Tapani wrote:Uberdude wrote:At move 71 with the following position you said
This is so counterintuitive to me, but happens over and over. White stones has NO eyes, cannot run and still wins the fight, and black ends up dying badly.
...
Can you see why my intuition is the opposite to yours?
THIS. Thank you! Let me explain:
On my way up from the DDK swamp, I have had similar positions (as both white and black) many times. Usually white has died. Even today, given the white stones against an average Tygem stoneslammer - I would be very capable of dying as white. In fact, I might have tenuki-ed as white and just given up the "dead" stones.
First, it is difficult to improve if your opponents are weak players. They will usually not punish your mistakes, and you can pick up bad habits from them, instead of picking up good habits from good players.
Second, "similar positions" is a vague phrase. Look again at Uberdude's analysis. He started by identifying connected groups of stones. Then he counted their dame. Then he highlighted cutting points. You could have a "similar position" where Black had no cutting points, and then White might indeed be dead. Even if the White group captured the two Black stones in the middle, that might give him only one eye .
Wilcox counts liberties. In fact, he is the author of the saying, "Five alive." That is not necessarily so, OC, but the White connected group has five liberties, and the adjacent Black two stone group has four. When White descends to the second line, White has six liberties and Black has only three. More tellingly, the three other adjacent Black groups to the right and center have only three liberties each, and two cutting points. Furthermore, although Uberdude does not show it, there is a strong White group to the right to which White might connect, if need be. All of Black's weaknesses make the fight difficult for Black. Let me urge you to study Wilcox again, and to count liberties and be aware of cutting points.
The fact that a stronger player feels it is bad for black, is eye opening on a higher level. The experiences I have had so far in go, might only apply when playing against opponents of certain level.
If you want to get stronger, play against stronger players.
And that is worth keeping in mind, and I have to try to reevaluate what I already "know".
Good point.

As the saying goes, "It ain't what you don't know, it's what you know that ain't so."
My post was on how to read out a sequence faster. Now, my candidate move selection is very poor - and I end up reading out way more variations than I should. As uberdude points out, my evalution is also poor, meaning I read very long, and very wrong. And I spend all my time reading variations, ending up in byuomi by move 40. Just a few crosscuts and I am already into minutes per move reading variations.
I admire your tenacity, and I do not mean to discourage you, but you might better spend those minutes doing tsumego and tesuji problems.

Rin Kaiho famously recommended spending up to 10 minutes on a crucial move in the game, but that was in the context of spending 20 minutes on 120 other moves, an average of 10 seconds per move. By contrast, Wilcox recommended that his students finish a game in 15 minutes, a pace of less than 4 seconds per move.

(At his go camps, some of his SDK students gained 4 stones in two weeks! Wilcox was on to something.

)