Life In 19x19

I just finished playing through the first game sans commentary. I have never before played through a professional game giving it this much attention: I filled five pages on a legal pad with notes. Mostly I wrote down whether a move made sense or left me with questions, but I also stopped and made predictions at a few points. Sometimes I was right, and a couple times I was one or two moves early.

My notes stopped after about move 175, though. Black's win looked inevitable at this point, and the endgame was much harder for me to follow in diagram form. Plus I was getting tired--this took a lot longer than I thought it would. Slowing down is good for me, though.

I probably won't transcribe all my notes, but I'll use them when I'm going through the commentary.

I have a routine for replaying pro games and I did this when replaying the first game in the Jubango:

1. I try to "recreate" the game in CGoban from scratch without looking at the next move.
2. you can see whether you guess the next move correctly or whether you create a variation
3. after the 3rd "variation" I peek at the correct move

This gives me already an idea on which moves are natural to me and which aren't
I do this a couple of times until I know the game by heart.
The hardest ones to remember are usually not the most difficult ones to understand: the weird ones are often easier to remember. The hardest to remember are natural moves which are played in an unexpected order.

Anyway, I studied this game thoroughly already and replayed it by heart for the occasion, with a few minor mistakes.

Highlights of this game, from memory, are

- the aji creation in the bottom left, which seems to make a major difference, even if it's only about a sente move on the first line
- Black's counterattack in response to White's premature probes (it turned out)
- the natural attack Black had going on White
- the conversion of this attack into territory
- finally, the destruction of WHite's bottom territory using the aforementioned aji

What can we learn from this game as amateurs?

- how to attack
- how to take territory while attacking
- I learned a lot about the endgame from this game, even if it ended in resignation

Notes:

My book is on its way, too. (I'm glad gogameguru is still alive.)

Shortly after the Jubango actually happened I had reviewed the games and the commentaries provided by An Younggil. It will be interesting to see how the book's commentaries differ, though they were promised to be more detailed.

FYI: An Younggil's Game 1 Commentary is here.

I also have the Kisedo books (volumes 1 and 2) but I haven't looked at those yet.

It's been enough time since I looked at the early reviews, so I'm sure I can look at it with fresh eyes. What I recall from these games are some positions that are frightfully complex. I used to click over that stuff, but these days if I did that, I'd be clicking over the whole game, so it's probably high time I slowed down and make sense of something.

A few thoughts from Week 2:

1. Variation 1 for (page 9)
The brief discussion of this variation piqued my curiosity.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . b . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X , a . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . W . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C . . . |
$$ | . . O , . . . . . , . . . . . , X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I'll admit I don't have much experience with open-corner games, but my instinct as White would have been to approach the top left (at A or B), following the theory that a 3-4 approach is a bit more urgent than an approach to a hoshi stone. I checked Waltheri's and while the marked stone is most common, approaching the top left is almost as common. Obviously it would be premature for the book to go into a large digression of opening theory at this early point, but this was a diagram that caught my attention. Anyone know of resources discussing this more?

2. Variations 10 and 11 for (page 13)
The book doesn't say it explicitly, but the outcome of the capturing race discussed in these diagrams is one of the key differences between the Mini- and the Micro-Chinese frameworks. I found this discussion to be a bit more detailed and extremely useful when I first encountered it: http://www.usgo.org/news/2014/08/mini-v ... e-opening/

3. Diagram 10 (page 19)
I was a bit skeptical of some of the imagery for fighting (negotiation, bickering) that the book discussed in the introduction, but I find that it pays off well here. The idea of describing as "silent and aloof from the bickering" really resonated with me and it's something I'd like to try to internalize in my own play.

4. Variation 25 for (page 19)
For a book that has declared its intention to embrace a love of fighting, I'm curious that there isn't even a mention of the bad shape (empty triangle) that makes in this diagram. To me, shape is *almost* as important in fighting as reading, but so far, it's received only passing attention. (The same thing happens in Variation 40.) Maybe the shape discussion will come later?

I intend to give these sections another read later this week, but those are my initial thoughts.

My hardcopy arrived, so I can finally start this evening with the first game. I'll post my questions/... soon!

Forward

While short, I think Lee's foreward is quite a poetic reflection on the
nature of the game. Go on the surface (ahem) may appear to be primarily
an adverserial enterprise, but when regarded as an art form it emerges as
a form of deep collaboration. I think avid Go players know this quite
well and as Lee points out, it should come as no surprise life long
friendships are often made across the board.

Preface

David & An describe the style of the book. To my ears it's clear that
Relentless strives to emulate and surpass Invincible. For
example, it's hard not to see a strong historical connection between
the Li / Sedol jubango and the famous Shusaku / Yuzo
sanjubango. Of course, Fairbairn's books on Go Seigen's ten game matches
also come to mind.

The section "Why Are We Fighting?" seems like a nod towards the
growing popularity of Eurogames,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurogame which demphasize conflict. Go
terminology is infused with the language of conflict, even two
thousand years ago Huan Tan said "There is the popular game of
go. Some say it's a kind of warfare" (from Fairbairn's translation of
Go Classic in 13 Chapters). Board games are more popular now then
they've ever been and I think Go has a great opportunity to draw upon
that vast population so this section makes sense to me in this light.

Now having incorporated the study of commented professional games
available in English into my regimen, all the bits about how to study
and improve ring true to me. Life and death, playing slow games, getting
a teacher - check, check, check

Introduction

Finally the Introduction gives us some context around the 10 game
match. To be honest I'm a bit of history nerd so I could always use
more of this kind of stuff. I relish all the historical details found
in Power's and Fairbairn's writings. That said, I know it's not
everyone's cup of tea so I'm not surprised they kept those bits short
and to the point.

I'm looking forward to digging in!

This looks like a VERY interesting project, reading the book at the same time step by step and discussing it here. Only recently I started playing again and I wondered what to study - everything seems to be urgent and lacking. I decided to buy the book and join you here because what I read now about the book sounds like this is exactly what I might need right now, a roundhouse punch with emphasize on fighting (which I recently came to FINALLY enjoy ). My copy is already on its way and I can't wait to start and join the discussion!

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Moves 1-29
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O X . O . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O X . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . O X X . O . . . . X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . X . . O . . . . . O . X . . |
$$ | . . . . O X . X . O . X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

Here are my notes after reading the assigned sections of the book for this week:

Observations

• I've memorized the first 29 moves of the game, partly by accident, just by working to understand the moves.
• My instinct is to play "narrow" as black, in contrast to the commentary's comments that modern go is wide. In general, I'm eager to start fights against weaker players and hesitant to do so against stronger players. If I'm going to get better at go, I'm going to have to develop my fighting skills until I can hold my own against stronger players. (In the kyu levels, and perhaps higher, fighting strength basically correlates directly with rank.)
• If you have miai to settle some stones (as in moves white 18/ black 19), you can use that to play elsewhere. But make sure your reading proves you *really* have miai!
• Sometimes my instincts are right. When I played through without commentary, I noted that I would have played the descent for 28. The commentary backs this decision, though I obviously hadn't read out everything that would happen. The four diagonal stones in the lower left just look wrong; there are far too many cutting points.
• I was often wrong about when players would tenuki versus continuing a local fight. This is a constant challenge for me when looking at professional games. This directly relates to my calculation strength: not just reading out local life and death, but deciding who is favored by the results.
• One move can make a huge difference in my assessment of the situation. When black plays 27, suddenly it is white that looks to be under attack. I've got to see moves like this in advance and include them in my decision about where to play.

Questions

• My biggest question was about move 14. When replaying the game 14 seemed dubious to me, because after 15 black threatens to swallow up white on one side or the other. When I've looked up the micro chinese opening, most of the comments mention that 7 is in an ideal place to attack a high approach to the lower right corner. I understand that 10 changes the strategic considerations, but was this really a good move at this point? There wasn't a lot of commentary on this move in Relentless. Is there history for this attacking combination in the micro chinese?

Things to try in my games

• Play more slow games, and when I'm reading variations try to honestly assess who gains profit from the results. This seems obvious, but slowly working through a game like this reminds me that reading isn't just about what I *can* do, but what I *should* do.
• Try to decide what my strengths are relative to my level, and move games in that direction. This leaves me with a dilemma, though. I'm probably better at fighting than 80-90% of KGS players 5k and below (my current rank), but I feel like there is a significant gap when I face opponents who are just one or two stones stronger than me. My strength feels like a weakness when I face a different opponent.
• Try out a "wide" opening as black. I don't think the first few moves determine whether I win or lose the game, but my current strategy as black isn't working very well. I think I'll learn more from the rest of this book if I adopt some of the stylistic tendencies of the players involved so that I can compare my (poor) implementation with those of Gu and Lee.
• I particularly liked the following quote: "If you make a habit of choosing straightforward, reasonable sequences that are within the horizon of your reading ability whenever possible, your game will become more stable and you'll win more often."
• Also, "Even when you're defending, you should look for the move that offers you the best followup."

My copy arrived today. If I don't learn anything from it, at least I can use it to knock out burglars.

jeromie wrote: [*] I particularly liked the following quote: "If you make a habit of choosing straightforward, reasonable sequences that are within the horizon of your reading ability whenever possible, your game will become more stable and you'll win more often."
[/list]

Last weekend I played a beginner who frequently added moves that he thought were wrong but he was afraid something terrible might happen if he didn't. I said this was the first thing he should stop doing.

I feel like I do that all the time and then convince myself it is "honte".

http://eidogo.com/#CkLOmlGI


Miai, eyes on target, calm but strong, the potential of stones, profit from attacking. Especially to me the second and third of those. I'm too obedient in my games, responding as a default, letting myself become distracted even when I'm attacking severely - after all, why would they play away if they didn't think it would be okay? So it boils down to a competition in reading (such insight!) - and then in the fighting, except at last moment do they settle their shapes, and make the crude forcing exchanges that me and my typical opponents do the second they become available - then cut and hane at every turn more in the hopes that one will miss the obvious response once and then collapse as opposed to having read out in advance that it works or not.

I've read in Kirby's study journal about his aji-keshi analysis - and that's something I think I should look for in my own games, that and trying to tenuki as a more "default" option - my opponent isn't infallible and always right, otherwise they'd not be 5k like myself.

I hope to be more thorough in the next game - I haven't gone over it previously as much as I have this one - and despite it being rather less of a full board fight I recall finding it harder to follow, but not why exactly that was.

My copy arrived yesterday and I, too, am blown away by merely looking at the book. I think that already carrying it home from the pickup store made me stronger - physically, not Go-wise but it's a good thing anyway.

For now I only finished reading the intro (again, I downloaded the sample and already read it on Friday) and replayed the game on a board once from start to finish. I'm used to replaying games from books (or from SGFs), but for me having all the moves in only 1 diagramm is quite tiresome and makes me think less and search more.. I still have to get used to it. But I guess I'll have enough time for that working through this tree in the shape of a book.

From the first milestone I especially like the parts "Why are we fighting?" and "Learning to love fighting". Fighting in Go has been something I've been struggling with for a long time. I preferred my more "peaceful" way of playing (if you're more direct you might say submissive) and I've only started enjoying it more since I hit a plateau a few years ago. It has improved in the last year and a half and I hope that this book will help me to take the next step in this journey and to belance my moves more finely so that I may not sway as violently between submission and self-destruction as before.

The Introduction was very useful for a reader like me who (of course) is familiar with the names of the players but lacks knowledge of their background. Although somewhat shorter than Shusaku's introduction in Invincible, the introduction gives some information on the mindset of the players, too, which I liked - especially Gu Li's remark

If you only play Go and don't enjoy life, your Go will suffer for it."

rings with me. It's what I've done for the better part of the last 12 months and I can enjoy Go much better now than before. Attitude is so important since our journey for improvement never ends no matter how much time and devotion we put into it. In fact, overdoing it can make it so much harder, that's one lessin I (think I) learned (we'll see). I cannot yet express all the thoughts this quote triggers within me but I hope that through the study here it'll be easier to express them. Oh, and the anecdote on how Gu Li skipped classes in his youth was quite funny, too.

I won't have read all the assigned pages by tomorrow because I want to study the game and the book thoroughly and want to catch up in the next two weeks. For now, I only read the first page of the commentary on the first four moves and I'm already impressed - I never really put very much thought into them, especially in the direction, mainly because I had (and have) my preferred opening pattern. I guess at my level (I've been a 4kyu before my break and it seems I still am) it only really starts to get important. From now on I'll start to put more thought into them. And I also might try this Micro-Chinese Opening for a change - but first I want to read the comments about it in Relentless.

I'm looking forward to reading the discussion here and I hope to contribute a few thoughts soon. I'd definitely like to see jeromie's question answered since I'm not familiar with this shape as of yet.

It's approaching the "due date" for the first chapter of actual go content. What do people think about the pace? Was there too much material to cover in a week? Too little?

Kirby wrote:It's approaching the "due date" for the first chapter of actual go content. What do people think about the pace? Was there too much material to cover in a week? Too little?

I think it's ok in terms of pace. I still wonder exactly how we will conduct the collective study but I found the first week's organic results quite promising already and will oppress my thirst for structure.

Majordomo wrote: Miai, eyes on target, calm but strong, the potential of stones, profit from attacking. (...) So it boils down to a competition in reading (such insight!) - and then in the fighting, except at last moment do they settle their shapes, and make the crude forcing exchanges that me and my typical opponents do the second they become available (...).

I've read in Kirby's study journal about his aji-keshi analysis - and that's something I think I should look for in my own games, that and trying to tenuki as a more "default" option - my opponent isn't infallible and always right, otherwise they'd not be 5k like myself.

I hope to be more thorough in the next game - I haven't gone over it previously as much as I have this one - and despite it being rather less of a full board fight I recall finding it harder to follow, but not why exactly that was.

I read your analysis and it seems like you will benefit a lot from this exercise.