Life In 19x19

So, was talking to some folks about reading, and discovered something interesting that I wanted to put up for a poll.

I got to thinking about it, and I don't read a lot. I glance at the board, consider a few short variations, and if it looks like the results are OK for me, I go for it. This tends to me playing out long, complex fights that don't end well for me, in spite of being able to read them out instead.

I'm what I'd call an instinctual player. I have this shape I want the board to be, and my moves generally move in that direction.

A teacher of mine, when asked, informed me that when he had been seriously working at it, he read every move. Not only that, but he kept a running tally of the board count, that he adjusted every move or two.

Clearly, most of us don't play that way. SDKs tend to focus on local result too much, and most amatuers, I feel, don't read constantly, or consistently.

So what about you? In a serious game.. How often do you read?

I don't think there's one correct answer for me among the choices. Sometimes I read when I'm trying to kill something; sometimes I read when I think I've got sente and am trying to figure out where to attack/invade.

Of course, what usually happens is that I read out a sequence that looks good, play the first move, and find halfway in that my opponent plays a move I didn't expect, and everything goes pear-shaped for me.

Fedya wrote:I don't think there's one correct answer for me among the choices. Sometimes I read when I'm trying to kill something; sometimes I read when I think I've got sente and am trying to figure out where to attack/invade.

Of course, what usually happens is that I read out a sequence that looks good, play the first move, and find halfway in that my opponent plays a move I didn't expect, and everything goes pear-shaped for me.

For Fedya, and those like him, I have now made the vote multiple answer. You may change your vote if you have already voted.

Every once in awhile, I will play a move without reading.

I struggle to read in situations where the game is very open ended. I almost always read in close fighting.

My situation doesn't fit the poll. I read most moves except when following a joseki or something similar. I wouldn't say I read compulsively, though. I like long time limits and I like to look ahead 10 or more moves most of the time. What I call reading is mostly watching moves flow on the board in my mind, unless I am looking at an unfamiliar shape or a situation I don't understand easily.

The poll doesn't fit my opinion of how it works, either.

The question is not "do you read" or "do you not read" at a particular point in the game. It is about the depth of your reading, or how many options you've considered.

If you are not reading, you are not playing go. You are just putting stones down.

Two moves can be played on the same intersection. The one that has thought and reading behind it means something. The one that's just put down on the board without any reading doesn't.

i play mehcanical go

When my group's about to die.

I can think of five things I do when playing Go: reading out sequences, trying to find interesting moves (this may also be considered reading, but it's like finding the first move to read from), applying positional judgment (may also be considered reading), counting, or spacing out. This goes on whether it's my move or my opponents. I do space out or get distracted for a little bit every game, but I try to keep it to a minimum.

Your question does remind me of a quote from a professional go player though. Something to the effect of, "For amateurs, reading time is sleeping time."

Kirby wrote:The poll doesn't fit my opinion of how it works, either.

The question is not "do you read" or "do you not read" at a particular point in the game. It is about the depth of your reading, or how many options you've considered.

If you are not reading, you are not playing go. You are just putting stones down.

Two moves can be played on the same intersection. The one that has thought and reading behind it means something. The one that's just put down on the board without any reading doesn't.

Let's talk about reading.

By reading, I mean, actually expend effort and time thinking about multiple lines of play.

I'm terrible about playing slow motion blitz, where I set long time limits, and play 5 second moves anyway. I have no idea how I got this way, I don't actually play blitz, and I used to take a lot of time to think.

I can 'see' about 5-10 moves, depending on the shape, how much tsumego I've been doing lately, how much sleep I've had, and how stressed out I am. I think about the board a lot, which direction I want to push a group I'm chasing, which way I want to play.. but I rarely stop, count the board, and read out my options, by which, I mean, sit down and read the 10-20 moves I'm capable of holding in my head, for multiple options.

When I say 'I play by instinct' I mean, 'I glanced at this situation, saw a pattern of about 5 moves that I thought suited, me, and charged ahead like a bull in a china shop.'

When I'm on, and can 'see' 10 moves ahead, I'm actually not bad like this. When I can suck my opponent into my tempo, and make him play like he's playing blitz too, the game almost always turns my way. If I'd slow down and think I'd probably gain 2 stones.

But, I'm lazy, and don't play enough serious games to actually feel like deep thought is required.

When I was very new, about 10k, I heard a similar quote to 'reading time is sleeping time', I heard someone somewhere, I forget where, declare about another player, "I don't know why he thinks so much. At DDK, everything he's thinking about is wrong anyway."

Realizing this was true, I stopped thinking so much. I played whatever move looked right, and dealt with the consequences afterwards. Over time, and through a 6 month period of grinding tsumego, I've trained my 'looks ok' to be a fairly deep glance.. but it's still not, to me, actually reading.

Only in the fuseki do I actually take the time to think very far ahead, trying to figure out where my opponent might answer this invasion, this defense, this attack, trying to keep the whole board balanced in my head. Annnnd, as soon as the fighting starts, I often forget all about that, and drive my opponent into a crucial area of my own territory. Hah. That'll teach them to live small all over my territory.

Anyway, to all those of you who read all the time, kudos on your good go!

in a slow, serious game, i read almost all the time, except of following notoriously known joseki, capturing a ko or facing well known shape, though in the last case i have to visualise the result anyway to check if it is ok. but i am far from being a computer - by reading i usually only confirm quality of moves that instinctively come to my mind

i read exhaustively only when facing a difficult close-combat situation

and seriousness of the game is an important factor for me, i read much more (and play much stronger) in tournaments than in casual games

Fedya wrote: Of course, what usually happens is that I read out a sequence that looks good, play the first move, and find halfway in that my opponent plays a move I didn't expect, and everything goes pear-shaped for me.

Me too, and it's downright disillusioning. It makes me think: why bother to read at all?

CSamurai wrote:
When I say 'I play by instinct' I mean, 'I glanced at this situation, saw a pattern of about 5 moves that I thought suited, me, and charged ahead like a bull in a china shop.'

...I played whatever move looked right, and dealt with the consequences afterwards. Over time, and through a 6 month period of grinding tsumego, I've trained my 'looks ok' to be a fairly deep glance.. but it's still not, to me, actually reading.

This seems to be a common problem among us amateurs. When we read, we read as far as we think we can and hope for the best. While this is presumably better than not reading at all, it is a big reason that we cannot play with confidence. In a related post, John Fairbairn wrote:

John Fairbairn wrote:...Koshida brings in two other important ideas ... For one he invented his own word: girichon. This is presumably a portmanteau word from girigiri and chon (like smog = smoke + fog). It will mean something like "down to the wire". He did this to stress the point that fighting is a down-to-the-wire affair. You can't just stop halfway through. That seems obvious to the point of triteness, yet I think very many of us don't fight that way. E.g. in our reading we reach a point where we spot a nice shape for us and stop there. It's not entirely stupid - it's a sort of probablistic way of playing, i.e. a position with good shape in it is more likely to favour us eventually. But it's probably not as good as digging even deeper. The ideal is to establish not just that you have an attractive position, but that you actually finish ahead of your opponent.

For me, I think I've become aware that my reading is simply inadequate to exhaustively assess most reading situations. From a strategic point of view, I'll normally have a general plan, and be somewhat aware of weaknesses in what I'm doing (e.g. this shape is a bit thin). I'll normally do some "basic instinct" reading of how easily punishable those weaknesses are, and if I can't find an easy way to punish them, I'll likely play out my plan. Life and death situations, and situations where certain tesujis look likely to crop up, I'll read in some detail to see if there are stronger ways of resisting, squeezes, shortage of liberties etc, and then play out what feels like the best line.

As other people have indicated, it's amazing how often your opponent can find a resource that you didn't expect! At least there are enough commonalities in shape that in simple situations I can feel reasonably confident I can read out the mostly likely stumbling blocks where typical tesujis and shape issues arise - as always with reading, tesuji knowledge and experience are vital - there are always some clever tesujis that will catch me out in almost every game, but I'm pretty confident that even reading for three times as long would be unlikely to pick them up, as most sequences I either will have read to the best of my limited ability, or the sequence / move will be a blind spot of mine.

I'd rather keep the game going that way, and go back and assess games where I end up with the impression that I had a complete blind spot to a really good move or sequence, in the hope that the process will improve my ability to look for it in a similar situation in the future.

Example:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Sabaki technique
$$ --------------------------
$$ . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . 5 4 3 8 . . . . . . . |
$$ . . 7 X 2 . . . . . . . . |
$$ . 1 . 6 . 0 . X . X . . . |
$$ . . . W . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ------------------------[/go]

This is a fairly common sabaki technique, but was a complete blind spot until I read it in Cho Hun-hyeon's lectures on Go techniques (including a number of alternative possible lines if Black deviates, and when White can't play this safely etc). For a while now it's always in my assessments on 3rd line caps, and in general on knight's jump contact plays, but I don't know how long it would have taken to find it if I hadn't read it or had it played against me - I think reading technique improves with practice, experience of being on the receiving end, and reading as much material as possible on technique, sabaki, and tesuji.

PS, until then, I'd almost definitely have played this:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

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

Which Cho describes as unreasonably heavy.