Position of the Week – 2

Well, this is hardly a weekly series, but never mind!

When I was first learning about Go, I was so baffled by the placement of stones in the opening and the sorts of comments of strong players had about fuseki that I drew a cartoon for R4D in which a bewildered me lost a game at Move 1 because she didn’t understand the ramifications of playing the 3,3 point. Of course, then I learned a few things about corners and everything sorted itself out for awhile.

Recently, however, I read Takeo Kajiwara’s The Direction of Play. Chapter Three is intriguingly entitled, “Move Two Lost The Game” and begins with this anecdote:

“A certain professional go player, carefully scrutinising one of his own games, once remarked with a sigh: ‘Ah, move two lost me the game.’”

Kajiwara then goes on to show an amateur game in which he claims that Move Two was probably a losing move.

So, the question is this: which play is the losing move, A, B or C?

Kajiwara’s answer is here….

Go Commentary: Huang Longshi & Influence

So yes. Professional games.

I want to improve at Go. Often, stronger players suggest reviewing games by professional or very strong amateur players. When I’ve tried to do this in the past, I’ve very often ended up feeling mostly confused and frustrated. My sense has been that I’m usually better off reading a book aimed at my level or doing problems.

Today, all that changed.

A few people on the OGS forums suggested the go lectures at Go Commentary, so I found myself at a page with commentary for a game between Huang Longshi and Jiang Tianyuan – game four in the site’s small but hopefully growing Greatest Games Ever Played series.

I clicked the first of the four videos and was instantly hooked. I don’t know who the commentator is – he seems to go by countsheep in the guest book comments – but I am officially now a fan.

Countsheep went through the entire game, step by step, and gave a very clear and thorough explanation of what was going on at each step. He explained the thinking behind the moves, and he also spent time showing what might look like ‘natural’ moves at each step and explaining why they weren’t played in this particular game.

The game itself was presented as an example of how to utilise influence in a game and, I must say, it is a perfect game to illustrate this concept. In the first third of the game, I couldn’t image how white was going to turn around and compensate for all the stones he (seemingly) sacrificed in building up his great white wall.

I reviewed the .sgf before reading the commentary and felt completely lost, but I had no trouble following the commentary. Somehow, countsheep managed to make most of the moves feel normal and natural. In the end, there were only three moves that seemed rather magical to me. I now understand why they work, but they were so far off my radar that I don’t know if I’d be able to find them again in a similar situation.

I’ve just started watching some of the other videos on the site. There are several short videos that are aimed at kyu-level players and are less than 10-minutes long. There are also a few more in-depth game analyses. Everything I’ve watched so far has been very helpful and interesting. Also, the website tagline, “Love Life, Love Go” immediately makes one feel welcome.

I particularly like learning a little bit about Go in China and about Chinese Go players. I hope that more classical games are discussed in the future.

Thank you, countsheep, for taking the time to make these excellent videos – I look forward to the next instalments!

PS Huang Longshi is my new hero.

Step Up to a Higher Level

In keeping with my developing habit of reading go books on the road, I brought Abe Yoshiteru’s Step Up to A Higher Level: Test for Intermediate Level with me on my recent cross-country extravaganza. It was lucky too; I travelled on a sleeper for the first time and learned first-hand how misleading the name ‘sleeper’ is when you’re in the open section with the reclining seats. I sat amidst some semi-professional football team that stayed up all night celebrating some recent victory and talking about girlfriends. No sleep was to be had, but there was ample time for go problems.

As a collection of problems, I think this book fills a nice niche. The problems are all clustered supposedly at the 8-7 kyu level, although I found most sections quite easy. I had the most difficulty with the opening section and found a few blind spots in the endgame chapter; the capturing, tesuji and life-and-death chapters seemed as if they were aimed at perhaps 10-9 kyu players. (Of course, maybe this reflects more about the imbalances in my own knowledge than the balancing of the book.)

My biggest reservation about this book was the language. I felt that the English translation was not always very clear and the sentences were often quite strange. I’m not sure if the translator was a non-native English speaker or was trying for some sort of literal translation; if the latter, my feeling is that the author would have been better served by a more natural, relaxed use of English.

I also prefer it when authors use Japenese/Korean/Chinese terms when appropriate if referring to a specific technical term. As far as I know, there are no universally agreed upon English terms for many go terms. “Net” and “ladder” and “knight’s move” are all clear to me as they couldn’t possibly mean anything else, but “skillful finesse” has confused me on a number of occasions, especially when I was a weaker player. I now assume “skillful finesse” means “tesuji”, but there have been occasions when I’ve thought that maybe it meant “sabaki” or something else that I could imagine having to do with skilfulness and finesse. Even if I have to look up what the words mean, I think it’s useful when non-English words are used as they clearly indicate that we’re talking about a specific concept rather than some wooly English something which may map to something one finds in non-English books or may just be an author’s way of phrasing his or her own thoughts. I’m sure this will become less of a problem as I grow in strength and am able to tell from the context what people are talking about, but for now, I find it easier to read and study when I can clearly map the words and phrases I encounter in a new book to the words and phrases I’ve already encountered.

There were a few occasions in Step Up when I felt that I had to battle with the English a bit and try to second-guess what the original Japanese word might have been. This translation already uses some common imported words (hane and atari, for example) and glosses nirensei and sanrensei in the editor’s notes (though I don’t remember them appearing in the text itself – certainly, they weren’t used frequently). Because of the slightly odd way in which some of the sentences were constructed, there were several occasions when I wasn’t sure whether the wording was just a bit strange or if the text was attempting to make reference to some specific concept.

So yes. In the final ‘Playing Strength Analysis’ ranking, I ended up with a score of 128 which put me in between the ’7 kyu’ and ‘Over 6 kyu’ category. Opening and endgame did me in. Otake Hideo, see you soon!

Test Your Go Strength

I seem to be much more efficient at reading go books when on holiday than in normal life. I suppose it’s because there are long stretches of time when I’m on a coach/train/aeroplane/metro with nothing to do but read things that won’t make me too motion-sick. Go problems are good for this as there is usually some looking-away-from-the-book-whilst-thinking moments to break up the reading.

On my most recent adventures, I read Test Your Go Strength by Naoki Miyamoto from cover to cover.

The format of the book is great for travelling. There are 50 problems in all, 20 fuseki, 20 middle-game and 10 endgame problems. In each case, a whole-board situation is presented along with 5 possible moves. The reader decides a move and then the next several pages discuss the benefits and problems with each possibility. A score is given for each move, so one can add up one’s score for each section and the entire book.

The scoring is extremely generous – I ended up with a 2-dan rank overall, and a 3-dan rank for the endgame section (even though I think I’m less strong in the endgame in general).

I enjoyed the problems, and not just because of the generous scoring. The solutions to the problems weren’t obvious to me, and I had to think quite a bit in several cases. In several of the whole-board situations, I wouldn’t have thought of any of the proposed moves – the move I would have played wasn’t included in the options. This made me think through each of the proposed moves and compare it to the moves I would have made, which was useful. It made me consider moves that I would not have imagined on my own.

The text helpfully comments on each of the 5 options presented. In several cases, some of the presented options are big moves locally or would, in general, be the correct solution, but because of the specific whole-board situation, aren’t the optimal move. I found this focus on whole-board thinking very useful, as the problems nudge one into thinking about the ramifications of a supposedly ‘local’ move on later parts of the game.

The commentaries are relatively brief, making this a good book for reading on-the-go when one might not have an extended amount of time to review a long sequence of moves.

In my version of the book, there was an extra stone in the diagram for Problem 49. The diagram printed on the page where the problem is introduced looks like this:

In all the solution diagrams, however, the bottom right-hand corner looks like this:

Based on the commentary, I believe this latter position is what was intended.

Nam-Ban Go Club (Madrid)

Just for the record, no trip to Madrid can be considered even near complete without a visit to the Nam-Ban Go Club. Directions and meeting times are on the website (which helpfully has French, English and Spanish language options).

I visited on a Friday evening. Numbers were down because of the World Cup (Spain versus Chile), but there were still a number of players there, and the club went out as a group for dinner and drinks after the games.

The go club meets Monday, Thursday and Friday at Círculo Catalán, Plaza de España nº6, Madrid. If you’re looking for the venue, you can take the metro to Plaza de España, although don’t do what I did and wander around underground and end up emerging at Noviciado. I got a bit disoriented in doing so, and ended up being a bit late!

The building itself can also be a bit of a challenge to navigate – I wasn’t sure if I had the right place; there was a big lobby on the ground floor, but no one there. I climbed a set of stairs and met some people who were perhaps involved in a dance class or theatre performance of some sort. They didn’t know anything about go, but suggested I carry on up the stairs. Sure enough, I found Nam-Ban on the next flight up.

I was welcomed by the incredibly generous Masaru Mikami, 6-dan. Everyone was paired up when I arrived, so he played me a game with a 9-stone handicap. I tried to play strong, attacking moves while reinforcing my position. At the beginning, I think I did reasonably well at keeping the white stones separated. Of course, my position ended up crumbling and groups died that seemed oh-so-alive just moments before, however, it was a great experience and I learned a lot. We reviewed the game and Mikami pointed out a few places where I could improve. So useful!

I then played a mathematician (yay!) around my level (and lost – I misread a life-and-death situation) and watched a review of another player’s game. I think I doubled my Spanish vocabulary – ‘poco’ and ‘grande’ came up quite a lot, as did ‘importantisimo’ and ‘conectar’. (Oh dear – I’ve already forgotten the word for ‘cut’ – this does not bode well for my Spanish go career!)

I also learned the word ‘pichones’ which means something like ‘pigeon’ or ‘small chick’ and is a word used affectionately within the go club for beginning players or for not-so-good moves made by stronger players who should know better. (One of the women in the club had made a ‘Pichones’ t-shirt in the style of the famous Ramones logo for a team tournament – it was ace!)

Everyone in the club was extremely friendly and welcoming despite my very (very!) poor grasp of Spanish. I’m looking forward to meeting up with this lot again, either in Madrid or at other European tournaments. Thank you to all for a wonderful evening!

Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go: Proper and Improper Moves

This chapter in Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go is mainly taken up by a series of problems designed to give the reader a sense of what a ‘proper’ move is.

Based on these problems, if someone asked me to define a ‘proper’ move as a move that is thick, strong, nice moves that don’t leave any bad aji lying around.  They are the kinds of moves that you naturally want to make; connecting solidly, capturing solidly, summing everything up tidily without leaving behind cutting points.

Kageyama notes that it becomes harder and harder for middle- and high-level amateurs to make proper moves.  Therefore, I was rather alarmed when I got all of them right without much thought.   The correct answers just…looked right, and I couldn’t justify any of the alternatives to myself, given that Kageyama told me to look for the proper move.  I am distressed that, in some cases, I can’t imagine why some of the alternatives were given.  Even if they are less proper, why would stronger players be tempted to choose some of these moves over the correct ones?  The mind boggles.

In any case, the idea is that one plays nice, solid, proper moves whenever one can.  Quietly building nice, solid foundations prepares the battlefield for later ferocity.  If the situation is dire, however, then one might have to scramble a bit…there might not be time for proper moves.

I was recently quite impressed when watching a US Go Congress game of Yilun Yang’s on KGS….  To me, it seemed like Yilun Yang played nice, quiet, calm moves in situations in which I would imagine that many players would be thrashing around in a panic.  He won the game, somehow making it look so effortless to breeze to victory playing normal moves.

Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go: Good Shape and Bad

“Good Shape and Bad” is another one of those chapters in Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go that touches very briefly on a very big topic.

He talks about how go has its own aesthetics, and how moves with ‘good shape’ tend to feel natural and beautiful to professional players.

The way he writes about some of the moves is wonderful; it really inspires one to try to see the board with Kageyama’s eyes.

For example, here is how Kageyama describes a diagram which makes good shape (something I think of as a ‘j’ shape, I suppose because it resembles a stumpy version of the ‘j’ shaped group in James Davies’ Life and Death):

Black’s hand should be trembling with eagerness to play 1.  He should be overcome with emotion.

How could one not desire to feel this way during one’s games?

Throughout this chapter, Kageyama discusses several board position from the point of view of shape and demonstrates how making good shape leads to getting ahead, holding initiative and pretty much everything else that’s good in life.

What sorts of bits and pieces shall I extract during this reading?  Here are a few general ideas that Kageyama develops throughout this chapter:

• Don’t make good shape just for the sake of it.
• Sometimes bad shape is the only move.
• Try not to put yourself in the situation where bad shape is the only move!
• Read things out.  Seriously.
• Sometimes, a good move for you is a move that your opponent would like to play to make good shape.
• There are some shocking ways that groups can be killed or reduced.  When thinking about such life and death problems, thinking about moves that give or take away good shape is often a good ‘way in’.
• (Hee hee!  There exists a ‘bulky 7′ nakade shape!)
• It’s been said before, it will be said again: empty triangles are officially Not Great.

I suppose one of the main things I’d like to think about more explicitly in my games is to try to think up moves that accomplish whatever goal I have in a certain area (attacking, escaping, making life, etc.) but that also leave the seeds for making good shape, and/or force my opponent to make bad shape.

For example, the shape that Charles Matthews calls the ‘table’ shape (A) is one stone away from the lovely shape (B) that black would have if black got to play 1 in Diagram 44.  (Does this have a name?  It looks like a flower to me.)

Maybe thinking about the potential of stones to form nice shapes would be helpful.

Kageyama gives a good example (the dreaded crosscut in the corner!) near the end of the chapter of a situation in which stones are sacrificed in order to make good shape.  I’m sometimes too reluctant to give up stones, and end up struggling to keep unimportant stones whilst my opponent takes over the rest of the board.  Sometimes this occurs when I am not sure which stones are most important.  Perhaps thinking about how to get good shape might offer clues as to which and how stones could be sacrificed.

Of course, as Kageyama warns, it won’t do just to mimic good shapes.  I suppose the big question is, what is it that makes good shape good.

Things that come to mind from the examples are making potential for eye-space, connecting stones together, making a shape thick enough to withstand attack or to escape a sticky situation, creating a robust enough position that the group of stones can serve more than one function….

I suppose there are many more things that could be said about what makes good shape good, but I’ll leave it here for now and close with yet another glorious Kageyama quote….

You must become infatuated with good shape.  White 1 has to spring to mind every time you see Dia. 19.  If you do not feel the same tightening in your chest as when you close your eyes and picture the face of a lover, you do not love good shape enough.

Position of the Week – 1

In the absence of anything happening around these stones, can the two black stones be connected or has white just cut?

Click here for the discussion.

Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go: How to Study Joseki

Kageyama’s chapter on How to Study Joseki in Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go is an illustrated warning to all would-be joseki memorisers. Sure, Kageyama says, you can go about blindly memorising all the joseki you want, but there are a few things to remember:

* There are tens of thousands of joseki.

* Joseki sequences must be played with sensitivity to the entire board.

* Just because a move is in a certain joseki doesn’t mean it isn’t the worst possible move in the universe, given the whole-board situation.

* If you don’t know the reason for each and every move in a joseki, you might fall to bits when your opponent plays a move that’s not in the joseki sequence you’re following.

Kageyama states that studying joseki is indeed key to becoming stronger, but the focus of such study should be on understanding each and every move, so that when one looks at the board, one can find the right move for the circumstance, rather than just blindly recreating a pattern.

There are, of course, some good diagrams showing how standard joseki moves can be suboptimal with respect to whole-board situations and how punishing joseki mistakes can go wrong when one doesn’t understand the purpose of each move in a joseki.

As previously stated, the proper study of joseki isn’t the very next thing on my go to-do list. I don’t feel I have subtle enough understanding of go to understand why a certain move is the very best possible move in a given circumstance. I can make some guesses, but that’s about it at the moment. For now, I’ll continue to experiment with different openings in my own games, trying out various variations so that when I get to the study of joseki, I’ll have a repertoire of personal experiences upon which to draw.

As most of the rest of what I got out of the chapter is heavily reliant on the diagrams, I think I’m going to leave it at that for now.

My love affair with OGS (Online Go Server)

Recently, I came across an article called “Playing opponents that outrank you” at Lose 100 Games. The author talked about how he had been hesitant to request games from stronger players and mentioned that one place where he has felt comfortable challenging stronger opponents was in the ladder tournaments on OGS (Online Go Server) .  He gave great instructions about how to join, so I won’t repeat that here; suffice it to say, I followed his advice and started an account on OGS.

I must say, I really, really like OGS.  I like it so much that I’ll use the word ‘really’, and I’lluse it twice in a row.

I’ve always preferred face-to-face games to playing on online real-time servers.  I’ve played a lot on KGS, but I usually end up playing quick games against bots on those types of servers.  These games always feel like ‘throw-away’ games; I’m plonking stones down rather than doing any thinking.  I do play real people occasionally, but somehow, I feel more like I have to work up to it; I tend to do it mostly when I know I’ll be playing in a real-life tournament soon, and want to get some practice in.

OGS is set up for turn-based games, so the pace is slower and less hectic than real-time go servers.  This really appeals to me as I can take some time thinking over moves.  I sometimes feel a bit time pressured on real-time servers; I’m sure a lot of this is in my head, but I still sometimes rush into moves because I worry about making the opponent wait…particularly if that opponent is stronger.

OGS has a wonderful ‘analyse moves’ link that you can press which opens up a board that lets you play out variations.  You can also download the .sgf at any time and play out sequences on your favourite .sgf editor.  (I’ve found this very useful for games that move reasonably slowly.  I work through a sequence and keep a record so that I can quickly refer back to the paths I’ve worked out for each possible variation, should I so desire.  I hope this isn’t considered ‘bad form’!)  One can also enter conditional moves in advance, so that you don’t need to be online if you’re playing pretty predictable hane-connect endgame moves or that-3-3-invasion-of-a-4-4-point-sequence or whatnot.

Although I am quite shy about playing people in general online, somehow the OGS ladder tournaments feel much less intimidating to me.  I think it’s because they’re set up so that anyone can challenge anyone, and there’s the expectation that people lower down the ladder will challenge you.  I’ve only just started and I’ve already challenged and been challenged by multiple people of all different sorts of ranks.

Also, the structure of the ladder tournaments gives one a nice sense of purpose and progression.  I have only just started playing in the ladder tournaments, but so far it’s been a wonderful way to play a variety of people of different strengths.  You can choose who you play, so you can choose weaker, stronger or evenly matched opponents…and anyone can challenge you.

My main goal is to improve my game, but I must admit, it’s nice to see my rank in the ladder change as well.  I suppose it’s a sort of shorter-term reward.  I get the sense that encouraging tournament play is important to the developers, which I really appreciate.  I’ve found real-life tournaments to be very motivational organising study, and I expect the ladder tournaments will be very good in terms of keeping me in the habit of playing actual games online.

This isn’t to say I don’t like real-time servers. I’m sure I’ll spend just as much time on KGS, winding down after long days by playing quick games with GadgetoBOT and NukoBot and whats-his-face-bot who is always trying to avoid the headcrabs. Watching games between strong players unfold before your eyes in real time is also pretty nifty.

However, the bottom line is that on OGS, I feel more inclined to play real games of go against real people, in a format that I find very enjoyable. I’m hopeful that this relationship will last long after the honeymoon….

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Addendum

There are a couple little practical things to note about OGS.

First, the ratings don’t quite match KGS or BGA ratings.  (I’m back to being a double-digit kyu on OGS! If that’s not motivation to improve, I don’t know what is!)  There are several bots that you can play anytime who respond reasonably quickly; these guys were really useful for establishing and solidifying one’s rank.  (I believe one needs to have finished two ranked games to start the ladder tournaments; playing a couple bots are a quick way to do this.)

Second, you can send a personal message to people to thank them for a game.  You can also rate them by clicking on their name and going to their profile page. (I think it may be a good idea to add a subject to any personal messages.  I’m not 100% sure my subjectless messages were actually sent…at least, they didn’t appear in my outbox.) Most of my opponents so far have been quite friendly and helpful. So far, it has felt like a very welcoming place.

Finally, I wanted to say thanks again to Lose 100 Games which introduced me to OGS.