Life In 19x19

Thanks for the analysis Ed. What's funny is that I actually played a game before where I exploited that mistake against another guy when i was 12kyu. I must have just forgotten about it throughout the match!



As for daily progress, I am now finished with 500 out of the 1001 life and death problems. But i still have a habit of making clumsy mistakes and not reading through properly. Very enjoyable set though!

I am also finding Get Strong at Attacking & Invading a great complementary problem set along with A&D by Ishida.

I also won and lost a game today at 10k. I should have won both, but the 1st game i completely misread one of my shapes (thought i was dead when i was in fact alive) and lost a Ko fight that i didnt have to fight because of it.

feeling a little sick so i didn't get to do too much, but i finished Lee Chang Ho's Tesuji Vol 4 and L&D Vol 1 today. The tesuji book was a piece of cake (94% accuracy in 20 minutes), while the L&D was a bit more tricky (66% accuracy ). I plan on going through these again after I finish up some other books such as GS at Tesuji, and 1001 L&D problems.


In the meantime, I am highly considering making another account just for blitz games! Seems like a good way to play when I don't have much time and to develop some intuition.

here is a free game I played today. I ran out of time and lost but we kept on playing on after time ran out, and I ended up winning the Ko fight in the bottom and managed to make life in the upper right and won by 30+ points. Any reviews would be greatly appreciated

Another victory, with my review comments included (including some incorrect variations - idk how to delete them). I realize I am starting to become a more influence-oriented player, and for some reason i am not a fan of this. I would rather like to play a more territorial, aggressive game. Because of this I am going to start reviewing some past games of Lee Sedol.

Any reviews of this game would be greatly appreciated!

Why do you think that a territorial style is more aggressive than an influence style?

Besides which, why worry about your own style? Just make what you think is the best play.

Bill Spight wrote:Why do you think that a territorial style is more aggressive than an influence style?

Besides which, why worry about your own style? Just make what you think is the best play.

Great advice - I think what I should have said was I am worried that I might become too influence oriented, and i am not getting the basics on how to invade, attack and reduce properly. I want to become a more balanced player

hl782 wrote:

Bill Spight wrote:Why do you think that a territorial style is more aggressive than an influence style?

Besides which, why worry about your own style? Just make what you think is the best play.

Great advice - I think what I should have said was I am worried that I might become too influence oriented, and i am not getting the basics on how to invade, attack and reduce properly. I want to become a more balanced player

Influence is all about attacking, invading, and reducing properly. You gave away territory to your opponent in exchange for it, so how else would you make the game equal? You use the influence to support all those things.

I think one of the best ways to learn how to attack well is to play games with fairly large handicaps (say 4 stones or more) against suitable players, and to make sure you play actively rather than trying to secure territory right away. It's all about using the influence effectively.

hl782 wrote:I realize I am starting to become a more influence-oriented player, and for some reason i am not a fan of this. I would rather like to play a more territorial, aggressive game.

I always thought of a territorial style as a passive style and an influence style as an aggressive style.

Another game i played today - The opening was absolutely miserable but my opponent made numerous critical mistakes and that helped me win the game.

0.5 point win against a 9k. I was ahead of the game by 20+ at some point and then i made some stupid stupid mistakes that made the game so close. I even made a critical mistake that should have cost me the game, but my opponent was gracious enough to undo it. Scraped through the skin of my teeth with this one.

Didn't get to play a game today but I finished my first runthrough of Get Strong with Tesuji at 68.7% accuracy. I plan on running through the problems i missed to nail them on to perfection. These seem like a good way to get concepts of sente, etc.


But i gotta say these were a bit of a chore to go through - it wasn't as great as many people on Life19x19 hyped it up to be.

Just played a very late night game against an 8kyu and i won!

any reviews would be very appreciated! EdLee perhaps? Your review last time was very helpful

hl782 wrote:Didn't get to play a game today but I finished my first runthrough of Get Strong with Tesuji at 68.7% accuracy. I plan on running through the problems i missed to nail them on to perfection. These seem like a good way to get concepts of sente, etc.


But i gotta say these were a bit of a chore to go through - it wasn't as great as many people on Life19x19 hyped it up to be.

Well, people like different books. I for one don't get the hype about Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go.

I really like Get Strong at Tesuji because it fills a gap when it comes to shape problems and problems to get Sente - kinda real life problems. It is much more subtle than your common connect/capture/kill-Tesuji book. And it has a whooping 534 problems, which are very fast to go through =)

SoDesuNe wrote:

hl782 wrote:Didn't get to play a game today but I finished my first runthrough of Get Strong with Tesuji at 68.7% accuracy. I plan on running through the problems i missed to nail them on to perfection. These seem like a good way to get concepts of sente, etc.


But i gotta say these were a bit of a chore to go through - it wasn't as great as many people on Life19x19 hyped it up to be.

Well, people like different books. I for one don't get the hype about Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go.

I really like Get Strong at Tesuji because it fills a gap when it comes to shape problems and problems to get Sente - kinda real life problems. It is much more subtle than your common connect/capture/kill-Tesuji book. And it has a whooping 534 problems, which are very fast to go through =)

Hmm yeah i agree its a good collection of problems! maybe ill enjoy it more on my reruns when i dont have to go through all 534 problems again x)


In the meantime - i started going over 'Making Good Shape' by richard bozulich. Gotta say I'm loving this book so far - the abstractness of the questions (its more than just tesuji/l&d) is really making me think and testing my reading ability to my limits! I think I'll finish going over this, 1001 L&D Problems, then GGPB Vol.4 - Then go through reruns of all that I've missed.

Also I'm already halfway towards 9kyu - hopefully i'll be able to achieve my goal of SDK soon

Another victory against a 9kyu!