I'm feeling more optimistic, so I have decided to rename my SJ accordingly.
To what extent I can improve my go I do not know, but what I do know is that I have improved my appreciation of the truly beautiful game.
I've nearly finished Nagahara's
Strategic Fundamentals of Go and together with
Attack and Defence by Davies/Ishida I feel that I have acquired a better grasp of the tools by which one can play go well. In the past, I was lazy and misguided, and concentrated on the verbal descriptions, but this time I have focussed on the game diagrams. My motto from now on is "fewer shortcuts, more attention to detail!".
However, I am going briefly to describe some key ideas in my own words, as a way of consolidating what I have learned.
From A&D:
* Indirect play can succeed where direct play fails. For instance, a leaning attack can support an attack elsewhere on the board. More locally, many joseki abound in leaning tactics: you switch directions in order to "borrow strength" to help you settle your earlier play.
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$B White leans on Shusaku's strong diagonal to capture Black's probe at 5
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 1 . . . . .
$$ | . . . , 3 . 9 . .
$$ | . . 2 . 6 7 . . .
$$ | . . . . 8 . . . .
$$ | . . 5 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 0 . . . . .
$$ | . . 4 . . . . . .[/go]
* Chasing is very vulgar. Typically you end up running amok over your own farm. Indirect tactics, such as leaning, tend to be much more effective.
* It's often enough to attack just to build up your thickness or to gain profit.
* Defence is important: a stitch, in time, saves nine. In other words, taking the trouble to repair a defect before you go attacking can save you all kinds of losses later in the game.
* Good defence is not passive: a repairing move may have a big follow-up to look forward to. You can use the technique of sabaki for helping your stones while inflicting losses on the opponent.
* There are many specific sequences (mid-game joseki and tesuji) in A&D that one simply needs to know thoroughly. For example, there are several ways to handle the invasion into the daigeima extension.
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$B There are several ways this might continue:
$$ ----------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . O . 1 4 .
$$ | . . . X . . . 2 3 O
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]
From SCOG:
* Miai and Aji: I never made the connection before, the miai and aji are deeply connected concepts. Miai is a fork for tormenting the opponent: you make moves with two or more follow-ups, guaranteeing that you can take one or the other should you so wish. Aji provides one prong of the fork. A fairly simple miai technique is to invade the opponent's prospective territory with a move that threatens to grant some dead stones a life-giving connection (using their aji) or to connect out in the opposite direction. Aji is not just something that might ripen; it is something that you can actively nurture and work upon throughout a game.
* Thickness and Korigatachi: They are like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. A thick shape has no weaknesses. Therefore, you can use it to support aggression far away (like the mighty castles of Edward I Longshanks of England). You can use it as a base for grand expansion. You can use it to block off the opponent's retreat.
However, shapes can become
too thick. If you use more stones than you need, then you become like the boxer Frank Bruno, who was slowed down by his impressive musculature. Allowing yourself to become over-concentrated is like using your stone to add yet another tower to an already impregnable fortress when your soldiers elsewhere are desperately trying to shelter behind bushes; it's like using all of your remaining iron to cast yet another cannon for your royal castle when the troops elsewhere need metal to make swords. Do you "know what I mean?"
At this point, I took a quick diversion to Yang Yilun's Fundamental Principles of Go. He gives a game in which the amateur follows the ranking system of playing moves in the opening apparently correctly, but ends up with an overconcentrated position. This was a satori moment for me. I have been struggling with the opening for ages and ages, and getting myself bogged down into insanely checklisty ways of playing (I recall writing here a long time ago an infamous post here in which I mentioned the 0th Order of Play - all I can say now is "Good golly, Miss Molly!"). Now I see that you have to think about the game from the point of view of how the stones work together across the whole board.
* Kikashi and Sabaki: These are also touched upon in A&D. Put briefly, forcing moves can - if chosen wisely - create aji to work with, and can inflict korigatachi on the opponent. As A&D explains, you probably do not want to be forced, and so it is often wise to seek ways to resist an attempt at kikashi, and often better still to respond to it with an indirect counter-attack. Sabaki is a combination of kikashi, sacrifices and light moves that help one to set up a fighting position in an unfavourable area. It is like using guerilla tactics: the cost of attempting to exterminate the infiltrator can often be unacceptably high. The guerilla party loses a few low-ranking fighters, while the occupier ends up committing whole battalions and tanks to an area.
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$W White uses kikashi to set up a simple sabaki sequence
$$ ----------------------
$$ | . . . . 0 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 6 5 4 9 . . . .
$$ | . . . 8 X 3 . . . X .
$$ | . . X , 7 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . 1 . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . .[/go]
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$W Corner White plays lightly to make sabaki
$$ ----------------------
$$ | . . . . X . . . . . .
$$ | . . . X . X O . . . .
$$ | . . . X X O . . . X .
$$ | . . X , O . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . O . . 1 . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . .[/go]
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$B Black gets vindictive and White just larfs
$$ ----------------------
$$ | . . . . X . . . . . .
$$ | . . . X . X O 5 . . .
$$ | . . . X X O 1 2 . X .
$$ | . . X , O 3 . . . . .
$$ | . . . . O 4 . O . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . .[/go]
Black only adds a couple of points by bloody-mindedly capturing more stones, while White squeezes from the outside. Black ends up with korigatachi.
* Furikawari and Yosu-miru: Go is a trading game. When you see that a previous play has little potential for development, then you can offer it to the opponent in exchange for something more desirable elsewhere. Furikawari (exchange) relates closely to the other concepts: it relates to aji because you can use the aji within one group as leverage to get a better deal for another. In one example that Nagahara provides, White switches direction, but uses the earlier play to get more for her side of the bargain:
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$W White trades her initial approach for a position on the top
$$ ----------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . X . . 3 . . 5 .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . . .
$$ | . . 1 4 . . M . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . 2 . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .[/go]
The beauty of this exchange is that White, for example, later get another play at X aiming at reawakening 1. 1 is not fully dead, and removing it will cost Black time. During that time, White can build up elsewhere. So, she might play like this when she believes that directly pulling out 1 with a simple joseki would not be satisfying.
After reading this, I realised that going for furikawari could be the way forward for me: I don't have to cling to a weak or unpromising position. I can trade, instead!
Yosu-miru (probe) is a very valuable technique, but one that I have struggled with for many years. I think I'm beginning to see the light now. A probe is a move that sets up aji at little cost - just like a kikashi. The classic mistake, at my level, is to become attached to one's probe moves. Perhaps you know what I mean: you play a probe and then desperately try to make it live. The better way is to use it sacrificially: you can use the threat to make it live as one prong of your miai fork, you can generate ko threats from it later, you can find out what part of the board your opponent desires most.
That's my brief run-down of what I've learned in the last month. Still, the words describe sequences and go strategies - they are not the sequences and go strategies themselves. On account of that, I am beginning to feel that the next big step in my learning programme will be to study real games critically. While the verbal texts in SCOG and A&D were indeed enjoyable, especially in A&D, what I really found valuable was the diagrams. I want to see how pro players use the stratagems; and I am also interested to see the mistakes amateurs make.
The other thing I want to focus more on in the future is practising my reading, but with the aim of consolidating my grip on the fundamentals. I have a number of tsumego books that I brought home from Japan. I used to read them with the emphasis on quantity over quality, but now I wish to interrogate each problem deeply, so as to get the fundamental shapes of life and death into my mind, and to be able to use them combinatorially. What is for sure is that I actually remember what I've been studying afterwards, whereas with the force-feeding approach I ended up wondering exactly what did I learn half an hour ago.
In that connexion, one little thing dawned on me. Up to now, I have tended to think "White, Black, White, Black" when reading. I now think that it's no good. I am now starting to believe that it's better to use the names of the moves: "kosumi, sagari, nobi, hane, warikomi" and so on. Somehow, I find it easier to keep track of the shapes when I do this, while the "W, B, W, B" approach just makes my head swim. I'm sure thinking in English is just fine, too, it's only that the Japanese words feel cleaner in my mind, perhaps because they do not have many other connotations for me. Maybe if I were Japanese, then using English would have the same effect for me.
To finish up my inaugural TAGS post. Here are some things I like:
Hikaru no Go - I love it. I watched it from start to finish recently, and was bowled over by just how very, very well done it is. The voice acting (in the Japanese version!), the detail and realism (I've been to the Nihon Kiin in Tokyo several times, and it looked just like it did in HNG), and the strength of the story. If one cannot be Hikaru, then one has to choose who else to be: a simple-minded go bully like Akota-san? (who nevertheless begins to redeem himself when he learns to treat others kindly), an irredeemable bully like Dake-san? a generous supporter of go like the owner of one of the go salons where Hikaru, Waya and Isumi play? a star-struck fanboy/girl like the chap who gets Honinbo Kuwabara's autograph in Sapporo? a deluded duffer like the pompous town official whom Akira trolls by setting up multiple jigo? a dedicated and strong amateur like the Dutch or American champion? There are so many characters in the story who are just like the ones you meet in real life. I feel a particular sympathy for Isumi, because I have had many struggles with my own emotions over the years; I only wish I could be strong like him!
In fact, I would go so far as to say that one of the main appeals - or compelling factors - of HNG is that there is a little bit of Hikaru, Akira, Isumi, Waya, Honda, Ochi, Dake, Akota, Shuhei, Kawai, Mr Ooijer, Pompous Town Official in us all. I can only speak for myself, but I'm sure we've all acted like Akota once or twice, even like Dake sometimes, and also had our moments of growth and triumph over the odds. And, last but not least, who has not felt some of the righteous indignation that Sai so frequently displays?
NHK Cup - great stuff!
Dwyrin's go lectures on Youtube - he is very witty and entertaining, although sometimes I find him a little bit too salty. I very much enjoy his real-board lectures and discussions of contemporary developments in pro go. I only wish that he would play against players of his own level more often. As we used to say at school: "Pick on someone your own size!". For sure, there is an education in seeing how a strong player handles the mistakes of a weaker one, but I would respect Dywrin even more if I could watch him play equally strong opponents, even if that would mean him losing half the time.
Brady's Blunders - A very brave and original idea.
Nick Sibicky's go lectures - Very lucid and entertaining.
Haylee's go channel - I met Haylee in Seoul back in 2008 and remember that she was very sweet and modest. It's wonderful to see her sharing her expertise on Youtube in such a charming way.