Life In 19x19

I just played a real game on KGS for the first time in forever! Seriously I have forgotten how difficult it is to find a game on this server as an unranked or ? ranked player. People are so protective of their ranks that I had to play idiotBot or something to get a [18k?] rank. Relatively, OGS players tend to be a lot more chill, as most players on OGS are willing to play people of much lower rank. After the recent alphago-zero news, I have really stopped taking things like strength/rank/improvement seriously. I have a hard time seeing myself significantly improve my understanding of the game. Sometimes I even wish that I could forget the joseki's and opening theory that I have learned.


I ended up playing DCNN, which is a bot that is ranked 1d (seems like a very solid 1d) on the server. I really wanted to play an even game but I forgot to change the komi to 7.5. To my surprise I actually won! Considering that I hadn't played online for months, the time setting of 5 min + 5 * 30 sec (which is quite normal for online play) was still too fast for me.

I did not play endgame well but I got away with some stuff in the middle game so my poor endgame didn't matter.

Sandbagging a bot - this is new

This past week I have been helping the Leela Zero project (for more details see https://github.com/gcp/leela-zero) by running self-play games and submitting them to an online server to train Leela Zero's neural network.

I had to review/learn a bit of programming to slightly modify the source code to keep sgf files of leela's games on my laptop, and finally I saved a self-play game. Good to see that Leela-zero prefers to stay to the sides in the opening, but it still needs to learn to pass instead of filling in an eye (see move 372!)

I played a game on KGS under a guest account. My opponent is a 1k on KGS. Because I think I am relatively better at simple peaceful games, I have decided to play aggressive to get into complicated fighting situations. The end result was utter destruction for me.

Hi guest33,

Q12 direction possible.

( check with AGT ) small avalanche could be good for B.

heavy ? Maybe o15.

heavy ? Did you realize you lack a stone at Q18 ? This is not a clamp. Maybe o14.

Quite bad for B. The "distraction" was costly.

( I feel ( & ) seem strange with ...
if you wanted to fight, at Q12 direction seems more natural. )

maybe just take. You didn't like W's J13 atari, but that's because of earlier mistakes.

shape problem.

, I feel if you lose that group, W+.

EdLee wrote:
, I feel if you lose that group, W+.

I think it was W+ at move 70 already - all moves after move 70 were pretty much meaningless.

In fact it very well might have been W+ at move 58 - white clearly pulled ahead there.

- consider move 11 at e15, you have ladder so he can't cut, pull back is heavy, good exchange for you, hane under joseki looks fine as you get thickness that makes 5-4 sad.
- 15: pincer.
- 19: I think his avalanche is wrong direction but this is soft. Small avalanche is first idea.
- o17 I understand the attack desire but you need to read beforehand if it will work. Maybe just kick and hane under to make him overconcentrated makes the best of a bad job.
- m16: empty triangle instead.

Also at move 44 white has a tesuji to capture cutting stone, can you find it? Might be underplay though, but means you strategy of cut and fight is flawed.

Uberdude: it seems like K15 works. Thanks for pointing that out (I definitely missed it in actual game), and yeah I would not have played this way if the cutting stones can be captured easily.

This time I got a little rematch against "Ephiphany", and got to a much better start. I told him I'm somewhere in the SDK range and at the end of the game he thought I was lying/sandbagging (which is all too strange since just a week ago Ephiphany crushed me).

Anyways here is the game (it really wasn't over but I thought I was in good position - definitely much better position compared to the previous game).

A game that I played against Nicaso (2d on OGS), and I was convincingly beaten.

After losing a bunch of games to Nicaso in the past two days, I finally got a win! I think Nicaso got a bit greedy in the bottom right corner, wanted everything, and paid a heavy price for it. I nearly blundered the game away later though(died from a missed atari) but managed to hold on the lead and win.


I will also upload some of my losses later to analyze.

Here is another one of my many losses against Nicaso (happened before my first win against Nicaso).

lowiq60 wrote:After one year of playing I was around KGS 7kyu, and after two years KGS 4kyu.

which is what happens to most people - so that makes you normal.

lowiq60 wrote:... comments like "you have no reading power or global awareness", "you play really slow, and even after a lot of time you still make s*** moves", "you are in the forever 5kyu club".

Go is different things to different people. To some, it's a monkey puzzle; to others, a chance to assuage their lack of self-esteem by beating up other people. The most extreme cases of personality disorder extend this to verbal insults. Being a war game, Go often attracts such types; there are usually one or two in every club.

It's quite likely that you are indeed in the forever 5kyu club, because that's where normal people end up, plus or minus a couple of standard deviations.

Believe it or not, there are actually other things in life than bored games (or so they tell me).

Golf is a good walk spoiled; Go is a good sit down ruined.

djhbrown wrote:

lowiq60 wrote:After one year of playing I was around KGS 7kyu, and after two years KGS 4kyu.

which is what happens to most people - so that makes you normal.

lowiq60 wrote:... comments like "you have no reading power or global awareness", "you play really slow, and even after a lot of time you still make s*** moves", "you are in the forever 5kyu club".

Go is different things to different people. To some, it's a monkey puzzle; to others, a chance to assuage their lack of self-esteem by beating up other people. The most extreme cases of personality disorder extend this to verbal insults. Being a war game, Go often attracts such types; there are usually one or two in every club.

It's quite likely that you are indeed in the forever 5kyu club, because that's where normal people end up, plus or minus a couple of standard deviations.

Believe it or not, there are actually other things in life than bored games (or so they tell me).

Golf is a good walk spoiled; Go is a good sit down ruined.

I was under the impression that most people end up at around 1d, plus or minus a couple of standard deviations. In any case my state of mind is very different now compared to when I started this journal - I don't care about go ranks anymore. Maybe my go rank would only be 10 kyu currently and I will be content being forever 10 kyu. I probably will never be able to improve upon my current ability (due to lack of talent), and I have learned to accept that I will be forever 10kyu. It seems like my rank or ability at 10kyu will not stop me from having fun playing opponents of similar level.

lowiq60 wrote:I was under the impression that most people end up at around 1d

by definition, 1d is where most people don't get, which is why Nihon Ki-in chose that name for that level, similar to 1d black belt in Judo. This graph was produced from AGA statistics (just before Alfie hit the scene); the height of each step is proportional to the % of players who don't make it up that step. Roughly speaking, you could invert the graph to see the population distribution - ie about 20% of those who try make it to 1d.

lowiq60 wrote:my rank or ability at 10kyu will not stop me from having fun playing opponents of similar level.

that's a very healthy attitude; recognising and accepting one's own limitations is the first step on the journey of 1000 miles to maturity (or enlightenment, whichever you prefer). i look forward in unjustified optimism to being able to take that step myself one day