A bit of an insight

So, playing on OGS has been a different experience than KGS. I am in a tournament that includes 3 players who are a lot stronger than I am. Playing them, and playing the 'bots on the site made me realize some things I may be doing wrong.

I know it is common advice to play in the corners, then the sides and then the center. But, I don't think it is stressed strongly enough. Take a look at this board:


Imagine you are not allowed to play in the pink area, or that points there don't count. Imagine only territory gained on fourth line and below (the yellow, regular board colored area) is worth anything. Think of how much more desperately you would fight for the corners, and how strongly you would lock up the borders so your opponent doesn't sneak into your area. Fight that intensely for the edges of the board before considering the center. That is how important I think this is. Maybe the guideline should be:
Avoid the center! SECURE THE CORNERS AND THEN THE SIDES!! Stay on the 4th line and below until borders are secure! Only run to the center after that!

So, that is "Job #1". Using the thinking above, you still need to make sure you avoid overplay. I understood overplay to mean stretching too far, such that your opponent can punish you, but I didn't have a practical feel for it.

EXAMPLE #1: Here I am pushing hard to try to set the border up around line 12, so that I get a point of territory on line 11 at B11. This is too weak considering none of those stones (A11, B12, C11) are connected to each other or the stones below.


White separates my upper stones with 4 (B10) and I have to go in to damage control.


As you can see - I have no strength and have to reform the border by retreating.


So, here we have the real border after my overplay and the results. The real border is low enough that My highest territory is on line 7, a 4 line loss! I think if I had played B11 as move 3 above I might have been able to claim territory on line 10.


EXAMPLE #2: Same game a few moves later. (Ignore the 19, 20, 21...) Look in the lower left. I was trying to get every last point in the corner, so I did a "double hane", moves A2-B3-C4. This is too greedy. By trying to play right up against my opponent and grab every point, I end up with weak stones that can't stay connected.


White punishes this overplay with the moves below - further reducing my lower left territory.


So, the summary of this post is: Grab and secure as much of the corners and sides as possible, focus on this with a very heightened urgency. Get as much territory as you can around the edges, but with solid moves that don't leave you overextended. If you win the battle around the outside, you should only need to reduce your opponents area in the center and you will be headed for a win.

Turn based online play - more fun than expected

I volunteered to play in a tournament with some other GoDiscussions.com regulars. It was being hosted on OGS. I hadn't tried any games on a turn-based system, so I was feeling a bit like a newbie player. But I signed up, and figured I would be playing a game as if we were emailing moves back and forth.

Well, things happen alot faster than I expected. We built a 9 player tournament and that means each player plays all 8 other participants twice - once as black and once as white. The big surprise was you play all 16 games AT THE SAME TIME!!

So, even if a few players don't show up in a day, you still have a bunch of games that you can move in. I think many of the players leave a browser window open to the site and check on their games whenever they get a few minutes. The point is that you can get a lot more than 1 move per game in each day. What I actually expected to feel slow feels really good. There is a lot less anxiety when you only have to play 1 move. If the position is really dificult, you can just skip that game and work on it when you have more time.

Games are played with Fischer time measured in days. Our tourney was set up as 7 days, plus 1 day time added per move, max time on the clock of 7 days. So, you could theoretically wait a whole week for 1 move, and then play 7 moves the next day and be back up to the max time on the clock.

I was concerned about trying to play on a second server, but at this point I like OGS better. Getting back into the realtime games on KGS may be more of a challenge. OGS has some other nice features like official tournaments, ranking via ELO, bots to help you establish rank, and their ladders.

The ladders are a neat feature where everyone who wants to join gets on a big list. There are some rules about who you are allowed to challenge, but basically everyone plays everyone else on the ladder. If you win, you move to the spot above your opponent. So it is a big GO version of 'king of the mountain'. It makes me think of the insei program where all the students are playing each other to get to the top so they can take the pro exam. OGS has 3 ladders - a 19x19 ladder, 13x13 and 9x9.

I have played a few bot games to try to establish rank, and I think I will join the 19x19 ladder soon as well. I say give a turn-based server a chance! Take a look at both OGS (Online Go Server) and DGS (Dragon Go Server) - maybe one will seem right for you!

Watched entire HnG series

I have been looking for inspiration to help me improve my GO in all directions. Not sure why, really, but I felt like I needed to watch all the Hikaru no Go episodes...so I did. I think it is a pretty good Japanese-style cartoon (manga) with a pretty linear plotline. The one interesting twist is Sai. Of course it is all about GO, so if you like manga and GO, I think you would enjoy it quite a bit.
I think watching it actually helped me, in the attitude department. I was able to see Hikaru's drive to improve. I watched the characters review games with their high level dan sensei - and although I understood the concepts they discussed I can't really apply them to my own game yet. It made me want to improve enough to see what they saw on the board.
The concern I have about rank seemed to be addressed as well. All you can really ever do on the GO board is "test your strength". Ranks don't really matter so much. So that is my new mantra when I consider playing - I need to "test my strength".
If I understood the ways to use thickness, had confidence in my groups level of connectedness, and could read better I wouldn't really care about my rank. I would be able to appreciate the subtleties of the game.
So, I guess I think Hikaru no Go is a motivational story for GO players. I think it could be a good break from playing and studying, worth rewatching every few years.

Free game with Buzzsaw

I have posted on my occasional resistance/fear of playing on KGS. Too caught up in ratings, etc. But I logged in the other day and saw buzzsaw online. I am a fan of her blog and so she has "celebrity status" for me. I decided to be brave and ask her to play a game. We played a free game, I got 5 stones and lost, but I was happier than I have been playing most of my online games.

It made me realize that I have been missing out on the "playing" part of the game. Rated games feel like you are in a tournament. These serious, competitive games are fun sometimes but they don't feel personal. I guess "free" games are intended to be casual games, but I have always viewed free games as "I don't want to mess with my rating" games.

I want the equivalent of a "curl up on the sofa with a good book" game. A comfortable game. A friendly game where each player wants to do well, but is also happy to point out better continuations, or try variations. This interactive learning style of "playing" doesn't translate so well to computers I guess.

Having a friendly rival of about the same strength, who I could play over the board at the local coffee shop sounds like it would be the best. I guess I need to start checking out the GO scene and finding some opponents here in town rather than just in cyberspace.

Played 7 games on KGS in June

My goal was 50, and I only played 7. One was with a weak bot (butterbot 24k). So, I really should only claim 6. I did play another 6 or so over the board at lunch at work, but even adding that falls dramatically short. So, I am wondering why so few games?

*Opens up bag of excuses and grabs a handful.*

• I like the base settings of 30 minutes + 30/5 byo yomi. But that translates into more than an hour if both sides use all their time. So, if I want to play I need more than an hour. This stops me from even logging in a lot of the time. (I should just reduce the base time to 20 minutes for the custom games I post...ok, I will.)
• I don't like to play unless I am "battle ready". I want to feel sharp, and mentally tough enough to play well. This isn't how I feel when I wake up (too sleepy), after a beer (too loopy) or on many normal nights (just not in the zone). (Guess I need to be less attached to the outcome of each game...)
• I care too much about my rating. It keeps drifting up when I don't play and so I want to win a few so it stays at the better rating. (Too much concern for the rating, but it is hard to ignore.)

I am happy with a lot of the GO efforts I am making, but I still want to push myself to complete more online play. I really like the fact that the moves of the game are captured and available for later review.

Safe extensions and the 3x3 invasion

I just read about walls in Bruce Wilcox's Sector fights. There is a lot more in there, but I just have to share a few juicy concepts.

The largest safe extension is equal to the height of your wall. Extend to the 3rd line.

So, here is a completely made up position that illustrates the concept:


If you count from the top edge of the board, the black wall is 6 tall, or you can say it reaches the 6th line. The white wall reaches the 5th line. The safe extension is the same number of spaces away from the wall (on the 3rd line). So white can jump out 5 spaces (a "four space jump") and Black can jump 6. The theory is that the height of the wall helps insure the area can't be invaded. I haven't played one of these big extensions and seen it work, but I am trusting it is true.
It matches up with the proverb, "From a 1 stone base jump two, from 2 stones jump three".


And here is the piece that got the "aha" from me. Why do you see an extension from a single 4-4 stone to the middle of the side? I have seen this and it looked like a lone stone out hoping to claim some territory. Why does this make sense?


Take a look at the picture below - this is the same board after a 3-3 invasion by white. Count up how far away that lone stone is from the wall (consider it to be on the third line from the left). AHA! :)


Lastly, I'll do a little plug for Go Dojo - Bruce talks about a LOT more than just this in his section on walls. Among other things he covers diagonal walls, walls with missing stones, jumping walls and how to destroy the effectiveness of opponents walls. Good stuff!

Skybox - experiments with influence

Influence is important in GO, but it is somewhat hard to quantify. Books talk about trading territory for influence, but it is pretty tough to figure out what a fair trade looks like. I can't tell you exactly how to judge this, but an interesting GO variant called "Skybox" is worth a game or 2.


Skybox Setup: Put a black stone on every spot on the first line as shown above.

Skybox rules: One side (white in my example) tries to make a living group. If white can make 1 group with 2 eyes, white wins. So, obviously, black needs to stop white from getting a 2-eyed group.

So, basically, you are playing a regular game of GO, except that black has a ton of influence around the edge of the board. The page on Sensei's that mentions Skybox states that white should fail. We played 1 game at work, and I sort of consider this less of a "game" and more like an "exercise". It is REALLY tough on white, but I think that hints at the power of influence.

It is also interesting to see how to optimize your play as black. Basically, keep it simple and run to the wall when threatened. Don't try tricky cuts, don't try to capture anything, just drop a stone somewhere that destroys eyeshape and run to the wall!

Watching a game of Skybox did make me rethink my assumptions about "best moves". I really encourage you to play a game, err...try the exercise!