Re: We are all Rumbolds
Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 9:07 am
I, personally, learn pretty well from books when it comes to higher level concepts. In the opening of the game, for example, I was going nowhere fast. I studied pro game records and examined fusekis and played games but my opening was always a failure. I then read The Direction of Play and now my opening is one of the strongest parts of my game when facing players of a similar rank.
Another example is shape. How am I supposed to figure out that the table shape is good on my own? And even if I realize in a game that a move leading the the table shape is good in one position, how am I going to figure out that the shape is good in a lot of situations? Learning about shapes and when they are used and what they are good at has improved my game tremendously.
The double hane is something that I never used until I learned how to use it from books and videos. I thought being cuttable, with an instant atari forcing move no less, made the move fundamentally bad. When I saw it used in books and then watched video lectures where it was featured I started to see the potential power of this move. On my own I never read deeply enough to play it and was always satisfied to simply hane at the head of two stones. No one at my club played it either so there was no way I would have learned it without study beyond playing go. Now, I suppose I could have learned this in game if other players used it against me, so I guess if I'd hopped on the KGS I could have learned it pretty fast, but I didn't.
Now, when it comes to learning in-game reading, that is strictly a repetition thing for me. A great example of this is how I learned to deal with this common position:
I could never understand, from a conceptual level, why b was correct. I thought: "I'm trying to run away, I need to put my stones farther from my opponents. So a must be correct!" After I was punished about 6 times in games, I learned and started playing the correct move. This, however, I could have learned from a book if I just tried to memorize it, but no book ever taught me this.
And when it comes to building walls I learned about what not to do from having my position cut apart. I got so good at defending my own walls that I learned how to cut apart my opponent's walls when I saw the mistakes I used to make (and that is why my screen name is moyoaji). This now, I could never see learning from a book. There would be so much memorization involved that it would take probably thousands of pages of diagrams to match the 100+ games I've learned from.
Another example is shape. How am I supposed to figure out that the table shape is good on my own? And even if I realize in a game that a move leading the the table shape is good in one position, how am I going to figure out that the shape is good in a lot of situations? Learning about shapes and when they are used and what they are good at has improved my game tremendously.
The double hane is something that I never used until I learned how to use it from books and videos. I thought being cuttable, with an instant atari forcing move no less, made the move fundamentally bad. When I saw it used in books and then watched video lectures where it was featured I started to see the potential power of this move. On my own I never read deeply enough to play it and was always satisfied to simply hane at the head of two stones. No one at my club played it either so there was no way I would have learned it without study beyond playing go. Now, I suppose I could have learned this in game if other players used it against me, so I guess if I'd hopped on the KGS I could have learned it pretty fast, but I didn't.
Now, when it comes to learning in-game reading, that is strictly a repetition thing for me. A great example of this is how I learned to deal with this common position:
I could never understand, from a conceptual level, why b was correct. I thought: "I'm trying to run away, I need to put my stones farther from my opponents. So a must be correct!" After I was punished about 6 times in games, I learned and started playing the correct move. This, however, I could have learned from a book if I just tried to memorize it, but no book ever taught me this.
And when it comes to building walls I learned about what not to do from having my position cut apart. I got so good at defending my own walls that I learned how to cut apart my opponent's walls when I saw the mistakes I used to make (and that is why my screen name is moyoaji). This now, I could never see learning from a book. There would be so much memorization involved that it would take probably thousands of pages of diagrams to match the 100+ games I've learned from.
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