A DDK's baby steps
Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2014 1:18 pm
OK, I am taking the plunge. I love reading updates from fellow players, so I thought it might be good to contribute at last. A few words about my go-playing life: discovered the game 20 years ago, but could not see how this could be half as interesting as the chess I was playing then. Came back to it 2 years ago, read read and studied studied a lot...without actually playing more than a handful of games. so much so that I lost interest for a while, and have only gotten back into the game this summer. And I almost followed the same path of failure, because I think I suffer from a mild case of OGA 
I never suspected such a thing existed before I found a thread on this very forum linking to http://senseis.xmp.net/?OnlineGoAnxiety. Somehow, reading a description of my problem helped me shed light on it, and hopefully fight it. To summarize my case, I do not really mind losing (even OTB against a human I can "feel"), but I feel really humiliated and stupid when I take a beating out of a human whose thoughts, intentions, and history are alien to me. I guess I am also bothered by the fact that there is a trace of it for everyone to see forever. That might not have been such a problem, had I not been for some reason dedicated to KGS. The social interaction game visualization, history analysis tools make it the worst place for someone like me. Therefore, OGA took me in its grip, I never actually played and lost interest, naturally.
Understanding the roots of this OGA made me take interest in IGS actually, with its bare functionality, private and user-unfriendly rank graphs and game history, absence of communication in the rooms. There, everyone is so mute and anonymous that it is almost as if I was not playing a human being, and I am so much more comfortable for it. IGS has several other advantages for a player my level: automatch is instantaneous, and the Beginner Class prevents you from feeling any rank consciousness anxiety, since you cannot drop any lower, and that given time and enough luch you WILL end up promoting
So my hope in the near future is that IGS will allow me to get some games in, which I desperately need. Nevertheless I must say that KGS is my dream server - in an ideal world I would like to combine go and social interaction. Unfortunately, it seems that I cannot play go and then make friends, things need to be done the other way round for me.
I own a few books of the elementary go series, and enjoy studying them, I also do my daily tsumego with the Wbaduk client, but if I understand correctly, playing is of utmost importance for progress.
As far as my targets are concerned with go, I would really just like to improve because I have the hope that improving enables you to appreciate the beauty of the game more, and that's what I am after mainly. I also need, naturally, to keep my OGA under control.
This is where this journal comes into play - I hope to make it one of the tools which will help me fight OGA, by commiting to report on actual games regularly. I also hope, of course, to get valuable input from your part, if you are so kind and comment so of my so many weak moves. Some other goals I would like to reach with this journal are to get to know some fellow players from this forum, so that I could play them comfortably online. Finally, if my journey can inspire some other OGA sufferers lurking out there as i was, that will be more than enough satisfaction for me!
I never suspected such a thing existed before I found a thread on this very forum linking to http://senseis.xmp.net/?OnlineGoAnxiety. Somehow, reading a description of my problem helped me shed light on it, and hopefully fight it. To summarize my case, I do not really mind losing (even OTB against a human I can "feel"), but I feel really humiliated and stupid when I take a beating out of a human whose thoughts, intentions, and history are alien to me. I guess I am also bothered by the fact that there is a trace of it for everyone to see forever. That might not have been such a problem, had I not been for some reason dedicated to KGS. The social interaction game visualization, history analysis tools make it the worst place for someone like me. Therefore, OGA took me in its grip, I never actually played and lost interest, naturally.
Understanding the roots of this OGA made me take interest in IGS actually, with its bare functionality, private and user-unfriendly rank graphs and game history, absence of communication in the rooms. There, everyone is so mute and anonymous that it is almost as if I was not playing a human being, and I am so much more comfortable for it. IGS has several other advantages for a player my level: automatch is instantaneous, and the Beginner Class prevents you from feeling any rank consciousness anxiety, since you cannot drop any lower, and that given time and enough luch you WILL end up promoting
So my hope in the near future is that IGS will allow me to get some games in, which I desperately need. Nevertheless I must say that KGS is my dream server - in an ideal world I would like to combine go and social interaction. Unfortunately, it seems that I cannot play go and then make friends, things need to be done the other way round for me.I own a few books of the elementary go series, and enjoy studying them, I also do my daily tsumego with the Wbaduk client, but if I understand correctly, playing is of utmost importance for progress.
As far as my targets are concerned with go, I would really just like to improve because I have the hope that improving enables you to appreciate the beauty of the game more, and that's what I am after mainly. I also need, naturally, to keep my OGA under control.
This is where this journal comes into play - I hope to make it one of the tools which will help me fight OGA, by commiting to report on actual games regularly. I also hope, of course, to get valuable input from your part, if you are so kind and comment so of my so many weak moves. Some other goals I would like to reach with this journal are to get to know some fellow players from this forum, so that I could play them comfortably online. Finally, if my journey can inspire some other OGA sufferers lurking out there as i was, that will be more than enough satisfaction for me!
)
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From the second game, I take away two things:
.
very strange, but in hindsight, I think he really wanted a fight and was getting ready for it, or a misclick.
I must admit I am surprised - I did not think a stone such as B4 is expandable. I imagined its role was to block W, and therefore it should be saved. But obviously you mean that once B has forced 
C3, it is all that should be demanded from that stone? I shall try to keep it in mind.
, I felt he had placed a ladder breaker in order to cut at G3, so I defended. And I was starting to get scared, so I played as solid as could be. Indeed, it is slow, 
H4 looks much better. The rest was just panic mode I guess. Oh well, there will be better games 
at B-04 makes a White play at B-05 gote is an important one, and one that comes up repeatedly. 
. During the game, I was quite happy with the way the first part went. This made me in fact so confident that my play deteriorated fast and became so passive that I finished behind (at least, that is how I see it, but maybe it was already lost in the first half! 
]
Well, I am not sure it is really an idea, more something like a misclick really 
Yes you're right, it does look very slow. Like most of the variations you have annotated before. I do not know if I should qualify the weak moves you pointed out as slow, weak, or timid and full of fear. Probably all of that at the same time, but I think the root of it all is largely in fear, fed by weak reading ability => more tsumego 
I hear you, and it sounds like a reasonable option. Maybe if I had not invaded him first, and only made sure my area was a bit bigger than his, I would not have suffered this excess of confidence in the second part of the middle game...
is not very clear to me - I cannot really see why it is better than in the game? For instance, it may lead to following, where I cannot say if the situation is actually better than in the actual game?