Why do some people never reach shodan

[Knotwilg]

I want to come back on this one. I disagree:

Eh? You seem to be agreeing completely.

I thought you advocate we should have a topical goal, not a rank goal. I think a rank goal is very measurable, therefor very clear and motivating. There has been a consensus that people shouldn't care about rank but we all see people do, so perhaps we should accept that this is a goal.

fighting spirit, time management & concentration

But these are nor proper goals either. They may be determining factors but they say nothing about how to improve them. Holding your breath for a long time is a determining factor in free diving, but holding your breath for a long time is not a proper goal. Proper goals are holding your breath for 30 seconds, then 1 minute, then 2 minutes.

These are areas of improvement. I do have a program to train for those, but didn't want to go in that much detail.
They are usually underestimated compared to topical goals and I believe they determine whether your playing level is close to your level of understanding.

Thanks John!

[Knotwilg]

Correspond to my "dan instinct"

34: direction of play
46-62: consistent sequence, sacrifice
64: direction of play
84: boshi to attack
96-98: timing/sente (very nice!!!)

Do not correspond to my "dan instinct"

26: cuts that don't work (read/know)
40: greed / automatic play of double approach (?)
44: hurried/worried sabaki / greed
66: hurried/worried invasion / greed
68: wishful thinking of connection
72: standard is to sacrifice 2
104: empty triangle
118: weak connection
124: empty triangle

Missed opportunities that I see (during analysis, but in the game?)

100: endgame starts or ... where's the weakest group

Outright blunders:

176: I see that this kind of move makes all the above irrelevant. If you make blunders like these regularly, then there is no point indeed in improving your knowledge.

I'd say: play the next 10 games with the SPECIFIC SINGLE goal of not making such blunders

1. generate awareness that we're beyond move 100 and liberties become scarce, and connections fragile.
2. count liberties of your chains regularly, especially those where a stone has been played
3. inspect connections regularly. Look at diagonal connections in particular, or other non-straight connections.

See how many of those games you could end without losing big chains/groups. Every such game is a success, regardless of end score. Give yourself a score, like 8/10. Then you know that you will continue to lose 20% of your games due to blunders. Unacceptable? Repeat.

Full review with variations

[Koosh]

I was also looking at your game this morning but did not have a chance to post. As your game ended, white was behind by a lot (20+ points).

I have some ideas about why 176 happened. Correct me if I am wrong here

174 is an understandable error because the natural read here is that black will peep at J14. The cut that B used here (attach at H15 and push down) is a good tesuji for cutting and sometimes shows up in games so it's worth learning. With this in mind, W should probably play a bit more conservatively but still, losing a single stone is not a huge deal here.

However, the shining moment here is 176. As Knotwilg pointed out, it's a big blunder, but I suspect that it was probably fueled by strict adherence to whatever your original plan was in playing H16. I was watching a Meungwan-Kim lecture last night and he point out that all amateurs have this problem; we are unwilling to be flexible and abandon our plans when they go sour.

Instead of 176, if you connect below and let black cut the one stone, you get sente (make sure you don't lose it). With a string of endgame moves the game may become much closer (6-10 point difference?). Here's an example sequence:
1) making a triangle at S3 to threaten attack on the whole black group while taking the corner territory
2) the capture at E17
3) the push at R19 and
4) taking gote to block at B9

You might be able to pull off a win this way. At least, it explains why you are 20+ points behind in the actual game. Once you have sente in the endgame, try hard not to let it go until you get all of the big points.

[daal]

176: I see that this kind of move makes all the above irrelevant. If you make blunders like these regularly, then there is no point indeed in improving your knowledge.

I'd say: play the next 10 games with the SPECIFIC SINGLE goal of not making such blunders

1. generate awareness that we're beyond move 100 and liberties become scarce, and connections fragile.
2. count liberties of your chains regularly, especially those where a stone has been played
3. inspect connections regularly. Look at diagonal connections in particular, or other non-straight connections.

Sounds like a plan. Thanks for that detailed review.

However, the shining moment here is 176. As Knotwilg pointed out, it's a big blunder, but I suspect that it was probably fueled by strict adherence to whatever your original plan was in playing H16. I was watching a Meungwan-Kim lecture last night and he point out that all amateurs have this problem; we are unwilling to be flexible and abandon our plans when they go sour.

Yes, this is pretty much what happened.

Instead of 176, if you connect below and let black cut the one stone, you get sente (make sure you don't lose it). With a string of endgame moves the game may become much closer (6-10 point difference?). Here's an example sequence:
1) making a triangle at S3 to threaten attack on the whole black group while taking the corner territory
2) the capture at E17
3) the push at R19 and
4) taking gote to block at B9

You might be able to pull off a win this way. At least, it explains why you are 20+ points behind in the actual game. Once you have sente in the endgame, try hard not to let it go until you get all of the big points.

Thinking about sente and trying to keep it is something I don't do enough. Thanks for mentioning it and showing the example sequence.

[Bill Spight]

It seems to me that your play demonstrates competence.

A few comments on your last game.

[Knotwilg]

As I've said before, one of the major assets of a dan player is fighting spirit.

I'm posting a Tygem 3d game of mine, which shows fighting spirit by both.

I believe I came back from a somewhat unfavorable opening to a situation where I had more territory. In the middle game, Black played poor shapes but I got overly confident and he counterattacked well. I managed to live with all groups but the opponent slowly converted his thickness into territory, almost equalling mine. During the endgame there was a lot of fighting spirit, answering sente by sente. In the end, I kept focus and killed a group, thanks to my improved life & death skills, but mostly because I kept trying to win the game.

Here it is (particularly look at 196 - 205):

[John Fairbairn]

During the endgame there was a lot of fighting spirit, answering sente by sente.

I'm guessing you may be using 'fighting spirit' for kiai. If that's the case, not entirely sure from this sentence that you've grasped what it means. In go, if you have some weak but key stones and your opponent puts them in atari and you sink into thought about connecting, you can say you have bad kiai. Good kiai would involve answering sente with gote at once, i.e. showing you are prepared to tough it out.

Although kiai means a yell, ultimately it's from martial arts and is about matching your opponent's ki (spirit; Chinese qi) with your own. In both martial arts and go that often means matching a strong attack with a tenacious or stubborn defence. It simply means you don't let your opponent overwhelm you, physically or psychologically. It's not necessarily about showing aggression. Western go is too uncontrolledly aggressive already without encouraging it more.

In the end, I kept focus and killed a group

Focus might be a more appropriate word than 'fighting spirit'. Athletes seem to use it a lot. Myself, I like tenacity. Either way, even if it's not entirely accurate as a translation, I think focus or tenacity is a much more useful attribute than fighting spirit.

Having said that, I infer from your other comments that you have grasped the most important elements anyway.

[Kirby]

During the endgame there was a lot of fighting spirit, answering sente by sente.

I'm guessing you may be using 'fighting spirit' for kiai. If that's the case, not entirely sure from this sentence that you've grasped what it means. In go, if you have some weak but key stones and your opponent puts them in atari and you sink into thought about connecting, you can say you have bad kiai. Good kiai would involve answering sente with gote at once, i.e. showing you are prepared to tough it out.

Are you trying to say that answering your opponent's moves in the endgame rather than considering tenuki is "good kiai"?

[daal]

During the endgame there was a lot of fighting spirit, answering sente by sente.

I'm guessing you may be using 'fighting spirit' for kiai. If that's the case, not entirely sure from this sentence that you've grasped what it means. In go, if you have some weak but key stones and your opponent puts them in atari and you sink into thought about connecting, you can say you have bad kiai. Good kiai would involve answering sente with gote at once, i.e. showing you are prepared to tough it out.

Are you trying to say that answering your opponent's moves in the endgame rather than considering tenuki is "good kiai"?

Obviously not. What are you trying to say?

[John Fairbairn]

if you have some weak but key stones

You assume I'm referring to the endgame? Really?

I'm not sure what knowilg meant which is why I said "not entirely sure". And I'm not sure either that I'd class the endgame plays he refers to as kiai (too trivial?).

My point is that too many people assume kiai is all flailing arms and naked aggression, which in go manifests itself often as tenuki and ignoring sente. Instead it should be about not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed - focus. That may end up with a decision to tenuki, but it should be for the reason of matching the opponent's ki appropriately, not just to show machismo.

[Kirby]

Obviously not. What are you trying to say?

I'm trying to say that the quote was in reference to the endgame, so we should take it in that context:

During the endgame there was a lot of fighting spirit, answering sente by sente.

[Kirby]

if you have some weak but key stones

You assume I'm referring to the endgame? Really?

No, I thought *he* was referring to the endgame:

During the endgame there was a lot of fighting spirit, answering sente by sente.

So why criticize his use of the term "fighting spirit", if your point about answering the opponent is not related to the context of his comment?

FWIW, he didn't even mention "kiai", specifically, and I see no problem in saying that tenuki to play sente during the endgame is good "fighting spirit".

I guess your point is that one shouldn't ignore sente just to take sente and be macho, but I didn't get that from his comment. Amateurs often have the opposite problem in the endgame and just answer everywhere. So ignoring a local endgame threat to take another big point can very well be fighting spirit in many cases.

Seems to me that this is all he was trying to express.

[Koosh]

A relevant quote from a 5d youtuber:

Actively follow the game by asking yourself the following: Is my opponent's move a bad move? Is it even sente?

Here's another relevant quote from a 1d board member (me - full disclosure):

When you reach dan level, more often than not your opponent's moves are aiming at something. Try not to dismiss any move as being meaningless unless you are 100% sure that it was a mistake and even so proceed with caution.

Navigating the differences between the two ideas is tough. Your decisions certainly depend on whether or not you are relying on the definition of kiai, or on the western definition of fighting spirit.

They don't appear to be synonymous (John's point), which is allowed (Kirby's point), and both can be seen in abundance in dan player games (Knotwilg's point), implying that both are key skills that one needs to reach shodan (returning to daal's topic).

I still think its a pointed topic.

[John Fairbairn]

FWIW, he didn't even mention "kiai", specifically...

Which is whey I said:

I'm guessing you may be using 'fighting spirit' for kiai

. Reading is very important in go, in more ways than one.

...I see no problem in saying that tenuki to play sente during the endgame is good "fighting spirit".

But from long experience (much longer than yours) I do see a problem. I was trying to address it, in the same way I have tediously tried (with others) to refine perceptions of things like thickness, aji, honte, etc over the years. Refine is the operative word, incidentally. Seems like it's not worth the effort, though, if you end up as troll bait.

[EdLee]

Actively follow the game by asking yourself the following: Is my opponent's move a bad move? Is it even sente?

Robert has a very nice and IMO powerful mnemonic for all this, and he captured the essence in just one verb.