18 and then black's follow up is e19 kosumi not e18 push. I doubt many would get that right in a game, I wouldn't before today.

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Tue Jul 08, 2014 3:09 am

Uberdude wrote:Bill, in your A white can answer d18 at e19 to save two points on the top as the f17 cut is not a problem afterwards, unlike in Hushfield's. But black could then tenuki that as it is a slightly beneficial exchange as white follows up with extend rather than ponnuki to save the c18 stone which means black now gets a19 in sente. Complicated!

So if black plays d18 early enough that he would then tenuki e19 white should tenuki d18 and then black's follow up is e19 kosumi not e18 push. I doubt many would get that right in a game, I wouldn't before today.

Oops!

Funny how I always consider the E-19 response in play and in solving problems, but overlooked it in composing that one.

I tried to eliminate the complexities of plays above the second line, because the analysis gets longer and trickier. I succeeded in oversimplifying.

Edit: Having done some analysis, it looks like Black D-18 is ambiguous and E-19 has the same size, each gaining 4 2/3 points. So normal play with Black first after Black's earlier B-18 is D-18, E-19, tenuki.

Anyway, I will redo that problem and check the others. Thanks.

Edit 2: Same thing with problem E. F-01 is better for White than the atari at F-02.

Hushfield · Post by **Hushfield** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 2:28 am

Seeing Knotwilg's cryptic warning in another thread that reporting and improving are communicating vessels, I might cool it a bit on the pace of writing here. I will still post games I play, and do the occasional write-up, but the endgame posts turned into several hours which were not put into solving go problems.

After a few more reviews from Yan Laoshi it finally sank in that I will have to do a lot of work. It's pretty motivating to be the weakest go player in town, and yesterday I spent around 8 hours doing go problems. That's on top of yesterday's 4 hours at the go school, which consisted of 1,5 hour of joseki study and 2,5 hours of playing games. I played an even game with another one of the kids and won by 6 points. Unfortunately, I can't show the sgf as pretty early on during the review I couldn't remember the move order. My opponent - calling him not quite focused would be the understatement of the month - couldn't either, so there was not much for Yan Laoshi to review. Hopefully this will be a one-time only brain fart, as I would like to actually get my games reviewed, and I don't want to write a record while I'm playing.

Today was our day off, but with 6 hours of problems and 2 hours of joseki study it's not quite the homely holiday one might expect. I'm finally getting into the study-zone, and have faith that prolonged exposure to this sort of regime will eventually show results. It's only 17:30 here, so I can squeeze in some more problems before dinner. Afterwards, we're going shopping (and I hope to score some more problem books).

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 8:16 am

Hushfield wrote:I would like to actually get my games reviewed, and I don't want to write a record while I'm playing.

It is not customary in go to record your own games during play, but I took up the practice, at least for serious games, after reading Krogius's book, Psychology in Chess. Botvinnik, IIRC, recommended first deciding on your play, then writing it down, and then making it. He also recommended noting which plays took you a long time to decide upon, as they indicated areas of difficulty which needed study. I found following that discipline salutary.

RBerenguel · Post by **RBerenguel** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 8:27 am

Bill Spight wrote:
Hushfield wrote:I would like to actually get my games reviewed, and I don't want to write a record while I'm playing.

It is not customary in go to record your own games during play, but I took up the practice, at least for serious games, after reading Krogius's book, Psychology in Chess. Botvinnik, IIRC, recommended first deciding on your play, then writing it down, and then making it. He also recommended noting which plays took you a long time to decide upon, as they indicated areas of difficulty which needed study. I found following that discipline salutary.

Beware, in go this could be considered cheating, since recording the move before making is a visual aid (in go.) In chess, since the notation is not graphical (enough graphical) it is not considered as such. Source: Don't remember (meh, memory) but read it relatively recently while checking some go rules vs chess rules.

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 9:51 am

RBerenguel wrote:
Bill Spight wrote:
Hushfield wrote:I would like to actually get my games reviewed, and I don't want to write a record while I'm playing.

It is not customary in go to record your own games during play, but I took up the practice, at least for serious games, after reading Krogius's book, Psychology in Chess. Botvinnik, IIRC, recommended first deciding on your play, then writing it down, and then making it. He also recommended noting which plays took you a long time to decide upon, as they indicated areas of difficulty which needed study. I found following that discipline salutary.

Beware, in go this could be considered cheating, since recording the move before making is a visual aid (in go.) In chess, since the notation is not graphical (enough graphical) it is not considered as such. Source: Don't remember (meh, memory) but read it relatively recently while checking some go rules vs chess rules.

If you record the move in ink (non-erasable, OC) and then always make the move, how is it an aid, visual or otherwise?

Perhaps you are thinking of recording the move on a phone or other electronic device. In a tournament recording it on such a device before making the play would be a no-no. A pen and paper recording is different.

In any event, you decide on the move before recording it, even if you are recording it on an erasable medium. No take-backs.

Shenoute · Post by **Shenoute** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 9:56 am

EGF GENERAL TOURNAMENT RULES wrote:3. PLAYER AND SPECTATOR BEHAVIOUR
>2. Player behaviour
>>5. Recording
If a recording medium of any kind is used, the move must be completed before it is recorded.

Source

RBerenguel · Post by **RBerenguel** » Wed Jul 09, 2014 10:50 am

Shenoute wrote:
EGF GENERAL TOURNAMENT RULES wrote:3. PLAYER AND SPECTATOR BEHAVIOUR
>2. Player behaviour
>>5. Recording
If a recording medium of any kind is used, the move must be completed before it is recorded.

Source

I knew I had read it somewhere

Bill, in a kifu, drawing (even a number) allows you to visualise more easily 1 move ahead. It's like hovering over KGS (which I'm ashamed to admit of doing, but of course, it helps with anti-slip to pre-move where you intend to do it, specially on trackpads.) Since chess is purely notational, it should be no issue.

Also, I read (I guess there, too) that you can write down whatever you wish as long as it is not an aid to visualising moves. So, could write down scores of areas, ideas or a love poem. But don't draw any dots in there XD

Hushfield · Post by **Hushfield** » Thu Jul 10, 2014 7:10 am

Thanks for the update on the rules regarding recording games, I'll keep that in mind. Today we went to school 1 again. After some joseki study I played 3 games. Luckily, I managed to remember every move played, so I have reviews this time around.

During the entire first game I felt like I wasn't in control of what was happening, and even though I managed to get into a winning position somehow, my poor reading made me lose relatively easy. The review by Yan Laoshi can be found below.

The second game was a two stone game. After both players made some pretty bad mistakes, I managed to get ahead in the fighting, and killed a large group. Again, review is by Yan Laoshi. There is a tesuji question at move 44.

The third game was a rematch against the opponent from the first game. Strengthened by the second game, I did much better this time around. It also helped he played even more ridiculous overplays. As this was a win by resignation before 50 moves, Yan Laoshi did not review the game.

After school I did around 4 more hours of problems, and watched a review of a 4 stone handicap game between Yan Laoshi and one of his local students. It turned into a really interesting lecture on how to play handicap. One of the most interesting things that was highlighted was that black should choose joseki that are easy to control and end in sente. that way you can have safe corners and also play big points. This way black can maintain its 4-stone advantage into the middle game. The way to carry the advantage through the middle game is by paying close attention to shape. If black can play in good shape everywhere, white has almost no chance.

The lecture was really interesting, but it did eat into my problem time. 4 hours wasn't enough for the problems I wanted to do, I should try to get more problems in tomorrow.

Knotwilg · Post by **Knotwilg** » Thu Jul 10, 2014 7:18 am

Great stuff Hushfield. It's inspiring. I've done about 200 problems over the past days.
What is the level of the problems you try? Are they enclosed L&D only or cut/connect too?

Hope your vessels remain large enough to keep reporting

. But if they don't, stop pleasing our thirst for your latest.

edit: BTW, I don't understand at all why White resigned in the 3rd game. He can create an eye at R10 and at the top. Black's attack will have failed then and the influence to the open area is White's. I think Black "screwed up" by repeatedly attacking that group with contact plays. Before that, White's play sinned against the "small gaps" principle and Black had a good attack going.

edit2: I looked at the 2 stone game too and it seems you can read about 1-2-3 and ja-choong-soo on SL to your advantage. But you have Yan already

Bill Spight · Post by **Bill Spight** » Thu Jul 10, 2014 11:05 am

RBerenguel wrote:Bill, in a kifu, drawing (even a number) allows you to visualise more easily 1 move ahead. It's like hovering over KGS.

It is true that when I wrote about recording the play before playing the stone, I was thinking of what I had done back in the '70s, using pen and paper. OC, recording on an electronic device is different.

(There are apparently psychological differences, as well, but let's not take that detour here.)

We had hovering back then, however. Some people would hold a stone over the board before playing, and sometimes pull their hand back. Others would actually put a stone on the board, but keep a finger on it, on the theory that the stone was not played until the finger was removed.

The discipline (which is what it is) is first, to decide where to play, then, having made that decision, to record the play (with pen and paper), and then to make the play. Any resemblance to hovering is purely superficial.

RBerenguel · Post by **RBerenguel** » Thu Jul 10, 2014 11:14 am

Bill Spight wrote:
RBerenguel wrote:Bill, in a kifu, drawing (even a number) allows you to visualise more easily 1 move ahead. It's like hovering over KGS.

It is true that when I wrote about recording the play before playing the stone, I was thinking of what I had done back in the '70s, using pen and paper. OC, recording on an electronic device is different. (There are apparently psychological differences, as well, but let's not take that detour here.)

We had hovering back then, however. Some people would hold a stone over the board before playing, and sometimes pull their hand back. Others would actually put a stone on the board, but keep a finger on it, on the theory that the stone was not played until the finger was removed.

The discipline (which is what it is) is first, to decide where to play, then, having made that decision, to record the play (with pen and paper), and then to make the play. Any resemblance to hovering is purely superficial.

I know, and I don't think half a move makes that much of a difference. It's just that the rules are weird like this :/

Hushfield · Post by **Hushfield** » Fri Jul 11, 2014 12:27 am

Knotwilg: I'm doing around 70% enclosed life and death, 30% tesuji for connecting or capturing cutting stones. The problems range from easy to upper intermediate difficulty, by my reading standards that is. My reading is still very, very slow, but I'm getting a bit better at keeping stones visualized. That's the only noticeable improvement so far, I don't have to start over as often in reading the same branch because I lost track of where the stones are.

Below are today's games. The first game was an experiment with a new joseki I recently studied and wanted to try in game. Luckily, I used it horribly wrong, so now I know the conditions for using this joseki. Afterwards it was more stumbling about with missed chances by both players until I killed something big. My moves were too slow afterwards and almost allowed white to catch up, but then I managed an endgame reduction and the game ended.

The second game was a sort of repeat of the first game I played against Zhong Feng. I ended up with another large framework, which he ended having to live in. Last time, somebody pointed out that I should not have tried to kill the invading stones at all, just harass them while making territory, and finish the game in endgame. This all went according to plan, but then I got too greedy and failed to come back to a point with a lot of aji. Think ko fight, bruce lee, lots of blood, bit of shakespeare at the end and me resigning an almost even game while having sente.

I'm off for more go problems now.

Oh, if I don't show up for some days, it's because the internet is being tricksy. I often can't log on to L19 for some reason.

SoDesuNe · Post by **SoDesuNe** » Fri Jul 11, 2014 1:32 am

Hushfield wrote:[...] but I'm getting a bit better at keeping stones visualized.

I always wondered if that is an essential part of your reading skill or if it's just a common phrase?

When I "read" a sequence, I don't visualize stones - not actively anyway. I just know I have a stone here and my opponent will most likely answer there and so on. It's more a dissection of a known shape (through it's weaknesses).

Bill Spight mentioned somewhere the difference between reading and seeing, if I'm not mistaken. I very rarely read (when that's visualizing stones) but I see a lot, most likely due to the only real training I put into my Go - problems and problems and some more problems.

Maybe I'm bad at reading, though I somehow question that because to be able to see sequences I had to practice those a bunch of times by reading them in problem form. That's also what I remembered from my beginnings: I read a lot more because I didn't know anything (first and foremost shape) to conquer a problem, I dully tried every (meaningless) move. The more shapes I "solved" the less I needed to read.

Then again I'm also super lazy and use my finger to solve ladders in non-serious club-games =)

Abyssinica · Post by **Abyssinica** » Fri Jul 11, 2014 1:38 am

SoDesuNe wrote:Maybe I'm bad at reading, though I somehow question that because to be able to see sequences I had to practice those a bunch of times by reading them in problem form. That's also what I remembered from my beginnings: I read a lot more because I didn't know anything (first and foremost shape) to conquer a problem, I dully tried every (meaningless) move. The more shapes I "solved" the less I needed to read.

I remember, too, when first starting to do Life and Death problems I would try every single move there was in order to solve the problem, and then as time went on it took a lot less because I knew where to start reading. I also had simple heuristics like "Okay, white definitly has one eye there no matter what I do so I need to somehow make the rest of this space eyeless." etc.

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