Knotwilg wrote:All right, but what is your answer to the question I asked?
I really am not sure. K15? I was trying to push into this from the flip side with 69, but all I did was make it stronger.
Alternatively, the san-san is still huge for him, so R5 to make it harder? Or even san-san myself? Feels a little slow.
Sorry for not responding earlier. I've instinctively treated questions asked to me as meant for private reflection. It didn't even occur to me that people might really want answers from me
Saturday training: Around 20 tsumego. Finished Chapter? Section? 1 of 4-4 knight's approach in my chinese joseki book.
One game with my daughter, about 60 moves at McDonald's, before she ran off to play with other kids. Two games with my wife, giving her 15 and 14 stone play-anywhere handicap. I didn't win either, of course .
Then we got one of our friends to play a game, first with me, and then with my wife. My wife said she had fun for a change. She gave the guy a 4-stone handicap and lots of take backs, teaching him and advising him all the way through about her strategy, and only lost by 1 point. The new guy had a great time, too, and wants to play again.
It was good to see my wife really having fun for a change. Playing me is not fun for her. If she wins with a huge handicap, she feels like she didn't deserve it, and if she plays me without a handicap, she is frustrated too. She may actually end up liking the game
Yes, I meant 3-3 for both. It's huge. It easily makes 25 points of difference.
You don't have to respond of course, but in my kind of teaching, where I don't want to bombard you with comments but select a few highlights and try to elicit an answer, it makes sense to do so.
Knot - Thank you for asking, and thank you even more for following up with me. Knowing the answer is fantastic. (I guess I am used to my Chinese Kung Fu teacher: he asks a question, but gives no answer, you have to find it yourself.)
I still am really fuzzy on the when-to-do for this type of defensive move. Basically, before it looks too tasty for the opponent?
Three games on OGS. A couple of easy wins on 9x9s, a loss on a 13x13 that occured because I lost connection (thank you McDonald's WiFi) and when I came back I was rattled and confused. I had played a move while the connection was down that wasn't on the board. It was a very important move. I ended up misclicking, but immediately hit undo and told my opponent where I had inteded to go. The opponent thought for a long time and realized I was going to destroy him, refused the undo, then moved where I told him I had intended to play. I was so angry after, I couldn't continue playing in a logical manner, and made stupid mistake after stupid mistake.
To the cad in question (who is not on here): I'll pass you rank-wise soon and leave you far behind, choking and coughing in my dust.
Is that appropriate? Saying that my vengeance is being better than him?
Anyway, long story short: no games worth looking at.
Training today: EasyGo - 120 of the basics*, twice. (240, total, I guess)
-- *Not very many life and death, but actually ataris, double ataris, connects, saves, etc. Basic basics. I get a surprising amount of them wrong, usually a full third. I guess it shows how much work I need to do.
Don't stress too much about the undos - I've granted a couple but never got one myself ... and after all whether you win or loose, rank is just a number right ... the most important number ...
p.s. to lesson my own righteous anger, I tend to adopt a no undo policy these days - I don't ask for them, I don't give them out.
No games yesterday; very busy with the post-Christmas-fire house rebuild. Supposed to move back in on Friday, but the builder has all sorts of problems still with the house.
However, I did train:
Problems
Basics In spare moments (lots of them), I managed to cram in about 400-500 "basics" from EasyGo. I really like thee because: 1) I obviously need work on the basics, as I get a surprising number of them wrong 2) I feel like the sort of skill-separation EasyGo has is more in line with how Deliberate Practice drills are supposed to be.
My only concerns: a) I just wish there were MORE of the basics drills. b) I also wish the "capture races" in EasyGo basics were more about long, intertwined strings and counting liberties and figuring out if you can win or not (something I'm terrible at), and less about throw ins and squeezes.
Life and Death Did some of these, too. Probably about 50? From some random life and death app on the Ipad.
Tesuji None, beyond what was in the basics.
Pro Games I replayed some pro game SGFs, mostly because of the stories behind the matches. One was a duel between two pro sisters in Japan, where the older sister loses a seat on the Meijin tournament to the younger. Others were just games by people I like, like Lee Sedol, Gu Li, Mok Jinseok (mymy on KGS?), and Kong Jie. Poor Kong Jie never seems to win these days.
Sorry for the long radio silence, but this week has been taken up mostly with trying to move back into my house (it was burned down in a house fire over Christmas, and is only now nearing completion.) Sadly, the house did not pass electrical or general inspection, so we are caught in this strange, transitional, semi-defined limbo state where our stuff is mostly in the house but we are not legally allowed to live there.
I've spent the last two nights there, camping out with a machete at my hip (as I do not own a gun and am an excellent broadswordsman), practicing yose problems. The house was robbed 3 times during construction, only while uninhabited, mostly of construction materials, and we are concerned it might happen again. Not much is left since the fire, and we don't want to lose the few keepsakes/new stuff we have left.
We hired a guard dog for two months (did you know you can do that?), but we can no longer afford him. Seeing as there is usually no crime in our neighborhood, it is likely either neighborhood kids or the contractors themselves stealing things. Either way, I have strong hopes there won't be trouble -- the dog probably scared everyone off. If there is trouble, well, that's why I've set up the sight lines to see it coming and decide what to do then.
Last night was tough -- no internet, no air conditioning, 90 degrees with high humidity, radio blaring with lights on so people know someone is there. But I did study a little Go when I wasn't jumping at shadows.
The week hasn't been a complete Go loss, however.
Problems Honestly, I don't know how many problems I've done. Not 4-500 on one day again, like last week, but there were at least two days of probably 200 exercises, Monday and Tuesday, including -- and this is important -- lots and lots of extremely simple squeeze tesuji and oiotoshi problems.
At the house I've been doing mostly yose problems, but on those nights I only get a handful done. It's hard to focus. I have other things on my mind.
Teaching Games At Work I did play a couple of teaching games Monday and Wednesday at work with the newbie up there. He still refuses to take a handicap, and he doesn't like it when I help him either. I try to balance it by giving him a lot of takebacks.
Dallas Go Club Game Thursday night was Dallas Go Club, and I got to play Chuck, the AGA 4 Kyu there. I took a 9-stone handicap, expecting to be demolished. Chuck's a cool guy! A really great player.
I wish I had a kifu of the game, but I am still trying to teach myself how to use my kifu apps, and I gave up quickly. I can't remember the game move-by-move, but it was so electrifying near the end that I have extremely clear recollections of the exact board layout for the critical side and corner.
Game summary Chuck worked his way into a pretty comfortable lead after the opening was over, pretty much negating my 9 stones. He even apologized at one point for beating up on me.
He took corners sides from me while destroying my budding moyo in the middle. We discussed moves as we went, so I probably played a heck of a lot better than I normally would, because he would let me bounce non-critical ideas off of him or review what just happened/went wrong.
The First Turning Point It was because of Chuck complaining that I was following his moves around too much that I finally looked more seriously at a move that I'd been eyeing for about 20 turns. This turned out to be the first big turning point.
What I was thinking is hidden below in case you intend to use this as a problem.
It looked like a possible Oiotoshi to me, but with a very easy counter. I played it, and he came up short and stared at it several minutes, smiling and shaking his head, muttering that it was a "very devious move" and maybe an "excellent move". He mentioned that he thought for sure that he'd had that side dead to rights, and now it was very dangerous. He then played the "easy counter" I had seen. Only when I put the stone down and saw more clearly what had happened, I realized his move wasn't a true counter.
He seemed to think I had forced him into the Ko, especially when I won the Ko fight later, but, really, I swear it was an accident. I was after the oiotoshi, not the ko! And I didn't get the oiotoshi.
The Second Turning Point Just a few moves after the end of the ko fight, Chuck decided to try and kill my top right corner, the only corner I felt that I really held. He'd actually sunk most of his ko threats into it, and he did take out a few stones, but it turned out to still have some power left.
When Chuck started attacking, I realized that the two "dead stones" still had quite a bit of aji, and that I might be able to flip the attack around on him, kind of like I had before. Once again, I was not thinking about "ko", just about squeezes and throw ins and oiotoshis. I think I had actually forgotten the ko rule for a second, but luckily I had a major threat at hand.
I didn't even realize it was a Ko until when, immediately after I played the throw in, Chuck smiled and seemed pleasantly surprised and said, "Look at that, you turned the whole thing into a ko."
He once again said it was a "devious move" and an "excellent move", but it seemed very obvious to me at the the time -- it's what I had been doing 200-500 problems a day over for the last week!
... So there it is, what little I remember about my first win at Dallas Go Club.
I don't have anyone's last names or even their contact information, only first names and sketchy details (which seems weird; it's like the Go club is actually some Cold War spy ring or, perhaps, a Baduk Anonymous recovery group)
I will ask Thursday night, if my wife deigns to let me go
Probably not, as I had mistyped "4 dan" instead of "4 kyu" in the first draft of the post (my fault! sleepy!).
We do have a 4 dan, named Bill of all things, but I haven't played him. I'm afraid I wouldn't be a challenge for him, no matter how many stones he gave me.
SamT wrote:Probably not, as I had mistyped "4 dan" instead of "4 kyu" in the first draft of the post (my fault! sleepy!).
Actually, when I knew Chuck Bell, he was a kyu player. But that was a long time ago, and he could have made 4 dan by now. Chuck lived in or around Odessa, and had organized the West Texas Go Aficionados.
The Adkins Principle: At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins
A comment. Ko fights are pretty tricky. You have two ko threats here, playing T18 and then T15. This is "normal". But you could also play this threat at T16.
Why would you do that? It potentially loses endgame points; and it actually loses one threat.
The point would be that, if you are going to win the ko, then you may end up killing the upper white formation by the throw-in at T13.
So ... without the rest of the board, it is hard to assess the decision. (Actually, honestly, it is impossible). Because White has a strong play pushing out at R13, Black did well to finish the ko anyway.
Charles Matthews wrote: A comment. Ko fights are pretty tricky. You have two ko threats here, playing T18 and then T15. This is "normal". But you could also play this threat at T16.
Why would you do that? It potentially loses endgame points; and it actually loses one threat.
The point would be that, if you are going to win the ko, then you may end up killing the upper white formation by the throw-in at T13.
So ... without the rest of the board, it is hard to assess the decision. (Actually, honestly, it is impossible). Because White has a strong play pushing out at R13, Black did well to finish the ko anyway.
Thanks, Charles. I think that is exactly what I wanted/intended to do during my gote follow up, but I hadn't set it up properly. Fascinating.
I'll have to work through this a few more times on the board, to try and get to a point where I can see configurations like this in an actual game.
Training has been light but consistent over the weekend. We are still dealing with the house, but at least now there is a security system in there, and the AC is back on. Hopefully we will pass inspection tomorrow, and get our certificate of occupancy.
(brag) I won a game against a 13 kyu by 60 points, and I'm now 9 kyu with a ?-mark on KGS! (/brag)
(getting head back on straight) Yay! A rank, finally. I do not really believe I am 9 kyu; I probably got lucky and hit the guy on an off day. But still! Exciting to even touch SDK not-quite 3? 4? months in! My strategy of drill drill drill seems to be paying off, at least for now We'll see if it holds for the long term. (/straightening)
Joseki and Game Memorization Over the weekend: Not having internet for the past week has put a real crimp in my studying, but I memorized the first 50 moves of Lee Sedol/Gu Li jubango #6 (An Youngil's analysis), along with joseki variations. I really like that handicap-game three-space slide that Gu Li used to invade with.
I also went back through Weiqi Daquan Dingshi to the point I had stopped last time. It's just about 6 pages or so, not very impressive. This may be a lifetime's work, memorizing this one book. How does anyone do this?
Yesterday and Today: I've been using Waltheri Fuseki to research the most common openings to get an idea of what games layouts occur most commonly. Interesting stuff!
Problems Weekend: I don't remember. Some.
Yesterday: Maybe 100 of the basics from Easy Go. They are really fast; I can crank them out in about 20-30 minutes. 42 Fuseki problems, two or three times over, from Android's "Go Fuseki". I got all of them wrong the first time through, but hand-entered every problem and solution into Drago and figured out why I thought the right answer was right.
Today: 50 Fuseki, twice.
Games Over the weekend and yesterday: None of note; I tried to play OGS on my Ipad mini. DO NOT DO THIS! I had to abandon the game 5 moves in because every move was a misclick. Luckily my opponent was very understanding.
Today: A handful of 9x9's on OGS; nearly won one against a 10 kyu with no handicap (or, rather: it was surprisingly close!). I then got overconfident and was destroyed by a 20 kyu with no handicap I really need to slow down and actually read, not just play by gut . I really don't think 9x9's are particularly interesting, just time-filling exercises, so I will not post them.
I tried to play some unranked super-blitz on KGS against a computer, and that was fun, but I would always time out about move 20. Educational and candy-like, with no stress.
I then got my first ranked game on KGS (as mentioned above):
After the first few moves, I didn't like the amount of territory he'd taken. I tried a hair-brained 4th-line reduction, but it actually worked (I think)
I then built a huge moyo that was far too big and too lightly controlled to get all of, but I knew that. He launched a very successful reduction first. Then he invaded, and I tried to kill it, but I couldn't make my brain read ahead, so I satisfied myself with just squeezing it down small and using the strength it gave me to secure the rest of the moyo.
His second invasion: I didn't even have to read to block it. I just pushed into/falsified everywhere that looked like a second eye.
Really, this victory feels very strange to me, like I was just lucky. And I may have been. I expect time will tell me what my true rank is.
.
A comment. Ko fights are pretty tricky. You have two ko threats here, playing T18 and then T15. This is "normal". But you could also play this threat at T16.