How do you play the endgame?

For lessons, as well as threads about specific moves, and anything else worth studying.
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by Uberdude »

emeraldemon wrote:Uberdude, do you think playing that way on OGS has improved your realtime, byo-yomi endgame?
No.
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by tapir »

Uberdude wrote:
emeraldemon wrote:Uberdude, do you think playing that way on OGS has improved your realtime, byo-yomi endgame?
No.
This endgame seems to be a major part between 3 dan EGF and 7 dan OGS. Scary.
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by cyclops »

I believe it was Shaddy who explained that he made mental notes during a game of the endgame points and their values. My side question is whether it is allowed to make real notes during a real game. Because I am suffering from some memory leakage :sad: . In the same sense I would like to write down my territorial estimates.
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by Uberdude »

tapir wrote:This endgame seems to be a major part between 3 dan EGF and 7 dan OGS. Scary.
It's part, but the elimination of blunders and byo-yomi idiocy is a bigger factor.
cyclops wrote: My side question is whether it is allowed to make real notes during a real game.
I'd consider that cheating, though I did notice one opponent in a recent tournament getting out a notebook and jotting things down (presumably his count, I too often count and then forget after counting the other colour) and I didn't complain.
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by Uberdude »

In case people are interested, here are my yose notes from around move 160 in http://www.online-go.com/games/board.php?boardID=338815, another game which I won in yose.
N19 vs back down o19 = 6
T2 = 4.66
L1 = 3 sente
a7 = ?
b4 = 4.25, wb4 plus b5 connect = 7 (vs b 1 gote and a3 sentes later) for 2 gotes. 7/3 = 2.33 miai.
c14 = 5.66 vs w b15 gote. If w c14 sente then diff is 4 pts
I started precise calculations on move 116 when white peeped at o15, a clever move I had missed as if I connect p18 is severe. Earlier moves like r10 and j6 were played by feeling rather than precise calculation, though if I had done so maybe I would have realised quite how huge n18/m19 was (but I didn't think I could omit r10; I was very dissatisfied with my result on the right side). Losing p14 in sente was painful, but at as consolation it made white o12 wasted. The m18 ko made the yose very complicated, it was one of those cases where playing big gote moves elsewhere are threats because if you end the ko the opponent gets 2 big moves which were basically miai. White's s15 surprised me, I thought he might n2 which is about 9 points, but that move created many more threats for him. Trying to caclulate the size of the m18 ko was too hard for me, particularly after white had got s15 because if white wins the p18 ko my entire group can die. Maybe Bill can help ;-) .
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by entropi »

I don't play endgame because I hate counting. I don't play at kgs since I started playing extreme fighting games at tygem. There I have an account around 1-2 kyu and all of my games (not almost all but really all) finish either by resignation or by at least 30-40 points difference.
The concept is, launch a splitting attack (doesnt matter if it is reasonable or not), chase two dragons, either kill one of them or resign. No need to count, it is even forbidden because detaches you from the ongoing fight, (only counting liberties is allowed)!
I don't know how it is at dan levels in tygem, but I guess the style is not much different.
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by emeraldemon »

entropi wrote:I don't play endgame because I hate counting. I don't play at kgs since I started playing extreme fighting games at tygem. There I have an account around 1-2 kyu and all of my games (not almost all but really all) finish either by resignation or by at least 30-40 points difference.
The concept is, launch a splitting attack (doesnt matter if it is reasonable or not), chase two dragons, either kill one of them or resign. No need to count, it is even forbidden because detaches you from the ongoing fight, (only counting liberties is allowed)!
I don't know how it is at dan levels in tygem, but I guess the style is not much different.
This works I guess, but don't you think there were games you could have won more easily with good endgame, but you started a battle instead? I know I've looked back at some of my games and felt like I picked fights when I was winning, and if I just took it to the endgame I could have saved myself a lot of trouble (and maybe the game).
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by entropi »

emeraldemon wrote:
entropi wrote:I don't play endgame because I hate counting. I don't play at kgs since I started playing extreme fighting games at tygem. There I have an account around 1-2 kyu and all of my games (not almost all but really all) finish either by resignation or by at least 30-40 points difference.
The concept is, launch a splitting attack (doesnt matter if it is reasonable or not), chase two dragons, either kill one of them or resign. No need to count, it is even forbidden because detaches you from the ongoing fight, (only counting liberties is allowed)!
I don't know how it is at dan levels in tygem, but I guess the style is not much different.
This works I guess, but don't you think there were games you could have won more easily with good endgame, but you started a battle instead? I know I've looked back at some of my games and felt like I picked fights when I was winning, and if I just took it to the endgame I could have saved myself a lot of trouble (and maybe the game).
You are absolutely right, this kind of berserker fighting style cannot be the best one if your goal is to win and/or to improve. But the other way inevitably requires positional judgement and counting which I do not enjoy. Since my goal is neither winning nor improving, I don't care so much if I lose a game because I started an unnecessary fight. Most of the time, I never learn anyway who was leading when the big fight started (even though one can assume that I was leading because my opponent welcomed the fight :)).

On top of that, tygem also provides the "estimate" feature even while you are playing the game, but I don't use it either.
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by cyclops »

entropi wrote:I don't play endgame because I hate counting. ......
But you like reading threads about endgame ??
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by entropi »

cyclops wrote:
entropi wrote:I don't play endgame because I hate counting. ......
But you like reading threads about endgame ??
Yes. Even worse : I don't play football but I read about european cup.
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Re: How do you play the endgame?

Post by shapenaji »

How do you play the endgame?
A: Badly

But seriously, I just look for sente "In-between" moves as much as possible, it's one of those weird things where you can play a sub-optimal endgame, but if you're aggressive enough, you'll be in the right ball-park.

The biggest issue is respecting all your opponent's "sente" plays.

There are times when I've had massive exchanges in the endgame because I'm unwilling to take gote and let him fix somewhere else, so we each keep destroying eachother's territory (With a tiny change in the score difference, but a massive change in absolute score)
Tactics yes, Tact no...
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