Friday, February 13, 2009

Yet another good page at Sensei's

Some good responses to common situations at: Basic Instinct

I posted my latest thinking on strategy at GoDiscussions.com, but figured I'd repost it here:

Imagine the only important places to play are on the 3rd and 4th lines. You are trying to capture territory in the corners first, then the sides. Forget the center - it is a distraction!

Fairly quickly you will run out of moves on the 3rd and 4th lines and/or your opponent will do things that you need to defend that cause you to play higher or lower than those lines - that is okay. Defend those urgent spots and return to the focus on corner/side territory capture.

Finally, remember that as long as you win just over half the board, you win (aka don't get greedy).

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to see other players blogging about their study and progress. My name is Tom and I'm from Colorado. Thanks for putting the effort into your page and sharing.

I saw that you are using eidogo to display game records on your site. I looked at the instructions on the eidogo site for adding to a website, but I'm afraid that didn't get me as far as I had hoped. I blog on Wordpress. Can you give me some guidance for doing this? I'd love to add games to my go blog.

Thanks in advance. You can just leave an answer here or post a comment on my blog at razorbrain.wordpress.com. I hate to leave my email out in the open on comment pages. Thanks again!

Vultur said...

I have my own domain, and I have eidogo set up there. I don't think the typical blog hosting companies will let you upload programs like eidogo and the related sgf files needed to show games.

Biondy said...

hmm.... I see. it seems that we are quite difference, since I don't really like to play a defensive game (aka playing 3rd n 4th line then defend it), but that's depend on style.

anyway, good luck in ur go :)

Unknown said...

Not sure about playing 3rd and 4th line exclusively. I have a game or two where I have a thin margin all around the edge and my opponent has the whole centre and wins by masses. I also played a game recently on OGS against a member of my Go club which went the same way but with me winning the centre (although I did have 9 stones). Also the good players in my local Go club always seem to insist on being able to extend into the centre and not let themselves get pinned into the corner and sides. They tell me that the biggest and easiest points are in the corner then sides, and I see that, but I think you can't allow yourself to get pinned to the edge by insisiting on defending it rather than allowing yourself to slip into the middle and maybe make territory there. But hey, I'm only 18k.

Vultur said...

What I found was happening to me was that I get "seduced" by all that empty area in the center. My tendency is to rush up there. I need to fight against this tendency with all my strength and concentrate on corners then sides. Once I have fought tooth and nail for all the edge territory I can, I try to destroy any territory in the center with dragons. Admittedly, you can't do that if your opponent shuts you out of the center, so you have to start the dragons before it is too late.