When Ahead, Relax and Get Killed...

Once upon a time there was a go player who recently had started playing on cyberoro. Interesting playing style over there and she found herself losing a LOT more than winning. Mind you, she would like to pretend it was all because of the opponent needlessly complicating the game, not because of her lousy moves. But when she was honest with herself, she did realize that her own moves were just as much to blame as her opponent's moves.

Anyway, today, after many months of lost games, she logged on to cyberoro again to lose yet another game, figuring that the more games lost, the better the learning potential. Hmmmm, things weren't going so well till she killed a big group of her opponent. FINALLY! She got out the wine and cheese and crackers and started celebrating.

 

She was flying high on the wings of victory and laughed out loud when her opponent tried to complicate and kill something 'Ha! No way I am going to be killed! No way I need to play the thick (chicken?) move and connect my groups. I killed you, buster, I rock!'

Only of course I didn't. And I did get killed. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and a vague memory of sayings like 'When ahead, play thickly.' and a sense of maybe ignoring that saying was not the right decision.

Gah.

So much for that victory dance.

I actually ended up winning the game anyway, even after losing that group, but I was very much not pleased with the way I almost managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Die and learn, indeed.