Happiness in Little Things

Over the last few months, I have been very unorganized, and somehow my clutter overtook my goban spot. I took away the goban for a few days, and clutter had magically exploded all over the house. Very weird, that had never happened before.

Given my level of unorganization, somehow it never made it back to its rightful position.

Enter today.



I spent some time putting clutter in different spots (getting rid of it would be too much to ask, right) and lo and behold! A goban! To study! Just in time for large avalanche bliss ^^

Nine days to the Oza! Not that I am counting, of course.

Joseki Study

Minue reminded me of something I should know, but not always live by. 'When you study a joseki sequence with baduk books, don't follow its sequence just mindlessly by rote memory. Instead, try to get which miai each move in sequence aims to play. One way to define "a good move in baduk" is "every move which has a effective miai to play , so that no matter how opponent plays, one can take the other good move"'

Such a simple concept, and yet so beautiful. When I see a pro game, it is usually very clear how they keep miai in mind. When I review my own games, I often get too caught up in local crap, and forget to look at the bigger picture of finding good moves, seeing miai followup. Something to work on.

Let's look at a simple joseki to illustrate the concept.



White sees miai of A and B. If black plays the standard move at A, white extends around B.



But if black plays around B to try to attack the three stones, not taking care of his corner, this punishing sequence will follow automatically:



Black's corner gets hurt by playing the non-joseki move at K3. It makes perfect sense.

Today I will be studying joseki, keeping miai in mind. Go is so simple ^^
Only fourteen days till the Oza!

Playing Guests

Lately, I haven't been playing much, which means that my kgs rank usually isn't very solid. When I put up a game, I often get challenged by guests.

I have been enjoying playing them. I think what I like best is the unpredictability of it. It's like opening a surprise present. Will it be someone who has never played before? Will it be a reasonable strong player? Will it be a dan player intent on killing everything in sight?

Often, I end up getting really good games from guests, even if there is the occasional 20k rude escaper. What is really fun is if you get to play the same guest again a few days later, at least you have some idea of level. And can try to win this time around. If I have an escaping guest, I just consider it a win, and find another game.

One good thing about guests is that it's good reminder to play the board, not the opponent. Never bad to be conscious of that. I find that I play my opponent too often still.

Only fifteen days till the Oza!

Capturing Tengen

Happy Holidays to all!

Two Brothers

Otake Hideo calls it family feud in his book (Opening Theory Made Easy). My teacher always calls it 'two brothers'. As in 'One brother has a bakery, and his brother opens a bakery just down the street from him. Common sense tells that they will compete with each other for customers and hurt each other's profit.

I know the theory, I know why it is not good to play this way, and somehow I still haven't internalized it enough not to do it in a tourney game.

This was my second game during the MGA tourney. This is the game position. I am white and it is my turn.



As you can see, my LL group is somewhat weak. But I look at the board, and start worrying about white not having enough. Instead of staying calm, and finding move B, I panic and play move A. Bad habit. Such a perfect example of two brothers.

We play for a bit more, I live, but at what a cost.



I was not amused at all. Minue reviewed this game and told me 'It is a very losing position, hopeless for white now.'

allpotti [8d?]: lets make income-expense statemnt of this invasion
allpotti [8d?]: white took 5pts, breaking 10pts
allpotti [8d?]: so, 15pts income
allpotti [8d?]: expense is
allpotti [8d?]: this, and much weaker white dragon
allpotti [8d?]: not easy to make exact numerical evalution of this expense
allpotti [8d?]: but, much bigger than 15pts for sure

Sobering thought. I did realize that in the game, but still decided to play on. I did live with my dragon, and eventually won the game, but this was just such a bad idea from me. I have to be way more careful not to get myself into the two brothers situation. It is not like it is rocket science, I don't know why I even played this way. It feels more like discipline than like knowledge. Looking back at this board, it feels almost resignable. I talked about that with minue too.

allpotti [8d?]: Right attitude about your mistake is,
allpotti [8d?]: "Ok. I made big mistake, and messed up. But if I make a big mistake, it means my opponent also may make it."
allpotti [8d?]: So, be tenacious...and don't give up easily
NannyOgg [-]: yeah, often when I am ahead by a lot, I pay less attention to the game, since I have won already
NannyOgg [-]: So can hope my opponent is like that.
NannyOgg [-]: Winning a won game isn't always easy
allpotti [8d?]: Yes,
NannyOgg [-]: Which means winning a lost game is always possible
allpotti [8d?]: Right.

This time it worked. But I could have saved myself so much trouble by not invading improperly in the first place. Die and learn. Or in this case, I lived. Let's hope I still learned.

I Did It!

I finally decided that yes, I should go to the Oza in 2008. It wasn't hard to convince myself, even if it was a bit harder to convince my family. On Sunday, I took the jump and booked flights, hotel, and registered for the tournament.



I will go to the Baltimore one and am tremendously looking forward to it. My very first Oza.

Western Mass. Go Tournament

Yesterday, three people from our go club drove down to Massachussetts for the Western Mass. Go Tournament. We had my trusted GPS to actually get us there in time, as opposed to the time when I did not have my GPS and got lost in a snow storm. Uphill both ways!

The first game, I played my friend Rich, who is a nidan. We had a wonderful game, even if we both missed a big move, and I ended up resigning during byo yomi madness. Lots of study material in that game though.

Second game was against Bill S., a shodan. Before we played, he had lots of questions to ask me. 'How much do you study? What is your AGA rank? Who is your teacher? Do you go to the woodlands every time? Do all your kids have the same father?' I was so tempted to blame our mailman! Or the milkman. But I behaved. Mostly, that is.

We play. I find out his knowledge of joseki has room for improvement. But I leave a weak group so he takes advantage of that and I live with 40 stones and 2 points which annoyed me greatly. Now he had my attention. Up until now, I had been amused. At this point, I got serious.

I was wearing my new sweater. That should have warned him.



He invades. I attack. He says 'that will NEVER work!' I smile at him sweetly and say 'Prove it.' We fight for a while and when the dust settles, his invading stones are dead. Then I cut off more stones. In the process of that, he puts down a stone killing even more of his own stones. Stares at the stone for a few seconds. Goes 'Oh SHIT!' and takes the stone back...

I let it slide, I was winning already anyway. I was enjoying myself too much. He complicates, trashes around, and tells me he is going to live, pointing to his one-eyed group. He says that if he dies, he will resign. I play one more stone and he realizes that yes, he is really dead.

Last game I gave 9H to a 9k or 10k. He played reasonably well for his level, but I mst gameanaged to eke out a win by 12.5. Wasn't easy. But good challenge.

So I ended up going 2-1 and placed 2nd place in dan division, which sounds a lot more impressive than it is. The tournament was tiny, only 10 people, but it sounds good, right?

Fun thing, I got to meet db1 from KGS in person. I have known him on KGS for ages, but never knew he actually was a REAL person ^^ Very nice person too, I enjoyed meeting him.

Go Tournament Tomorrow

Tomorrow, I will play in the Western Massachussetts Go Tournament. It will be good preparation for the Oza in January.

It usually is a small tournament, so I expect to play at least a few handicap games. Will be interesting. I got a new PDA to record my games and transferring my PilotGone information was painless, I am impressed. The hardest part of the job was getting the PDA out of the stupid plastic casing it came in.

Now just need to remember to bring my PDA. And to find focus and calmness when I play. Wish me luck!

Study Paying Off

I have spent a lot of time with Cho Chikun's Life and Death Dictionary, studying all those pesky corner shapes. I can feel that it is improving my game, but that's just a feeling, not always shown in a tangible way.

But then, there are games where I can see that yes, studying does help. My opponent had a keima enclosure from hoshi and I invaded it.



We played the normal ko variant. We fought the ko for a few moves, when he connected at A. This enabled me to live without a ko.



The rest of the game was awful, and the invasion was badly timed, but I still felt really good about having my study pay off in such a visible way. It was a simple sequence, but six months ago, I might have screwed it up anyway.

Puzzling Fuseki

Last night, I played some guest on kgs, and got totally lost in his fuseki. I still haven't figured out how I should have replied. This was the position. I am white.



The black formation at the bottom threw me. Opening theory says to approach an unfinished corner. But A seemed really bad with Black 7 in place. I pondered B, but that didn't seem much better. Maybe D to check an extension from his corner. I ended up playing C, mostly because I had no idea what else to do.

Looking back, maybe D was better, since the bottom is still so invadable. At least, in theory.

He pincered my approach stone, and I took sansan. We played out the usual joseki, although I felt that his Black 19 was slow, I expected him to play it at F17 instead.



My turn again, and yet again, hard decision. Looking back, I think I like A or B. I briefly considered C, and then I did what I do best. I panicked! Against better judgement, I jumped in at D, he pincered at F3 and things went downhill FAST from there. I won by making a lucky kill, but I feel that my troubles this game started when I played at D. So any opinions on this fuseki and how white should have played are very welcome.

If interested, the whole game can be found here.

Another Victim?

My six years old son is starting to show some more interest in go. Although for now, he mostly wants to do go problems, not play. But I can still hope, right?

Ten Thousand Years Ko

Presenting the infamous 10,000 years ko.



As you can see, white will have to give black quite some moves to win this ko, making it almost same as the seki. But this ko is gote, and the seki is sente, which means that the sente seki often is the best play in this position.

Still, it is important to know that this is a possibility in this position too, and to be able to choose the right one for the board.

Go is so much fun!

The Sente Seki

Here is the sente seki solution for the L+1 with two hanes group. It is what we learned first and for a while we thought was the only solution.



Simple and elegant, we were happy that we knew everything there was to know about this shape. Apart from the fact that we didn't :p

Tomorrow, I will post the 10,000 years ko. It starts with the same white attack at T2, but white can follow a different line of play after that.

L Group Fun

I am finally mostly done studying the standard L and L+n groups with and without hanes. At least I think I am mostly finished. This position is the one which has given me the most fun, or maybe it would be better described as 'almost made my head explode'.



This shape seemed so simple. I like the double ko you can make when White attacks at T3. And I knew the sente seki White can make when attacking at T2. That was all there was to it, till I found another variation in a book. Instead of a sente seki, White made a 10,000 years ko.

Seeing that, made me half remember that, six months ago, J showed this ko to me. I remember saying to myself 'That is interesting' and immediately forgot.

I also think there was a thread on godiscussions.com, although I couldn't find it when I looked for it. Naturally, I had just half read that discussion, and immediately forgot it too. I am amazingly good at forgetting things.

After I had seen the 10,000 years ko line in that book, I needed to convince my study buddies. They were not easily convinced at all, and our mailboxes were overflowing with refutations of the ko, and refutations of the refutations. One of my study buddies and I sat down in real life, and played it out and studied it on an actual goban. We agreed that yes, the 10,000 years ko seemed a valid option.

More research and bouncing it off people (J and minue) gave more clearness into the whole 10,000 years ko issue, and how the sente seki usually is better for White anyway. The ko still is a good variation to know though, just in case we find ourselves in a game where a 10,000 years ko is better. Not to mention that the 10,000 years ko is cuter than a boring seki, which is what really counts.

I'll post the sente seki and 10,000 years ko (which is gote) in a few days, so that you can spend some time looking at it yourself, if you are so inclined.

We have moved on to the long L-groups, which coincidentally also have a 10,000 years ko in the most basic shape.

Tsumego of the Day

A few days ago, a friend sent me this tsumego. He couldn't find the solution.

We spent quite some time looking at it in our club's room on KGS, but could not come up with a solution either.

For now, we are considering the problem to be incorrect, but I wanted to post it on my blog to see whether someone can find a solution that we have missed.



The problem is black to play.

Have fun!

Gogrinder

Over the last few months, I have found myself more and more in love with gogrinder. The problem was, I would learn something, and would say 'Wow, interesting!' and then go off and forget it right away. You know, when you are in a game and you look at position and say 'I KNOW I have studied this before, but I can for the heck of me not remember what I am supposed to do now.' Sometimes I still can remember what I am NOT supposed to do, mostly because the consequences of the mistake caused me more pain than learning the correct way.



I tried many different methods. For a while I was using uligo to review things I had learned. It wasn't bad, and actually is better than gogrinder when replaying pro games. But what I missed in uligo, was the historical data. Yes, I made 80 % on those problems today, but is that better or worse than I did yesterday? What about last month? Is there improvement, or did I just forget everything I knew perfectly a month ago?

This is where gogrinder is great. It keeps track of current and past high scores, both for the collection you are working on as for bigger collections. It is very easy to organize your problems into meaningful collections and keep track of how you are doing. It also enables to quickly and effectively review something I was studying a few months ago.

Every morning, I do some gogrinder collections and weep about how much I still have to learn ^^

Aikido and Go

This weekend, I have been participating in an aikido / swordmanship workshop with Mr Dave Lowry. One thing that struck me a few times are some similarities between aikido and go.



Yesterday, he was talking about not showing your intentions to your opponent, which brought me right back to 'Preserve the aji' in go. So many of the same reasons behind it, both in aikido and go. Keep your options open. Don't reveal your plans to your opponent.

Today, he was showing how masters in swordmanship work on eliminating every superfluous movement. It was like listening to someone talk about stone efficiency. Very interesting to see the similarities.

Back to Basics

Yet again, I am finding myself going back to the basics. The last few days, I have been studying the L-group. We all know that the L-group dies as it stands. But what about a L+1 with two hanes? How the heck do I get that double ko in L+1-group? So many basic questions.

I discovered fast that I still had not mastered the simplest of groups with all its variations, so I have been studying and studying, so that I can see a certain L related shape and know immediately that it is alive for now, but I can make a gote seki later.

The study is both fascinating and frustrating, it makes me realize yet again how deep go is, how many variations you can get from a simple shape with a few variations. During my workshop, it was amazing how many people did not know even the simplest way to kill an L+1-group. It made me even more determined to know this shape in and out and in all variations, since it comes up in games all the time.

So many L-group vars, so little time.

Back from Workshop

Last night, I came home from my workshop. It was excellent as always, I learned a lot of things. I feel that this time I understood bigger concepts. Maybe I was more ready to learn about them than during earlier workshops.



One big thing I learned is that my plans need to be more flexible. I cannot base my play on some future situation that will never show up, instead I should look at the board and decide on best move right now. Yes, it sounds so simple. But I managed to screw it up too many times.



Another thing I learned is that I often already know how to play, but for some stupid reason I convince myself that this isn't good idea on this particular board. I guess I need to be less hasty.

I also learned that dan players can have amazing gaps in their knowledge, making me realize yet again that we just know nothing.



Many people asked her how to get stronger, and every single time her answer was 'do tsumego.' Not surprising, but it's good reminder.



We played Survivor Go again, and I managed to get myself kicked out on my second move. And yes, that was yet another situation where I knew the right move, but hastily played the wrong move instead. Bad habit.



On the last day, we played simul. I totally screwed up one corner, but did mostly ok on the rest of the board.

I had a wonderful time, and am already counting the days till next year's Memorial Day workshop.

I uploaded many pictures if you want to see some.

Workshop

Today, I will leave my house and drive through the Green Mountains to upstate New York. I was going to pack last night, but a friend asked for a game, and somehow the time got away from me. Oh well, I don't need much but a few books, and my PDA. I can easily do that in the morning.



I am looking forward to a weekend filled with go, serious games, and much learning to be done. I am looking forward to seeing my baduk friends again, and spend enjoyable time with them playing, watching games, and hiking.

And let's not forget the excellent food. Always amazingly good.

I'll see y'all back in a few days!