Life In 19x19

Thanks for the comments Ed, I really should have been happy to let him crawl along the 2nd line, but I'm honestly glad I didn't as the game became so fun. And I know that thinking won't help me get better

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners III (86.7% correct) and started volume II again.
Games Reviewed: 1 lost game, 2 won games (all on the ASR League)
Elementary Go Series: About halfway through The Endgame

Despite an earlier post about only having two books of tsumego not being a problem I'm now beginning to wonder about that. The answers to a large number of the problems in volume II are jumping out at me immediately without me doing any reading, so I think I'm somewhat remembering the problems somehow. Will need to see if this continues through the book or not as the problems get harder.

Was interesting to go over some games I won with other people, though our ranks were close enough that we're probably not spotting a lot of errors on both sides, but looking from the view of "if you played there I would have lost" is a better way to see overplays I think.

The Endgame is still a slog to get through, but thankfully the maths calculations seems to have stopped already. Hoping by the next progress report to have finished reading through all the Elementary Go books a first time (excluding 38 basic joseki) and work out which one to start reading more thoroughly first.

PeterN

Really funny game, maybe you should not try to kill all groups of your opponent in parallel

An interesting situation is arising around move 184 etc. Here, your central group (around tengen) is clearly in danger, while all of your other groups around the big white dragon are already fully settled (how that could be is another good question... ). Thus, if you just manage to save your tengen group, the big white dragon would be simply dead. Since this would yield you more than 100 points in an instant, it should be enough to win the game, no? .

Instead, in move 186 you already left your endangered group and seem to attack white J8 stones (which is rather futile in this position). Instead you could have played move 184 on G7 (cannot be separated from H9 group) and continue to enlarge the number of liberties or even find a connection to your lower left group (I cannot read that out completely but it looks like worth a try...). If you would have managed to settle your H9 group, you would have won the game on big scale.

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners II (97.9% correct)
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games myself, 1 lost game by opponent on ASR league, and went through 1 of the games at the back of The Endgame
Elementary Go Series: Finished reading The Endgame

I am attrocious at endgame. My answers to the problems in the book should have been better if I literally picked at random. While I understand the concepts of counting, sente, and gote I am not recognising sente and gote moves well, nor is my counting accurate. This will need further work sometime... lots of further work.... The only bright side is I did avoid the blunder answers that end up in outright death.

PeterN

PeterN wrote:I did avoid the blunder answers that end up in outright death.

Good start.

How did it feel going through the same problem set once again? Do you think you gained something from that? (recognizing shapes, vital points etc. became easier/quicker/more natural?)

musai wrote:How did it feel going through the same problem set once again?

In addition to how you felt (qualitative), how was it quantitatively different ?
How long did it take you the first time, and what was your time the second round ?
You can measure your times objectively, for all rounds.

It definitely felt quicker and easier going through it the second time, the first quarter or so of the book seemed completely automatic but then after that settled down into needing to read again. How much of this is down to having just gone through a set of harder problems so it felt comparatively easier and how much was down to having done the book once before I couldn't say. Spotting vital points is something I feel I was reasonably good at before, however I would lob the stone into them too early, or choose the wrong order if there were multiple points pretty often. Think there was a line about that being pretty common at a certain level in Fundamentals of Go. Recognising nakades on the other hand feels a lot more natural now.

Despite feeling that I spot vital points quickly I still don't feel that I recognise shapes well. Lots of diagonal stones making a shape (not really sure what to call this... interlinked ponnukis maybe?) feels an especially strange shape, and just confuses me for the moment.

Unfortunately I can't say how long it took me the first time round to read through the book as I'd already got part way through it before making this thread so don't have anything written down to give me a timeframe, nor have I been timing myself, just didn't occur to me to do it and I'm not in the best environment for doing that accurately either. I do the problems on the train and this time took nine journeys, which taking account that I also read through the paper a bit gives me a time of something like 180-225 minutes to go through the book. Not having the book to hand so not knowing the exact number of problems I think that's an average of 30-45 seconds per problem, and the time usage was heavily skewed towards the later half of the book.

PeterN

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Continuing with Graded Go Problems for Beginners III, however I slacked off and only did about half as much as usual this week.
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games
Elementary Go Series: None

Not much progress for this week, partially because of work but mostly because I just didn't get round to it. Both games I went through concentrated on me making silly mistakes which pretty much instantly ended the game and the moves that were leading up to them.

PeterN

Keep up the good work!

How many games do you play that you don't review?

I'm trying, getting back into tsumego on the train again.

Far too many games played and not reviewed, quick count shows 26 games finished last week and only 2 reviewed. Won't have the chance to play any this week due to work, so maybe I'll get a few more of these reviewed.

PeterN

I rather think it makes sense to err on the side of playing a ton and not reviewing, than playing less and less because you're reviewing religiously.

jts wrote:I rather think it makes sense to err on the side of playing a ton and not reviewing, than playing less and less because you're reviewing religiously.

I second that ; )

Oh I'm definitely not playing less so that I can review them a lot, but this week the risk of having to leave a game with no notice is too great, and it wouldn't be fair on my opponents.

PeterN

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Continuing with Graded Go Problems for Beginners III
Games Reviewed: 7 lost games
Elementary Go Series: None

I took the opportunity from not being able to play to do some extra reviewing of games from the previous week, each week feels like I spot different themes wrong with my play (some day I'll check back these weekly updates and see if that's true or not), this time catastrophic failures in defence (leaving an enemy group in semi-atari and then letting my own cutting group get into atari) and choosing to push enemy groups straight at my own weak groups.

On a note not related to study I have managed to get at least one person at work interested enough to try playing a few more games and a second possibly interested, so I'm counting this as a good week.

PeterN

Played a game on ASR League recently that I've tried to review, thought I'd post it here along with my notes. Any comments would be appreciated



- I wanted to deny the lone B stone any hope of making a base, but would a corner enclosure have been better? F17 or G17 to keep some pressure on?
- Looking at this I want to defend the corner with C16 perhaps, not sure if that's a good instinct or not.
- Never sure on invasions, but I believe this is the right idea.
- Press down at H4 instead of responding to B?
- Again would H4 be better? Or jump up to around L8 area to threaten coming into B's moyo and the cut of the stone at I11?
- Too soon to tenuki?
- Helping B surround my group.
- C8 instead?
- I can only assume this was hope, should not have played it and should just have connected to the left. G10 is my first thought, but H10 looks safer.
- As per the previous comment, I think H10 would be the move to play.
- Definite mistake on my part, I14 must be defended, taking H14 is best I think as the J14 cut doesn't lead to anything as far as I can read.
- Perhaps desperate, but B has too much territory for anything other than an invasion. Are there any better points?
:w131: - I see no way to escape or live.

Invasions are a bit of a mystery to me still, I pretty much flail around blindly and live (or more likely die) based more on luck than skill.

PeterN