Help a Beginner :) Game Review

[SamT]

Hi!

I'm a newbie here and to the game, playing now for about 6.5 weeks.

This is me playing against a computer at "2 kyu" setting. I lose, of course, by 50+ points, but I was proud not to lose by 120 or 80 for a change.

I blame this mostly on Hushfield because his training journal inspired me to take the last 4 days and feed myself a steady diet of Tsumego, Tesuji, and Joseki for 8-12 hours a day.

It's helping a lot, but it's hard because my wife and kiddo are out of town. I really would prefer to be in a room with other people who are studying or interested in go, but I don't really have anyone that plays. The solitariness of my effort and the loneliness of the big empty apartment distract me and make the study less fun and more of a "why am I bothering to learn this game at all?" situation.

I need some go camaraderie, dammit! But the go club doesn't meet until Thursday.

I thought I would post this game, though, and see where you guys say I should improve.

[EdLee]

Hi Sam,

Welcome to Go.

notice there is a vital point for this jump -- D15, the "elephant's eye", between and .

immediately hits the vital point.

can you see if you block at C15, it's a very big move for Black ?

Can you see hits another elephant's eye ?

- Can you see another elephant's eye ?

For your current phase, I strongly recommend you play lots and lots of games.
At this point, experience is very important and is very beneficial for you.
Direct, personal experience in many, many games.

[Bill Spight]

Hi, Sam!

I played in the first Dallas open, back in the 1970s.

Some comments, to illustrate some ideas, with no guarantee that any suggestion is right. (And failure to comment does not mean that your play is best. )



Main focus: Connect your stones, separate your opponent's stones.

Also: Make a base for your stones to live.

[Mike Novack]

Hi!

I'm a newbie here and to the game, playing now for about 6.5 weeks.

This is me playing against a computer at "2 kyu" setting. I lose, of course, by 50+ points, but I was proud not to lose by 120 or 80 for a change.

What are you playing on (and what program version) that you have MFOG playing at 2 kyu? << an early version of MFOG 12 that you never updated? Or some version of the program intended for playing on "communication devices" and similar weak computers>>

Note that with this program the margin of your loss means little or nothing. A human opponent might enjoy rolling up the score against you but MFOG only "cares" about winning by no matter how small a margin. That can become very important when judging how much of a handicap you need to take in oreder for the program to be a useful learning tool.

In other words, if you take three stones and lose by 10 points that does not mean three stones is correct. You might find yourself still losing by 10 points when you take four stones or five stones etc. What you want to do is discover the number of stones you need to be able to win once every four or five games (not quite enough of a handicap) and when you begin winning as much as once every three drop a stone.

NOTE: the reason you want the handicap set so that you sometimes win is so that you can learn the difference between "I played better that time, didn't make that silly mistake again" vs "why do I keep doing that?"

[SamT]

Hi Sam,

Welcome to Go.

notice there is a vital point for this jump -- D15, the "elephant's eye", between and .

immediately hits the vital point.

can you see if you block at C15, it's a very big move for Black ?

Can you see hits another elephant's eye ?

- Can you see another elephant's eye ?

For your current phase, I strongly recommend you play lots and lots of games.
At this point, experience is very important and is very beneficial for you.
Direct, personal experience in many, many games.

Thanks, Ed.

I will definitely keep an lookout for those elephant eyes. They seem to be a plague!

And I was completely oblivious to the C15 move. I still kind of am. It's just something I'm blind to right now, I guess. Probably because I can't keep track of points easily (I'm so new, it takes me several minutes to add them all up, and I have to do it again each move).

I suspect I need some efficient point-reading drills.

In regards to my training in the game so far, it feels like I'm trying to learn how to see again. And so far my eyes just don't work. There's lots of individual skills to this, and per the method of Deliberate Practice (which I often call my "religion"), each skill should be trained separately, with a separate and focused drill, on a schedule, and then those skills should be integrated on the board.

As an example in regards to integration, for this game I focused on:
1) Not getting caught on stupid squeezes on the edge where I lose 20 pieces, which has been happening an awful lot (succcess! I only lost a handful!)
2) Trying to build big moyos early on (partial success, though it seems I forgot to put in the actual Bases to help them live )
3) Defending those moyos (Meh. I defended one. Kind of. Lost most of the others. But at least I tried.)\
4) Not getting so laser-focused on the area I'm playing in that I don't even bother to look at what the opponent is doing (Yes, I do this. I'm a beginner. I can't be the only person in the world with this problem) (I did waaaay better at this than my other games. Yes, they are terrible games.)
5) Seeing if I could deploy my new 4-4 joseki (small knight's approach, 1 space and 2 space jumps; I could not find a place to play them)

In a way, even if I had lost by 200 points, if I had achieved my goals or tried to, I would be happy.

[SamT]

Hi, Sam!

I played in the first Dallas open, back in the 1970s.

Some comments, to illustrate some ideas, with no guarantee that any suggestion is right. (And failure to comment does not mean that your play is best. )


Main focus: Connect your stones, separate your opponent's stones.

Also: Make a base for your stones to live.

Thanks a ton, Bill!

I'll add those to my list of things to fix. (Somehow it just keeps getting longer and longer...)

[SamT]

NOTE: the reason you want the handicap set so that you sometimes win is so that you can learn the difference between "I played better that time, didn't make that silly mistake again" vs "why do I keep doing that?"

That's a good point, Mike

I'll look at figuring out a decent handicap where I might have a chance of winning.

[Bill Spight]

NOTE: the reason you want the handicap set so that you sometimes win is so that you can learn the difference between "I played better that time, didn't make that silly mistake again" vs "why do I keep doing that?"

That's a good point, Mike

I'll look at figuring out a decent handicap where I might have a chance of winning.

Here is an idea. When you lose a game, increase the handicap you take. When you win a game, decrease the handicap. (Your skill level will not be stable for some time, anyway. )

[SamT]

Here is an idea. When you lose a game, increase the handicap you take. When you win a game, decrease the handicap. (Your skill level will not be stable for some time, anyway. )

Thanks, Bill. Just took your advice. I seem to need to play against MFG 18k with 7 stones. It is what it is, I guess.

I was beating it on 12 kyu, 9 kyu a few times, no handicap, on 9x9. I guess things are just a lot harder on 19x19. Or maybe, like you said, my skill is not stable.

Edit: Immediately following this post, I knocked another stone off and got the computer to start resigning again. So I'd say "skill level not stable" is very true.

[Charles Matthews]

I will definitely keep an lookout for those elephant eyes. They seem to be a plague!

Should be a general comment: you make a lot of thin shapes, e.g. large knight's plays.

In go there is a tension between placing stones too close, and too far apart. Too far away from your own stones is better! Because you can do something about that (reinforce later, fight your way out from trouble ...). While stones too close together just sit there reproaching you.

But you are erring on the side of getting spread out.

[SamT]

I will definitely keep an lookout for those elephant eyes. They seem to be a plague!

Should be a general comment: you make a lot of thin shapes, e.g. large knight's plays.

In go there is a tension between placing stones too close, and too far apart. Too far away from your own stones is better! Because you can do something about that (reinforce later, fight your way out from trouble ...). While stones too close together just sit there reproaching you.

But you are erring on the side of getting spread out.

Thanks, Charles! I hope I'm not overdoing it.