The big move no one saw.

Significant Other recently started playing, too. (Yay!) During his third game ever, we created this shape:

I was white, he was black, 3 stone handicap on a 9x9 board.

I didn't play it, because I mistakenly thought I could at any time; he couldn't, because it would be suicide. I think he thought the same thing. End of game, we both passed, SmartGo didn't count the space. In going back to find out why not, I tapped the space, playing a black stone, and the whole thing died. Well fuck. At least that didn't happen in the actual game.

Lesson: Getting surrounded? For the love of god, make eyes while you still can.

It's not over 'til it's over. Unless it is.

I just resigned from the first game I've ever resigned online, and I'm not certain I should have. 13x13, black, even match. For most of the game, I had control of the top and about half of either side. I also had a big tendril down the center, not connected to any of my walls. I managed to run it out, so it wasn't in immediate danger, but as the rest of the board developed, I struggled to make it eyes. Lower right corner was pretty settled, no room for eyes there. I could get one eye against the edge at the bottom, but didn't (why not?! I could have, and was never blocked from doing it.), so there was still hope if I could squeeze around on the 1st line and make another eye in the fairly open lower left corner. I did manage to get a foot into that space before the action moved elsewhere. Fights were coming out poorly for me in the lower right, the left side, and then the top (hey! stop that!), so I was playing on tilt, feeling hopeless, and gave up saving the tendril. The end of the game was a bluff by my opponent up in my quickly shrinking top territory, and I stupidly put a group of 6 of my own stones in atari. My opponent offered to let me take it back, but by that time I was mentally and emotionally done with the game and just resigned.

On the one hand, in that mental state, my chances of recovering the game were slim.

On the other hand, I could have tried to recover from that mental state.

Which begs the question: if I'm not actually good at knowing when I've lost the game, rather than feeling like I've lost the game, should I ever resign? When I'm upset, I doubt myself, but if I give up, I'll never give myself the chance to see evidence to the contrary.

On the plus side, my opponent was super nice, and chatty, and we're OnlineGo friends now.

Base Jumping.

I was reading up on the opening (among other things, in accordance with the nature of wiki's) last night at Sensei's Library, and I came across this guideline for jumping to make a base in TaoVegan's study notes from the first chapter of In the Beginning.

*I am very new to this game, and I don't yet have perfect understanding of all the concepts (understatement). If you spot errors in my explanations or diagrams, or simply have a better idea for how to explain or visualize things, will you please comment or contact me directly? Thanks! :D

Resisting Tilt.

Ugh, I'm so mad. Okay, more like playfully agitated. He Who Tells Stories came over last night. We played 19x19, even match, I was black. He won, but that's not what I'm mad about. I'm mad about a dumb mistake I made early on, which may have cost me the game. While I'm not certain I'd have won otherwise, it would have been a lot closer, at any rate.

I waged a 3-3 invasion on his corner. We duked it out until I had 6 of his stones in atari. I built a big structure out from there, thinking that the corner was safe. In my head, everything was well connected, which obviously it wasn't, or I would be telling this story. His encroachment didn't seem threatening, right up until he killed and started removing all 14 of my stones. FOURTEEN! Alas.

At the time, I felt understandably off balance. I could have done something stupid out of spite, but instead I made an effort to clear my head. Whether I liked it or not, the board was what it was. It wouldn't do me any good to cling to my plans or anger.

Take a deep breath. Let it go. See the board anew. Then move.

Lesson: Keep a closer watch on threats I consider safe, and actually pull the trigger when I need to. Alternately, make absolutely sure that my structures are as connected as they need to be. Make eyes, count liberties.

Game Notes.

Last night I had He Who Laughs over for a 15x15 game, 5 stone handicap. He won, as white, as per usual.

Things I learned:

1. No more cutting on the 2nd line!!!
   

   
2. In my belief that my opponent is always stronger than me (which, to be fair, is true right now), I follow where ever they tenuki by default, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In He Who Laugh's case, I would make a weird move, one that made no sense to him and seemed like a mistake. He wouldn't know what to do with it, so he'd ignore and tenuki, leaving a potentially dangerous next move open for me to make in the original area. BUT, because I followed his tenuki, I wouldn't see or make it.
3. How I lose control of corners: I think of them as a 45-45-90 triangle, rather than “this side of the corner” and “that side of the corner.” So, when I think of letting someone have the corner, I let them have all of it, rather than just part. Likewise, I try to save all of it, rather than just part.
4. A 3-3 invasion is expecting to fight over the corner. Now.
5. Empty triangles are only bad if they're empty. They are also still empty triangles even when they're attached to other things. I misunderstood the shape.
6. If I feel like I want to make an empty triangle, see if I can move diagonally instead.
7. If it's a simple choice between an atari out into open space or toward my own stones, direct them toward my stones. Simple, but I made that mistake.
8. I can see the stabby moves, but twice I chose not to take them when I should have. Try taking the stabby moves.
9. Reviewing games together is awesome. Taking notes while reviewing games would be even better than that.

Things I did well:

1. He Who Laughs had a 6-stone group that he easily could have saved by filling where he'd captured one of mine. He forgot about filling, assumed they were a stable part of his wall, and lost the whole group.
2. I reduced He Who Laugh's territory in a corner by running under and forcing him to give up a row of 3.

New terms:

Gote – A move that loses me the initiative. My opponent doesn't need to answer it.

Bamboo Joint - Very difficult to cut.

Monkey Jump - A knight's move from the 2nd to the 1st line, running under an open skirt to reduce territory.

Stuck. Two Approaches.

A note, before I begin. I've given each of my Go-playing comrades a pseudonym, largely for my own amusement, but nominally also to protect their identity, assuming the readership of the blog ever expands past their number in the first place. Each name reflects either something about how they play, or how they interact with me when we play. Gentlemen, you know who you are.

Now, on to the story.

I'm stuck. I've been playing against SmartGo's AI on my iPad, and I can't get past a 4 stone handicap on a 9x9 board. A while back, He Who Gives Nothing Away told me that, on a small board with a large handicap, all I really have to do is connect my stones and not let any of them die. He said this as if it were trivial and easy. Armed with that tactic, he thought I ought to be able to progress quickly.

I tried playing like that for a while with mixed success. Then I started playing 19x19 games against humans and saw a regression in my 9x9 AI games.

Last Monday, at Nick Sibicky's class, I kept hearing moves described in terms of negotiations: asking a question, making a statement of intent, staking a claim. With that in mind, I played some more 9x9 AI games yesterday. If I think of the opening move as a statement of intent “I want this corner,” what's my answer to that? Connecting all the stones and not letting any of them die feels like answering with “No! I want everything!” so instead I tried answering with “Okay, you can have that corner, but I want these other areas in return.” That meant letting one of my corner stones die, which worked some of the time, and backfired some of the time. Once I let the AI have one corner, sometimes it would creep out or invade anyway, taking areas I didn't intend to let it have.

On the one hand, “connect all the stones and don't let any die” seems like it has limited uses. I won't be playing with high handicap on small boards forever. However, there might be a lesson there about simply defending if I already have the advantage. Clearly I am not defending well enough yet.

On the other hand, “decide what you want and what you're willing to give up” is applicable on all board sizes, if only I could get better at preventing my opponent from taking more than I intend. Again, better defense.

After playing some more games today, I think I'm stuck not because I'm using one tactic or the other, but because I'm weak on a fundamental skill. My best guess is that I'm simply not reading out moves far enough.  

Beginning.

Hello and welcome.

I'm learning to play Go. More accurately, I'm learning how to learn to play Go. I'm starting this blog to solidify my thinking, to become more self-aware, and to share my learning process. I'm also learning how to blog. Mistakes will be made. Bear with me, this is going to be fun.