A beginner's journal of little interest

[Boidhre]

Ah, I though b16 was forced, my mistake.

If W replies at b16 he's dead

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[go]$$Bc The x's make a bulky 5
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$$|xxOXX
$$|3xOOX
$$|1OOXX
$$|.2OX
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Indeed. I'm blind.

[EdLee]

I was told that I was being too aggressive and that this was the major problem in my play in the game. I'd appreciate some thoughts on this statement.

Who said this and what was that person's level?
Your biggest problem, like many others' at these levels, lies in your basics. Everything else is secondary.

[Boidhre]

It was a 1d? Ed, I think he was around 1k/2k really going from his rating graph. The advice ran contrary to what I'd been told here over and over so I wanted a second opinion. He felt I should play more solidly and hane less often.

[EdLee]

It was a 1d? Ed, I think he was around 1k/2k really going from his rating graph.
The advice ran contrary to what I'd been told here over and over so I wanted a second opinion.

He did not know what he was talking about.

He felt I should play more solidly and hane less often.

This is wrong, a wrong idea, a wrong solution, and a completely wrong way to teach.
This is a prime example of a kyu or low-dan feeding you poison.
What you want still is to improve your basics.
You want to learn when it's correct to hane, and when it is not.
When it's correct to extend, you extend; when it's correct to hane, you hane.
It has nothing to do with the frequency of your hane, and everything to do with the exact board position.

"Hane less often" is a completely wrong idea -- it's like someone teaching you how to drive like this:
"You should go straight more often and turn right less often." It makes no sense at all.

PS. I like how you referred to him as an "it", like Obi-Wan on Darth Maul in Episode I.

[Boidhre]

It was a 1d? Ed, I think he was around 1k/2k really going from his rating graph.
The advice ran contrary to what I'd been told here over and over so I wanted a second opinion.

He did not know what he was talking about.

He felt I should play more solidly and hane less often.

This is wrong, a wrong idea, a wrong solution, and a completely wrong way to teach.
This is a prime example of a kyu or low-dan feeding you poison.
What you want still is to improve your basics.
You want to learn when it's correct to hane, and when it is not.
When it's correct to extend, you extend; when it's correct to hane, you hane.
It has nothing to do with the frequency of your hane, and everything to do with the exact board position.

"Hane less often" is a completely wrong idea -- it's like someone teaching you how to drive like this:
"You should go straight more often and turn right less often." It makes no sense at all.

PS. I like how you referred to him as an "it", like Obi-Wan on Darth Maul in Episode I.

Hmm, it might be a cultural thing but I didn't refer to him as it there. Similar to how I could say "It was a salesman than sold me that car", I'm not referring to the salesperson as an it. In Ireland anyway this would be considered correct usage. I've no idea about US usage. I was effectively saying "It was a 1d? that told me that", if I said "He was a 1d? that told me that" it'd sound very wrong to me.


I agree, about basics and fundamentals. One needs to take the long view to improvement and not just focus on what'll get you the next stone fastest.

[jts]

Hmm, it might be a cultural thing but I didn't refer to him as it there. Similar to how I could say "It was a salesman than sold me that car", I'm not referring to the salesperson as an it. In Ireland anyway this would be considered correct usage. I've no idea about US usage. I was effectively saying "It was a 1d? that told me that", if I said "He was a 1d? that told me that" it'd sound very wrong to me.

No, this is correct American usage as well: "It was Colonel Mustard, in the parlor, with the wrench."

[Boidhre]

A much tougher handicap game against one of the Irish players:



I was losing until he made a serious error in the endgame. I felt I was outplayed in many areas here and in the top right especially I just couldn't read it out and chickened out. I messed up a fair bit in the yose too which I'm unhappy about. Thoughts as always are welcome. A fast game so if people don't want to review then that's fine.

[Bill Spight]

Some more about attacking.

[Boidhre]

Thanks Bill, some very interesting moves there.

[EdLee]

[Boidhre]

Thanks Ed.

[Boidhre]

I'm playing a lot of turn based games as they mesh well with minding young children during the day. There are problems with this, you see less games than you would with real time games and if you suffer from regular depressions you end up playing part of a game well, part of it depressed. The following is an example of the latter, played over a month where I spent most of it in poor form and it was reflected in my play. My mood picked up towards the yose and I became a lot more ambitious I think, going for big kills even if they didn't happen I got some profit/aji from them. I made some dreadful mistakes in the middlegame when my mood was low.



What I'm most interested in is the yose as I was in good form for that. I feel like I made some major mistakes in it, even if I won the game there (I think). He was 15k and I was 20k when the game finished, so it had a fairly big swing on both our ratings.

[mitsun]

Since you are most interested in the end of the game, let's start at move 160. All large groups are now safe, so yose has officially begun. Are you willing to put in some work on the review? Try estimating territory in each region of the board. Also note where the unsettled borders are located and estimate how much a play in each area is worth. Which of these plays are sente for one side or the other? You could easily put in an hour of study on this exercise, and I guarantee it would improve your game.

For example, on the upper side, B has roughly 15 points of territory, and moves at M16, O15 or P16, and P19 are worth a few points each. This area is relatively easy to evaluate.

The center area around G11 is a little trickier. If B cuts at G12, can W do anything but give up that stone? If so, then W move 161 and the next few moves by both sides are pointless.

W move 171 threatens a huge cut at B3. How many points would that move be worth? Try playing it out both ways (W moves first or B moves first) and figure out the difference. Is there anything on the board which is comparably large? The value of the cut at G12 is now fairly easy to calculate.

B move 172 again missed the point, but W answered reflexively, so B gained a few points here in sente and then got to defend the B3 cut anyway. Who is it who likes to say, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good

A few more endgame comments on small plays which did not affect the outcome:

180) why not take the ko? At least make W come up with one ko threat.
181) no defense needed here, -1 point gote
224) no defense needed here, -1 point gote
227) no defense needed yet, 0 point gote
228) B spotted this first, 6 points gote!

[Boidhre]

Thank you mitsun, I'll sit down with an sgf editor and work through the endgame again.

[Boidhre]

I want to solicit some opinions on this:

Should I buy some more go books now or is my play still too raw for them to be useful? I'm thinking of problem books rather than theory books here for the most part. Recommendations based on problems in my play very much welcome!