Life In 19x19

I speculate it may help to relate those attack and defence proverbs to weak groups.

The best defence is a good offence

If your opponent attacks your weak group and has a (related) weak group himself, attacking his weak group may be/is often a better idea than trying to run or live directly with your group. Some possible scenarios:

You answer his attack directly. The strength he gains hounding your weak group helps his weak group.

You attack his weak group in answer. He follows up against your weak group. You follow up against his weak group.

You attack his weak group in answer, he defends his weak group. You use this to help your group.


And very relatedly-

Close fist before striking

Don't start an attack when you have left a weakness that compromises it.

My favorite:

Don't go fishing when your house is on fire!

I'm not sure if it's good advice or not, but this has been my motto these days. Too often, I've gotten caught up in the message boards, asking, "What's the optimal way to do X?", "In situation X, how should I respond?", etc. (for various values of X).

Theory and proverbs are great, but when it comes down to it, you need experience to win games. So these days, I really try to, "Just do it". I've been playing games almost every day with zero time, 30 seconds per move.

With time that fast, yes I make mistakes. Yes, I lose now and then. But I personally feel that it has been helping me not to dwell on the details of a loss, and just move on to the next game.

I don't know if it's the best advice, and I may be "re-enforcing bad habits"... But these days, I am trying to "Just do it".

jts wrote:

Chew Terr wrote:Yes, it may seem obvious/tautological. However, I found myself spending a lot of moves in what became dame later. For example, I would split living groups, or play a lot of moves building a wall that was more or less invalidated before I started building it. That sort of thing. So I was basically telling myself 'If this doesn't actually make territory, consider twice whether or not you have a plan for what it WILL do'.

I guess... but then, it can be okay if your stones, even an entire wall, ends up as dame, or even as part of an opponent's territory. It depends on what you got in return. "OMG I need to make territory here" ends up in a distinctly low class of game. Bill Spight did a great post on how to use walls, with this lesson.

Personally, I don't see Chew's advice as saying that you can't use walls. I see the benefit in the advice in the fact that it makes you think about the moves you are playing. Play a move for a reason.

Kirby wrote:Personally, I don't see Chew's advice as saying that you can't use walls. I see the benefit in the advice in the fact that it makes you think about the moves you are playing. Play a move for a reason.

I guess I could accept the advice at the most general level as, "make meaningful moves" or "Have a plan". But I don't think this has anything to do with knowing exactly where your points are going to be. After all, moves that make points can be meaningless too. (As in "that capture looks big, but it's meaningless.")

There's a passage in Kageyama's fundamentals that goes "If you can't see that white has got the better of black in this diagram, lay it out on your bedside table and chant 'White's thickness is superior!' when you get up in the morning." I guess if it's helpful to you and Chew, then it's helpful. But I think a lot players (including me) just need to have faith that a thick position with overwhelming influence really is going to give them the territory they need. They just need to bide their time. Opponent invades at 3-3? Just wait. Opponent plays sente yose in the middle game? Just wait. Refuses to finish a joseki but still manages to live? Just wait. It's like a magnetic force permeating the board, tilting everything in your favor. You don't really need a reason to have a wall (so long as it's not overconcentrated or whatever). If you lose your nerve and say "zomg I need points now", all that influence and thickness is for naught.

jts wrote:...
I guess I could accept the advice at the most general level as, "make meaningful moves" or "Have a plan". But I don't think this has anything to do with knowing exactly where your points are going to be. After all, moves that make points can be meaningless too. (As in "that capture looks big, but it's meaningless.")
....

Sure. I guess that's not how I took the quote, but he did mention points, so maybe I misinterpreted the meaning.

An observation.

I think "Is this dame?" is functionally equivalent to asking "Am I playing a single purpose reduction?" Which is a very useful heuristic- single purpose reductions can feel very big as you erase a lot of your opponent's moyo, but may often be smaller than an apparently more restrained move that would gain you points at the same time (eg. Knight's move at the edge of two moyo rather than shoulder hitting a stone of your opponent's moyo...)