Life In 19x19

It's common go sense that one usually won't win with too many small groups, and I didn't. Nonetheless I was quite pleased that in this game I managed to keep 7 separate groups alive. Have you managed more?

Usually most people play to win rather than lose while trying to keep too many weak groups alive. It's probably easier to ask people about games they have won where they allow their opponent to keep the largest number of weak groups alive.

daal wrote:It's common go sense that one usually won't win with too many small groups, and I didn't. Nonetheless I was quite pleased that in this game I managed to keep 7 separate groups alive. Have you managed more?

I've managed 7 while still winning.

A game I won with 7 independently alive groups:

It wasn't 7, but today, I won a game with 6 groups and my opponent had one.

Please check out the evil ko fight on the top right starting with my mistake at w218.

This thread reminded me one of my favorite games of Cho Chikun - he had 7 groups playing white, managed to save them all.

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/10339

macelee wrote:This thread reminded me one of my favorite games of Cho Chikun - he had 7 groups playing white, managed to save them all.

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/10339

I only count 4 or 5 groups for Cho

SmoothOper wrote:

macelee wrote:This thread reminded me one of my favorite games of Cho Chikun - he had 7 groups playing white, managed to save them all.

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/10339

I only count 4 or 5 groups for Cho

Good point. Saving three groups by turning them into one doesn't count! Nonetheless, great game!

I just won another game with 6 groups to my opponent's one. Yesterday I beat a stronger player getting 5 groups to his one. The day before that, 6-1 and I won. Apparently, I am starting to develop a style that results in this type of lopsidedness, because I don't like games where my opponent gets a large area, and I've been trying to prevent it early. I've always heard that having less groups than your opponent is generally a good thing, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm wandering down a dead end street. What do you think?

daal wrote:I just won another game with 6 groups to my opponent's one. Yesterday I beat a stronger player getting 5 groups to his one. The day before that, 6-1 and I won. Apparently, I am starting to develop a style that results in this type of lopsidedness, because I don't like games where my opponent gets a large area, and I've been trying to prevent it early. I've always heard that having less groups than your opponent is generally a good thing, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm wandering down a dead end street. What do you think?

Just be glad we don't have a group tax, anymore.

It sounds as if you have found a winning approach, at least for now. Maybe as you go up in rank and meet different opponents, that will change.

daal wrote:I just won another game with 6 groups to my opponent's one. Yesterday I beat a stronger player getting 5 groups to his one. The day before that, 6-1 and I won. Apparently, I am starting to develop a style that results in this type of lopsidedness, because I don't like games where my opponent gets a large area, and I've been trying to prevent it early. I've always heard that having less groups than your opponent is generally a good thing, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm wandering down a dead end street. What do you think?

The conventional wisdom is that more groups means more targets with less eye space, which you will be sorely reminded of anytime one of your groups dies. There are, however, some benefits to having groups that are locally sustainable if not profitable. If you look at top level play many groups is more of a norm than a large group, and pros tend to fight over every last point on the board, relatively peaceful large groups are more of the exception than the norm, so I don't think it is a dead end style, though it may not be as popular among amateurs.

macelee wrote:This thread reminded me one of my favorite games of Cho Chikun - he had 7 groups playing white, managed to save them all.

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/10339

Maybe better refs are http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/14450 (with the 7 groups winning), or http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/900 (with the 7 groups losing).

Pro games with too many groups are few and far between. But because of this thread I started keeping an eye on it and found this one:

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/38207

http://www.go4go.net/go/games/sgfview/39471

This game is interesting - there's 4 groups in the bottom half of the board. It's amazing that black can settle them all without too much trouble.

My "hi-score" in this discipline so far is a +30 win with six groups. Maybe we could invent alternate Go rules with group count instead of territory count