Life In 19x19

I'm starting this go journal to keep me motivated in my pursuit of a better game.  Although I enjoy playing go presently, from past experience, I have found that I enjoy games even more when I am good at them.  With that in mind, I will earnestly pursue 3 Dan before dementia sets in.  I really hope this can be done within 20 years.  I am afraid that after age 70, I will cease to see any improvement.  Yeah that's right, I'm 50 now.  That is the least of my impediments to achieving this goal.  My biggest problem is I don't like work.  I will have to trick myself into thinking that I am playing.  I also hate loosing with every fiber in me.  I still can't enter a serious game without concentrating on not shaking.  This doesn't  just happen with go.  When I was playing before, I let this last problem prevent me from playing enough games to see real improvement.

I started playing go shortly before turning 42 years old.  I played for about 30 months before taking a break.  Work became really hectic after getting promoted.  During the 2.5 years of play I only managed to raise my rating to 11 kyu  on the KGS server.  It's 6 years later l, and after 2 weeks of play I am right back at 11 kyu.  I still don't know if I should be encouraged by or disgusted by this.  It's too much work to think about anyway.  I probably would  have returned to playing earlier, but I felt like I was playing in a vacuum.  There were no clubs within 3.5 hours of where I live.  I don't have the schedule to start such a club.  Even if I did have the schedule, it wouldn't work because I have the leadership of an anchor. 

Last week, I found out that Robert Holeman did start a go club in Amarillo a little over a year ago.  They have a Facebook group and are listed in the AGA and have weekly meetings.  This has probably motivated me to play more than anything else.  I just found out about the club a week before the 4th of July.  And, I made it back to town 3 hours late due to work.  I hope to make this next meeting and actively participate when work permits.

Now for the plan!

(1) spend at least 5 hours per week studying. (mostly tsumego)

(2) loose 30 games each month.  If I make this a goal, I think it will help me stay motivated to play without worrying too much about rank.  My slow progress last time was definitely due to not playing enough games.

(3) review every game and make it a point to find my larger mistakes.  I plan to post some of these reviews in this thread to give me something to track my progress by.  I would also like to see how my thoughts change over time.

I am pretty sure that this plan isn't enough to get me to my initial goal.  But, I think this will be a good place to start and see if I can build up any discipline while still having fun.

I don't understand how I can be so schizophrenic. Both of these games are against the same bot on the same day a little over 8 hours apart. I did spend about 2.5 hours studding contact fights by Bruce Wilcox in between games. And, I only have a weak grasp of the intermediate concepts at the moment. I think when I get on these loosing games I get in the mode of trying to secure territory too early instead of developing a larger moyo early on. If I could figure out what my difference in mindset is and follow the better one, I think I can improve by 2 stones easily.





I should have done a croscut on move 23 for the first game and set a different tone. As it was, it just looks like I am playing scared for the rest of the game.

1) In the first game, some moves you played were very slow. Can you find them?

2) I think you should play against humans, and not bots.

One general thing I would point out from a very quick skim is that almost every move you made was very close to your opponent's previous move. Basically you were always telling your opponent that it had sente, whether it really deserved it or not. It is very difficult to win playing like that.

I also agree that you should play humans rather than bots.

Hi Needo,

My $0.02:

A few comments.

I want to thank everyone that replied. I did a quick recap on the analysis of the first 100 moves in each game.

1st game: 2nd game: The same faults were found in both games in about the same proportion. The only difference, (besides luck) was my attitude in the 2nd game. In that game I actually had a few concrete goals and even intentionally sacrificed a stone to get a specific result. I think the followitis is going to be very tough for me to break. I wasn't even aware of how bad it was until you all pointed it out.

As for playing bots: I wasn't ready to deal with the extra dimension that people bring to the game. Loosing feels more personal, and opponents actually have motives that add extra strengths and weakness to the game. I was hoping to get the mechanics partially figured out before jumping into the deeper end of the pool. Ultimately, I will have to play other people to experience a richer game. For now, it feels like the difference between a 9x9 board and a 19x19 board. I do plan on spending more time against people than bots in the future.

Game 1 Followitis:

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

And others, I suppose.

followitis is going to be very tough for me to break.

Old habits die hard... one search returns dating back to before 1450.

Robert's phrasing is "disobey your opponent" ( caveat: when it's good for you, obviously. )

Again, it means you evaluate the board on every turn as best you can.

Slow moves in game 1:

was not slow. A rule of thumb is that corners are big, so making a corner enclosure like your move 5 is always big.

was also slow. Since corners are big, you should have played around D2 to protect your corner and try to kill the F2 group.

Mid-week update and some thoughts:

I have already put in 11 hours of study in this week so far and I am still on track to get my 30 losses in for the month. I finally made it to our local go club meeting in Amarillo. It was every bit as enjoyable as I thought it would be. I found out that helping newer players is nerve wracking in its on way. I want to bring them up to speed as fast as possible. But, I also want them to have fun so that they will keep coming and get better. This is a tough balancing act that is made harder by the fact that I don't understand most people very well. In addition to helping a new player Improve on a 9x9 board, I did get to play a serious game with no handicap. Ignoring a pincer in the corner turned out to be a bigger no no than I thought it would be. This might be a bad habit that I have gotten from playing bots. I am going to have to bite the bullet and not play bots for the rest of this month. I did notice one other side effect that came from taking a 6 year break from go. My ability to read tsumego problems has deteriorated significantly. I feel like one of the victims from "Scanners" when trying to do life and death problems. The only thing I'm missing is the nose bleed. I hope after a few months that this will get easier. I still can only get about 60% of the answers right in the "Contact Fights" course. This tells me that I still don't understand his book. I think that once I understand the lessons, I will have a big platform to start building my game. I sure hope I can laugh at this post when I look at it a year from now.

Needo wrote:Mid-week update and some thoughts:

I have already put in 11 hours of study in this week so far and I am still on track to get my 30 losses in for the month. I finally made it to our local go club meeting in Amarillo. It was every bit as enjoyable as I thought it would be.

I found out that helping newer players is nerve wracking in its on way. I want to bring them up to speed as fast as possible. But, I also want them to have fun so that they will keep coming and get better. This is a tough balancing act that is made harder by the fact that I don't understand most people very well.

Go provides a good balancing act: handicaps. Play newer players with proper handicaps, so that they win half the time. That provides a good challenge for learning. And it's fun. Besides that, answer their questions.

I still can only get about 60% of the answers right in the "Contact Fights" course. This tells me that I still don't understand his book. I think that once I understand the lessons, I will have a big platform to start building my game. I sure hope I can laugh at this post when I look at it a year from now.

It sounds like Contact Fights provides a good learning challenge for you. Good luck!

It sounds like Contact Fights provides a good learning challenge for you. Good luck!

Yes.

I can't wait until I learn how to read, so that I don't do moves like 121 again.



Still concentrating on followitis, slow moves, and applying contact fights. I'm not doing too well on the last part. On the bright side I am well on my way to achieving my monthly and weekly goals that I have initially set for myself.