The Breakthrough to Shodan. This book had been recommended to me by two people, and it just arrived in my mailbox a few days ago. One of those books where you want real life to stop, and to be able to just sit down and browse and read. Of course, real life didn't stop, but I still have been able to study some of the book.
Very interesting. I have worked through the first 1.5 chapters now, and one sentence that really jumped out at me was 'Don't dodge fights. The closer you come to playing on even terms, the more you have to fight'. One of my problems in handicap games is that I often do play way too defensively. Trying to protect territory, and not attacking enough. Yes, I do know that handicap stones are for attacking, but it doesn't show in my games. Need to get over that. This book will help me a lot, I can tell already.
Last night, I played a 9H game and had fun applying some of the principles in the book. Still got wiped off the board, but at least I went down fighting. Now just need to learn how to actually win by fighting. Will be so much fun to figure it out :D
My teacher Sendol has told me that I need to play more aggressively, so it fits well with that advice. It all sounds so simple in theory, but it's harder on the board. To find the balance between unreasonable aggression and the one which actually works. I guess only one way to find out, by trying it. Or if I am really desperate, I could read out my moves before I actually play them.
Homeschool club has started again, and I offered the kids to learn how to play go. This week I had eight interested kids, including two of mine. They had fun playing capture go and some even were advanced enough (I had given them a lesson before) to teach the real beginners. It's interesting to see how they all have their own style, right from the beginning. Some play very solidly, just connecting stones. Others kind of scatter stones around the board, including putting themselves into atari. It will be interesting to see whether any stick with the game. But even if they don't, they at least have been exposed to the game now and know more about it.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Go Fun
We did lots of playing, and lots of reviewing. It's amazing how she could move just a few stones, and suddenly the whole board situation was different. 'Don't let the river come out!' 'The only move!' 'Don't push from behind' It was great to learn new things, although i am sure I have forgotten at least half of them already. I think the big thing I got out of this, is a kind of whole board thinking, of figuring out what's important and what's not, and thinking about direction of play. Learned some nice, new, nifty invasions. And just generally had fun playing, eating, drinking, and breathing go for four days.
I was the weakest player at 7k, there was one other 7k, and 4k and a 2k, the other 10 people were all at least shodan. Strong group. I vow that some day I am not going to be the weakest player in this workshop. Last time I was 11k and there were at least an 8 and 9k. So I was sure I wouldn't be the weakest this time. Tough luck! Need to improve!!!
My teacher recommends at least 400 tsumego per month, at least I am doing that. Still working on at least 50 a day, and most days I succeed. It was nice to meet other problem and go book obsessed people, and compare books and stories. Gave me some more idea of books I still want :-) I browsed through some one's Get Strong at Attacking, i really liked that book. It's on my list of 'Books to get' now.
Most of the weekend was rain, but it didn't matter much, since we could stay inside and play. We did get watch some fireworks on Sunday night, which was very neat. Over a pond, next to a cemetery. I wish I had been organized enough to take my camera to it. Oh well.
Now back home, back to boring studying and playing instead of fun.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Feng Yun
Last night, I drove up to Middlebury, VT, with another go club member, to attend an event with Feng Yun. First a lecture and a demonstration, and then the highlight of the evening, she would play a simul.
I knew the simul was just for Middlebury players and strong visitors, so there was no way I would play in it. But miracles do happen and she ended up playing more players than had previously been announced. Both me and the other player of my go club were able to play, what joy! To play the second strongest woman player in the world! Who would have thought that would ever happen!
She was amazing. She played twelve of us, most of us got 9H. The few strong players, like the 4d and 5d, only got 2H. She did not have any problems with any of us, the only one who made her think a few times was the 5d. For all the others, we would put down our stone, and she would reply instantaneously, seemingly without thinking. And yes, she beat all of us. Easily too.
What a great experience! I learned a lot too, just watching her play. When I play in a handicap game, I tend to overplay a lot, hoping that my opponent won't punish correctly. But she didn't overplay at all. She just plays slow, thick moves, building up a strong position, and patiently waiting for mistakes. Then she pounces. Very effective. Showed me how much I still have to learn. Like I didn't know that yet, but it was even clearer while playing her.
Now I am even more committed to studying more and more, so I will get stronger. I might get addicted to this game! Wait, I am addicted already. Well, then I can be even more addicted. Here is the final position of the game. I had 9H and nothing died, but she had a lot more anyway. Amazing!
I knew the simul was just for Middlebury players and strong visitors, so there was no way I would play in it. But miracles do happen and she ended up playing more players than had previously been announced. Both me and the other player of my go club were able to play, what joy! To play the second strongest woman player in the world! Who would have thought that would ever happen!
She was amazing. She played twelve of us, most of us got 9H. The few strong players, like the 4d and 5d, only got 2H. She did not have any problems with any of us, the only one who made her think a few times was the 5d. For all the others, we would put down our stone, and she would reply instantaneously, seemingly without thinking. And yes, she beat all of us. Easily too.
What a great experience! I learned a lot too, just watching her play. When I play in a handicap game, I tend to overplay a lot, hoping that my opponent won't punish correctly. But she didn't overplay at all. She just plays slow, thick moves, building up a strong position, and patiently waiting for mistakes. Then she pounces. Very effective. Showed me how much I still have to learn. Like I didn't know that yet, but it was even clearer while playing her.
Now I am even more committed to studying more and more, so I will get stronger. I might get addicted to this game! Wait, I am addicted already. Well, then I can be even more addicted. Here is the final position of the game. I had 9H and nothing died, but she had a lot more anyway. Amazing!
Time to do some problems!
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Jabberwocks
Beware the jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
My favorite opening the last few months has been mokuhazushi (3-5 point). It can lead to some interesting variations, of which the Taisha definitely is the best. I still remember the first time some one hit me with the Taisha. He totally crushed me and then in review told me 'Beware the Taisha! The joseki of a thousand variations.' That got my attention and soon I started looking into the taisha. And playing it of course, with varying degrees of success. I have to modestly admit that I am getting better and better at messing up the taisha, so I am making progress there.
When browsing through Sensei's Library some day, I discovered that my favorite opening had a name. Well, kind of. A fun name too, some one named it Jabberwocks!
This inspired me to see whether the Jabberwock user id had been taken on KGS. To my utter surprise, nobody had grabbed it yet. I couldn't resist the chance to become a Jabberwock, so that's me now. Decided to use it as my very own wacky openings account. Mostly jabberwocks, but I might experiment with others too.
I wanted to experiment anyway, having heard from people that it's hard to get games with a question mark rank. It was unexpectedly easier than I thought it would be. I just put up a game offer and waited to see what would happen. My first ranked game was against a 5k, who utterly destroyed me. Rank was still a question mark after that. Second game was against a 19k, who couldn't quite crush me, and this got me my first rank, a [12k?] Still a question mark, but at least a rank attached to it. (the average of 5k and 19k, which made sense). And yes, I know I could have played ranking bots, but I wanted to see how hard it was to find real people to play. Not to mention that bots are just boring.
I have played a few more games, bouncing up and down in rank, it seems not too hard to find an opponent. I tend to get an offer within 5 or 10 minutes of putting up a new game, even with a question mark rank.
And to illustrate the success of the jabberwocks opening strategy, it was recently played in the last match for Oza challenger decision match, by Yamashita Keigo against Nakaonoda Tomomi. What a great game that was! Jabberwocks won Yamashita the priviledge of challening Cho U for the Oza title. I am looking forwards to their matches.
Tomorrow, Feng Yun will be at the Middlebury, VT go club. It will be wonderful to see her in person. Who would have thought that one of the only two female 9p's in the world would come to Middlebury, of all places.
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
My favorite opening the last few months has been mokuhazushi (3-5 point). It can lead to some interesting variations, of which the Taisha definitely is the best. I still remember the first time some one hit me with the Taisha. He totally crushed me and then in review told me 'Beware the Taisha! The joseki of a thousand variations.' That got my attention and soon I started looking into the taisha. And playing it of course, with varying degrees of success. I have to modestly admit that I am getting better and better at messing up the taisha, so I am making progress there.
When browsing through Sensei's Library some day, I discovered that my favorite opening had a name. Well, kind of. A fun name too, some one named it Jabberwocks!
This inspired me to see whether the Jabberwock user id had been taken on KGS. To my utter surprise, nobody had grabbed it yet. I couldn't resist the chance to become a Jabberwock, so that's me now. Decided to use it as my very own wacky openings account. Mostly jabberwocks, but I might experiment with others too.
I wanted to experiment anyway, having heard from people that it's hard to get games with a question mark rank. It was unexpectedly easier than I thought it would be. I just put up a game offer and waited to see what would happen. My first ranked game was against a 5k, who utterly destroyed me. Rank was still a question mark after that. Second game was against a 19k, who couldn't quite crush me, and this got me my first rank, a [12k?] Still a question mark, but at least a rank attached to it. (the average of 5k and 19k, which made sense). And yes, I know I could have played ranking bots, but I wanted to see how hard it was to find real people to play. Not to mention that bots are just boring.
I have played a few more games, bouncing up and down in rank, it seems not too hard to find an opponent. I tend to get an offer within 5 or 10 minutes of putting up a new game, even with a question mark rank.
And to illustrate the success of the jabberwocks opening strategy, it was recently played in the last match for Oza challenger decision match, by Yamashita Keigo against Nakaonoda Tomomi. What a great game that was! Jabberwocks won Yamashita the priviledge of challening Cho U for the Oza title. I am looking forwards to their matches.
Tomorrow, Feng Yun will be at the Middlebury, VT go club. It will be wonderful to see her in person. Who would have thought that one of the only two female 9p's in the world would come to Middlebury, of all places.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Yay for Self Atari!
It has been one of those weeks. Somehow I have managed to put myself in atari not one time, not two times, but three times!!! Pretty amazing.
First time was a brilliant sequence I had worked out. I had totally read out how it would utterly destroy his position. The only tiny oversight was a self atari somewhere on the way... So instead I ended up utterly destroying my own position... Sad.
Second time was in a game where I was behind anyway, and I made it even worse by playing a rather big self atari in early yose. At least it wasn't the game. I still resigned in disgust at my own play.
Third time was a funny game. His group seemed to be weak, so I decided to try to kill it, cleverly disguising my eye stealing moves as normal yose moves. And yet again, I totally missed an obvious self atari. This wasn't even one in a brilliant sequence of moves, it was a totally obvious and direct self atari... He took, and I was 30 points behind. Bad, bad, bad!
I still finished the game, it was only 30 points after all. I managed to steal some points here and there, and ended up winning by half a point! Pretty amazing. The ironic thing was that he played a dame as his last move, instead of the one-point move that was still on the board. That cost him the game. Oh, and in review I realized that that black group I was targeting wasn't even weak enough, so I should just have let it alone. Sigh.
I have been thinking about why I manage to play self atari so often, and I realize that it is purely a matter of focus. If I am focusing on my game, and paying attention, I almost never make stupid mistakes like that. I just make normal mistakes :-p But when I am chatting, and web surfing, and reading email, and dealing with kid interruptions, then I suddenly get hit by self atari's. I wonder whether there is a lesson to be learned from that. A lesson about actually focusing on my games, even if they are on line ones...
My current study still mainly considers of replaying / memorizing pro games and doing problems. And problems. And problems. And more problems. We studied the family of L groups (L, L+1, etc) at go club last week, so I am entering a bunch of L group problems to use with Uligo. I want to practice them over and over, so that some one could wake me up in the middle of the night, hand me an L group related problem, and I will sleepily and automatically know the right move. At the moment I know just enough to be able to mess them up nicely. Even more so after studying them.
First time was a brilliant sequence I had worked out. I had totally read out how it would utterly destroy his position. The only tiny oversight was a self atari somewhere on the way... So instead I ended up utterly destroying my own position... Sad.
Second time was in a game where I was behind anyway, and I made it even worse by playing a rather big self atari in early yose. At least it wasn't the game. I still resigned in disgust at my own play.
Third time was a funny game. His group seemed to be weak, so I decided to try to kill it, cleverly disguising my eye stealing moves as normal yose moves. And yet again, I totally missed an obvious self atari. This wasn't even one in a brilliant sequence of moves, it was a totally obvious and direct self atari... He took, and I was 30 points behind. Bad, bad, bad!
I still finished the game, it was only 30 points after all. I managed to steal some points here and there, and ended up winning by half a point! Pretty amazing. The ironic thing was that he played a dame as his last move, instead of the one-point move that was still on the board. That cost him the game. Oh, and in review I realized that that black group I was targeting wasn't even weak enough, so I should just have let it alone. Sigh.
I have been thinking about why I manage to play self atari so often, and I realize that it is purely a matter of focus. If I am focusing on my game, and paying attention, I almost never make stupid mistakes like that. I just make normal mistakes :-p But when I am chatting, and web surfing, and reading email, and dealing with kid interruptions, then I suddenly get hit by self atari's. I wonder whether there is a lesson to be learned from that. A lesson about actually focusing on my games, even if they are on line ones...
My current study still mainly considers of replaying / memorizing pro games and doing problems. And problems. And problems. And more problems. We studied the family of L groups (L, L+1, etc) at go club last week, so I am entering a bunch of L group problems to use with Uligo. I want to practice them over and over, so that some one could wake me up in the middle of the night, hand me an L group related problem, and I will sleepily and automatically know the right move. At the moment I know just enough to be able to mess them up nicely. Even more so after studying them.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Learning from the Masters
I have been replaying and memorizing some pro games, but I felt that I wasn't doing enough yet. Most of my pro games I have gotten from GoBase, this Go News Page and from GoGameWorld for commented games.
A few days ago, I suddenly realized that I have lots of paper sources with pro games too, which I have conveniently been ignoring. Mostly because it's so much easier to just sit and click instead of actually getting out my goban and my stones. I decided that this maybe wasn't the right attitude and that digging up those paper sources would not be a bad idea.
I looked at my go book shelf and first thing I found was Learning from the Masters: Kyu Level Commentaries on Professional Games Volume 2. This looked as good as any to start with, so I put my goban somewhere where baby couldn't reach it and started replaying the games, while reading the commentaries, and exploring variations.
Very different from just clicking. There seems to be a certain feel and flow to the stones, which I miss when I just point and click. I am kind of hoping that doing this on a real board will help me to internalize good play more easily, but even if it doesn't, there just is a lot of enjoyment to be found in this exercise. The touch of the stones, the sound of putting them down on the board.
I like the level of comments on the games, they have helped me seeing all kinds of things which I would not have noticed by myself. I think this is going to be very helpful. I managed to memorize the first 56 moves of this game without putting much effort in it, I am not going to work on memorizing the rest of the game, but will get new games to play through and memorize at least the first 50 moves.
Of course, i am also still doing problems, slowly working my way through my new Chinese books. I am now halfway volume 4 in this collection of tesuji problems which means they are not as easy anymore. Still very do-able though, I think I'll do fine with this intermediate level. We'll see what happens when I reach the volumes with the hard problems.
I finally managed to beat my husband with 6 handicap! For the longest time, I would give him 5H and I would easily win, or I would give him 6H and he would always win. But over the last few days, I have played him twice with 6H and won! He doesn't like losing, so we'll have to increase the handi to 7 now. My ultimate goal is to be able to let him win by 0.5 every single time I give him 9H. Then he doesn't have to complain about losing his games with me anymore. Let's just hope that he won't get as obsessed with go as I am and would start to work seriously on improving :-D
A few days ago, I suddenly realized that I have lots of paper sources with pro games too, which I have conveniently been ignoring. Mostly because it's so much easier to just sit and click instead of actually getting out my goban and my stones. I decided that this maybe wasn't the right attitude and that digging up those paper sources would not be a bad idea.
I looked at my go book shelf and first thing I found was Learning from the Masters: Kyu Level Commentaries on Professional Games Volume 2. This looked as good as any to start with, so I put my goban somewhere where baby couldn't reach it and started replaying the games, while reading the commentaries, and exploring variations.
Very different from just clicking. There seems to be a certain feel and flow to the stones, which I miss when I just point and click. I am kind of hoping that doing this on a real board will help me to internalize good play more easily, but even if it doesn't, there just is a lot of enjoyment to be found in this exercise. The touch of the stones, the sound of putting them down on the board.
I like the level of comments on the games, they have helped me seeing all kinds of things which I would not have noticed by myself. I think this is going to be very helpful. I managed to memorize the first 56 moves of this game without putting much effort in it, I am not going to work on memorizing the rest of the game, but will get new games to play through and memorize at least the first 50 moves.
Of course, i am also still doing problems, slowly working my way through my new Chinese books. I am now halfway volume 4 in this collection of tesuji problems which means they are not as easy anymore. Still very do-able though, I think I'll do fine with this intermediate level. We'll see what happens when I reach the volumes with the hard problems.
I finally managed to beat my husband with 6 handicap! For the longest time, I would give him 5H and I would easily win, or I would give him 6H and he would always win. But over the last few days, I have played him twice with 6H and won! He doesn't like losing, so we'll have to increase the handi to 7 now. My ultimate goal is to be able to let him win by 0.5 every single time I give him 9H. Then he doesn't have to complain about losing his games with me anymore. Let's just hope that he won't get as obsessed with go as I am and would start to work seriously on improving :-D
Friday, September 16, 2005
Chinese Go Books
I had visitors, so couldn't be on line as much. Luckily I just got a shipment of go books from China. Thus I could put a problem book open on my lap while pretending to be socializing :-) I have worked through the first two volumes of this problem collection, and am really good at recognizing 'B to play' and 'W to play' in Chinese now. I can do one of those books per day, but I am sure my problem solving speed will slow down in the next few volumes.
I also worked through the first volume of Lee Changho's Life and Death Collection which took me a lot more time. It will be a while before I have done all those volumes.
Made a start in 800 Quick Tesuji Problems but I can tell already that this is going to take quite some time too. Great problems though.
Can you tell I am very happy with my new Chinese books?
Some one asked about the Korean Problem Academy books, wondering how useful they are because of not having answer diagrams. I have found that the problems do take longer because of not knowing the answers for sure. But I think that that is a good think. It forces me to really read out the problem, as opposed to dropping a stone at a vital looking point, hoping for the best, and checking the answers. Now I read out most variations, and I also read out a lot of other moves, to prove to myself that none of them works. Sometimes I find a second move which seems to work, and I have to look more into both 'correct' moves, to figure out which is the real correct one. The lack of answers forces me to read deeper and more carefully, which in my opinion is a good thing. I would recommend those books to any one.
Just out of curiosity, I used joncol to look at how many games I have played on KGS so far. I am up to 544 games now on my NannyOgg account, of which I have lost more than half. I seem to have a much easier time winning as W, my winning perc as B is only 40 %. Makes sense of course, I just thought it was interesting. I have played 248 different opponents, which is quite amazing. Just think back 10 or 15 years, and it would have been almost impossible to play that many opponents in less than a year. I play 1.37 games per day, but that's only counting KGS, the number would be higher if I included all my KGS accts and my dragon and little golem accounts.
I also worked through the first volume of Lee Changho's Life and Death Collection which took me a lot more time. It will be a while before I have done all those volumes.
Made a start in 800 Quick Tesuji Problems but I can tell already that this is going to take quite some time too. Great problems though.
Can you tell I am very happy with my new Chinese books?
Some one asked about the Korean Problem Academy books, wondering how useful they are because of not having answer diagrams. I have found that the problems do take longer because of not knowing the answers for sure. But I think that that is a good think. It forces me to really read out the problem, as opposed to dropping a stone at a vital looking point, hoping for the best, and checking the answers. Now I read out most variations, and I also read out a lot of other moves, to prove to myself that none of them works. Sometimes I find a second move which seems to work, and I have to look more into both 'correct' moves, to figure out which is the real correct one. The lack of answers forces me to read deeper and more carefully, which in my opinion is a good thing. I would recommend those books to any one.
Just out of curiosity, I used joncol to look at how many games I have played on KGS so far. I am up to 544 games now on my NannyOgg account, of which I have lost more than half. I seem to have a much easier time winning as W, my winning perc as B is only 40 %. Makes sense of course, I just thought it was interesting. I have played 248 different opponents, which is quite amazing. Just think back 10 or 15 years, and it would have been almost impossible to play that many opponents in less than a year. I play 1.37 games per day, but that's only counting KGS, the number would be higher if I included all my KGS accts and my dragon and little golem accounts.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Little Golem
December last year, I dusted off my go board and played a few times. I thought I would really want to start playing more regularly again. Life kept getting in the way though, so I knew it wouldn't happen. I decided to check out the AGA web site, to see whether there was a club any where close by. No, there wasn't but lo and behold, there were go servers! Places where people were night and day, willing to play go. I had no idea that such a thing existed!
It took me a few weeks to get one of those go servers working with our firewall, and I was thrilled when we finally got it done. The one I managed to get working was KGS, so that's how I ended up primarily on there, although I do have an unused IGS account now too. Later, I found out that KGS most likely was a better fit for me anyway, so many people there willing to help weaker players and to review games. I had seen turn based servers mentioned, but I felt they wouldn't satisfy my immediate cravings for playing as much go as possible.
Fast forward a few weeks, when I played in my first real life tournament. I met another go player, who invited me to play on Dragon Go Server I checked it out, and suddenly I realized that this would enable me to play even more games, especially when I didn't have time to play a full game, I could always fire off a few moves on Dragon. I played for a while and found Dragon to be a perfect complement to KGS.
I had heard people talk about Little Golem but I had never checked it out myself. Till a go friend gently nudged me in the direction of that server, and I found another turn based server, but this one is based on tournaments. There are always tournaments going on, you just join and wait for the next one to start, usually within a day. So it is like dragon, but more competitive. I have been playing there for about a week now, and have been having a lot of fun. I have found that I shouldn't sign up for too many tournaments, I now have more than 50 simultaneous games going, although a bunch of those are fast 9x9 ones. I even *gasp* ended up joining in two small chess tournaments. Don't tell any one! I suck at chess anyway, but thought it would be fun to play a few games.
Today I finished my first Little Golem tournament. Came in second place out of four, with same number of points as first place, but he had played tougher opponents, so he won. Yes, I do like Little Golem!
It took me a few weeks to get one of those go servers working with our firewall, and I was thrilled when we finally got it done. The one I managed to get working was KGS, so that's how I ended up primarily on there, although I do have an unused IGS account now too. Later, I found out that KGS most likely was a better fit for me anyway, so many people there willing to help weaker players and to review games. I had seen turn based servers mentioned, but I felt they wouldn't satisfy my immediate cravings for playing as much go as possible.
Fast forward a few weeks, when I played in my first real life tournament. I met another go player, who invited me to play on Dragon Go Server I checked it out, and suddenly I realized that this would enable me to play even more games, especially when I didn't have time to play a full game, I could always fire off a few moves on Dragon. I played for a while and found Dragon to be a perfect complement to KGS.
I had heard people talk about Little Golem but I had never checked it out myself. Till a go friend gently nudged me in the direction of that server, and I found another turn based server, but this one is based on tournaments. There are always tournaments going on, you just join and wait for the next one to start, usually within a day. So it is like dragon, but more competitive. I have been playing there for about a week now, and have been having a lot of fun. I have found that I shouldn't sign up for too many tournaments, I now have more than 50 simultaneous games going, although a bunch of those are fast 9x9 ones. I even *gasp* ended up joining in two small chess tournaments. Don't tell any one! I suck at chess anyway, but thought it would be fun to play a few games.
Today I finished my first Little Golem tournament. Came in second place out of four, with same number of points as first place, but he had played tougher opponents, so he won. Yes, I do like Little Golem!
Monday, August 29, 2005
The Monkey Jump
Remember back in the days when you first got hit by the monkey jump? The devastation it would wreak on your territory. When the only thing you could do was put down stones in a vain attempt to stop the damage, but you weren't very successful?
And then the sense of power you felt when some one showed you how to stop it properly? Not only did you now know how to deal with the monkey jump, but you would have it to hit other players with. I still remember how it was nice to know everything there was to know about the monkey jump. Life was good.
For a while, I did all the things right, according to what I had learned. Until one day, my opponent managed to wreak havoc anyway, because he was able to live in my territory, even after being cut off. That hurt! And slowly I started to realize that my standard reply for the monkey jump didn't always work. And even more slowly, I figured out that it had to do with which stones were in place and which weren't, and how he could push farther if certain stones were missing. Life wasn't as simple anymore.
A few weeks ago, we did a study session on monkey jumps at our go club. We studied the normal monkey jump, the small monkey jump, which I never even had contemplated using. Looked at which one to use under which circumstances. Looked at when one point jump might be better. How to follow up on those. I felt that I knew a bit more now, but not nearly enough.
I was thrilled when I found that a whole book had been written on the monkey jump. Perfect! Now I could learn even more about it and I would be enlightened again.
Last week, it arrived, and after making a few false starts in it,using it as bedtime reading, I finally got to sit down and really study it yesterday. Was amazed at the depth of coverage. Was confirmed in the belief that I know nothing. Now I still know nothing, but I am more aware of some of the things I know nothing about. At least I now know which replies to contemplate when replying to the monkey jump. I now know which variations to read out, and that sometimes even a diagonal play is better than a monkey jump. I read more in depth about the value of a monkey jump. Yes, the average is 9, but as always, it all depends.
Still have to do the problems in the book, which look like they are going to be harder than I thought a monkey jump problem could be. This is all so fascinating! I keep discovering new layers in go, layers I didn't even know the existence of. One thing which got reinforced to me when reading the book, is that it all comes down to reading out moves and variations, and getting better at that. Even although my reading has improved since I started seriously studying, it still is nowhere near the level where I want it to be. Heck, plainly it just sucks.
I guess on of my main study goals should be improved reading, which could be accomplished by doing a lot of problems. I had kind of slacked of on my daily Many Faces of Go problems, but back to doing 50 of those every day again. Doing lots of other problems too, some day this should pay off, right? I have reached new heights in my Many Faces of Go problems, I have hit problems up to level 142 over the last few days, where only a month ago, my average level was from 60 to 80. Maybe there is a tiny bit of hope for me.
Back to doing problems!
And then the sense of power you felt when some one showed you how to stop it properly? Not only did you now know how to deal with the monkey jump, but you would have it to hit other players with. I still remember how it was nice to know everything there was to know about the monkey jump. Life was good.
For a while, I did all the things right, according to what I had learned. Until one day, my opponent managed to wreak havoc anyway, because he was able to live in my territory, even after being cut off. That hurt! And slowly I started to realize that my standard reply for the monkey jump didn't always work. And even more slowly, I figured out that it had to do with which stones were in place and which weren't, and how he could push farther if certain stones were missing. Life wasn't as simple anymore.
A few weeks ago, we did a study session on monkey jumps at our go club. We studied the normal monkey jump, the small monkey jump, which I never even had contemplated using. Looked at which one to use under which circumstances. Looked at when one point jump might be better. How to follow up on those. I felt that I knew a bit more now, but not nearly enough.
I was thrilled when I found that a whole book had been written on the monkey jump. Perfect! Now I could learn even more about it and I would be enlightened again.
Last week, it arrived, and after making a few false starts in it,using it as bedtime reading, I finally got to sit down and really study it yesterday. Was amazed at the depth of coverage. Was confirmed in the belief that I know nothing. Now I still know nothing, but I am more aware of some of the things I know nothing about. At least I now know which replies to contemplate when replying to the monkey jump. I now know which variations to read out, and that sometimes even a diagonal play is better than a monkey jump. I read more in depth about the value of a monkey jump. Yes, the average is 9, but as always, it all depends.
Still have to do the problems in the book, which look like they are going to be harder than I thought a monkey jump problem could be. This is all so fascinating! I keep discovering new layers in go, layers I didn't even know the existence of. One thing which got reinforced to me when reading the book, is that it all comes down to reading out moves and variations, and getting better at that. Even although my reading has improved since I started seriously studying, it still is nowhere near the level where I want it to be. Heck, plainly it just sucks.
I guess on of my main study goals should be improved reading, which could be accomplished by doing a lot of problems. I had kind of slacked of on my daily Many Faces of Go problems, but back to doing 50 of those every day again. Doing lots of other problems too, some day this should pay off, right? I have reached new heights in my Many Faces of Go problems, I have hit problems up to level 142 over the last few days, where only a month ago, my average level was from 60 to 80. Maybe there is a tiny bit of hope for me.
Back to doing problems!
Monday, August 22, 2005
Agression!
Yes, aggression. I have never been a very passive player, but I seem to have gotten a bit too aggressive lately. Which has lead to some nice fighting, but also to quite a lot of lost games. It's hard to find the balance between aggression for profit and aggression just for fun. I am slowly starting to see it, but it looks like I only learn the hard way. Yes, I should cut whenever it's feasible and advantageous. But no, I shouldn't cut just for the sake of cutting. I should have a bigger plan and a follow up for my cut. If I don't, better not to cut, but to play something else. Something that is part of my bigger plan.
As I said, slowly learning this, but still having too many games where I get totally drawn into a local fight, losing track of the whole board situation. And if I would at least win the local fight, that would be something, but I often manage to lose the local fight AND the whole game. But on the other hand, I do have a lot of fun fighting!
Working on attacking for profit now, as opposed to attacking for fun. Seems contrary to my playing style, so I better change my style to reflect my new philosophy. Not promising it will work all at once, but at least I will be trying.
Last night played a nice game where the stones seemed to flow really well. Still a bunch of glitches, but less than normal. So maybe there is hope for me. Some days I think this is taking way too long, on the other hand, I am enjoying the playing and studying tremendously. Who cares is it's taking longer to get to shodan than I thought it would? At least I am slowly getting stronger, at least part of the time :-) Of course, I do realize that shodan is only going to be the start of the journey. So much to study, so little time!
As I said, slowly learning this, but still having too many games where I get totally drawn into a local fight, losing track of the whole board situation. And if I would at least win the local fight, that would be something, but I often manage to lose the local fight AND the whole game. But on the other hand, I do have a lot of fun fighting!
Working on attacking for profit now, as opposed to attacking for fun. Seems contrary to my playing style, so I better change my style to reflect my new philosophy. Not promising it will work all at once, but at least I will be trying.
Last night played a nice game where the stones seemed to flow really well. Still a bunch of glitches, but less than normal. So maybe there is hope for me. Some days I think this is taking way too long, on the other hand, I am enjoying the playing and studying tremendously. Who cares is it's taking longer to get to shodan than I thought it would? At least I am slowly getting stronger, at least part of the time :-) Of course, I do realize that shodan is only going to be the start of the journey. So much to study, so little time!
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Four Color Go
Last week at go, we played four color go. Yes, four people, one goban, four colors. And each of those people plays for themselves, no teaming up like in rengo. It is ok to temporarily team up to kill one player. Boy, did I find that out the hard way :-p
Everything you think will work, suddenly doesn't work anymore. You have to consider your stones to be in atari when they have three liberties left, because now it can be killed by your opponents. Playing thick and like a beginnner suddenly seems to work much better than making nice shape. And there is way more social stuff going on than even in rengo, because you can change which people you work together with to kill sutff.
I started out playing very aggressively and opportunistic, taking anything I could, playing atari wherever it seemed fun. Later, I switched to more territorial, but I had a nice number of captures by then. Everything went just fine till I forgot about the '3 liberties might be dead' rule and played not as solid as I should have... That was the end of that group.
Another interesting development is that even if a group dies, nobody wants to play to take away the second to last liberty, because then the person who goes after you gets all those stones to capture. So you end up with a lot of giant seki's on the board.
It was a fun experiment, we might do this once a year or so. The weakest player ended up with the most points, our dan player ended up with the least. Yes, interesting game.
Everything you think will work, suddenly doesn't work anymore. You have to consider your stones to be in atari when they have three liberties left, because now it can be killed by your opponents. Playing thick and like a beginnner suddenly seems to work much better than making nice shape. And there is way more social stuff going on than even in rengo, because you can change which people you work together with to kill sutff.
I started out playing very aggressively and opportunistic, taking anything I could, playing atari wherever it seemed fun. Later, I switched to more territorial, but I had a nice number of captures by then. Everything went just fine till I forgot about the '3 liberties might be dead' rule and played not as solid as I should have... That was the end of that group.
Another interesting development is that even if a group dies, nobody wants to play to take away the second to last liberty, because then the person who goes after you gets all those stones to capture. So you end up with a lot of giant seki's on the board.
It was a fun experiment, we might do this once a year or so. The weakest player ended up with the most points, our dan player ended up with the least. Yes, interesting game.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Handicap Go
After playing in the Boston tournament, I have started thinking more about handicap go. Things really are different when there are a bunch of black stones on the board already. I have found that there are quite a few books on handicap which look at it from the view point of the weaker player. But there aren't many resources for the White player. It seems that you are supposed to know what you are doing when you are white. Which isn't always true for me yet. The one which seems to go into white's mind most is 'How to Play Handicap Go' by Yuan Zhou. It's a very good book, and has gotten me interested in his other book, but it is out of print at the moment.
I have decided that I need to practice giving handicap, so I have quite a lot of dragon games going where I give handicap. Some are going well, some are not. There definitely still is a lot of room for improvement! I also have been giving handicaps to stronger players, both to see how they use their handicap stones and to practice giving handicap against some one who actually knows what he is doing.
Playing handicap as black seems easier, although it's amazing how I can get nine stones and still be pushed around by the stronger player. I played my first 9H game with my teacher Sendol where he let me win by 1.5. Yes, let me win. He clearly was playing this as a teaching game, trying to keep the margin small. He set up tons of testing situations, some of which I passed, but most of them I didn't even notice till he pointed them out in review. You know, where he showed out for almost all of his groups 'See, this is how you could have killed it'... It was a fun game. And shows me yet again how much I still have to learn. At the end of the game he remarked 'I didn't have a chance'. Gotta love his sense of humor :-p
At our go club we now have an official handicap table, which gets adjusted after three wins. Now I just need to work on getting down the handicap I get. My highest is still 9H against our dan player. My sole goal in life is to decrease that to 8... And then to 7, and so on. Last week we played our first 'official' handicap game, which I won by 22. Only two more wins :) I find that I play better in real life than at the server, I am sure it's all about focus.
Our club's 5k used to give me 7H for the longest time when I just got back into go. Now I am down to 2H against him, and I think I might be able to play him even soon. Last week he beat me at 2H, but that was purely one of those stupid mistakes on my part, I felt good about the rest of the game. You know, where you look at something and think that something must be possible there and should you defend? and then kind of forget about it... That mistake cost me about 30 points and I lost by 25 or so.
The Iwamoto tournament is over. I played one game a week for eight weeks in a row. I won 5, lost 3, and ended up as #21 out of 81 players in my division. An ok result. It was fun to participate, I will enter it again next year. In a higher division though, I would hope.
The ratings of the Boston tournament have been updated on the AGA web site and I am 9k AGA now. So I guess I officially have made it into SDK territory. At least for the AGA. Now I need to get there at KGS, where the ratings are stronger.
I have decided that I need to practice giving handicap, so I have quite a lot of dragon games going where I give handicap. Some are going well, some are not. There definitely still is a lot of room for improvement! I also have been giving handicaps to stronger players, both to see how they use their handicap stones and to practice giving handicap against some one who actually knows what he is doing.
Playing handicap as black seems easier, although it's amazing how I can get nine stones and still be pushed around by the stronger player. I played my first 9H game with my teacher Sendol where he let me win by 1.5. Yes, let me win. He clearly was playing this as a teaching game, trying to keep the margin small. He set up tons of testing situations, some of which I passed, but most of them I didn't even notice till he pointed them out in review. You know, where he showed out for almost all of his groups 'See, this is how you could have killed it'... It was a fun game. And shows me yet again how much I still have to learn. At the end of the game he remarked 'I didn't have a chance'. Gotta love his sense of humor :-p
At our go club we now have an official handicap table, which gets adjusted after three wins. Now I just need to work on getting down the handicap I get. My highest is still 9H against our dan player. My sole goal in life is to decrease that to 8... And then to 7, and so on. Last week we played our first 'official' handicap game, which I won by 22. Only two more wins :) I find that I play better in real life than at the server, I am sure it's all about focus.
Our club's 5k used to give me 7H for the longest time when I just got back into go. Now I am down to 2H against him, and I think I might be able to play him even soon. Last week he beat me at 2H, but that was purely one of those stupid mistakes on my part, I felt good about the rest of the game. You know, where you look at something and think that something must be possible there and should you defend? and then kind of forget about it... That mistake cost me about 30 points and I lost by 25 or so.
The Iwamoto tournament is over. I played one game a week for eight weeks in a row. I won 5, lost 3, and ended up as #21 out of 81 players in my division. An ok result. It was fun to participate, I will enter it again next year. In a higher division though, I would hope.
The ratings of the Boston tournament have been updated on the AGA web site and I am 9k AGA now. So I guess I officially have made it into SDK territory. At least for the AGA. Now I need to get there at KGS, where the ratings are stronger.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Tournament Time
This was a tournament filled weekend. I played in two KGS tournaments (Asian day time and American daytime), in the open division, because I have had my rank turned off for a while now. The open division means that every one can enter, and pairings are random. This was an elimination tournament, so the moment you lose, you are out. I knew I wouldn't make it to the end, but figured it would be a good way to play stronger players.
In the Asian one, I made it to the third round, where I had to play against a 6k. So that was the end of the tournament for me. In the European one, I got a 3k for my first game, so that was the end too. I lost that one by only 34.5, which I thought wasn't too bad. Looking back, I did too many nonsense moves though, I should give up on making those.
Yesterday, I went to a real life tournament, in Boston. I decided to enter as AGA 8k (my official AGA rank is 12k at the moment). I figured I could do ok on that level. Well, I did play 2-2, but it was a lot harder than I expected. Because the tournament is rather small, I only played handicap games. Which isn't too bad, apart from the fact that I ended up giving high handicap 3 out of 4 games. If you add up my handicap stones, I gave a total of 25 stones over the day, and received 3. This seemed a bit unbalanced. Oh well :-)
First game was against a 15k, I gave 7 handicap. This game was just a mess. Too many weak groups, and one super heavy group, which he managed to kill. Wasn't hard either. Can't say that this was my very best game ever. Giving 7H is just really hard, I felt too overwhelmed from the beginning.
Second game was against an 18k, I gave 9 handicap. Better game, but she played very solidly. Making iron pillars the moment I played close to a corner. Connecting all of her stones as much as she could. She made some mistakes, but nothing big enough. There was a lot of aji in a certain position, but I couldn't figure out how to make use of it. A friend later told me how I could have done it, too bad. That might have given me the game. Even although I lost this game, I still feel I played better than during my first game.
It was halfway the tournament now, and I had lost all my games so far. I started to wonder whether I should have entered as an 8k, or whether that had been overly optimistic. On the other hand, high handicap games are so different from normal games, maybe I shouldn't worry too much yet, and hope for some more reasonable games next.
Third game I got lucky, finally I received some handicap. I got 3H from a 5k and it was really easy to win. He kept making nonsense invasions late in the game though, I think hoping for a mistake. At some point I was so tired of them (and my time was really low) that I just gave him 10 points in a corner, so I could live easily with the rest of my group, instead of preventing him from connecting, but being able to stir up more trouble. By that point I was around 50 ahead, so I couldn't care less about those corner points, just wanted the game to be over. End result was 35 points or so. Phew, I finally won a game!
Fourth game was yet another high handi game. I gave 9H again, and kind of expected to lose again. I made too many mistakes, but luckily, he made more. I ended up winning by 30 or so, but I don't feel I played that well. Mostly that he made more mistakes than I did. But hey, I'll take the win.
After the game, my friend came over and pointed to a position 'Why didn't you play here? That would have killed B!' I told him I didn't because B was dead already. My opponent agreed. We both considered it a dead group. Of course, it turns out that yes, there was a way to live for B, just one that the both of us hadn't seen. That's why we aren't dan players yet :-) It was on the board for ages too, I think at least 150 moves. Bad, bad, bad.
I feel that my play this tournament wasn't as good as it should have been, I think giving high handicap so many times kind of threw me off. My best games were my second against the solidly playing 18k, and the third against the 5k. The first and fourth game still had too much room for improvement. Learning opportunities.
The other members of our go club did well too. They both played 2-2. Looks like we all entered at the perfect playing level.
After the tournament, there was a blind go exhibition. That was fun to see. Mind boggling how he could do that though. We stayed for a bit, but then had to go back home. It was a long day, but I am glad we went. Hmmmm, wonder when the next tournament within driving distance will be...
In the Asian one, I made it to the third round, where I had to play against a 6k. So that was the end of the tournament for me. In the European one, I got a 3k for my first game, so that was the end too. I lost that one by only 34.5, which I thought wasn't too bad. Looking back, I did too many nonsense moves though, I should give up on making those.
Yesterday, I went to a real life tournament, in Boston. I decided to enter as AGA 8k (my official AGA rank is 12k at the moment). I figured I could do ok on that level. Well, I did play 2-2, but it was a lot harder than I expected. Because the tournament is rather small, I only played handicap games. Which isn't too bad, apart from the fact that I ended up giving high handicap 3 out of 4 games. If you add up my handicap stones, I gave a total of 25 stones over the day, and received 3. This seemed a bit unbalanced. Oh well :-)
First game was against a 15k, I gave 7 handicap. This game was just a mess. Too many weak groups, and one super heavy group, which he managed to kill. Wasn't hard either. Can't say that this was my very best game ever. Giving 7H is just really hard, I felt too overwhelmed from the beginning.
Second game was against an 18k, I gave 9 handicap. Better game, but she played very solidly. Making iron pillars the moment I played close to a corner. Connecting all of her stones as much as she could. She made some mistakes, but nothing big enough. There was a lot of aji in a certain position, but I couldn't figure out how to make use of it. A friend later told me how I could have done it, too bad. That might have given me the game. Even although I lost this game, I still feel I played better than during my first game.
It was halfway the tournament now, and I had lost all my games so far. I started to wonder whether I should have entered as an 8k, or whether that had been overly optimistic. On the other hand, high handicap games are so different from normal games, maybe I shouldn't worry too much yet, and hope for some more reasonable games next.
Third game I got lucky, finally I received some handicap. I got 3H from a 5k and it was really easy to win. He kept making nonsense invasions late in the game though, I think hoping for a mistake. At some point I was so tired of them (and my time was really low) that I just gave him 10 points in a corner, so I could live easily with the rest of my group, instead of preventing him from connecting, but being able to stir up more trouble. By that point I was around 50 ahead, so I couldn't care less about those corner points, just wanted the game to be over. End result was 35 points or so. Phew, I finally won a game!
Fourth game was yet another high handi game. I gave 9H again, and kind of expected to lose again. I made too many mistakes, but luckily, he made more. I ended up winning by 30 or so, but I don't feel I played that well. Mostly that he made more mistakes than I did. But hey, I'll take the win.
After the game, my friend came over and pointed to a position 'Why didn't you play here? That would have killed B!' I told him I didn't because B was dead already. My opponent agreed. We both considered it a dead group. Of course, it turns out that yes, there was a way to live for B, just one that the both of us hadn't seen. That's why we aren't dan players yet :-) It was on the board for ages too, I think at least 150 moves. Bad, bad, bad.
I feel that my play this tournament wasn't as good as it should have been, I think giving high handicap so many times kind of threw me off. My best games were my second against the solidly playing 18k, and the third against the 5k. The first and fourth game still had too much room for improvement. Learning opportunities.
The other members of our go club did well too. They both played 2-2. Looks like we all entered at the perfect playing level.
After the tournament, there was a blind go exhibition. That was fun to see. Mind boggling how he could do that though. We stayed for a bit, but then had to go back home. It was a long day, but I am glad we went. Hmmmm, wonder when the next tournament within driving distance will be...
Friday, July 08, 2005
Teach and Be Taught
One thing that has struck me in the go world, is how willing stronger players are to share their knowledge with weaklings such as me. An amazing number of players on KGS have helped me out, reviewing my games, giving pointers towards getting stronger, so many people giving lessons in the teaching ladder room. So much knowledge and such willingness to share.
Naturally, I have been reciprocating the favor towards weaker players. And I have discovered that I very much enjoy teaching people, endlessly talking about go, helping some one get stronger, give them insights about their play and how to improve it. I have joined The Go Teacher account on the Dragon go server. It is a group teaching account, teaches players from about 12k to 30k. It has been enjoyable to teach there, but it also has been very valuable and teaches me a lot. It helps to deepen my own understanding. It is very useful to verbalize things you were only aware of on a more intuitive level. Not only that, but reading through the comments of the other teachers has helped me too.
I take paid lessons too, with Sendol and zalmoxe. Sendol is an amazing teacher. I love the way he can change the whole board situation by putting just a few stones differently. He also is fond to point out the huge move I missed, first time playing it out and showing me why. After that, every few moves he might go back to it. 'Still'. Makes me more aware of looking for moves like that. And more aware of how bad it was to miss this particular one :-)
Fun to compare teaching styles, most people seem to develop their own style over time. Where one of my old teachers tended to use a lot of yelling when she got excited, another one wouldn't do more than say 'tsk' at a particularly bad move, making me think for myself why this was a less than optimal move. Yet others will say 'This is no good.', taking away my move and showing how much more effective just one space to the left would have been.
Today, I managed to beat The Many Faces of Go for the very first time on level 10 (the strongest level). I hadn't been playing it at all for ages, somehow robots just aren't as much fun as playing humans. But I was curious to see how I would do against it, since I felt that I had gotten a bit stronger since then. And yes, I have gotten stronger. I beat it by thirty something today, and didn't even have to focus that much on the game. It was a day time game, with the compulsory 5,000 kid interruptions. So I am happy about knowing that I can beat TMFoG now, guess I can start using it for handicap practice. Although that is more fun on people too. I might just keep using it for problems and joseki study.
Talking about problems, I have done at least ten thousand problems since January this year. Of course, a lot of those are simple ones (Korean Problem Academy and such), but it still feels like a quite respectable number. Guess I should do my daily problems for today, haven't done much yet. I also want to work more on memorizing that Honinbo game, I have 200 moves or so down.
Naturally, I have been reciprocating the favor towards weaker players. And I have discovered that I very much enjoy teaching people, endlessly talking about go, helping some one get stronger, give them insights about their play and how to improve it. I have joined The Go Teacher account on the Dragon go server. It is a group teaching account, teaches players from about 12k to 30k. It has been enjoyable to teach there, but it also has been very valuable and teaches me a lot. It helps to deepen my own understanding. It is very useful to verbalize things you were only aware of on a more intuitive level. Not only that, but reading through the comments of the other teachers has helped me too.
I take paid lessons too, with Sendol and zalmoxe. Sendol is an amazing teacher. I love the way he can change the whole board situation by putting just a few stones differently. He also is fond to point out the huge move I missed, first time playing it out and showing me why. After that, every few moves he might go back to it. 'Still'. Makes me more aware of looking for moves like that. And more aware of how bad it was to miss this particular one :-)
Fun to compare teaching styles, most people seem to develop their own style over time. Where one of my old teachers tended to use a lot of yelling when she got excited, another one wouldn't do more than say 'tsk' at a particularly bad move, making me think for myself why this was a less than optimal move. Yet others will say 'This is no good.', taking away my move and showing how much more effective just one space to the left would have been.
Today, I managed to beat The Many Faces of Go for the very first time on level 10 (the strongest level). I hadn't been playing it at all for ages, somehow robots just aren't as much fun as playing humans. But I was curious to see how I would do against it, since I felt that I had gotten a bit stronger since then. And yes, I have gotten stronger. I beat it by thirty something today, and didn't even have to focus that much on the game. It was a day time game, with the compulsory 5,000 kid interruptions. So I am happy about knowing that I can beat TMFoG now, guess I can start using it for handicap practice. Although that is more fun on people too. I might just keep using it for problems and joseki study.
Talking about problems, I have done at least ten thousand problems since January this year. Of course, a lot of those are simple ones (Korean Problem Academy and such), but it still feels like a quite respectable number. Guess I should do my daily problems for today, haven't done much yet. I also want to work more on memorizing that Honinbo game, I have 200 moves or so down.
Monday, July 04, 2005
Memorizing Pro Games
A few months ago, Nachtrabe got me interested in memorizing pro games, but somehow I never actually sat down and did it. Well, I half heartedly started on one, but life and other go studies kept getting in the way, and I don't think I can still do more than 30 moves or so of that one, if that much.
Then last week, two things happened. First, we finally got IGS working with our firewall (had to set up some proxy stuff) so I could watch the last game of the Honinbo finals. It was quite an experience, very intense game, and it was a lot of fun to discuss moves while they were being played. Black (Cho U) was ahead most of the time, but White (Takao Shinji) managed to pull off a .5 win with extremely skillful play. I spent most of a night watching the game, but had to go to sleep at 5am or so. The game was still in full swing when I logged off.
The next morning, I wanted to know who had won, and spent quite some time web surfing trying to figure it out. Amazing how even CNN doesn't cover important events like the Honinbo finals! Finally found a Japanese newspaper which had covered it and then used Babel Fish to translate it. Now I had closure. Of course, still had to find the kifu and play the game, but at least I knew who had won. I had hoped for Cho U to win, because that would have given us one or two more games.
Second thing which happened was a few days later at go club. Our dan player was talking about the game, and commenting on it, and playing it from memory! He said he hadn't even tried to memorize it, just had been replaying it so many times, that it got stuck in his mind. Hmmmmm, well, if he could do that, I figured I should be able to do that too.
I seriously started memorizing this game a few days ago, and even although life and other studies still are getting in the way, I have been able to memorize the first 150 moves so far. Shouldn't be too hard to memorize the rest. The game has amazing depth, every move has so much meaning. And I have to admit that it just is fun to memorize it. I am also hoping that it will help me with memorizing my own games, which I have been wanting to do for ages. I can sometimes recreate the first 20 to 40 moves or so, but that's it. And I am not able to do that every game anyway. So much to work on, so little time!
Then last week, two things happened. First, we finally got IGS working with our firewall (had to set up some proxy stuff) so I could watch the last game of the Honinbo finals. It was quite an experience, very intense game, and it was a lot of fun to discuss moves while they were being played. Black (Cho U) was ahead most of the time, but White (Takao Shinji) managed to pull off a .5 win with extremely skillful play. I spent most of a night watching the game, but had to go to sleep at 5am or so. The game was still in full swing when I logged off.
The next morning, I wanted to know who had won, and spent quite some time web surfing trying to figure it out. Amazing how even CNN doesn't cover important events like the Honinbo finals! Finally found a Japanese newspaper which had covered it and then used Babel Fish to translate it. Now I had closure. Of course, still had to find the kifu and play the game, but at least I knew who had won. I had hoped for Cho U to win, because that would have given us one or two more games.
Second thing which happened was a few days later at go club. Our dan player was talking about the game, and commenting on it, and playing it from memory! He said he hadn't even tried to memorize it, just had been replaying it so many times, that it got stuck in his mind. Hmmmmm, well, if he could do that, I figured I should be able to do that too.
I seriously started memorizing this game a few days ago, and even although life and other studies still are getting in the way, I have been able to memorize the first 150 moves so far. Shouldn't be too hard to memorize the rest. The game has amazing depth, every move has so much meaning. And I have to admit that it just is fun to memorize it. I am also hoping that it will help me with memorizing my own games, which I have been wanting to do for ages. I can sometimes recreate the first 20 to 40 moves or so, but that's it. And I am not able to do that every game anyway. So much to work on, so little time!
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Halfpointer
Last night, I played a game in the Iwamoto Tournament. I have been doing about average in this tournament, winning 3 out of 6 games so far, placing me 42nd for the moment. I like that number anyway :-)
The game was going ok for the most part, apart from helpfully making him fix his shape at some crucial point, and some other less than optimal moves. My big mistake was giving him way too much of the center though, way more than I should have given him. Which made the game extremely close, even although I didn't realize how close. We were fighting one of those one point kos, when he passed, even although he still did have ko threats left. He thought I was ahead, so it wasn't important anyway. He was shocked when he saw the end result. Black +0.5. Yes, he was white. Gotta love those half point games.
It was a fun game, full of learning opportunities, as usual.
The Wings Go Club June league is over, I never got around to playing six games, only played three this month. Still tied for third place, so not too bad. I will try to play six games again this month.
I really like having my rank turned off at KGS. Suddenly I was able to beat 10k's who I had never beaten before. I feel stronger already :-)
Finally finished the first volume of my Korean Problem Academy books I had been working in it on and off, but never sat down and methodically did a bunch of them every day. Three weeks ago, I finally did and book one is done now! I think there are about 700 or 800 problems in them.
They don't have answers, which I first wondered about, how useful they would be because of that. It turns out I didn't have to worry. I actually think it is better not to have the answers because it forces me to really read out every sequence, and to be extremely sure about the right answer, as opposed to slapping a stone at the vital point and hoping for the best. Which is the way I often do the problems where there are answers available. Yes, I do realize that is not the best way, but sometimes it is mightily tempting.
With those problems, I have to actually sit down, concentrate and decide which solution is the best, and why another move does not work. Most of them I can do pretty fast, but some do stump me for a while. I do believe this helps to improve my reading power though.
This week at go club we had a beginner whom I gave nine stones. He turned out to be much less of a beginner than I thought he was, so that was a pretty hard game. I did manage to win, but only barely. I lived where I shouldn't have and killed some things which shouldn't have been killable. Always interesting to play against high handicap. I started a bunch of high handicap games on Dragon just to practice it more.
The game was going ok for the most part, apart from helpfully making him fix his shape at some crucial point, and some other less than optimal moves. My big mistake was giving him way too much of the center though, way more than I should have given him. Which made the game extremely close, even although I didn't realize how close. We were fighting one of those one point kos, when he passed, even although he still did have ko threats left. He thought I was ahead, so it wasn't important anyway. He was shocked when he saw the end result. Black +0.5. Yes, he was white. Gotta love those half point games.
It was a fun game, full of learning opportunities, as usual.
The Wings Go Club June league is over, I never got around to playing six games, only played three this month. Still tied for third place, so not too bad. I will try to play six games again this month.
I really like having my rank turned off at KGS. Suddenly I was able to beat 10k's who I had never beaten before. I feel stronger already :-)
Finally finished the first volume of my Korean Problem Academy books I had been working in it on and off, but never sat down and methodically did a bunch of them every day. Three weeks ago, I finally did and book one is done now! I think there are about 700 or 800 problems in them.
They don't have answers, which I first wondered about, how useful they would be because of that. It turns out I didn't have to worry. I actually think it is better not to have the answers because it forces me to really read out every sequence, and to be extremely sure about the right answer, as opposed to slapping a stone at the vital point and hoping for the best. Which is the way I often do the problems where there are answers available. Yes, I do realize that is not the best way, but sometimes it is mightily tempting.
With those problems, I have to actually sit down, concentrate and decide which solution is the best, and why another move does not work. Most of them I can do pretty fast, but some do stump me for a while. I do believe this helps to improve my reading power though.
This week at go club we had a beginner whom I gave nine stones. He turned out to be much less of a beginner than I thought he was, so that was a pretty hard game. I did manage to win, but only barely. I lived where I shouldn't have and killed some things which shouldn't have been killable. Always interesting to play against high handicap. I started a bunch of high handicap games on Dragon just to practice it more.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
The Joy of Eyes
Have been happily playing and messing up. But yesterday was a big mess up, even for me. I was playing an even game against a much stronger player, and was doing pretty well in the opening. It wasn't till middle game, when disaster struck. I had this nice center facing wall, which I knew was safe, so I didn't have to pay attention to it anymore, just needed to use it. Which I did not do correctly, instead played some moves at different locations of the board (Tenuki! Trying to play tenuki more, but still haven't found the right balance :-) Got distracted and carried away, chased a white group, was having a great time, while W was busy taking away all my eye space. Now it's one thing if that happens if I notice and can fight back. But in this case I truly had not noticed it at all, till I started counting to see how far behind I was. Counted the top, got a decent number of points. Then wanted to count the number of points in my dragon, and came up empty. Oops!
Funny how I totally lost track of the big picture while focusing on the small fights. Shows very clearly one of the many areas in which I still have room for improvement. Quite the learning experience :-)
Well, at least it wasn't a self atari. Grateful for small blessings.
Needless to say, the game result was W+Res.
This all happened a few days after I missed a totally obvious ko, which would have killed my opponents huge group. At least that one was at 4am, so I can claim that I was tired. But didn't have a good excuse like that in the eye less game.
So many avoidable mistakes to correct. Well, at least turning off my rank worked in a way, because I was able to beat a 10k whom I had never beaten before. So maybe there is some improvement in between the screwups :-)
Funny how I totally lost track of the big picture while focusing on the small fights. Shows very clearly one of the many areas in which I still have room for improvement. Quite the learning experience :-)
Well, at least it wasn't a self atari. Grateful for small blessings.
Needless to say, the game result was W+Res.
This all happened a few days after I missed a totally obvious ko, which would have killed my opponents huge group. At least that one was at 4am, so I can claim that I was tired. But didn't have a good excuse like that in the eye less game.
So many avoidable mistakes to correct. Well, at least turning off my rank worked in a way, because I was able to beat a 10k whom I had never beaten before. So maybe there is some improvement in between the screwups :-)
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Runnerup
Last weekend, I played in yet another KGS tournament. I had decided to enter the Asian day time division, because at that time my kids usually are asleep and I can concentrate on my games. I had been losing a lot of games lately, so I didn't really expect much from the tournament, I was actually tempted to only play the first three games (1am, 2am, and 3am) and then go to bed instead of playing the 4am one. I kind of expected to lose most of my games anyway.
Of course, reality was different, and I won my first three games, so couldn't resist playing the 4am one too. And to my utter surprise, this was another win! I ended up second place because my SOS (Sum of Opponents Scores) was just 0.5 points lower than the first place winner. Still very happy about it all. I won a crown next to my name on KGS, lucky me.
I decided to turn off my KGS rank for now. I hadn't been playing ranked games for a while because I wanted to experiment. But a few weeks ago, I decided to start playing them again, and just experiment in R games too. I found out that that might not be the best idea, because I immediately lost a stone. And I also found out that I did not particularly liked playing ranked games, even although I am still not sure why not. Because I can't say that I particularly care about which rank I have next to my name at KGS.
One theory is that it's all about focus. I was really focused on my tournament games, and did just fine. But my R games, I just wasn't as focused, had a lot of kid interruptions and other things going on. So I would miss things that I did not miss in my tournament games.
Yesterday, I got myself back to my old rank and then decided to stop bothering with R games. So I turned off my rank and that felt good. Now I can concentrate on playing, and studying, and getting stronger, and not on my KGS rank. I'll measure progress by which level players I can play even and do well against. Or the number of handicap stones I am getting from stronger players. I just played a even game against a KGS 10k and won. Haven't won from him before, so that was nice.
Of course, reality was different, and I won my first three games, so couldn't resist playing the 4am one too. And to my utter surprise, this was another win! I ended up second place because my SOS (Sum of Opponents Scores) was just 0.5 points lower than the first place winner. Still very happy about it all. I won a crown next to my name on KGS, lucky me.
I decided to turn off my KGS rank for now. I hadn't been playing ranked games for a while because I wanted to experiment. But a few weeks ago, I decided to start playing them again, and just experiment in R games too. I found out that that might not be the best idea, because I immediately lost a stone. And I also found out that I did not particularly liked playing ranked games, even although I am still not sure why not. Because I can't say that I particularly care about which rank I have next to my name at KGS.
One theory is that it's all about focus. I was really focused on my tournament games, and did just fine. But my R games, I just wasn't as focused, had a lot of kid interruptions and other things going on. So I would miss things that I did not miss in my tournament games.
Yesterday, I got myself back to my old rank and then decided to stop bothering with R games. So I turned off my rank and that felt good. Now I can concentrate on playing, and studying, and getting stronger, and not on my KGS rank. I'll measure progress by which level players I can play even and do well against. Or the number of handicap stones I am getting from stronger players. I just played a even game against a KGS 10k and won. Haven't won from him before, so that was nice.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Rengo
Last week, finally played rengo for the very first time. It was interesting. And a bit frustrating. And challenging. And lots of fun! I managed to get myself positioned immediately after the strongest player of our group, which meant that I had to try to figure out how to reply to his vicious attacks. Well, I guess it will help to make me stronger :-)
This week has been a week of go blunders. Lost a lot of groups, totally avoidable. Made all kinds of other silly mistakes. This all culminating into a self atari on the Dragon Go Server of all places. Yes, it is a turn based server. So yes, you can think about your move. And yes, you can see it on the board before submitting it. But I still managed to do the 'Oh, simple endgame move, plunk, glance, submit, really look, ARGH!!!!, trying to stop the submitting' thing :-) It is a vital part of a group too, will lose that game now. Oh well... I could call it a learning experience, apart from the fact that I don't seem to be learning from it.
Thinking about it, it seems like my main issue still is playing too fast. I click and then think, instead of first thinking and then clicking. In real life play, I have gotten better at thinking by not having stones in my hand while playing (thanks, Tristan) I have considered sitting on my mouse hand while playing, but it seems like too much of a bother. Still...
My other issue is byo yomi. Once I enter byo yomi and that time thingy starts blinking at me every 20 secs or so, I start panicking. Which is not a good thing. I have made major blunders just because I get the 'Have to put down a stone, ANY place, can't think about it!' madness. Not sure what to do about that, sitting on my mouse hand would only make it worse I think. Maybe I should play more blitz, so I get more used to the time pressure. Or maybe I should get good enough that even my panic stones still are well placed. I think I like that last solution.
This week has been a week of go blunders. Lost a lot of groups, totally avoidable. Made all kinds of other silly mistakes. This all culminating into a self atari on the Dragon Go Server of all places. Yes, it is a turn based server. So yes, you can think about your move. And yes, you can see it on the board before submitting it. But I still managed to do the 'Oh, simple endgame move, plunk, glance, submit, really look, ARGH!!!!, trying to stop the submitting' thing :-) It is a vital part of a group too, will lose that game now. Oh well... I could call it a learning experience, apart from the fact that I don't seem to be learning from it.
Thinking about it, it seems like my main issue still is playing too fast. I click and then think, instead of first thinking and then clicking. In real life play, I have gotten better at thinking by not having stones in my hand while playing (thanks, Tristan) I have considered sitting on my mouse hand while playing, but it seems like too much of a bother. Still...
My other issue is byo yomi. Once I enter byo yomi and that time thingy starts blinking at me every 20 secs or so, I start panicking. Which is not a good thing. I have made major blunders just because I get the 'Have to put down a stone, ANY place, can't think about it!' madness. Not sure what to do about that, sitting on my mouse hand would only make it worse I think. Maybe I should play more blitz, so I get more used to the time pressure. Or maybe I should get good enough that even my panic stones still are well placed. I think I like that last solution.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Smartgo
Last week, I turned out to be the happy winner of a copy of the Smartgo combo in an AGA drawing for the Shodan challengers. I have been playing around with it for a bit, and I have to say that it is a really cool program. It came with more than 30,000 pro games, so that should keep me out of trouble for a while.
I used the analyze game option, it's very interesting to see what professionals would have done in a certain situation. Usually something else than I had been doing :-) I know this program is going to be very useful in my go studies.
I used the analyze game option, it's very interesting to see what professionals would have done in a certain situation. Usually something else than I had been doing :-) I know this program is going to be very useful in my go studies.
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