Life In 19x19

Thank you, Toge, for this insightful review.
I had a couple of unforgivable mistakes in this game.
I just can hope that I learned something from them.

Thank you once again.

Cheers.

I am so frustrated. I lose games I should win. I play moves without any firm plan. I don't see the whole picture. I rush in. I don't take time to read but play solely based on my instinct. I neglect basic principles in opening. I don't secure cuts. I play "pass" moves. I leave open skirts for counter attacks. I foolishly try to save dead groups. I don't take all chances to kill. I let my healthy groups be killed.
I know I shouldn't do all the staff mentioned, but I still do them.
There's a long road in front of me. Sometimes, after the game, I don't know if I feel more frustrated or ashamed for missing the obvious.

At least, I'm glad I started this thread, for 2 reasons:
1. I have a place to whine, like now.
2. It motivates me to proceed when everything about my go looks wrong.

I hope I'll give you some better reading material in my next post.

Cheers

vpopovic wrote:I am so frustrated. I lose games I should win. I play moves without any firm plan. I don't see the whole picture. I rush in. I don't take time to read but play solely based on my instinct. I neglect basic principles in opening. I don't secure cuts. I play "pass" moves. I leave open skirts for counter attacks. I foolishly try to save dead groups. I don't take all chances to kill. I let my healthy groups be killed.
I know I shouldn't do all the staff mentioned, but I still do them.

This is fantastic! You have motivation and you know what you want to improve. The times when I have improved the most are similar to this. I've played an opponent and gotten trounced, but I know they are making mistakes and that I should punish them or ignore them instead of playing the moves I do. It sounds like all you need to do is play solidly in the beginning and then apply fundamentals.

Oddly enough, one of the keys that got me stronger in the past was simply not playing moves if I could see they didn't work. You'd think this would be obvious, but...

vpopovic wrote:I lose games I should win.

There is no "should". Either you won or you lost. Every game you did lose, you could have won with better play; and conversely, every game you won, you could have lost with worse play. But don't feel entitled to win some game and not others.

I play moves without any firm plan.

Planning is hard. If you're thinking about how you would respond to each of your opponent's most obvious replies, you're already moving in the right direction.

I don't see the whole picture.

The whole picture has something like 10^60 branches. I don't see the whole picture either.

I rush in. I don't take time to read but play solely based on my instinct. I neglect basic principles in opening. I don't secure cuts. I play "pass" moves. I leave open skirts for counter attacks. I foolishly try to save dead groups. I don't take all chances to kill. I let my healthy groups be killed.

These are all excellent signs. I have made very little progress in Go other than by making the same painful mistake five or six times in an actual game.

skydyr wrote:Oddly enough, one of the keys that got me stronger in the past was simply not playing moves if I could see they didn't work. You'd think this would be obvious, but...

I don't know, experimenting to see what happens is important too (unless you watch a lot of other people playing). Though I do agree with the advice of not trying to kill a group from the inside if you haven't read it out. A failed kill is rarely a good result, at best you remove some ko threats that you had, at worst you end up giving them points.

Boidhre wrote:

skydyr wrote:Oddly enough, one of the keys that got me stronger in the past was simply not playing moves if I could see they didn't work. You'd think this would be obvious, but...

I don't know, experimenting to see what happens is important too (unless you watch a lot of other people playing). Though I do agree with the advice of not trying to kill a group from the inside if you haven't read it out. A failed kill is rarely a good result, at best you remove some ko threats that you had, at worst you end up giving them points.

You misunderstand me. I would read a sequence, see that it doesn't work with proper play, and then play it anyways. Not to see what happens, but just out of ... I don't know. Fatigue or uncertainty about what to do instead or something.

skydyr wrote: You misunderstand me. I would read a sequence, see that it doesn't work with proper play, and then play it anyways. Not to see what happens, but just out of ... I don't know. Fatigue or uncertainty about what to do instead or something.

Ah, yes, I know that problem very well. Normally it's either time constraints or not being able to see another move. Or when I was weaker a hope that my opponent would mess up.

@Boidhre, @skydry thanx, people
@jts this is probably one of three most motivational posts I read in this topic. Thank you very much.
@Togu It seems my PMs to you stay in my outbox and are never sent. I don't know what's wrong. However, I finished there our conversation from KGS today.

In the end, he overplayed in top right. I pushed further and gained a seki, but I really need to learn to count in order to play calm and secure when I'm ahead.

Still, a huge frustration. I lose my big, fat, healthy groups like they grow on trees.
Sometimes, I'm just pure stupid.

I want to edit my previous post. I'm not sometimes stupid. I'm always stupid

However, good or bad play, I enjoy every single stone put on goban (either virtual or real). This game give me so much joy.

I don't have so much time for studying it, but, I'm giving my best

Somehow, I'm not even so much frustrated as earlier when I make a mistake. I took it as a part of a learning process.

I took the liberty to review your latest game. One of the problems is (mental) attachment to existing stones. Your post above shows positive attitude towards the game.

I really, really, really have to learn to let go stones if it's better for me in a given situation.
Thank you, Toge.

Well, I tried to play games during my work. As it can be imagined, full game lasts around an hour and for me it's impossible to dedicate so much time at once, without being severly disturbed around ten times. That resulted in numerous stupid mistakes and loses.

So, I decided not to play for the sake of playing, but, when I play, I have to be sure to give my best, without distractions.
From now on, it's gonna be one or two games in the evening and as much tsumego as I can during the day plus some reading.

Started again from the beginning, Graded Go Problems for Beginners I, and finished it in an hour and a half.
Moving to GGPFB II.
Easy tsumego is fun and good for self confidence, at least in my case.

Cheers.

Right now, I'm halfway to 8k.

www.gokgs.com/graphPage.jsp?user=vladimir

It's much harder to advance then I imagined. But, despite all stupid mistakes I regulary make, I feel a little bit stronger then 3 weeks ago, when I started this thread. I guess tsumego has something to do with it.

Another notice: 2 times happened to me to be crushed by 8k's and to play with them again couple of weeks after that and to win. Very good feeling. Something like a revenge

Btw, I'm trying to resist the urge to play when I'm not sure if I'll have enough time for the game. But, very often, this need to play is overwhelming and I play stupid and lose due to constraints. I'll have to work on resisting the need to play. Just don't know how

Cheers