Life In 19x19
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Food for brain
http://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=12015
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Author:  Sylsion [ Tue Jul 07, 2015 3:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Food for brain

Hello everyone,

my name is Marek and I'm 26 years old guy from Slovakia.
I've started to look for a game/hobby that would satisfy my brain recently.

I was initially sold on chess but I stumbled on a link that described GO two days ago and I was hooked.
At this point I learned the rules, did the exercises from http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/ and played a bunch of games vs computer on my phone.
However I'm really overwhelmed and clueless about how this game is actually supposed to be played.

I guess I should make some sort of longterm goal, but I'm not even sure if I can reach high ranks when starting at my age so lets just say I want to improve a bit every day and reach my full potential in distant future :)

Anyway, could you guys recommend any studying materials or just general tips on how to improve the best way without learning bad habits?
Best case scenario would be a book/series of books :)
Thanks a lot,
Marek

Author:  EdLee [ Tue Jul 07, 2015 4:28 pm ]
Post subject: 

Hi Marek, Welcome.

Author:  Dontbtme [ Wed Jul 08, 2015 3:12 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Food for brain

Hi Marek.
Welcome to the Go Community.
_ First of all, since you just learnt the rules of the game you should first gain some experience 'quickly'.
'Quickly' means that you should play as many games as possible on the shortest amount of time, without thinking more than a few seconds each move. Why? because when you don't have any experience, you don't know what to think about and end up thinking about EVERY possible moves like a chess program except you're just a human and since you can play almost everywhere on a Go board there are too many possibilities for you to think about... AT FIRST.
The thing is, when you have some experience, you think about just a few moves that 'seem' worth thinking. And you can only do that with experience or knowledge (which is a kind of 'borrowed' experience). But before you read any book, I think you should play a hundred games or so before in order for the reading not to be too abstract.
There's a Go Proverb: 'Lose Your First 50 Games As Quickly As Possible'. You can read more about it at Sensei's Library (which has plenty of studying materials by the way).
_ Second: Don't play your first games on a 19x19 Go board but on a smaller one like 9x9. Why? Because a game on 19x19 is very very long and since you'll make mistakes almost EVERY moves, you won't learn anything from them at the end because they were too many of them. On the other hand, when you play on a small board, your mistakes are fewer and become more obvious and understandable so you can benefit from them being exposed by your opponent and try not to repeat them next time. Which leads to my third point:
_ Play against stronger opponents who will punish your every mistakes properly. The thing is, when you play a beginner like you, you can win regardless of your mistakes which will incite you to repeat them again and again. Whereas if your mistake is punished once, twice or three times in a row, you'll think: 'Wow! This really was a bad play! I'll never do it again'.
Because Go is a game where the winner is usually the one who made the less mistakes (of course some mistakes are bigger than other, but regardless, I think it's a good rule of thumb).
Now, since it can be hard to find a stronger opponent willing to play on a small board against you, you're lucky because here is a very good FREE Go playing program: Leela lite. You can play 'rated games' on a 9x9 board against the program which is incredibly strong for a beginner, but you begin with handicap stones (9?) which give you a very big advantage. As you beat the computer your rank will gradually improve and you'll have less and less handicap stones so it'll be harder and harder to play. With this you can learn how to play proper tactics before approaching strategy on a bigger board size.
_ While gaining experience by playing games is fun, you can also do so by solving Go problems. At this stage Life and Death problems suited for your level would be the more relevant choice. You can find them at GoChild website organized by strength and subject. It's very different than play games but since you said you wanted 'food for brain' this could be the perfect place for you. Give it a try anyway.
_ After playing a hundred games or so with Leela, which would have given you some experience and cleared the biggest beginner's mistakes from your play, then you should try playing on a big board for fun on such Go server as KGS and OGS, but still quick games at first to gain some experience on this scale before beginning to really 'think'.
_ Finally, once you have some tactical and strategical experience gained on your own, I think the time will be ripe for you to start to read theoretical and exercise books and such. My first recommendation would be the first volume of Cho Hun-hyeon's Lectures on Go Techniques. I read many many Go books but this one really increased my level by a fair amount (from around 18 kyu to something like 11 kyu if I remember correctly) and is like learning the ABC: first letters, then syllables, then words (the sentences would be on the sequel). After that there are many other books that will be useful depending on what specific area of your play you'll want to work on, but no need to rush: we'll talk about that when you're ready for it. ;-)
Anyway, those would be my recommendations, and I hope it'll be useful to you.
Good luck.

Author:  Dragonfist [ Wed Jul 08, 2015 4:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Food for brain

Hi

The "learn to play go" series is very good, especially the first 2 books.

Also google igowin, it's a free 9x9 program where you play against the computer. It starts at the beginner level and get more difficult as you win. It's a good way of getting comfortable with the rules.

Author:  Bill Spight [ Wed Jul 08, 2015 6:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Food for brain

Welcome to go! :)

How to improve without making too many bad habits? Play against stronger players who will go over the game with you afterwards. To be more precise, play against single digit kyu players or even dan players. At first they will be giving you a 9 stone handicap, or higher, and creaming you, but never mind that. You will pick up a lot of good ideas from them. Playing on a 9x9 board is good. The games are quick and you learn some tactics. As an absolute beginner you might try the Capture Game, where the object is to capture one or more stones of the opponent. You can move up to Capture-2, Capture-4, and Capture-7. The more stones you have to capture to win, the more the game is like regular go.

Good luck! :D

Author:  Sylsion [ Fri Jul 17, 2015 1:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Food for brain

Hello!

Thanks for all the advice and welcomes.
I found out there is anime about go (Hikaru no go) and bing watched the whole thing in last few days :-?
I also downloaded the Leela Lite and have been playing a lot of games on the 9x9 board. I managed to get a few wins and get to 4 handicap instead of 5 which I consider a slight improvement (lost my first 30 or so games vs the software).

I discovered the app smart go books for Ipad which made me finally decide to buy one. I was on the verge of buying one for a long time and since the new mini version came out the older one got really cheap here so I went for it. I bought the Graded problems for beginners vol. 1 and am working on the problems in my spare time.

Would this be a good time to start an online account on some of the sites and start playing games on bigger board vs real people?
Marek

EDIT:

There's a GO club/school led by 1p player in my town. Would it be good idea to start attenting the weekly lectures there?

Author:  Bonobo [ Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Food for brain

Hello Marek, welcome!

Sylsion wrote:
[..] Would this be a good time to start an online account on some of the sites and start playing games on bigger board vs real people?
Yes, definitely!

Quote:
There's a GO club/school led by 1p player in my town. Would it be good idea to start attenting the weekly lectures there?
Again yes! If you can afford the time and money that this might cost you, you should definitely do it. I wish I had the time and opportunity. This will also have the very nice side-effect of meeting other Go players in your area :-)

Cordial greetings, wishing you lots of fun on your journey into Go,

Tom

p.s.: Ah, and apropos “journey”, here’s another (IMO beautiful) Go-related comic story you might enjoy: Aji’s Quest, by Colette Bezio (L19 member Inkwolf; she introduced the comic here).

Author:  Sylsion [ Sat Aug 01, 2015 4:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Food for brain

Hello!

I enjoy playing GO so much! I've started to play on KGS and found a bunch of very nice and helpful people who are always up for review of some of my games/teaching game.
As a result of reviewing each game and playing teaching games my game got a bit better. I'm currently ranked 16k on KGS, but I should propably be a bit higher as I just started playing the game.
I'm still playing vs. LeelaLite daily and can hold my own against it with 3 handicap stones (~15k rating).

As far as studying goes:
- I read Opening theory made easy and got a few AHA moments out of it. Pretty sure I don't understand half of it so I'm going to be rereading this one a lot.
- I've finished Graded problems for beginners vol.1 (about 3x) and am currently working on volume 2 (in which I can do most of the problems after a while). I average ~50+ problems/day.

Future plans:
- Play and review games daily (when I have free time)
- Continue doing problems daily
- Read a new book? I checked the book 'Dontbtme' recommended and I think I would benefit a lot from reading it. Are there any other book recommendations for players at my level?
Is there anything else you would like to recommend? :)

On a side note I've managed to play live teaching game vs a friend of mine and I just might buy a GO set. I enjoyed placing the stones on the board and the feel of real game in general. I'm not sure how often I would use it though as I don't know anyone else who plays go around here :/

Thanks again for the warm welcome and have a nice day ;)
Marek

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