A DDK's baby steps

mitsun · Post by **mitsun** » Tue Nov 25, 2014 5:15 pm

Some comments on the last posted game, which I have not seen in the other reviews:

Your opening bamboo joint (P6) is a nice local shape move -- I would call it a good move at your level -- but you will make big progress in your overall game if you stop to think whether a move here is needed or not. Your move defends two stones, but what strategic significance do those stones have? W is so strong to the right that these stones do not affect his group at all. If you do not defend, what will W do? He can push through Q5, but you can just let him capture two stones, making only a few points of additional territory in gote. Meanwhile, you can play a really big strategically important move like G17, or perhaps a simple safe territorial extension around K4.

Carrying on with this theme, after your bamboo joint connection, suppose W played atari at Q5 sometime soon. Quick, where would you play? I suspect your knee-jerk reaction would be to connect, and to be happy that W failed to cut your bamboo joint, while losing a liberty in the process. But much much better would be to tenuki, and to be exceedingly happy if W wasted yet another move capturing two worthless stones.

D18 is sometimes a tesuji, allowing you to play B18 in sente. Good job spotting it, rather than just passively playing B17. But more often, it is even better to play B18 (double-hane) directly. Do you see that W cannot really take you up on the offer to cut and capture this stone? So you get the same nice B shape as in the game, without giving W such a nice capture. Not a big difference, but worth learning.

You seem happy with the exchange E12 for C11 (and similar exchanges elsewhere). But the B stone strengthens a group which was already strong, while the W stone nearly secures a group which was very weak, and makes more additional territory than the B move. Not all forcing moves are good; here W is the one who should be pleased with the exchange.

mimano · Post by **mimano** » Thu Nov 27, 2014 3:19 am

Thanks a lot for your comments Mitsun, they actually resonate a lot with the book I am studying now, opening theory made easy, in particular principle 20, "do not cling to stones that have served their purpose". The author mentions that it's a quite difficult principle to follow for beginners, and indeed it is hard for me to say goodbye to my beloved stones once they are on the board

But your remarks about my bamboo joint, are right on the spot, and would deserve to figure in the book as examples of application of this principle. And you are right, if W played Q5, I would very proudly connect ! :-?

Concerning the E12 C11 exchange, I see what you mean now - But in the actual game, my assessment of the strength/weakness of the groups was wrong. I did not see that the B group could easily make life, and considered W to be quite strong already.

Finally, I am not sure I understang exactly why I can safely play B18 directly. Maybe because I can defend appropriately as in the diagram below?

mimano · Post by **mimano** » Fri Nov 28, 2014 4:57 am

I continue to work on my OGA, and I think the more I play, the better it gets. I guess, the best cure against OGA is to actually play :lol:

Yesterday two games - my first one as an 18K on tygem, using the android client, which means all in Korean

. I eventually found a way to request automatch, but am not sure at all what all the options mean. If anyone with a knowledge of korean could tell us what the few options mean in the settings menu for instance, that would be much appreciated, because with some settings I could not do automatch, and others I could. Strange... :-?

Then, an IGS game, on more familiar territory. It was a win, but a very close one (I won by the reverse komi only!), and I am not too happy with the way I handled the game. I felt my fuseki was more or less OK, and at the beginning of the middle game I felt comfortable, but I once more had to give up a lot of territory to easy corner invasions, and that makes me unhappy. I wonder how to cure that. Is it a question of timing of the corner defense play, or of keeping sente, or both?

I posted the game in the game review section of the forum, I thought maybe it was better suited to the forum's organisation: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11127. As always, comments very welcome.

I attach a screenshot of the intriguing settings screen from the Tygem android client:

EDIT: for anyone interested, I found the translations in this thread: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=9365

mimano · Post by **mimano** » Sun Dec 21, 2014 3:07 pm

I have not posted in a while here, but I am keeping up to date with the forum, and keeping up with my enjoying the game. With 4 children though, and the fact that playing at night is not ideal for my sleeping pattern, it is just very challenging to find a decent chunk of peaceful time to fit a game in. As a result, 5 rated IGS games since my last post, where I went 2-3 (so still 17k? there), and 5 rated games on KGS, where I went 1-4 (unfortunately including 2 sandbaggers - I feel entitled to qualify them so, since the KGS admins seemed to agree with me when they deranked them the same day - one of them was particularly unpleasant, calling me a sandbagger and talking nonsense in the game; KGS does not seem like the best place to play in the afternoon GMT), and am now playing as a 11k there.

I also got a few teaching games on KGS, and I feel two of them were actually useful. A bit of book reading (I will have to come back to opening theory made easy in a while, there is still so much more I need to get from it, but I am reading Life and death and tesufi by Davies now), and probably 1 hour per day on average spent on tsumego. I can feel my reading is improving, in precision I would say. I cannot read sequences much further than I used to, but I think that I get a better feel for the strongest resistance in a problem, and also that the reading is more precise in that I "imagine better" the presence of the stones in the sequence I am reading, and miss less things like e.g. snapback, and shortage of liberties, which are triggered in the sequence. This better reading is a pleasant feeling, and makes me feel much more comfortable in games, actually making them more fun because I suffer less of feeling like a blind person looking for their way, but sometimes know a bit better where I want to go, much less hindered by a total reading inability. Moreover, I find doing tsumego is really a lot of fun.

I do not have a recent loss to post so will skip that, but will hopefully have some material to post soon (not hoping to lose, but hoping to have time for play!

)

S2W · Post by **S2W** » Sun Dec 21, 2014 3:33 pm

I have not posted in a while here, but I am keeping up to date with the forum, and keeping up with my enjoying the game. With 4 children though, and the fact that playing at night is not ideal for my sleeping pattern, it is just very challenging to find a decent chunk of peaceful time to fit a game in.

Have you tried correspondence games on either ogs or dgs? I have young kids also and finding free time to play a whole game is often difficult. Correspondence games let me play a few moves when I can (I usually have around 20 games going at a time to ensure a steady stream) - then get back to the kids when they need me. I also find that I play much better with more time, and by playing tougher opponents in correspondence games my live games seem to improve also.

mimano · Post by **mimano** » Tue Dec 23, 2014 8:06 am

Yes, I am on DGS, and have played a handful of games, but for some reason I do not like it much. If I have a lot of games going, I find it hard to keep track of what's going on on each of them, and if I have only a few, I find it really too slow a pace for my liking. I also end up analyzing each move for ever, without the time pressure of a live game. So all in all, I don't know, it is just a very different experience than a live game, and one that I unfortunately do not find very exciting. It's a pity because as you suggest, I feel it could be a great way of making up for the lack of freedom in my time management.

mimano · Post by **mimano** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 2:01 pm

Hi everyone, it's been a while, but I am still alive, and still playing. I needed to take a break for a litle while: I had to admit that I was not having the fun a game is supposed to bring in your life. It had all become too serious and even tense. I guess I was just too focused on improving. I switched to other hobbies, felt again what it was like to spend time doing something for the fun of it, and when I felt I could do it with go too, I gave it another try. Here I am now back, after one month and some 20 games with this new approach. For the time being it's going well. I will dare say my main focus is on having fun more than on winning. Improvement will come with play, and play will come with pleasure and fun, so that's what I'm aiming at for now.

Tsumegos are still there, but lees intensively than before, I guess in more reasonable amount. I have also switched to Tygem, for a few reasons. Its ranking system is similar to IGS, in that is it easy to understand and predict, but even better in that respect. But most of all, there are so many players that it is easy to find even games with same rank opponents. I have to admit I really do not like handicaps.

Of course, there are quite a few sandbaggers at my level, but I don't feel that's a problem. I got an encounter with a sandbagger who actually offered me the game then it was over for me, and we played three nice games in a row. He was quite polite and kind. I would say this turned out to be implicit teaching games, even though we could not communicate. All in all, sandbaggers are not an obstacle to having fun, so they don't bother me at all over there.

I just made my way up to 17k (Hurray :bow:

), and my second game at this level was with a former 16K who gave me a great fight. I dare this is the most exciting game I had ever played, and I think that is really easier to reach in even games. To sum it up, We had a reasonable opening, he started invading all my frameworks, with good reason, I had a chance to make up by attacking one of his groups, and the game was rather even. Then he overplayed, I cut him and ended up in a position to capture a large group in the center after a capturing race. We played on, and then my capturing stones were taken in another capturing race, and my initial capture ended up not being one, the game was back even. We were playing the last dame when I panicked, did not find the pass button, did not find a ko threat (a 0.5 point ko...), and lost on time! :lol:

After counting, it looks like I was winning the game by 0.5 points :shock:

So anyway, the game is attached with my comments - I missed a saving move in the second capturing race, but not enough time to think and/or not enough tsumegos I guess. I hope some of you find it entertaining :salute:

S2W · Post by **S2W** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 2:35 am

Welcome back!

Some comments - take them with a grain of salt as usual.

mimano · Post by **mimano** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 3:59 am

Thanks S2, quite a few interestings ideas in your comments. In particular, the attack on the left Black group would have been quite interesting to try out, but I never saw the weakness ;-)

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A DDK's baby steps

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