Life In 19x19

Hi,

I have learn of go during the Alphogo vs Lee Sedol matches and quickly realized I liked this game. Just to be sure, I played about 100 more games and it is confirmed, I like go.

Apparently one needs to lose 100 games first so this is my first goal and I am about 60% done with that.

After reading (part of) hl782's journal I decided to start my own to hold me accountable. The two other reasons that I start this journal are:

- to keep track of my evolution in go
- and hopefully when I am stronger, to help newer player having a better sense of the evolution they will go through

This post will serve as a summary of the journal so I'll add my goals, the starting and finishing date and my leveling.


Ranking up:
First game of go - March 2016
17k+ - 26/07/2016
16k - ~10/09/2016
15k - 22/09/2016
14k - 09/10/2016
13k - 22/11/2016
12k - 07/07/2017
11k - 31/07/2017
10k - 18/12/2017
9k - 31/12/2017



Goals,start date, completion date:
Lose 100 games , March 2016 , September 2016
Reach SDK, September 2016 (16k), December 2017

I'm glad that I could be of help! wanna play a game sometime?

Welcome!

hl782 wrote:I'm glad that I could be of help! wanna play a game sometime?

Sure but currently you'll crush me.

To start this journal, here is a game a played yesterday against a BC ranked opponent.
I am not sure how to review my games so I just wrote whatever came to my mind. In the end I lost by about 60 points. I am not sure where and when I let him get that much points.



I haven't mentioned what I was planning to do to improve my go in the first post so lets do that here.
For now I try to play at least 1 game per day and review it. I am also reading "Tsumego - L'art du combat" by Motoki Noguchi and hopefully it will improve my reading. I plan to read ~20 pages per day so it will take me about a month to complete.

Hi Laerthd,

D14 is simple & good.

C17 very big.

You probably meant J16 instead of J7.

Wrong shape. Fix your cut: o16 or N16.

Study the basic joseki here. Extend to E4, not hane.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Basic joseki
$$ | . . . , . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . 3 5 . . . . . . .
$$ | . 2 O O 1 . . . . ,
$$ | . 4 X X . 6 . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ ----------------------[/go]

Later, you can study the E3 hane variations.

B would not play this way.
He didn't know how to handle your -- you got lucky here.
One variation: Your comment here: no, you didn't know the joseki here, yet.
The C6 stone makes a big difference --
it's not the joseki you were thinking of: Your question here: yes, you should've played your variation.

B would hane G3 and get out, damaging :

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc B gets out
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . 6 . . . .
$$ | . . O O 4 3 2 5 . , .
$$ | . . X X O O 1 . 7 W .
$$ | . . . . X X . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ -----------------------[/go]

( Thus you should've played your variation at . )

Bad habit. Connect directly.

, This becomes a fight, which you didn't prepare for:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Fight
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . .
$$ | . O 5 . . 4 . . . . .
$$ | . X O O . . 3 . . , .
$$ | X . X X O O 1 . . O .
$$ | . . . . X X O 2 . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . .
$$ ----------------------[/go]

This doesn't fix your cut at o16. Tiger's mouth N16.

Laerthd wrote:I lost by about 60 points. I am not sure where and when I let him...

At these levels, we're mostly oblivious to basic shape problems ( see above ).

Thanks for all the comments EdLee, I have lots of improvement to make for my game of today

Regarding joseki, for now I've decided that it would be a better use of my time to concentrate on basic principle and find responses by myself. Is this a good idea or do I underestimate the value I would get from studying joseki?

Also, is that how a proper review is done? Any tips on reviewing?

Laerthd wrote:Regarding joseki, for now I've decided that it would be a better use of my time to concentrate on basic principle and find responses by myself. Is this a good idea or do I underestimate the value I would get from studying joseki?

Seems fine initially. My personal opinion? At 15k or so, you'll want to start learning a few basic joseki. Just the 4-4 approach and pincer, a 3-4 enclosure and approach (with maybe one variation of a pincer), and the 3-3 invasion. The joseki should be very simple. Then ignore joseki until strong SDK, unless it comes up in your games. It'll allow you to practice your reading skills and joseki will later make much more sense. Honestly, I still haven't studied joseki outside of watching pro games or when they come up in my games.

Laerthd wrote:Also, is that how a proper review is done? Any tips on reviewing?

Looks good to me. You're looking over the game, which is the important part, picking out pieces that were questions, alternatives, or weak moves. The simple fact of looking over the game to find these pieces is the most important. What can help is choosing three big take-aways from each game (from either you or your opponent).

Here is my game for today. It was against a 15k+ with 2 stones and I lost. Not really proud of this one because I made stupid mistakes.


Nevertheless I was happy with how I dealt with the lower left invasion. I knew it couldn't live but usually they succeed to make 1 eye.

As recommended by sparky314 I tried to find 3 take away points for this game

I should read more and not play based on emotion;
Watch out for snapback and groups in atari. I thought I had passed this point but apparently not;
I should try to stop have a group of 2 stones embeded in enemy's stones like in the diagram below.

$$
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O O . . . . . ,
$$ | . O X X O . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ ----------------------

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O O . . . . . ,
$$ | . O X X O . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ ----------------------[/go]

In the mean time I read 40 pages of my book and it was about when to use tiger mouth or just extend to reach side (see diagram). That's cool since I had problem with that in my first game.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Connect with tiger mouth here thanks to the 2 marked stones
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . O . . . . . ,
$$ . Y Y O . . . . . .
$$ . . . X O . . . . .
$$ . . 1 . O . . . . .
$$ ----------------------[/go]

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc prefer a solid connection here
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . O . . . . . ,
$$ . . X O . . . . . .
$$ . . 1 X O . . . . .
$$ . . . . O . . . . .
$$ ----------------------[/go]

memorize like 5-10 most basic joseki - and just forget about it for now. its not worth the studying at the moment. just focus on some basic go theory and reading - do a bunch of problems!

Hi Laerthd,

Congrats on your continuing efforts.

Watch out for snapback and groups in atari.
I thought I had passed this point but apparently not

This is a never-ending growth curve.
The big-picture item here is reading: there's no end to improvement.
One reason we're still studying Go.

do you have an account on kgs?

hl782 wrote:memorize like 5-10 most basic joseki - and just forget about it for now. its not worth the studying at the moment. just focus on some basic go theory and reading - do a bunch of problems!

I am starting that. The part of the book I am at is 90 elementary tsumego so the timing is perfect. As for joseki, I decided just to look on the internet the variation following a corner approach jus to get exposure but nothing more.

hl782 wrote:do you have an account on kgs?

I do, it's Laethd (yep, the r key wasn't on its best day) but I rarely play on it, for some stange reason it often freeze on my crappy computer.

Here is my game of the day against a 16k. I felt I could win but reality decided otherwise.




As for the lesson of today I think it is would be to concentrate throughout the entire game. Also I need more sleep.
Once again, comments and advices welcomed

Some comments on the game:


I'd work on basic shape and life and death problems to try and improve quickly.

Hi skydyr, thanks a lot for your review, it is full of things for me to learn. It is funny how my evaluation of what is going on is sometime completely at the opposite of what is really going on.

Concerning time, I played this game with 10min of main time and 10min/25stones. Do I really need more time? It already takes quite some time to complete a single game.


As for my study, one game a day + review takes a lot more time than I expected (is it normal for a review to take about 1h at my level?). As it conflicts with my daily life, I will play whenever I have time to review the game so I expect 3-4 games a week. The other days, I'll solve tsumego and I'll aslo try to find problems from my games. For instance, apparently I would have been able to invade the upper left corner with 3-3, I should look into that.

Hey Laerth! Hope you will succeed in your journey! The biggest tip i can give you is that play to have fun & pleasure. Otherwise you'd got bored since go isn't an easy game.

Good luck!