Life In 19x19

Went out of town this past weekend and had lots of time to play go. From wednesday onward, I've played 16 games all against 1kyus, and am 6-10 in them. Still hard, but things should turn around eventually.

As of now, I am handling 2kyus rather well (8-1 in my last 9 games against them), but am 9-15 against 1kyus (and higher). My honest assessment of my play is that I'm somewhere between a 3~1kyu and any game vs. them is rather unpredictable.

Now, I really want to hit 1Dan on KGS and move over to Tygem by the end of the year. Considering how I am doing against 1kyus, I don't think this will be an easy task. To get myself over the hump, I've come up with a study routine to help my progress.

Opening & Joseki - I'll study this by reading The Great Joseki Debates. I bought this on Amazon recently (along with a few other books), and I think it's a bit easier to understand than The Direction of Play. As a side note, I really like the book so far! It tests both intuition/sense of direction & knowledge of joseki.

Endgame - I'm planning on reading 2 Korean books (1 on the endgame, and 1 on positional judgement) by Lee Chang Ho from his Classic Baduk Series. I honestly have very little knowledge here since I just got this far by fighting and killing a bunch of groups. I might also read some of the well known books in English go literature to compare to the Korean books.

Haengma - Stone development. I have a Korean Haengma Dictionary, that is in a problem format. I'm pretty garbage at maintaining good shape, so I'm planning on working through this first before anything else. Afterwards, I might read Master of Haengma by Songho Paek.

Problems - In an effort to resharpen my reading, I've gone through the first 200 problems of 1001 L&D Problems, Get Strong at Tesuji, GGPB Vol. 4, and ~50 problems of Maeda Tsumego Vol. 1 over the last month (mostly with 80-85% accuracy). I'm not sure if I'll get around to finishing 1001 L&D Problems since it's such a chore to so.

I'll wrap up Maeda Tsumego Vol. 1, and start working on GGPD Vol.1 & 2and some of the LCH Tesuji/L&D Series again. If my reading gets good enough, throw in some Making Good Shape and 501 Tesuji Problems. This should keep me busy for a while.

Games - Of course, the most important. I'll play at most 2 games a day, and try to review them afterwards. I still haven't gotten comfortable reviewing my games with LZ, even though I should.

Maybe I'll get around to rereading some of the classics such as Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, or Attack and Defense.

Anyways, will upload some of my most recent games tomorrow.

Bill Spight wrote: With respect, an apology is not enough. You need to back it up with action.

Btw, I'm buying hardcopies of all the books I've managed to find PDF versions of in the past (one by one). Cheers to financial contribution!

Here are two games, 1 W and 1 L vs 1kyus. The win is a fun bloodbath!

The Win


The Loss

The trouble in the losing game starts at 86. You had never seen this move before but it is a simple angle play which you can very naturally answer with the iron pillar. The exchange is in most circumstances beneficial for the iron pillar and so it is here. Your pincer stone is flexible, it can be saved or sacrificed, but after the exchange the pressure is on Black. So I think you were unduly impressed with Black's move.

Then, at 92 you break through the barrier but Black astutely took advantage with 93, further surrounding your stones in the lower right. If you had played 94 at 92, then I believe you could still deal with the situation lightly (live or reduce).

After the lower right has gone to waste, you are probably behind but it's still a game. Instead you went into all-or-nothing scramble mode. We can clearly see your play becoming inspired by fear of losing rather than examining the situation. For example, a calm corner enclosure would have brought the game in a balanced state, even if slightly behind. Now you played a high, non-standard enclosure and when Black invaded, you went for the kill with a do-or-die angle play.

So it seems that (in this game, and maybe in general?) you are too easily impressed with opponent moves and too fast in panicking about the end result.
Simple moves, like iron pillar against angle play, or a standard enclosure when there is time for big points, can save the day.

IF you considered the block Knotwilg recommended but dismissed it because you though your pincer stone would then be too weak with that black kinda-thickness in the centre, then that suggests the pincer was bad and it'd be better to simple attach under the high approach and get yourself a big safe corner, and then you have only one thing to worry about when it comes to reducing/invading any potential black builds on lower side through centre. Also, although the kosumi black played is unusual, it is strategically similar to the joseki jump down to the 2nd line in that it splits you (though a gote/sente difference, at cost of being a bad exchange for shape) so you should have considered black playing that choice when pincering.

Some top of the head comments:

We cannot call this a mistake, and is partly a matter of style, but there are good reasons to enclose the bottom left corner instead, probably at C-06 or D-06. One is that the D-03 stone invites an approach, which, in terms of direction of play, has a good relation to Black's stones on the top side. Another is that a bottom left enclosure has a good relation to the White R-04 stone in the bottom right. Another is that an enclosure is good in itself at this stage of the game. As for the top right, we cannot call aji keshi, but there are a number of good plays for White, especially with Black playing the High Chinese. For instance, R-17, Q-17, O-17, L-17, N-17. There is a saying which may apply: When you don't know where to play, play somewhere else.

Black's pincer has given White even more good plays in the top right, even more reasons to play somewhere else. Maybe the 3-3 invasion is right, quien sabe? I vote for D-06, the high enclosure to counteract Black's high position over the board.

Black may well be unaware of the power of R-17 right now. I was as a 1 kyu.

Maybe not best. It's not like this play weakens O-17 a whole lot.

Old-fashioned. My feeling is the crosscut at R-13. The future is murky.

Aji keshi.

Lol, sure. But if he plays elsewhere, you have a two space extension that threatens to slide into the left top side. Black could have foreseen this difficulty when he played the block at Q-17. Maybe he played by rote.

It's tenuki time. Black should approach a White corner. Black clearly does not understand the top right corner.

So how do you play against this guy? Nail down your lead or push him around? (The two are not mutually exclusive. ) Caution. He must have some redeeming skill somewhere, to be a 1 kyu.

None of the above. This play does not nail down your lead, such as enclosing the bottom left corner. Nor does it push him around. This play may be the technically best play, but IMO it is psychologically dubious. You give him a chance to push you around. He has to be good at something. BTW, if I were to play around here, I kind of like the D-16 attachment. You can play lightly. E. g., if Black E-17, White C-15.

So he can be pushed around here.

The keima to D-14 is usual, I think.

End of comments. Sorry. I know you must have goofed somewhere, but I can't stand to watch Black's play anymore.

Edit: OK, I skipped ahead.

OK, you have pushed him around some more. This play may be technically correct, but psychologically it looks overconfident. How about a light play like D-13? Since you have pushed him around you can throw some stones away.

The Empire Strikes Back. Sort of, anyway. Good for him.

But he can still be pushed around. For example, White D-16, Black C-17, White D-14 (hanging connection). White threatens the turn at E-17, cutting off the corner. White can happily sacrifice the three stones around J-16, if need be. They have done their job.

Knotwilg wrote:The trouble in the losing game starts at 86. You had never seen this move before but it is a simple angle play which you can very naturally answer with the iron pillar. The exchange is in most circumstances beneficial for the iron pillar and so it is here. Your pincer stone is flexible, it can be saved or sacrificed, but after the exchange the pressure is on Black. So I think you were unduly impressed with Black's move.

Then, at 92 you break through the barrier but Black astutely took advantage with 93, further surrounding your stones in the lower right. If you had played 94 at 92, then I believe you could still deal with the situation lightly (live or reduce).

After the lower right has gone to waste, you are probably behind but it's still a game. Instead you went into all-or-nothing scramble mode. We can clearly see your play becoming inspired by fear of losing rather than examining the situation. For example, a calm corner enclosure would have brought the game in a balanced state, even if slightly behind. Now you played a high, non-standard enclosure and when Black invaded, you went for the kill with a do-or-die angle play.

So it seems that (in this game, and maybe in general?) you are too easily impressed with opponent moves and too fast in panicking about the end result.
Simple moves, like iron pillar against angle play, or a standard enclosure when there is time for big points, can save the day.

Hi Knotwilg - It's been a while! I did get a bit antsy after black93, and I went for the all-or-nothing angle play after the invasion since i thought i'd lose the game if I gave up the corner. Thanks for the comments.

Uberdude wrote:IF you considered the block Knotwilg recommended but dismissed it because you though your pincer stone would then be too weak with that black kinda-thickness in the centre, then that suggests the pincer was bad and it'd be better to simple attach under the high approach and get yourself a big safe corner, and then you have only one thing to worry about when it comes to reducing/invading any potential black builds on lower side through centre. Also, although the kosumi black played is unusual, it is strategically similar to the joseki jump down to the 2nd line in that it splits you (though a gote/sente difference, at cost of being a bad exchange for shape) so you should have considered black playing that choice when pincering.

Ah yeah - so my reasoning on the pincer was, lets aim to settle the bottom first and foremost, and then figure out about the right later. His skirt was open, and I aimed to play light, but I ended up playing too light(?) and gave it all away. I'm sorta now thinking that the pincer itself wasn't a bad move, but how I followed up on the right side afterwards - and the actual problem arose from the thickness of black's center group. And you are right - since I wasn't able to figure out how to settle both sides, I should have just played the attachment under and settled for the corner.

Bill Spight wrote:Some top of the head comments:

We cannot call this a mistake, and is partly a matter of style, but there are good reasons to enclose the bottom left corner instead, probably at C-06 or D-06. One is that the D-03 stone invites an approach, which, in terms of direction of play, has a good relation to Black's stones on the top side. Another is that a bottom left enclosure has a good relation to the White R-04 stone in the bottom right. Another is that an enclosure is good in itself at this stage of the game. As for the top right, we cannot call aji keshi, but there are a number of good plays for White, especially with Black playing the High Chinese. For instance, R-17, Q-17, O-17, L-17, N-17. There is a saying which may apply: When you don't know where to play, play somewhere else.

Black's pincer has given White even more good plays in the top right, even more reasons to play somewhere else. Maybe the 3-3 invasion is right, quien sabe? I vote for D-06, the high enclosure to counteract Black's high position over the board.

Black may well be unaware of the power of R-17 right now. I was as a 1 kyu.

Maybe not best. It's not like this play weakens O-17 a whole lot.

Old-fashioned. My feeling is the crosscut at R-13. The future is murky.

Aji keshi.

Lol, sure. But if he plays elsewhere, you have a two space extension that threatens to slide into the left top side. Black could have foreseen this difficulty when he played the block at Q-17. Maybe he played by rote.

It's tenuki time. Black should approach a White corner. Black clearly does not understand the top right corner.

So how do you play against this guy? Nail down your lead or push him around? (The two are not mutually exclusive. ) Caution. He must have some redeeming skill somewhere, to be a 1 kyu.

None of the above. This play does not nail down your lead, such as enclosing the bottom left corner. Nor does it push him around. This play may be the technically best play, but IMO it is psychologically dubious. You give him a chance to push you around. He has to be good at something. BTW, if I were to play around here, I kind of like the D-16 attachment. You can play lightly. E. g., if Black E-17, White C-15.

So he can be pushed around here.

The keima to D-14 is usual, I think.

End of comments. Sorry. I know you must have goofed somewhere, but I can't stand to watch Black's play anymore.

Edit: OK, I skipped ahead.

OK, you have pushed him around some more. This play may be technically correct, but psychologically it looks overconfident. How about a light play like D-13? Since you have pushed him around you can throw some stones away.

The Empire Strikes Back. Sort of, anyway. Good for him.

But he can still be pushed around. For example, White D-16, Black C-17, White D-14 (hanging connection). White threatens the turn at E-17, cutting off the corner. White can happily sacrifice the three stones around J-16, if need be. They have done their job.

Very interesting comments particularly with regards to enclosing the corner and black's variations on the right corner. For move 15, if black cross cuts, i push wedge, black ataris, i connect, black connects, and then i atari his cutting stone, and he's not in too great of a shape. no? As for the corner enclosure, I just find it interesting how many korean books suggest to approach first and then enclose to seize the initiative.

Thanks for the comments here as well Bill!

hl782 wrote:Very interesting comments particularly with regards to enclosing the corner and black's variations on the right corner. For move 15, if black cross cuts, i push wedge, black ataris, i connect, black connects, and then i atari his cutting stone, and he's not in too great of a shape. no?

Hmmm. I thought I had replied to this, but I don't see the reply. Let's try again.

This Black may well connect, but he didn't crosscut, did he? One simple play for Black is to sagari to Q-18 instead of connecting. Now the cut does not work. Now if White ataris the crosscut stone from above, Black counterataris and after White takes the stone, Black plays the hanging connection at O-16 for a nice wall.

Edit: Another idea is to sagari from the crosscut stone, allow the cut, then sagari to Q18 and sacrifice three stones. But that way is complicated.

As for the corner enclosure, I just find it interesting how many korean books suggest to approach first and then enclose to seize the initiative.

Those books may have been written before the AI era. Nowadays nobody is afraid of the double approach to the 4-4. But, as I said, White's approach is hardly a mistake.

Thanks for the comments here as well Bill!

De nada.

Yesterday, I finished a very quick read-through of The Great Joseki Debates. I just went through the 24 scenarios and took a stab at the best answer for each without reading too deeply into the variations (testing my intuition). I scored 18/24, which I was pleased with.

On another note, I really like the book. It's a great intermediate level book incorporating joseki and fuseki - and I absolutely love how there are LOTs of diagrams with only 3-4 moves played in each of them. It makes the reading so much easier and lucid (Stark contrast with The Direction of Play, which has like 15-20 moves per diagram). Only gripe is that some of the joseki choices are probably hella outdated, but hey can't have everything. Highly recommend for people around my rank.

I'm also halfway through Maeda Tsumego Vol. 1. The book says its appropriate for 10-4kyu, but that has got to be in terms of the Korean/Japanese Kiwon ranks (So about KGS 4k to 2d) - because some of the problems are damn tricky. I'm missing many of the Ko variations, and overall scoring roughly 50-60% so far.

Lastly, here is a game I played and won yesterday. I'm loving how there's many subtleties to pay attention now in the game, such as direction, estimating scores, profit instead of killing, etc. It makes the game all the more strategic and enjoyable.

I like The Great Joseki Debates too, though I haven't looked at it in a while. I'm glad that you think it's still useful in the modern age.

I agree that Maeda's pretty hard (I've only tried volume 1 myself), and one big reason is all the kos. It's good practice for actual games!

dfan wrote:I like The Great Joseki Debates too, though I haven't looked at it in a while. I'm glad that you think it's still useful in the modern age.

I agree that Maeda's pretty hard (I've only tried volume 1 myself), and one big reason is all the kos. It's good practice for actual games!

If someone wrote a 2019 version of The Great Joseki Debates, I would totally buy it haha. and Yeah! The Ko's are hard. I think I have the best var or can't find a best var, and it just turns out that its a Ko.

hl782 wrote: I'm also halfway through Maeda Tsumego Vol. 1. The book says its appropriate for 10-4kyu, but that has got to be in terms of the Korean/Japanese Kiwon ranks (So about KGS 4k to 2d) - because some of the problems are damn tricky. I'm missing many of the Ko variations, and overall scoring roughly 50-60% so far.

Solving 50-60% in — how long? — 3 minutes? is pretty good. Out of curiousity, I took a quick looks at Maeda's third volume, which is the only one I have left. I had never looked at the foreword before, but he indicates that if you can solve the 1-3 kyu problems in 2-3 minutes, you are a dan player. My marks show that I was getting about half of them right when I was a shodan, so I was weak for my rank. Maeda suggests that 5-10 minutes is how long it should take to solve a problem at your level. Japanese amateur ranks have inflated by 2-3 stones since the 1960s, and Japanese ranks are pretty weak by comparison with US ranks, not to mention Korean ranks. I would not expect the problems in volume 1 to be dan level, except maybe a few in Japan.

For comparison, here's how I did when I went through most of Maeda volume 1 a couple of years ago (I got through 183 problems before petering out). + means I got it right, - means I got it wrong, = means that I gave myself half credit (usually this means getting the right first move but not reading out what the book considered to be a critical variation). If you want to judge me more harshly you can consider all the = to be fails. "Median" is median time spent on a problem at that level, whether I got the correct answer or not. The rows are kyu rankings for the problems, and problems are double-counted: e.g., if a problem is listed as "6-8 kyu" then it's counted in the 8 row, the 7 row, and the 6 row.

My main conclusion is that Bill would probably think these problems are at a good level for me. Also that the higher-ranked problems are indeed tougher!