Life In 19x19

Aernout wrote:I killed a group by using a throw-in for the first time in my career.

Congrats.

Thanks again for all the helpful comments! I am playing humans online now. Guess what happens....I lose!

Any time that I get in a fight, I always lose. I am trying to play moves like there are in the books. You know, corner enclosure, extensions, approach, stuff like that. My opponents will have none of that. They attack. We fight. I lose. It's as simple as that. I'm pretty hooked now, so I think I'll keep playing. But this can't go on forever. I know my own personality, and I am certainly a glutton for punishment if there ever was one. But we all have our limits!

By the way, I appreciate the offers but I won't be taking any lessons from anyone because I'm not big on wasting other people's time. Thanks though!

Ugh...still frustrated.

Do you try to review your games afterwards?
Try to focus on finding and correcting only one or two common mistakes you catch yourself making each time.

dmpeyton wrote:
By the way, I appreciate the offers but I won't be taking any lessons from anyone because I'm not big on wasting other people's time. Thanks though!

Ugh...still frustrated.

It's not you to decide if someone else is wasting their time. For many of us, helping a weaker player see what is going on in a go game is just as much of a challenge and just as interesting as actually playing a game.

dmpeyton wrote:My opponents will have none of that. They attack. We fight. I lose. It's as simple as that.

You seem to be missing an important step though! If you feel like you did it 'right', but your opponent still won the fight: you probably made a mistake in your response. So stop banging your head against a wall by playing and losing another game, but review your game first. Look for the move that would have saved your group / defended your territory / whatever it is that went wrong.

And guess what! After you understood the mistake and you found a decent alternative, and making the mistake in a game and finding the mistake in review some 10 more times... The 11th time, while your mouse moves to the field to make the same mistake again, you will suddenly feel uneasy about what you are going to do. You might still do it a few times, but every time that feeling (a very physical feeling for me personally) gets worse. And then, at some point, you consciously make the right move! And then you have a party because you went 1up.

The point is though: It works to play deliberately. When I play a 9x9, I play with 15min+5x30s, and I hear the count-down almost every game. And after the game, I review the game: I look for the move where it went wrong and try to find a better alternative. Sometimes I ask my opponent what I should have done differently, and many times they will actually help me out.

Which leads to my two conclusions:

• Identify your mistakes to increase your conscious and subconscious understanding of the game.
• Ask others for help or guidance with this process.

And trust me: There are a lot of people (myself included) that actually enjoy helping others out. It feels nice to help someone else, and it shows for themselves how much they have learned. And who are you to decide that others don't wish to interact with you? They are perfectly able to decide that for themselves. Just ask! Just remember to say 'Thank you!'.


P.S. Did you do the exercises? Do the exercises.


Ai, xed_over beat me to it with a much more efficient post. Still posting it though, since I spent 20 minutes to write this.

Also: Thanks EdLee!

Argh! And daal as well!

dmpeyton wrote: By the way, I appreciate the offers but I won't be taking any lessons from anyone because I'm not big on wasting other people's time. Thanks though!

Ugh...still frustrated.

Post a game - I suspect that most people here enjoy giving reviews - particularly if you are keen to improve at the game.

Ps - because I didn't see anyone else mention it - YouTube
Eg:
https://m.youtube.com/user/nicksibicky

xed_over wrote:Do you try to review your games afterwards?
Try to focus on finding and correcting only one or two common mistakes you catch yourself making each time.

I have started doing that, and it is definitely helpful. I can usually find what went wrong in the fight, and what I could have done differently. Of course, I just go and lose the next one too! But I am getting used to that. This is a game where I just lose. That's how it works. It is possible that I may win at some point in the future. Not likely, but possible. I do get some territory. I don't end up with zero territory, so I must be doing something right.

daal wrote:It's not you to decide if someone else is wasting their time. For many of us, helping a weaker player see what is going on in a go game is just as much of a challenge and just as interesting as actually playing a game.

That's a fair point, but just trust me on this.

Aernout wrote:P.S. Did you do the exercises? Do the exercises.

Yes! Thank you so much for that suggestion. I worked through the easy ones pretty quickly, and I haven't had time yet to get to the more difficult areas. You are right that this website is much more beginner friendly than anything else I have seen.

S2W wrote:Post a game - I suspect that most people here enjoy giving reviews - particularly if you are keen to improve at the game.

I'm not terribly keen on embarrassing myself. I guess I might at some point when I'm not making so many incredibly stupid mistakes. You know, the ones where you guys would think "Uh, dude, a three-year old could have seen that plain as day. Is there brain matter inside that sphere above your shoulders?" This is how I talk to myself when I play go.

I'm a daily user of youtube so I have been checking out videos, but I don't always have time to watch the longer ones. I really like the ones by Jonathan Hop.

I can definitely see why playing the computer is not so helpful. It really tends to play the same way in every game, whereas playing humans is totally unpredictable. It's clearly more efficient to build skills that way.

I know that you are supposed to play big moves when you can. You know, extensions along the side and corner enclosures and approaches and stuff. I try to leave a corner as soon as possible to do that, but usually my opponent just keeps on playing in the same place. So then they are a move ahead of me. RIP, stones.

dmpeyton wrote:I'm not terribly keen on embarrassing myself. I guess I might at some point when I'm not making so many incredibly stupid mistakes. You know, the ones where you guys would think "Uh, dude, a three-year old could have seen that plain as day. Is there brain matter inside that sphere above your shoulders?" This is how I talk to myself when I play go.

This is a thought process that needs to change. We were all beginners once. In fact, if you want to see some of my early games where I made the "uh...what's this?" mistakes, they're available on KGS. I still make terrible mistakes. But that's why we review games and figure out what went wrong, so we can change it.

You should approach it with a positive attitude. "Hey, I'm going to make mistakes, and that's okay, because I can learn from my mistakes. But I'm going to do my best, and let's see what happens." Focusing on the negative will only cause paralysis, and you won't be able to enjoy an incredible game (and I sense it'll extend to the rest of your life as well).

Hi peyton,

When you feel more comfortable about it, get a game review.

Here is some more context for you:

• In the last game I played, I ended the game with exactly 0 stones on the board. (9x9)
• It took me more than 20 games to stop placing stones in positions where they can immediately be captured by the opponent. Especially on the edge of the board, where I still throw away a stone like that now and then. (Btw, I stopped doing this by training myself to actively count liberties of every group on the board, to force myself to be aware.)
• Especially compared with the above: Knowing when to tenuki is far from trivial. If anything, it might be better to err on the side of hubris as you do, because it's easier to see when you tenuki'ed too early (you will lose your stones) than too late (you have some number of points less, depending on how the rest of the moves played out, i.e., a mess). And with clear feedback it's easier to improve.
• Making mistakes is part of the game. In fact, it is part of life! It's how you learn. No-one should judge you for it, least of all yourself. Laugh at yourself! Put a big smile on your face and say "Hahaha, I guess I should try to do that not too often!"
• Most people won't judge you because they don't care. You only exist in their world as some faceless being that puts stones on the board.

Lastly, something about Online Go Anxiety for the general public:

Make it your goal to lose. Before you start playing, say to yourself: "This evening, I am going to lose 2 games." And then you play, giving it everything you have to win every game. And you keep playing until you have lost twice.

(It normalizes losing as an expected and OK result. I think I picked it up from my time of playing Starcraft 2 online, where it's called "ladder anxiety". Only know I realize how much I have learned about general self-improvement during my Starcraft 2 time. Thanks Day[9]!)

when to tenuki is far from trivial...

Yes; true for almost anything in Go.

easier to see when you tenuki'ed too early... than too late...

For the trivial cases where your tenuki results in a clear loss, yes.
In general, however, things are much more nuanced and messy -- almost nothing is easy in Go.

dmpeyton wrote:Any time that I get in a fight, I always lose. I am trying to play moves like there are in the books. You know, corner enclosure, extensions, approach, stuff like that. My opponents will have none of that. They attack. We fight. I lose. It's as simple as that. I'm pretty hooked now, so I think I'll keep playing. But this can't go on forever. I know my own personality, and I am certainly a glutton for punishment if there ever was one. But we all have our limits!

First thing is to have some idea what to do in a "contact fight". There, liberties are precious. There are basic ideas about chasing the opponent to the edge; not playing atari automatically; extending to gain liberties; readability of small-scale capturing races.

Then there are a raft of things to know about cutting and connecting.

Why not post a game record here?

OK, you can now enjoy looking at one of my games! I'm actually pretty proud that I was able to figure out how to post it. I think I've pretty much had it with this game. It's honestly just stressing me out at this point. The information on go strategy has not helped me at all. If I can't fight, then I can't win.

Well, there are a couple of lessons here.

One is that is bad, and now you know why.

Another one is that it is too early to resign. Your opponent is capable of any number of large errors. Remember the battle cry:

Danton wrote: De l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!