In one of my favorite Go books the author Kageyama Toshiro, Japanese 7 Dan writes about how throughout the process of learning Go, amateur players tend to hit walls at various strengths seemingly stuck at a rank for a very long time showing no improvement. They continue to play for fun, but after a time with no effort to improve players become stuck, stagnant, and eventually become known as the “permanent 5 Kyu” or what have you.

Kage’s counter point to this, is that to improve you must study. His book, being all about the fundamentals of Go, re-enforces many basic ides with excellent examples and a conversational writing style. The book’s highly recommended.

BUT! This is not about the book.

This is about me, you, and anyone really that wants to improve at Go.

To improve you must study.

Now I know this sounds painful. No one likes to study right?  “Studying means wasting the time that could be spent playing!” one might say.

But rather we like it or not study is incredibly important. It doesn’t have instant benefits, but it is the groundwork for improving.

I think the most important thing about study is to develop a method that you enjoy. Something  that works for you specifically.

Problems.

I don’t like tsumgeo problems. I find when I get on websites like GoChild, even though the problems are very well designed, it feels like grinding to me. I don’t like setting up tsumego positions on a board and figuring them out playing out variations. I don’t know why, it just doesn’t get me all thrilled and excited.

However, I’ve found I really like reading through the tsumego books. Reading out the possibilities in my head, choosing what I think the correct move is and checking my answer. If I’m wrong, I read through the variation in the answer until I understand where I went wrong. I do this for maybe 15-20 minutes at a time before I put the book down and go off to something else. When I pick the book up again I restart with the initial problems and work through them much faster than the first time. Not because I’ve “memorized” the answers, but because I’ve learned the concepts the tsumego was trying to teach and have gotten much better at reading problems.

I’ve been using Lee Chang Ho’s Tesuji books a friend lent to me and they’ve been invaluable, I plan on getting my own copies soon. But any source that is well organized will work. The key is repetition, and going over the problems more than once. GoChild is a great, free, online resource as well.

Replaying Professional Games

Most Dan players will tell you the way they get stronger is by reviewing and studying professional games. Thanks to the SGF format there are databanks filled with thousands of professional Go games easily available.

For me I find that when I re-play professional games I have a bad tendency to rush through them and ignore how they’re meant to be replayed. I read the kifu and place stones on a board with phrases like “This is joseki” “this is a good move” “this makes sense” “I’d probably play here too” without actually putting a proper amount of thought into the game.

Professional games should be analyzed, with a lot of thought put into them. I don’t do that very well, maybe one day I will develop better habits. For me, the most effective ways have been with assistance of books, or a teacher. I.E. someone who actually knows how to review professional games properly.

I suppose in the end, re-playing Professional Games is very similar to reviewing your own games (which is something we’ll get to in a moment) but on a much different scale. Most mistakes in Kyu games are fairly obvious. Professional play is much stronger, and therefore more difficult to scrutinize because their moves are almost always the correct move. Games come down to a point or two. It’s scary. =)

I’ve found books to be helpful for this. Two that I’ve had the opportunity to read recently has been Takemiya’s and Lee Chang Ho’s games reviewed. The format for both books are similar and have actually assisted a lot in how I think about professional games when I re-play them.

Reviewing Games

Reviewing games has always been one of my favorite ways to learn. I know this doesn’t apply to everyone. Yesterday when I was on KGS  and I noticed my friend Jagon had a demonstration game open with a couple of spectators so I jumped in. Turned out he was going to review a game he had just won against a player of similar strength. (13Kyu) This is a good thing!

Jagon had left suddenly to answer the phone so I started talking to the spectators one of whom was the opponent. At one point he said something similar to “I just don’t like to review, they take so much time.” And his general attitude was very impatient. Since it seemed like Jagon wasn’t coming back I asked him if he’d like to play a game, his response was:

“Sure, I have all night.”

In true fashion my opponent also liked to play quickly. So maybe all of this means that if you’re a rushed person you don’t like to slow down for reviews. But they are so important!

“Reviews are just a polite way for people to tell you how many bad moves you made.”

But we learn from our mistakes!

And on top of that, most reviewers will remain balanced and point out which good moves were played as well as what mistakes were made.

Sometimes, especially when you are first learning the game, you might play a move that is excellent. Something that no beginner should ever think of  playing but it’s happened! A beautiful move. But to the beginner, he’s unsure. Was it ok to play there? Should I have played somewhere else? Oh no, what happens if white plays here next? Reviewing helps answer these questions and teach why a good move is good and why a bad move is bad.

As time goes on the new amateur believes that he played the correct move. But is there a better one? Was the direction of play correct? Should i have played the forcing move’s first? Leaned on a weak group first? Nobi or Hane? Reviewing answers these as well.

Concepts taught in a review also should stick with a player firmly because it’ s pointed out from actual game experience, instead of a abstract diagram in a book.

Tsuji, Shape, Proverbs, Terms, and Etc.

There are thousands of things to learn about this game, which for people like me, is part of the fun! You never run out of things to learn, there is no level cap. =)

Tesuji 手筋 is the Japanese word is a clever play, the best play in a local position, a skillful move, a special tactic etc.

Shape refers to good shape or bad shape. They synergy between stones resulting in a positive or negative position.

Proverbs are exactly as that sounds. Tidbits of Wisdom.

Most Go terms are taken from the Japanese language simply because it was from Japan that Go migrated to the rest of  the western world. Some of them are almost essential to learn like Nobi, Hane, Tsuke, Hoshi etc.

And Etc. There’s always more to learn! The Beginner Study Section on Sensei’s Library is a great place to start.

My Phases of Go

When I play Go I feel as if I play in various phases. And to some degree these phases repeat themselves over time as I continue to learn and play and improve.

Playing, Losing, Studying, Feeling Stronger, Winning repeat.

These days I am trying to prevent all of these things from being rotational and instead putting all of them together in a more balanced way. =) Will I succeed? I don’t know. But over the last few weeks I feel I’ve learned the importance of studying hard. Hopefully as this blog continues I’ll be able to share what I’ve learned.

In the mean time I’m tired of posting my games repeatedly so instead I’m going to post one of Jagon’s. He’s been getting stronger right alongside of me and that is always fun to see, and keeps me motivated so as not to let him surpass me. =)

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The teaching game was fun, I hope the new guy decides to stick around. It’s always good to play with people who have good intuition for the game because they always seem hungry for the knowledge that needs to go along with it to improve.

That and it reminds me that I HAVE learned things while playing =)

The following game is my best of today. It involves a one eyed black dragon, some mistakes by both sides, and black generally taking everything for profit while taking away all of white’s territory. Cheers.

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I like him, he has a lot of promise.

This is my favorite (for me ) from the series.

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This was my favorite game from tonight.

Sente = Win

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Also, whoever says if you lose all four corners, resign, isn’t right all of the time. =)

I got slaughtered.

After recovering over a glass of tea THIS happened on KGS.

Something must have rubbed off.

[Embedded SGF File]

Recently I’ve been studying a lot of Go. And by studying I mean I am actually playing teaching games again, doing tsumego, and reading Go book / websites. I’ve been given a lot of insight from a new friend and very strong player who goes by the name of feature on KGS. I call him Chris and he’s turning into a great friend. Too bad I’m leaving Germany so soon…

I’ve learned some important lessons though and feel the need to write them down. So i don’t forget them, and so maybe you (whoever you are, you sneaky internet browser you) can remember them as well.

• Don’t try to win by gaining territory, win through fighting.
• It’s hard to put a value on thickness, but the 18 points trick says it’s worth a lot.
• Go isn’t about territory, it’s about life and death, territory is just a by-product of fighting
• Don’t play close to thickness!
• If you want to build thickness, lean on a weak group
• A shoulder hit is a connection and a forcing move
• Forcing moves first
• Ko is only worth half a point
• Squeezing your enemy into a bad shape is almost as good as capturing
• A group with no eyes is -30 points, a group with one eye is -15 points
• If you can’t make good shape, make almost good shape and the rest of the moves will occur naturally
• Don’t fortify thickness, use it to attack
• Look for ways to build a moyo naturally
• Don’t be afraid to sacrifice stones

And i’m sure there’s more. =)

Once i get my .sgf flash plug-in working again I’ll post some games.

For unknown reasons the Go flash embed .sgf thing is not working. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

I’ll be writing about Go again as soon as I can hack into the website code and figure out what is going awry.

Cheers

~ Dan

Natural light coming in from the window on the left. This was shot at 1.4/50mm. New lens, very fun.