Life In 19x19

Polama wrote:In a game, missing a tesuji might mean something that could've been sente is now gote, or you've jumped out one space when you could've gotten away with two. It's difficult to realize, even in review, that the move was a mistake. If you just can't see the solution to a tsumego, there are going to be analagous situations you'll also miss in a game and never realize you missed them.

I know I get away with many L&D situations that my opponent just hasn't read out, and I know sometimes I don't take maximum advantage of a situation and really take it to my opponent, but those are opportunities for improvement and many times after a game is over if I lose (or sometimes even when I win), I look at the board to see if there were any specific locations I could have earned more points perhaps with a tesuji, joseki, yose or if I had solved a tsumego correctly sometimes I even have to consider a strategic change, what do people who study tsumego do after they lose? Keep doing the same thing they have been doing?

They review the game, looking for any point where they made mistakes. Go into the game analysis forum here. Half those people do tsumego regularly, half don't. They will review in much the same way.

What really baffles me is that you seem to have it out for just tsumego. Why are tesuji problems ok, but tsumego are awful?

SmoothOper wrote:

Polama wrote:In a game, missing a tesuji might mean something that could've been sente is now gote, or you've jumped out one space when you could've gotten away with two. It's difficult to realize, even in review, that the move was a mistake. If you just can't see the solution to a tsumego, there are going to be analagous situations you'll also miss in a game and never realize you missed them.

I know I get away with many L&D situations that my opponent just hasn't read out, and I know sometimes I don't take maximum advantage of a situation and really take it to my opponent, but those are opportunities for improvement and many times after a game is over if I lose (or sometimes even when I win), I look at the board to see if there were any specific locations I could have earned more points perhaps with a tesuji, joseki, yose or if I had solved a tsumego correctly sometimes I even have to consider a strategic change, what do people who study tsumego do after they lose? Keep doing the same thing they have been doing?

I preface this by saying I group tesuji problems and life-and-death problems and endgame problems together in my head, so if I say tsumego it means all of these.

Every time I would play a game and my teacher, Feng Yun, reviewed it, she would point out at least two places where I could have been sharper (killed a group, saved my group, saved a move, etc.) had my tsumego skills been sharper. This is why I consider tsumego so important: even in the games of a mid-dan, the amount of potential for point gain just for solving a single tsumego problem is enormous. Besides that, in my own reviews, I usually look at joseki choice, a few strategic things in the opening (how could I have prevented that moyo from happening? was my count here accurate?). I dislike the endgame, and usually count before it begins so I know how much I have to try. My endgame isn't bad when I count everything, but it's kind of boring.

I don't think it's the best choice to study tsumego to the exclusion of everything else, but I think that that's only one step below the ideal way to study, and studying strategy to the exclusion of everything else is far more detrimental to your growth as a player. If your opponent doesn't know a shred of strategy, but has tsumego skill, the game can be reversed in his favor in an instant if he manages to kill your group or make life in a place he should not rightfully be able to live in.

hyperpape wrote:They review the game, looking for any point where they made mistakes. Go into the game analysis forum here. Half those people do tsumego regularly, half don't. They will review in much the same way.

What really baffles me is that you seem to have it out for just tsumego. Why are tesuji problems ok, but tsumego are awful?

Lobotomy in the other thread said something to the effect, of burn all strategy books, then Golem7 comes along and says essentially the same thing, and the community didn't feel the need to say anything, so I assume if you want to talk strategy you have to repeatedly hammer the tsumego nuts until they wonder if they ought to be playing go at all. I mean not just get a few extra points by ignoring a failed threat, I mean suffocate their eye space, and hane on their liberites, and just kill their groups .

Strategy's hard, and a lot of it depends on finicky details (if your strategy depends on some joseki, the right moves in joseki in turn depend on the details of some complicated corner fight, etc.). It also depends on positional judgment a lot of the time, and it's really hard to explain positional judgment: I can feel the difference between two positions, but I can't really explain the real reason why I think one is better. I can find some reasons to tell people, but the real reason is hard to pin down and it's a matter of feeling for me. I would just rather not talk about it, and focus on life and death, because life and death is a surefire way to get strong, and you can invent the strategy yourself if your life and death is good.

Shaddy wrote:Strategy's hard, and a lot of it depends on finicky details (if your strategy depends on some joseki, the right moves in joseki in turn depend on the details of some complicated corner fight, etc.). It also depends on positional judgment a lot of the time, and it's really hard to explain positional judgment: I can feel the difference between two positions, but I can't really explain the real reason why I think one is better. I can find some reasons to tell people, but the real reason is hard to pin down and it's a matter of feeling for me. I would just rather not talk about it, and focus on life and death, because life and death is a surefire way to get strong, and you can invent the strategy yourself if your life and death is good.

But here you are. Here they all are. I mean people should be able to discuss strategy at any level, but many, it seems, deny that they even have a strategy, though for example hyper aggressive approach moves seems like a dead ringer for a strategy or tsumego problems in the corner, maybe they ought to own up to the fact that they have a strategy, and start threads on their respective strategies and learn to appreciate other strategies and quit mucking up my threads with petty assessments of strength.

I think we mean different things when we say 'strategy'. What does that word mean to you?

Shaddy wrote:I think we mean different things when we say 'strategy'. What does that word mean to you?

I don't think you have a definition to work from so what is the point?

Mod Comment

SmoothOper, please make your points in a less abrasive manner. The discussion of the relative merits of strategy and tactics work is indeed interesting (to me and others), but this thread is mostly not interesting to me simply because the majority of it is so confrontational.

You want to make "tsumego nuts" appreciate the value of strategy more, but it's not a goal you can achieve by insulting them all.

topazg wrote:Mod Comment
You want to make "tsumego nuts" appreciate the value of strategy more, but it's not a goal you can achieve by insulting them all.

No I don't want them to appreciate the value of strategy. I want them to stop mucking up my thread by trying to disqualifying discussions of strategy with tsumego and strength, so that I can look at the finer points of the strategy behind Chinese Fuseki. If the Moderator wants to discuss the relative merits of strategy and tactics, please start a thread about that, thanks.

SmoothOper wrote:No I don't want them to appreciate the value of strategy. I want them to stop mucking up my thread by trying to disqualifying discussions of strategy with tsumego and strength, so that I can look at the finer points of the strategy behind Chinese Fuseki. If the Moderator wants to discuss the relative merits of strategy and tactics, please start a thread about that, thanks.

This thread is about balanced attack That's something that can only be achieved with reading developed from solving problems, there is not "strategy" that someone can tell you that makes you able to do that.

PS. being the OP doesn't make this "your thread".

In this video you can find some strategy ideas about attack, and some examples are from the chinese fuseki

http://vimeo.com/44171860 (it is the first ASR lecture from Hwang In-Seong)

SmoothOper wrote:

topazg wrote:Mod Comment
You want to make "tsumego nuts" appreciate the value of strategy more, but it's not a goal you can achieve by insulting them all.

No I don't want them to appreciate the value of strategy. I want them to stop mucking up my thread by trying to disqualifying discussions of strategy with tsumego and strength, so that I can look at the finer points of the strategy behind Chinese Fuseki. If the Moderator wants to discuss the relative merits of strategy and tactics, please start a thread about that, thanks.

Your thread title was "Balanced Attack", with the first post "Is there a concept of Balanced Attack in the Japanese literature?". Many of the contributions have been related to literature, video, and attacking ideas and concepts.

Nothing hinted at the thread being about the Chinese Fuseki. If you want to discuss the merits of different strategies involving the Chinese Fuseki, feel free to start a thread about that instead