Life In 19x19

After the go club's summer break is over, I am midly enthused to work on my Go again. Not that I'd have time in any way but I manage to play the odd game (see the second game) and even get some problems done on goproblems.com.

Here is a game I played against a regular in the club. We bounce between me giving him three to four stones since... years. He doesn't work on his Go since... ever. I occaisionally try, so... poor me.

I had to review this myself (a bit) since AI does not really handle handicap stones.



And then there are such games:

Kageyama would be proud of that 2nd game

4h-club-game again and some very light comments. Suffice to say, I was very lucky again.

Been spending my time a bit on Get Strong at Tesuji for all the fond memories. Still a great book - bit easy now though ; )

Will probably start Yi Ch'ang-Ho tsumego and tesuji series next. Or Get Strong at Attacking.

As far as games are concerned I play in the current Nordic Go Dojo season. But not too successful. Bad time management and no feel for the game as of now (playing slow moves, playing big instead of urgent moves, no sense for attacking shape points).

At least no (really) big misreads as of now : D

I'd love to spend more time with replaying Genjo-Chitoku or Shuei or Seigen games but that's sadly not in the working man's budget.

Amateur games, I tell you...

Did start Get Strong at Attacking: Eye-opener, I guess, seeing how many problems I get wrong and have no clue about : D

But nice sequences to remember!

Won two games against KGS 1-kyu today. Life is good : )

Won a quicky against a KGS 1-dan yesterday. Happy to see many people still play the "old" 3-3-joseki ^^

I'm really into tenuki variations for standard josekis, right now. Brings about fresh and so far not entirely dubious positions.

Also had a coaching sessions with Jeff (Finnish8d on KGS) yesterday. I don't have the one glaring weakness in my play but often I don't play the strongest move (or even fifth strongest) and that accumulates over time. Overall I'm often too happy with (passively) strengthening my position so that my opponent can strengthen his position (I'm too nice). Instead I should press my opponent's weak point and that way strengthen my position.

He adviced me to play akin to Hane Noki's style of 80% effiency (see The Way of Creating a Thick and Strong Game, though the english version does not really do the book justice it seems: viewtopic.php?f=57&t=13834). Right now I'm maybe at 50% efficency ^^

And tsumego of course, reading could always be better ; )

Almost through Get Strong at Attacking, we'll be repeated in the future to up my score of maybe 25% so far. Guess, I'll next tackle Life and Death - Intermediate Level Problems again and then mabye the Yi Ch'ang-Ho tsumego series.

Thanks to Fairbairn's new Shuei book and the (maybe not) upcoming yearly tournament of my go club, I started to invest more time in go again.

I replayed the first six games of Shuei (until I could replay them by heart) and "read" about half the book so far. I initially thought I'd have more time due to home office but that dream popped quite fast : D

Started to solve 20 problems on goproblems.com on a daily basis (1 to 15-kyu) on weekdays and 40 on weekends. Reading is rusty as heck. I really wish the website would get polished a bit. Like showing all the problems you solved and the elo-change. It also does not support https. But since the forum is down for quite some time, I guess the project is pretty much abandonned. I still happily pay for my yearly subsciption, though ^^

I also played a couple of games on KGS, so far still 1-kyu. Been trying to play more medium fast games (around 15 min main time) but KGS automatch does only support 10 minutes. There is still Fox of course. I do a quick run through after each game thinking about the key/turning points and try to decide where I could have played better. But I won't load up Lizzie. After doing that for every game the last time I played, I felt the information overload was so high that the there was no benefit for the time invested. I still crave for a blue-ish circle pointing to the "right" move every once in a while but I guess I should start figuring stuff out by myself again (or ask a stronger player and therefor also get the reason behind the move).

I also try to follow Uberdude's comment on AI opening ; )

Uberdude wrote:Here is the opening gospel according to LZ, play the following moves if possible in order from top to bottom (he negative ones are for urgent local situations):
-3) if your 3-4 is being pressed, answer
-2) if your 4-4 is 3-3 invaded, answer it
-1) if your 4-4 is double approached, attach out
1) play in empty corner
2) approach (low) or enclose (big high) a 3-4
3) press if they ignored your approach to 3-4
4) approach or 3-3 invade a 4-4
5) double approach a 4-4
6) enclose from 4-4

You will notice side moves are nowhere to be seen. Corners before sides, as the old proverb says.

Link: viewtopic.php?p=241104#p241104

Ah, yes. And I started to watch HNG again : D

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Can't be that hard, can it?
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | X X X X . . . .
$$ | O O O X . . . .
$$ | . . . X . . . .
$$ | X . O X . . . .
$$ | O O . X . . . .
$$ | . O . . . . . .
$$ +----------------[/go]

Black to play. According to goproblems.com, now wrong twice in a row for me... ^^

SoDesuNe wrote:

$$Bc Can't be that hard, can it?
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | X X X X . . . .
$$ | O O O X . . . .
$$ | . . . X . . . .
$$ | X . O X . . . .
$$ | O O . X . . . .
$$ | . O . . . . . .
$$ +----------------

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Can't be that hard, can it?
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | X X X X . . . .
$$ | O O O X . . . .
$$ | . . . X . . . .
$$ | X . O X . . . .
$$ | O O . X . . . .
$$ | . O . . . . . .
$$ +----------------[/go]

Black to play. According to goproblems.com, now wrong twice in a row for me... ^^

I trust you have solved it by now.

Bill Spight wrote:

SoDesuNe wrote:

$$Bc Can't be that hard, can it?
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | X X X X . . . .
$$ | O O O X . . . .
$$ | . . . X . . . .
$$ | X . O X . . . .
$$ | O O . X . . . .
$$ | . O . . . . . .
$$ +----------------

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Can't be that hard, can it?
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . .
$$ | X X X X . . . .
$$ | O O O X . . . .
$$ | . . . X . . . .
$$ | X . O X . . . .
$$ | O O . X . . . .
$$ | . O . . . . . .
$$ +----------------[/go]

Black to play. According to goproblems.com, now wrong twice in a row for me... ^^

I trust you have solved it by now.

Under the stones!

Edit: I had a hard time finding the book, but I finally did. This is the problem I was referring to: Not exactly the same, I guess, but the shape reminded me of the one you posted.

Yes, after goproblems.com showed the refutation I started over and found the right move ; )

As ez4u and Kirby pointed out, the order of moves or in this case the starting point is very important.

Twice I let the "obvious" familiarity with this shape run its course before checking what happens after the throw-in.

We moved our weekly Go club to KGS due to COVID-19.

The following position arose in rengo.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bcm43
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X X X . X . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , O O O . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X , X . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . O . O O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . X O . O . O . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X . O O O . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X X X X X . X . O . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . X O X . O . . . , . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . O O O . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . O X . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

What's the status of White's bottom left group?