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.