Memorizing Games of Professionals

[Drofund]

another thing i notice when i memorize games is that my playing gets more serious. Often with games on internet, i make a lot of careless mistakes. when i look at and memorize progames, somehow i'm more motivated to read more and think more about what i do.

also a nice thing i notice is, when im watching a lecture for example, i can often familiarize with things i saw in progames ("aah, so thats why he did it")

[prokofiev]

More than just memorizing, the a book with games of only one professional commented (now there are plenty of it) and get used to his games.

Do you mean in English or just in general? Do you know of more in English other than those for Shusaku (Invincible), Ishida (1971 Honinbo), or Go Seigen (various by John Fairbairn, and the free Go Seigen e-book)?

[kgsbaduk]

I was just replaying games of shusaku from Invicible once per game. At once i replay 2-3 games and later i played some games.
-My style was change.
-Trying play like grand master
-Even if i lost i take more pleasure than not trying play like shusaku

[palapiku]

I get too freaked out by the weird fuseki in Shusaku's games to be able to concentrate!

[dankenzon]

I totally agree with the favorable opinion on Master's Play series: alll the books teach you how to see and understand a particular Pro style.

I must recommend the book "Understanding dan level play" not about Pro game's but reviews of strong amateur games in KPMC 2009. the comments make clear what was each player looking for and show some light in the thinking process. It could be a good complement with "How not to play Go"

Dkzn

[cuttingblue]

would you recommend the master play series over invincible?

[dankenzon]

the Go level required to really start enjoying and understanding Invincible is without a doubt single digit kyu.

the master series may be more helpful to read if the player starts memorizing or re-playing Cho Chikun or Lee ChangHo games since with it you will havew guidance to understand better the games. also, the amount of variables in Invincible in order to fully undestand and analyze the game is huge.

More than memorizing, understanding the style and replaying understanding what the player is looking for and getting used to better shapes works better.

DKZN

[tapir]

To improve my game I am considering to memorize a dozen games of professionals. I am not sure yet whether a game commentary is necessary to get the reason for a certain move, but it surely can't hurt. To get a high variety of games, they should satisfy some criteria:

- different professionals
- different, but common and modern joseki
- different playing styles (e.g. fighting games, moyo games, furikawari games, cool tesuji...)
- at least two thirds of the games should include yose

Which games would you suggest for this purpose?

My language teacher told me: Memorizing may be not en vogue now, but it is still as efficient as before. That is
Magicwand may be correct with "we memorize by association." but he probably never thought about building the associations by memorizing. (Note: I got it wrong, MW seems to be one of the rare commentors who support memorizing.)

The worst thing what can happen to you, is that you get some interesting ideas. (But of course if you hate it, don't do it.)

One of Alexandre Dinerchteins websites told me to study Yu Bin. I found this advice useful.

[entropi]

If memorizing pro games is useful, why is memorizing joseki bad?

[Magicwand]

If memorizing pro games is useful, why is memorizing joseki bad?

pro games are usually correct move on that situation.

joseki can be misleading because some josekies are not a good move on some situation.
that is why there is a saying "memorize josekies and forget them"

[entropi]

If memorizing pro games is useful, why is memorizing joseki bad?

pro games are usually correct move on that situation.

joseki can be misleading because some josekies are not a good move on some situation.
that is why there is a saying "memorize josekies and forget them"

Yes, but the idea is not memorizing the games (and/or joseki) for the sake of remembering them later. The exercise is trying to make sense of the correct moves, thus learning shapes, correct judgement etc. If you do that properly with joseki, then the same effect should also be expected, no? The additional effect of joseki would be understanding the "local" shapes in a simpler manner.

[topazg]

I see no problem with learning full joseki sequences by rote.

Cho Seok-bin has recommended that mid dan and stronger players should learn joseki sequences in an interview (I forget which, sorry ).

I feel the key is not to get into your head "this is joseki, so it's always good" - as long as you can stop this, and then visualise the joseki and its result in the context of the board, learning them makes sense.

It's also worth studying deviations to josekis too - when you sit there thinking "Why not cut here instead of there?" for example, it's good study material too. For one thing, you may find a few sub-standard local results which have a different impact on the board - useful for a) learning when you can deviate, and b) how to punish deviations that shouldn't have happened.

I've learned loads of joseki sequences, and quite a few "if you have a stone over here, then you can get a good result from this approach by playing this joseki" sequences.

[TMark]

A couple of years ago I reviewed a kyu-player's game and, about 8 or 9 moves in, he said "I played this because it is the joseki". I then showed him a different move in the same situation which would change the way the game developed and asked him if he liked the shape that was left. The point was that there is no single joseki that early in the game that must be played out by rote, but you do need to learn a number of josekis by rote, in order to recognise the shapes that will be reached. Then you can decide which shape you want to achieve.

Best wishes.

[Apoah]

This thread is long dead, but I found it interesting as my primary method of study is to memorize pro games. I tend to follow a certain player (currently Kim Junghyun).

My method is to memorize the game until I can no longer make sense of the moves (usually 100-175 moves) Pro End games are too confusing for me to understand.

As I am learning the game, I will try to find the rhythm. Games normally have a flow to them with subtle places that seem to break the game up into segments. This is usually centered around fights or tenukis. As I find this rhythm I will play the game in all 4 orientations.

In other words, I will play the game as far as I know it, then clear the board and start again only rotating the first move and then playing the game in that orientation. Once I have gone all the way around the board, I switch colors and do the same thing. So black's moves become white's moves and so on.

This is very time consuming, but I am in no hurry. I feel that I begin to see certain shapes and genera positions appear over and over throughout the games and have started to be able to differentiate higher level (intentional) play from lower level fumbling.

One interesting thing that sometimes happens is that sometimes I will accidentally slip into a sequence from another game or switch diagonal corners and end up with a game that is a hybrid of 2 or 3 pro games. to me this is encouragement that the fundamental concepts are being learned.

I have to respectfully disagree with those that don't think this type of study is beneficial. There is a conversation that takes place between players over the board and tapping into that conversation at a professional level on a consistent basis sets the stage for even a weaker player to begin making better choices in their own games.

My two cents, anyway.

[entropi]

This thread is long dead, but I found it interesting as my primary method of study is to memorize pro games. I tend to follow a certain player (currently Kim Junghyun).

My method is to memorize the game until I can no longer make sense of the moves (usually 100-175 moves) Pro End games are too confusing for me to understand.

As I am learning the game, I will try to find the rhythm. Games normally have a flow to them with subtle places that seem to break the game up into segments. This is usually centered around fights or tenukis. As I find this rhythm I will play the game in all 4 orientations.

In other words, I will play the game as far as I know it, then clear the board and start again only rotating the first move and then playing the game in that orientation. Once I have gone all the way around the board, I switch colors and do the same thing. So black's moves become white's moves and so on.

This is very time consuming, but I am in no hurry. I feel that I begin to see certain shapes and genera positions appear over and over throughout the games and have started to be able to differentiate higher level (intentional) play from lower level fumbling.

One interesting thing that sometimes happens is that sometimes I will accidentally slip into a sequence from another game or switch diagonal corners and end up with a game that is a hybrid of 2 or 3 pro games. to me this is encouragement that the fundamental concepts are being learned.

I have to respectfully disagree with those that don't think this type of study is beneficial. There is a conversation that takes place between players over the board and tapping into that conversation at a professional level on a consistent basis sets the stage for even a weaker player to begin making better choices in their own games.

My two cents, anyway.

I must say that's a strange (but interesting) way of studying. I cannot say it is not beneficial because I have never tried something like that. But considering the time you have to invest in that kind of study, I have strong doubts about its efficiency.

Maybe one more thing: with that kind of study you would not learn how to punish certain kind of bad moves because pros never play them. But, on the other hand, such moves you would anyway learn from your own games.

Who knows, maybe that's the natural way of learning. Like a child learning his mother language. He has no idea about grammer and makes millions of mistakes at the beginning but improves slowly and consistently.

Anyway as long as you have time and you enjoy it, there should not be any problem.