Black to play and save the stones!

Been a while..

Been a while since I posted.

Been busy with real life and all of that.

Recently, I moved to Maryland, and...I must say that I was surprised by the no-shortage of go clubs here. After living here for few weeks, I found three clubs, and two I went to, and planning to go to third one, seeing what it would be like.

It's quite amazing. I'm just so surprised by number of clubs here, though I was notified in advance.

Also, because of real life, I haven't played that much lately, but...

It is weird. A lot of fuseki study that I have done kinda stuck in my head. However, my fuseki still sucks. But...somehow, the studies that I did started to help me open my mind to what to look for in fuseki. There is one thing that I have been doing a lot since the start of fuseki study is that after the games, I would take myself through the fuseki, and see where the weak points are, then try to figure out the best moves. I will post some diagrams that has actually occured in my games, and open it up for study.

When that do happen, feel free to give me opinions. Sure, sometimes, the diagrams will show not so-balanced fuseki, but the important point is being able to find right move.

Setting aside fuseki for a minute, and let's look at middle game.

What exactly is middle game, anyway? It's all about the game of who is weak, who is not weak. It is amazing how weak groups can cause you to lose points. It is amazing how chasing weak groups in right direction can earn you a lot of points. Also, there is a lot of little techniques with middle game.

You have to constantly search...

1. Am I weak?
2. Is he weak?
3. What's the big point?

Sure, the list, you have seen all of the time...but...the deeper secret with that is...when you are exploiting all that information above to attack your opponent, you will need to read. Why read?

The reason that you need to read is that you have to watch where your attack is going. You also have to watch when you need to back off. Also, you WANT to attack such that there is no good way for your opponent to counterattack. It's tough, but remember, when you're attacking, there is a very good chance that you're leaving aji all over the place, then...suddenly, hunter becomes hunted.

On to endgame...Endgame is always a weird part of the game for me. Sometimes, I don't do so well, sometimes, I can draw upon brilliancy to gain 20 uncontested points against a dan player with briliant series of tesujis. But when you're entering endgame, time is often short, you want to pick out biggest moves. Usually there are so many little things across the board that you don't even know which is biggest, which isn't. Best thing that you can do is compute the points fast as you can, but that only can come from study. "is that 8 points, with a possibility of 3 points followup?" "Is that gote?" "Is there any way that I can turn it into sente?" "Or is there a tesuji that I could take a look at..."

It's strange in endgame, because a lot of moves that look like tesuji, but it's actually gote by which it earns you more points but gives away sente. So have to be able to do careful computations, or end up getting screwed few points.

Last of all, I know that few people are reading this, so...please leave me some messages (if you want) so I know who is reading.

How to read, and how to make it stick.

Man, reading is interesting for me now. Often, I found myself reading about 20-30 moves deep for many different situations, but however...when I'm done reading, I found myself unable to remember what is the best line, and what is the right candidate for what I'm reading.

From what I can see, easiest part is reading. Hardest part is convincing yourself which line is best, and which line is safest.

How to improve on this? I don't see much choices, except push myself to keep reading, and improve my discipline on picking out what I want to play. It is quite something to be able to read this far. But frighteningly enough, sometimes, far isn't enough.

I'll quote Lee Changho's answer to question about reading...

"A: Usually professional players, including me, read around 100 moves ahead. But that's not the case for every move. First select 10 candidate moves and then read ahead for each of them. After reading ahead 20 to 30 moves for a candidate move, one could reach a tentative conclusion like "this is a bad shape" or simply "this is not it." At that point, I stop any further reading for that candidate move and look for another. This is a process of elimination that ususally leaves one or two candidate moves. For each of these final candidate moves, I read ahead about 100 moves. This might surprise amateur players, but the more difficult thing is not reading ahead 100 moves, but deciding which of the final cadidate moves gives a better result. .... The most painful moment is when I realize that I am on the wrong way a few move after my original decision. That gives me an agony beyond description. People call me "Stone Buddha" for my lack of facial expression during games. But you will notice some changes in my face when I am in a bad situation. You have to look at my face carefully..."

What I can read...is only a fraction of what he can read, not to speak of professional players.

And furthermore...to be able to do that much reading with that much confidence...is unimaginable. Reading is probably an important tool in go, since there are many situations where you will have to keep reading out again and again until you know the shape. More one push reading, one can evolve the skills further and further. There are zillions of different shapes in a game, and who knows what would happen, so it's up to one to read, read, read until they understand the shape, and know exactly how to deal.

After all, go is about pattern recongitation. If you know the shape, you can read past it easily, but if you don't know the shape, you can get stuck with millions of variations that it can present.

It takes a lot of time...
and practice.

Confidence is key to reading. Keep that in mind.

Fuseki

Fuseki, my biggest struggle of the game itself.

I once pulled up the records of my games...

I rarely go into yose. Because I always end up fighting hard, and winning by a hard kill, or getting insane profit in middle game.

Why do I fight so hard? The answer lies in opening stages of the game. My fuseki is so terrible that I typically get behind to the point that I need to step up and start fighting hard in middle game. In fact, fighting while behind is what I know.

So I borrowed a book, "A Dictionary of Modern Fuseki: Korean Style" from a player at club. I took time to play out many and many different variations.

Gradually, I'm starting to understand how stones are supposed to flow. A lot of little things just start to fall in place. Now I feel as if I can play better fuseki. I have tons of learning left to do. Funny consequence of improving fuseki is that the middle game is much more controlled. But funny thing, since I have little experience with that, I really need to learn how to do good yose with good fuseki. It is rare for me to play a middle game without a fighting. That just means that I must start to pick up on yose while working on fuseki. At least, I finally get to work on yose. All it takes is a good opening to set a good pace for the game.

Rebuilding

Some days...

go skills just plain suck.

Hardest part is learning how to pick yourself and move on. Learning how to rebuild yourself as a person. One game...it was supposed to be a teaching game...but I ended up using strength just to crush and win with 7 stones handicap. That was not a good go at all. That game...one move would have won the game easily, but I chose to just crush. Wipe off.

End result was I won, but it was not a good win.

So...immediately, I decided to stop, after several warnings from some friends...

And start over. Rebuild my go from there.

Once I focused on playing more cleanly, focused on finding the best move...I started out a bit awkwardly, like a child learning how to walk. Then suddenly, many different little things just started to click together. Now I'm playing much better go than before. I feel that I can do a lot more once I focus on best moves rather than my strength.

I have been giving weaker players large reverse komi, and tried to play normally. I consistently am impressed with myself, just trying to handicap myself by not overplaying at all, because the score will come naturally.

boy, that is one difficult thing to do, but...worth it.

Question for you...would you rather to use strength to crush and win through sheer luck and chance, or would you rather to play good go, play best move every time?

I say that it's better to play best move every time, because in long run, you will get stronger, because you actually are thinking about what works the best, instead charging like a machine, trying to destroy everything that he holds dear.

Go is about balance...and if I see an opportunity, I will grab it. I just keep playing best moves until I see a clear, open opportunity that I can take advantage of. If I see two weak groups, I will not hesitate to work carefully, and patiently to set up a massive splitting attack. I will be patient, but at the same time, not hesitate to find a way to reduce my opponent's efficiency.

There are a lot of little things...so if you are feeling down about your go, it's time to rebuild your go from a new light.

Subtlety

Subtlety.

Possibly...

most difficult part of go is subtlety.

Subtlety is what puts us apart from professional players. It's also what puts us apart from high dan players.

Think back to all forcing moves that you made. How many of them are necessary? Are they that important? Do you even need them?

Think back to that big wall you made. Did you needed to push one more? Can you? Or can you just tenuki, and work with wall from distance?

If I pushed one more, would it give my opponent too good of a shape? If I hit with shoulder, would that help me or him more?

Go is like a dance, you have to keep balance, you do not want to fall back, or fall on your opponent, and your opponent just let you go past, and walk over you.

If your move seems to help him more than it helps you, it may be a mistake, but how to see them? It is difficult, and requires a lot of thought. Tremendous amount of study and thought. It is actually simple at the same time, but we have to go back and look at how we play, and throw away all old habits that we have developed over the time, and play the board with open mind.

In fact...I will throw up some examples soon. Soon as I figure out what I'm talking about. There are numerous examples for me to think about, but I have to be able to draw upon one of them, and be able to clearly explain the impact a move can make.

But...in all...

go is very subtle.

Spirit

Spirit.

It is a very essence of go. Nanny and I learned this hard way. Really hard way.

Start of the game, I was very light-hearted, having fun, not really thinking about the consequences of my plays. Not really taking things in account. Just wanted to fun.

Then I saw it. I was behind 20 points. About.


Well, as you can see. White is extremely passive early in the game. Now he's in deep trouble. Well, I took about ten minutes on this move alone. Why ten minutes when the move (K11) is almost obvious as a shobute (all or nothing)? Whole that time spent, I was working on changing my mindset for the game. Because this is no longer fun. I have to earn every points possible, fight for every points, because this sure not a fun situation for white to be.

And...also at this point, Black thought she had a won game, but...look at the end result.


W+5.5

How the heck that happened?

It's because Black relaxed, and White really got into the game. Black had passive yose, while White is actively searching for ways to take points, earn points, even risking a bit much to get points. This spirit, it's quite amazing, and it has a way of giving a hell of game. It is quite funny, because after a move at K11 on first board, the feeling of the game switched between us, and it changed the game. Even observers felt the spirit change between both players. It's quite funny.

Iif you have right spirit for the game, and you hold the spirit for the whole game, then you would play really well, and go in flow of the game. But if you do not have right spirit, right mindset...then how can you expect to play well? In fact, I played few people from club, I was shocked to find that I forced a resignation from 6k with 6 stones handicap in less than 100 moves, which is almost unthinkable. 1k in about 60 moves, again almost unthinkable. But when I looked at their face, it is quite clear that they were frustrated with game, or not all that interested in the game. Basically, I get that sense that they lost on spirit.

In summary, in game of go, how you feel about the game, how you look at the game is the essence of the game. It is the attitude that gives you the win. It is the attitude that makes you want to play well. It is the spirit that make you find the move that you need. When you're crapping your pants, and you're feeling pressure, you think hard about what need to be done, searching for spirit, and moves will just pop out for you almost magically. It is amazing that way, because with right spirit, skillful play just pour forth.

May your skillful play pour forth.