20k v 19k handicapped

[EdLee]

Hi pocket,

Your notes at are a good teaching moment.

-

This stone had 3 purposes, or so I thought..
1.) To help connect the A and B groups (although, that kinda failed)
2.) Break apart white's two lower and upper groups. (squares)
3.) Connect my two right corner groups to the my C group (this also failed)

Some (perhaps many) people tell beginners:
- to "connect their stones" (stay connected); and
- to "separate enemy stones".
Mr. Kageyama gave this advice in his book.

What they fail to mention (from what I've seen, including in Mr. Kageyama's paragraph) is why on earth would you do that ?

The missing caveat:

• Is the connection important ?
• If yes, consider it. ( Maybe there's an even better option than to connect your stones! )
• If no, maybe you don't need to connect. ( Double check. )
• If the connection serves no purpose or is bad for you, why connect ?!
• The same is true for cutting enemy stones; for emphasis, here it is, again:
• Is cutting your enemy important ?
• If yes, consider it. ( Anything better ? )
• If no... Double check.
• If the cut serves no purpose or is bad for you, why cut ?!
• For every move, sequence, or plan, go through the same check list.

What they don't tell beginners is these guidelines are only training wheels.
Because beginners (especially adults) want something, anything, to use as guidelines.

The real, but unexplained and unspoken, reason for these guidelines -- stay connected & cut your enemy -- is for beginners to experiment and to gain valuable experience.

And yes, it's very difficult for beginners to answer the questions above.
Quite a substantial amount of experience and knowledge is required.
( Which beginners lack, for now; thus Catch-22. )
So, people just give the shortcuts: stay connected, cut your enemy.

About your three reasons for :

• Good you had 3 reasons for . However...
• (1) Both your top and bottom right corners are strong -- no reason to connect them ;
• (2) W's 2 groups are already separated, so far apart, you don't need to do anything to split them !
• (3) Your E3 group is a bit heavy ( because of inefficient previous moves, like ), but it has lots of room in the open; to try to connect it to your friendly groups is not a good plan.
• All the while, both B and W completely miss the huge problem at E3.

A very good example why proverbs (guidelines) are very slippery (traps);
they (can sometimes) distract you from the really big stuff (E3 problem is huge ).

[EdLee]

Hi pocket,

Your notes here: no, not P14. The turn at P11 is big.

Good.

[pocketMAD]

Edlee, I just want to thank you for all the help you're giving me.

What they fail to mention (from what I've seen, including in Mr. Kageyama's paragraph) is why on earth would you do that ?

I'm unfortunately a product of that proverbial mentality. I mean, proverbs are proverbs for a reason though, so I follow them because I feel there's a greater probability of success if I blindly follow them rather than blindly following my own feelings.

Regardless, I actually had a reason for doing this! I once had a game where I got a great deal of the board, but my opponent conquered the upper left, mid, and right sections, and it scored him tons of points, enough to win. I just feel controlling an entire side, the two corners included, of the board sneakily gives you the win. Any thoughts?

[EdLee]

You're welcome.

Any thoughts?

Yes. Baby steps.