Life In 19x19

RobertJasiek wrote:

saxmaam wrote:a definition of “bad contact play”, which I didn't find.

You have searched for the wrong thing.

Dreadful mistake!

RobertJasiek wrote:The stated principle on p. 80 is:

"Do not use bad contact plays for attack."

Not actually tautologous.

RobertJasiek wrote:The following paragraph defines 'contact play', usually recommends non-contact plays for attack, specifies uses of contact plays and then explains in particular "[...] contact plays that are bad for attack if the attacker does not have strong nearby supporting stones".

Indeed unsupported contact plays are different in kind from supported contact plays, e.g. those occurring in the attach-extend and attach-block patterns. The latter can be used with intent to attack, the former tends not to be used that way. The tsukiatari or ramming play is typically for emergency defence.

The unsupported contact play is a typical non-emergency defensive play.

The underlying type of mistake being criticised here is "playing too close". That takes a bit of unpacking, but is one of the fundamentals.

The book's exposition also takes a bit of unpacking.

saxmaam wrote: 2015/11/17 Won as 15 kyu against 14 kyu with 1 handi stone. I usually lose to this player so, pleased to win this one. Rank bumped to 14 kyu. (https://online-go.com/game/3278575)

and are OK, while is over the top. But Black's result to is overconcentrated. The cut at C6 should come immediately, and White has problems here.

To Black doesn't have good formations. Black does better on the lower side to . There follow some plays that don't mean much. Before living with , Black has the option of forcing with K5.

for is not a good exchange. The key point of shape here is Q5, which sets up further plays.

By it is not so clear that the exchange made is better for Black. The endgame starts, however, and Black plays steadily from a solid position. Black 173 is a clear error (of the 123 type).

Chapter 7. Shape

This is another dense chapter. I found new insights here. Like not pushing your opponent into the center where he wants to be. Do I do that? I'm not sure so probably. Some examples were over my head, though that's been true for the entire book. I especially enjoyed the joseki section and was pleased to find that the basic joseki demonstrated were all familiar.

My energy for Go has been rather limited lately. I've been steadily working through this book, even if my pace is very slow. And I've been playing turns in correspondence games. I'd like to get the number of correspondence games way down and play live instead.

2016/01/04 Slow going over the holiday since I had to put up my Go board for company. Multiple correspondence tournaments opened up new rounds. Sad face! Yesterday I played a rare live game and lost big time after an opening that put me ahead, probably. <<Don't join correspondence tournaments. Don't join correspondence tournaments.... some of them are nearly 18 months old!.>>

2016/01/07 Finished this nice chapter. Could've used more problems!

RobertJasiek wrote:

saxmaam wrote:a definition of “bad contact play”, which I didn't find.

You have searched for the wrong thing. The stated principle on p. 80 is:

"Do not use bad contact plays for attack."

The used phrase is 'bad contact plays for attack'. The following paragraph defines 'contact play', usually recommends non-contact plays for attack, specifies uses of contact plays and then explains in particular "[...] contact plays that are bad for attack if the attacker does not have strong nearby supporting stones". For practical purposes, this is the offered definition of 'bad contact plays for attack'. No attempt is made to define 'bad contact plays' for the general variety of uses of contact plays - the definition is only for the purpose of attack. This is the important case for the reader.

Thanks! I guess I didn't have myself subscribed to this thread, so didn't realize that I had replies.

Hello, I thought I'd post an update here.

There's been a death in my family and I have some new, time-consuming responsibilities.

I'm playing a few correspondence games and starting to play a few live games a week, but it will be a while before I get back to actually studying Go. I plan to resume this thread when I do.

My sympathy.

Take good care of yourself … sometimes anything can be more important than Go.
(And sometimes Go can help clearing the head, but you know that, too.)

Best wishes, Tom

Take care and come back quickly, your journal interest me!

Kind Regards,

Martin