Ian Butler's Go Journal

[Ian Butler]

Bon voyage!

Cheers

Ian, what about that go club you were running?

School Go Club I'll of course continue. But I'll be moving to a new school next year. If all goes well, I'll probably start a Go club there, too. Still a wonderful game to teach children!

[fireproof]

Go can be quite ambiguous in the sense that it has a very rich intellectual and cultural aspect on one hand, but on the other hand often happens in social isolation and even when teaming up with other go players, there's an inherent nerdiness about it which can be off-putting. I for one never really enjoyed tournaments all that much and the experience has discouraged me to ever participate in a congress.

I agree -- where playing Go is concerned. I, too, found the tournament part of Go congress to be kind of stressful, and less appealing than the learning/lecture events. And that underscores what I like about the group I play Go with every week: while we are all competitive, most of us are learning together, thanks in no small part to the stronger players who take the time to review games, teach beginners, etc. That's a more social side, and it does temper the isolating aspect of staring at a board for 2 hours

(Thanks EdLee!)

[Ian Butler]

Well, a few months (weeks? something in between) after deciding to quit Go, I can look back at it and say it was a very wise decision, for me.

Why Go was/is for me
Go is still an incredibly entrancing game. Even now, having stopped playing, I watch a (pro or high amateur) game every now and then and it fascinates me to no end. It's brilliant in its simplicity and complexity both at the same time.

The approach to the game, rather than the game itself, is very valuable for many a different thing. It improves concentration, some amount of problem solving, patience (in some cases),...
That's why I will always try to keep playing Go with children in my work environment. As a teacher I find Go to be a unique tool, suitable as a single activity for all children, a good alternative to chess for some of them and as a true discovery for a few of them.

Why Go wasn't/isn't/ for me
Too much computer. Too few opportunities (for me) to play in real life.
Too competitive. I've always thought I didn't mind losing. I was wrong. In many, many cases I don't mind losing. In Go, apparently, I do. I'm also not a very competitive spirit. My favorite boardgames are cooperative ones, and when playing table tennis / badmintion / football / ... with people, I'm usually the one saying: let's not count score and just give it our all and have fun. Competitiveness takes the joy out of many things and I think it sucks a bit out of the joy of Go for me. Unfortunately, unlike with sports or whatever, it's kind of hard to say: let's not score. The game is so abstract it's basically about winning or losing. Not who played the nicest move or something (though that is a Go variant I would love)


That's basically all.
I mostly miss the people I met through Go.
I miss the thrill of studying and understanding the game better.

But I'm far better off with more time for reading (novels),music (my home studio just got a little bigger with drum recording mics), and simply enjoy the outdoors and life in general.

[rikuge]

Great to hear you are doing good! Maybe someday you will find the inspiration again to play Go again (the Ian Butler way , and we can play a game again. And if not, i wish you all the best.

[Ian Butler]

Thank you, rikuge

Anyway, since Go is still a great game and I had some spare time today, I went over the Meijin match where Shibano won over Cho U. I also went over a Takemiya game over a real board, was fun.

Then I went on OGS and decided to offer a teaching game to a 16 kyu. My way of enjoying a game of go without any stress and actually being able to help someone with some tips and tricks
I might do that more often, maybe once a week or once every 2 weeks or so. Might be fun to do. I'll see

[Ian Butler]

Okay so the last few days I've managed to play a few games. (mostly non-teaching)
It was sort of a test and I had but one objective: see if I could play without caring of losing and winning.
So far it's been a success. The games I played were all in good fun and even when it looked bad, I still enjoyed myself.
It's early to tell (can always change back) but I think that maybe I can finally play Go without caring to improve further. Before I tried to not care about rank, but still wanting to improve (and ranks just show that best, so inadvertly you will look at rank more often).
Now I franky don't care if I get better (or worse :p)
I'm at a level where I can enjoy the game a lot, so that's perfect.

But even if I don't necessarily want to get better, there are a few things I want to be mindful for. I'm not sure yet how often I'll play, but if I do, here are the things I want to watch out for in the next few games:

1. Local L&D
A go game is just a collection of puzzles. I enjoy that. If I get in a local L&D in a game, I want to take my time and try to solve that puzzle.

2. Play solid
"Good shape" is a very complex concept, so I wish I could play good shape, but honestly I have no clue what that is, besides the few basic "good shapes" that I know. So instead I want to develop a solid play style. Make moves which can be considered slow or something non-optimal, but which make for solid play. At this level this'll hardly mean the end of the game, maybe you give up a few points by being not extremely efficient.

3. Play away
Don't spend too much time in 1 area. It's a facet of Go that I really like so I want to keep pushing the edges here.

4. Creativity
And lastly, I want to play creatively. I used to be a fairly creative player when I was a low DDK (at least I think so), but then the urge to get stronger and always find the "correct" move narrowed the go board for me. I want to re-capture that creativity, and make sure everything can happen on the go board. Even if that means I play worse. The Go board should be my oyster


Anyway, here is the game I just played.
Moments I "enjoyed" the most:
- lower right L&D, I knew he had to make ko, he didn't. Then he died in gote, I played away, read it out.
- upper left: before, I would've been discontent with the result there. White got the corner, I just got a few stones on the outside. Now I liked it.
- lower left: I liked the ko, but I knew I couldn't win it. Was fun trying to come up with original ko threats. Only I didn't find any, haha.
- upper right: I knew I was okay, because I counted liberties and read out some variations. Granted, maybe I'm wrong and there was something there, but I felt I had it totally under control and that felt cool. Confidence

[TelegraphGo]

Nice game!

4. Creativity
And lastly, I want to play creatively. I used to be a fairly creative player when I was a low DDK (at least I think so), but then the urge to get stronger and always find the "correct" move narrowed the go board for me. I want to re-capture that creativity, and make sure everything can happen on the go board. Even if that means I play worse. The Go board should be my oyster

Finding ways to be more creative is possibly my favorite part of Go. I've thought for a while that getting stronger is really just an expansion and contraction of candidate moves. That is, you can either get stronger by considering more potentially good moves, or less potentially bad ones. Considering less potentially bad moves is how we normally study - x is a mistake, y is not as good z, etc. Considering more potentially good moves is just as valid of a way to rank up! The fact that it reignites my fascination with the game is the best kind of side effect

Sometimes, when I'm feeling like I'm not seeing many options and want to play more creatively, I'll peek at a pro or bot game, find something really weird, and just look at the move for a minute. I'll be thinking, 'Wow, you can do that?' If I try to interpret the idea and apply something similar myself, the next game or two I play is inevitably quite crazy (and very fun! ).

[Knotwilg]

Nice game!

4. Creativity
And lastly, I want to play creatively. I used to be a fairly creative player when I was a low DDK (at least I think so), but then the urge to get stronger and always find the "correct" move narrowed the go board for me. I want to re-capture that creativity, and make sure everything can happen on the go board. Even if that means I play worse. The Go board should be my oyster

Finding ways to be more creative is possibly my favorite part of Go. I've thought for a while that getting stronger is really just an expansion and contraction of candidate moves. That is, you can either get stronger by considering more potentially good moves, or less potentially bad ones. Considering less potentially bad moves is how we normally study - x is a mistake, y is not as good z, etc. Considering more potentially good moves is just as valid of a way to rank up! The fact that it reignites my fascination with the game is the best kind of side effect

Sometimes, when I'm feeling like I'm not seeing many options and want to play more creatively, I'll peek at a pro or bot game, find something really weird, and just look at the move for a minute. I'll be thinking, 'Wow, you can do that?' If I try to interpret the idea and apply something similar myself, the next game or two I play is inevitably quite crazy (and very fun! ).

That's a nice angle!

Usually, thinking about what would be ''the'' correct move is opening up more possibilities than narrowing them down. Bad play usually equates with mindless automatic play without much thinking.

[Ian Butler]

Wohoow! I just played a very exciting game. This was really awesome.
So I'm trying to get to enjoy my Go again, and also find where I belong at the moment for games. I started with an account I made earlier and played some 10-11 kyu games on OGS, as I need to get in shape again!

Today I played my first SDK again, an OGS 9 kyu. I messed up completely at the top! It was dramatic, and I was so close to resigning.
And then I thought: let's just go for it! (I was white)

Nearing the endgame, I was aware that I was behind some, but only like 10 points or so.
So I just decided to try and bring my A-game in the endgame, really focus, grab those sente, big moves. He tried to live in my upper left corner where it wasn't possible, I let him die in gote (and that gave me another point), not reacting to him when I could read out it was dead anyway

In the end, I win by 7.5 points. I can't believe it.
This was a very fun game. With big mistakes, though

I might even review it later, to see what I can learn from it. If you spot something major, I'd of course appreciate it

[jlt]

Nice to hear that your attitude towards Go is becoming more relaxed!

[Ian Butler]

Nice to hear that your attitude towards Go is becoming more relaxed!

I'm happy about it!
Maybe we can still finish our Jubango later on? I'd really like that. Though perhaps with a 2 stone handicap or something? Let me know if you're open to it. Doesn't have to be now or even necessarily soon, but in the (near-ish) future.

[jlt]

Yes, I would be pleased to resume our jubango. We could start with 2 stones handicap and change after 2-3 games if games are too hard for one of us. I am free most thursday evenings 18:00 or 18:30, or saturday mornings or sunday mornings (but I'll be away on November 2 et 3). When you feel ready, please PM me and we can arrange our next match.

[Ian Butler]

This was another fun game, where I think I did a lot of things right.
I was white in this particular game.
My thoughts, alongside Leela's tips, are:

- 32 is a pussy move. Afraid to fight when you kick, so fall back instead. Should've kicked it, probably.
- Direct result: 34 felt uncomfortable. Also shows that 30 was not a very good move, either.
- 36: mistake. Direct result of thinking of recognising a shape and then not reading properly to find out. BIG NO NO

- 88 was a dangerous move. I was very aware of my cutting point at D8. I think in this game I played rather well concerning defending my weaknesses, not leaving too many behind. But here I went for a looser defense. That is more risky. And here even Leela says: just defend it directly.
- 90 is a direct result, I defend it again.

- with 96, I start my direct attack on the middle.
- From 97 to 127 I feel like I win the game. My opponent doesn't seem to see what's going on in the middle (playing very fast), meanwhile I am giving up some stones locally to surround the middle entirely and also making sure I'm alive at the bottom.

-150 was a mistaaaake!
But he didn't notice
- 154, no need to do this now. Essentially a pass.

And then my biggest mistakes in this game. Starting with black cutting at 163. And here I want to ask someone stronger: how/where did I go wrong? Was there a way to keep those stones captured, or did I had to let them leave? Maybe his stones were out and I had to save my stones. Instead I try to keep them in and I lose my stones in the process.

Luckily I had enough points to still win the game!
It was fun!

[dfan]

And then my biggest mistakes in this game. Starting with black cutting at 163. And here I want to ask someone stronger: how/where did I go wrong? Was there a way to keep those stones captured, or did I had to let them leave? Maybe his stones were out and I had to save my stones. Instead I try to keep them in and I lose my stones in the process.

I could analyze all the mistakes move by move but there is really just one general principle you needed to follow here and that is to count liberties. Whoever's liberties are reduced to zero first loses the capturing race.

Here are the number of liberties of their group and your group after every move:

165: 4 / 5
166: 4 / 5
167: 5 / 4
168: 4 / 5
169: 4 / 5
170: 4 / 5
171: 4 / 4
172: 4 / 5
173: 4 / 4
174: 4 / 3
175: 4 / 3
176: 3 / 3
177: 3 / 2
178: 2 / 2
179: 2 / 1
180: 1 / 1
181: 1 / 0

Look over the sequence again with these numbers as a reference.

[Bill Spight]

$$Bcm63 Count liberties
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . a . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . 1 W W . B . O . . X . . . . . |
$$ | . O O O 2 X W . B O . . O . . X . . . |
$$ | . X O X . X . . O O . O . . . X . . . |
$$ | . X X X . . X . . . . X O O O O X . . |
$$ | . . . . X . X . O . . X O . . O . X . |
$$ | . . . . X O . O . X . X X O O O O X . |
$$ | . . X X O O . . . . . . X X X O X X . |
$$ | . X O O . . . . . X O O O O O X X X O |
$$ | . X X O . . O . . X X . O X O X X O . |
$$ | . X O . . . . . O O O O O X O O O . . |
$$ | . O . . . . . O X X X . O X . . . O . |
$$ | . . O O . O O . X O X X X . X . X . . |
$$ | . . X O . X . X X . O . X . X . X X . |
$$ | . . X O . X O O O O X X X O . O O X . |
$$ | . . X . . . . X O . O O X O . O X . X |
$$ | . . . . X . . X O . . . O . . O X . X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . |
$$ ---------------------------------------

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm63 Count liberties
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . a . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . 1 W W . B . O . . X . . . . . |
$$ | . O O O 2 X W . B O . . O . . X . . . |
$$ | . X O X . X . . O O . O . . . X . . . |
$$ | . X X X . . X . . . . X O O O O X . . |
$$ | . . . . X . X . O . . X O . . O . X . |
$$ | . . . . X O . O . X . X X O O O O X . |
$$ | . . X X O O . . . . . . X X X O X X . |
$$ | . X O O . . . . . X O O O O O X X X O |
$$ | . X X O . . O . . X X . O X O X X O . |
$$ | . X O . . . . . O O O O O X O O O . . |
$$ | . O . . . . . O X X X . O X . . . O . |
$$ | . . O O . O O . X O X X X . X . X . . |
$$ | . . X O . X . X X . O . X . X . X X . |
$$ | . . X O . X O O O O X X X O . O O X . |
$$ | . . X . . . . X O . O O X O . O X . X |
$$ | . . . . X . . X O . . . O . . O X . X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

The stones have 4 dame now, as do and , but they threaten to jump to a. The stones have 5 dame now. However if the stone try to escape and are prevented, both the stones and the stones will have only 3 dame left. Is there a play that will reduce the dame count of and , and also meet the threat of the jump to a?