Ian Butler's Go Journal

[Elom]

Have you tried reviewing pro games to get you in the zone? .

[Ian Butler]

Have you tried reviewing pro games to get you in the zone? .

Not yet, but that's a good idea.
For now I'm leaving Go as it is. When I want to get back on track, I'll try that! Also nice because that way I use my nice goban instead of online! Thanks!

[Ian Butler]

Another observation I've made is that I actually stopped reading.
Happened slowly but could definitely be a big part of my decrease, come to think of it.
Downside of dwyrin's basic series.

[Ian Butler]

To get away from the pressure of Go for a while, and to motivate myself to (slowly) return to playing (better), I'll for now occasionally watch/review (pro) games and update this journal every once in a while, but only with one thing:
The aesthetics of Go.

Sometimes I watch a game and I fall in love with Go all over again. Today I saw a dwyrin video (on a Go Seigen game) that did it for me. At the following board position, I was just sold to the game completely.



Amazing game, showing Go's skill once more.

What a beautiful game Go is.

[Elom]

I should note that I learnt it from the end of this blog post
https://tchan001.wordpress.com/2013/07/ ... -7d-to-9d/
I relate to your focus and book reading issue. And go hatius too .

[Ian Butler]

While I've occassionally come upon amazing aesthetics in Go games (or problems), I couldn't be bothered to take a screenshot or a picture and upload it here. Also, this is a study journal after all, not a picture book

Anyways, I may have come up with another idea. One I'll be pursuing for the coming weeks and we'll see how it goes. The idea comes out of my general reluctance to play often and that stems mainly from the fact that I'm not really a competitive person. I dislike competition in general. That doesn't mean I don't care at all about winning. Because once I play, of course I'd like to win, that's the game. But it means I don't enjoy myself as much as doing non-competitive things.

But Go is a competitive game, you may say. And that is true.
But recently I was following a Dan game on OGS live and, while following I was seeing all these variations where I was sure: I wouldn't see those in my own game, because for some reason (probably nerves/stress related of competition) you just don't play to your full abilities. Must clarify that I do mean online. In real life, taking time, I do play to my full abilities.
And how did I enjoy watching a good game, coming up with variations, trying to see how things'd turn out.

So the idea (for now) is this:
Instead of playing a lot of games online (which I'm also lacking the time, mostly), I want to be a Go theorist. Theorizing about moves, joseki, board positions is something I really enjoy so I want to focus on it for now. Will it make me a better player in the long run? Who cares, it probably won't hurt.

So, if time and effort allows it, I'll be using this study journal to a closer proximity to its name. Hoping to really study the game.

[Ian Butler]

One important area in trying to learn, trying to get better... Is that like 50M of my moves have to change in the mid-short term. If I look a lot at other games, by stronger players (which I'm doing now), I notice many moves that don't even come up to me. While looking at my games, I see a lot of moves being repeated in the same situations.
So I think my Go thinking is not flexibel anymore. So I need to find a way to make it flexibel again.

Am going to think about ways I can do that

[Bill Spight]

One important area in trying to learn, trying to get better... Is that like 50M of my moves have to change in the mid-short term. If I look a lot at other games, by stronger players (which I'm doing now), I notice many moves that don't even come up to me. While looking at my games, I see a lot of moves being repeated in the same situations.
So I think my Go thinking is not flexibel anymore. So I need to find a way to make it flexibel again.

Am going to think about ways I can do that

Good point. This is a problem that afflicts many SDKs. When they were weaker they played more randomly, and came up with a lot plays, most of which were bad. They saw too many plays. But then they learned better plays, and they learned to avoid bad plays. The pendulum swings in the opposite direction. They have eliminated many bad plays from consideration, but they have also eliminated some good plays.

[jlt]

Before Alphago, even 9p's had eliminated good plays...

[Knotwilg]

One important area in trying to learn, trying to get better... Is that like 50M of my moves have to change in the mid-short term. If I look a lot at other games, by stronger players (which I'm doing now), I notice many moves that don't even come up to me. While looking at my games, I see a lot of moves being repeated in the same situations.
So I think my Go thinking is not flexibel anymore. So I need to find a way to make it flexibel again.

Am going to think about ways I can do that

What you can try is this: for each move, think of three moves and then play another one. In hot situations you can probably reduce that number to one.

[Ian Butler]

One important area in trying to learn, trying to get better... Is that like 50M of my moves have to change in the mid-short term. If I look a lot at other games, by stronger players (which I'm doing now), I notice many moves that don't even come up to me. While looking at my games, I see a lot of moves being repeated in the same situations.
So I think my Go thinking is not flexibel anymore. So I need to find a way to make it flexibel again.

Am going to think about ways I can do that

What you can try is this: for each move, think of three moves and then play another one. In hot situations you can probably reduce that number to one.

Very good advice - that you've given me before. Back then I tried it but I couldn't make it work (mostly because of online play). Time to give that another effort.

[Ian Butler]

Was following an online game and one move caught my attention in the endgame.
I ran some variations later on, but I'm not sure I found the absolute best variations.

I think the black player made a mistake at move 245 in answer to 244, but like I said, I could be wrong. (and him being in Byo-yomi it'd make sense that he played it safe)

Best I can figure it is that black answers like this to avoid aji. Meaning that white CAN make a seki with an additional move on the outside. So perhaps it was for that sake that black played it, although it is a 2 point loss.

My variations starting from move 244 onwards.

[Bill Spight]

By my reckoning Black made the technically correct play. I have added some variations and comments.



An interesting position. Unless I have goofed, Black played correctly to get the last play.

BTW, doesn't White have to make a protective play on the left side?

[Ian Butler]

By my reckoning Black made the technically correct play. I have added some variations and comments.



An interesting position. Unless I have goofed, Black played correctly to get the last play.

BTW, doesn't White have to make a protective play on the left side?

Cool, interesting. So locally it wasn't the correct move, but considering other endgame moves, it was better. Amazing. Glad to see my variations were not so bad

If white doesn't protect on the left side, his group has no eyes, but he captures black before getting captured. But he does have to capture them and play in his own area more than necessary or more than just the one protective play. Correct?

[Bill Spight]

If white doesn't protect on the left side, his group has no eyes, but he captures black before getting captured. But he does have to capture them and play in his own area more than necessary or more than just the one protective play. Correct?

If White waits too late to protect the left side Black can make seki.