There are games you win, and games you learn

The proverb is a very important one. It's not easy coping with loss.

There are cases, however, of games which you both win and learn from. Today, I had such a game. Ironically, it is these sorts of games that are even harder to cope with than lost ones. I feel very little joy over today's win. Let us at least maximise the "learn" part, then.

2012-08-05-Median-player123.sgf

It was a handicap game. The first and most important lesson from this game is that two stones is really not that much, and when you feel you have done enough to be ahead, you should *stop panicking*. I'll get back to this lesson at the important point in the game.

We started off casually. I tried to use sente-retaining opening moves. I remained as high as possible, and loose. I tried not to get too attached to anything from the get-go.

He used a very strange variation in the upper right corner. He did get more thickness than usual, but his shape is pretty bad. I was certain I could harass that later on, so this was probably his first mistake. Also, he never really got to use that thickness to much effect.

The rest of the fuseki is ok, I guess. Now that I have the whole game in view, I would swap my 39 for J16. Other than that, I'm satisfied. Still, I (now) feel that after J17 I've evened the board out. Another move at around L13 would be perfect at that point. However, he started an invasion in the lower right, and I felt that I should handle that first, and leave the center for later.

The attachment at 41 was probably a mistake. I was still panicking about this being a handicap game, and felt that I need to kill something in the lower right to have a playable game. I succeeded, but only because he didn't know what the ladder was... After that, killing the rest came easy.

Now, I feel that I would swap 87 K11 for L13.

Then comes the most important part. D6 may be OK, but it is a product of me still being in the "this is a handi game!" mindset. I should have just calmly responded with E5 and avoided complications. This led to me losing a pretty large group for no good reason, and allowing him a small intrusion into my territory. BTW, I think that E6 would be much better at G6. Thoughts?

At 165, I should have went another step on the third line before going down to second. I'll remember that. I made another critical mistake at 183. That cut should have waited, and I needed to cover up F15. The opponent resigned at 187, but he still could have played F15, and I'm pretty sure that the game would have went easily to his favor if he only saw that.

So, in retrospect, the important lessons were:

• Three stones are better than two (on the third line)
• To get ahead, maintain sente and stay light
• Once ahead, calm down

Passive and aggressive

Hello, go lovers!

Today I am going to talk about two concepts that I've been trying to work out in my head recently. The first is a form of "passive" play, while the other is "aggresive". I am putting these two words in quotes because they are simply a form of thought. The misconceptions you may get with my (indeed, flawed) terminology are the following:

1. These two forms of thought do not make your games look completely opposite to each other. The "passive" one still includes invasions, as invasions are a natural part of Go. The "aggresive" one is not reckless. Neither one of these is insane/extreme.
2. The terms do not relate to a specific set of skills you may require, shapes you need to know, choice of joseki or anything like that. The choice of moves is a complex process, and making it a black-white relationship (I am either going to do THIS and be aggressive, or THAT and be passive) is somewhat narrow-minded. What I am talking about is merely a state of mind, nothing else.

Now that I have said what I am not talking about, let me try and explain what I am talking about. :)

2012-06-14-ryo21-Median.sgf

This is a "passive" game from my point of view. My fuseki is a 3-4, 4-4 which is pretty certainly going to give me some territory on the right side. 
Let me give you a quick tour through my mind as I play this game (note that this is a blitz game, and that my mind is not that thorough):

Move 7: I will probably have some solid territory on the right, so I will not jump into his corner. I will rather fight and see what comes out of it.
Move 11: This is cuttable, isn't it? (I wouldn't have cut here if my mind had answered with a shaky "yes". Since it was a solid "yes", I did cut. Notice I am going for simple life on the side here, instead of ambitious center influence. That is pretty passive, imho.)
Move 17: I like my corner, tyvm.
Move 21: I'll take that fifth line territory, yes sir.
Move 30: If our walls continue upward, I am at an advantage. My invasion on the left is deeper than his on the right, because I am closer to his corner. Onward! (passive, isn't it?)
Move 37: White 36 wrecked my easy-going path on the bottom, so I need to do something big to make up for it.
Move 47: I have the choice of attacking the upper right white group, making my upper left group larger, or tenuki. I decide to tenuki, since both groups seem pretty much alive already.
Move 53: You're actually going to allow me to connect downward? O.o Nice! :D
Move 59: Yay! Hane!.
Move 61: Combo x2.
Move 73: Ok, right now the status is: I have more territory on the right than he has on the left. All I need to do is make sure that this great wall of china doesn't do anything. TENGEN! Oh, wait, one above. Okai. That leaves the stones on the top open for attack, though. :( It's gonna be rough.
Move 74: Or is it?
Move 77: Right now, I feel that I can connect the stones above downward in a snake at worst, so I decide to reduce him while I still can. He's probably going to defend in gote, anyway.
Move 78: Told ya.
Move 121: Woo monkey jump on at least one side!
Move 130: Dude, that was end-game gote. Monkey. ^^
Move 133: You threaten to take those two stones, do you? Can I connect the other ones if you do that. I can? DOUBLE MONKEY!!!
Move 150: This is where I should have been very careful, but I wasn't. Which was stupid, since I'm playing a passive game, and not winning by too big a margin.
Move 160: K15 is a very nice move for white now, but I didn't see that. :(
Move 168: Apparently, he didn't see it either. o.O
Move 178: Oh, wait, there it is.
Move 184: Let me note that I am not yet aware of what's happening. If I simply play J19 now, I'm perfectly fine.

In this game, my mind was in the general area of: I am going to make a lead in the fuseki and early middle game, and work hard on keeping that lead. This is my "passive" mind at work. Here is what an "aggresive" mindset would be for me:

2012-06-15-alohacat-Median.sgf

I opened solidly, and my opponent went for massive frameworks. I pretty quickly felt urged to invade and live inside. Here is how it worked out.

Move 7: A high pincer. I doubt I'll be keeping the corner.
Move 8: Oh, wait.
Move 11: He is playing a high game. Let's work on reducing that framework of his as quickly as possible.
Move 12: He likes his framework a lot. o.O Ok, safety first, then wreckage.
Move 17: H14 looks weird. I don't think he can make a lot out of it in the next move. I'm going to go solid now, since if he destroys my territory, I really have nothing going for me.
Move 18: Ok, so I was pretty sure he was going to attack the stone in the upper right corner. He didn't? Let's use that to our advantage, shall we? BTW, his framework does look imposing, but it's full of weaknesses, really, I'm fairly certain I can still invade it ... like ... anywhere? I also feel that one move at J5 would even the frameworks out, but that would be passive. Let's not do that in this game, k?
Move 22: Pincer? Really? Soooo you're giving up on the three stones?
Move 27: Looks like it. Now is my last chance to make a significant reduction. Where to start. Upper side seems nice, since if I can't live inside, I can run to the right. He's probably gonna make me live inside, though.
Move 28: Yup.
Move 31: I don't think I can surround the two stones, but I can at least build up some strength while threatening it.
Move 42: So far, so good. Now what do I do with this? O.O
Move 44: Yeah, I thought you would use that. :( I didn't want to connect it because it would seem to slow. I think he could start a decent surrounding if I had connected. Right now, I'm thinking about ditching the top 3 stones, but I'm going to use them to threaten a capture of his two stones, first.
Move 52: Ouch. >.< My shape!
Move 57: Yes! That's what I wanted. The left-side group seems to have potential for life. I may need to discard the K13 triangle, but I don't mind, really. That territory was his before the invasion, anyway.
Move 58: Exactly what I need! I'll give you a double atari you can't refuse!
Move 63: Mission accomplished. ^^ I can start thinking about that J5 now to finish up. Don't wanna. Destruction ftw.
Move 64: Oh, we're resurrecting those, are we?
Move 72: This is a tippy-toe situation. I was at a slight advantage, though.
Move 79: Sure, I'll chase you around if you want me to.

And resignation. I still wanted to do something deep, like C7. In a game where the opponent is playing very wide moves, I feel inclined to work toward destroying large parts of his territory. That is the "aggressive" stance.

Feel free to give your thoughts, variotions etc. in the comments. :)

Influenced by influence

In Go theory, you will often hear talk about influence and territory.  Commonly, you will place stones on the board with one of these two in mind. Which should you pick, and why? The answer I found most sensible is that you should aim for a balance between these two.

Now let's see what some of the words in the previous paragraph actually mean.

One easy way to understand the difference between influence and territory is to redefine them as "fourth line" and "third line", respectively¹. The 4^th is typically called "the line of power" or "the line of influence", whereas the 3^rd is called "the line of territory" or "the line of profit".

The line of territory

If you look at the 3^rd line, it's easy to understand why it is called thus. A play on the san-san (3-3) point lives in the corner. A two-point jump on the 3rd line is a base for making life (typically, you can follow up with a keima on the second line on at least one side, and that should get you settled; you can also commonly jump out, and two eyes should be forming pretty quickly).

It's good to know that the 2^nd line is known as "the line of defeat". This is because for each stone you place on the 2^nd line, your opponent can place one on the 3^rd line, just above it. You are getting one point for each stone, and he is getting a wall on the outside. We will see what this wall is good for a bit further on, but keep in mind that if this same thing was happening just one line higher, you'd be more comfortable with making life, as well as get twice as many points! Don't crawl on the second line if you can avoid it.

The line of power

So what's this about power? Well, conversely to the 3-3 point, a stone on the 4-4 point doesn't secure the corner at all! There is a simple joseki that involves a 3-3 invasion under the 4-4 stone that lives unconditionally. The 4-4 stone needs at least one more stone to secure the corner. If you make an extension² from the 4-4 stone, then you need at least one more stone to secure the corner.

Similarly, if you play a san-ren sei (three stars in a row) opening, you can expect that your opponent will  perform an invasion on your side, and accomplish something with it. The fourth line is too far away from the edge to keep it safe from harm, and you really shouldn't even try to keep all of the side on which you played the san-ren sei. You will get territory from these stones later on on the game. How? Well, that's kind of the point of this post. I had³ a lot of trouble figuring out exactly how to use influence to my advantage, and writing this is about starting to figure that out.

Linking theory and practice

Here is a game.

2012-05-25-viton-Median.sgf

In it, I won by half a point. Skim over the game, quickly, please. Have a look at the end result. I have two corners, he has one. One corner belongs to no player. I have stakes on three sides, and tiny territory in the middle. The only thing he really has is the vast territory in the middle, and it is an even game! How did he build that? Influence. Probably the vital moves for building this framework were 22 and 36. Once I saw the wall he has built, I wanted to let him expand from it, and see who would come out on top. Walls such as the one on C14-G14 are very valuable. If you want to weigh it more precisely, here is a simple calculation:

Imagine that black is building a wall on the 3rd line, and white is building a wall on the 4th line just above the black stones. What does white need to do with his wall to catch up (in actual territory)? Obviously, he needs a box-like shape that is two lines wide, right? I say two lines, because the black territory can be no bigger than two lines. So, all white needs is a few two-point jumps, right? Right. BUT! If white's wall is long enough, he can afford to make a much longer jump. Why? Because if white has a wall that is 6 stones long, and makes two 5-point jumps on each side of that wall, making a box-like shape, black will have an extremely hard time living inside that framework / killing it. All black can really do now is to try and reduce it. But this shape was so much bigger than what black had in territory, that white can afford a reduction. White was ambitious, and it payed off.

Another example!

2012-05-22-justed-Median.sgf

This game involves a failed fight for life in the middle. The outcome of the game is similar to the last one, though. White won with a 10 point lead, and didn't have a single corner! If you look at white's opening, you can see he was clearly experimenting (should I say - fiddling?) with influence. Looking at the final state of the board sort of invites the following analysis: Imagine that black has a wall on the third line on the bottom of the board, and a wall on the third line on the top of the board. White has walls on both fourth lines. Who has more territory? Four lines are occupied by stones, Black has 4 lines, and white has 11. Obviously, this is a fictional calculation, and the 11x19 area would invite an invasion, but in a real game, if you aim for 4 corners, and linking them up similarly to what I had in this game, you are basically giving away much more than you should.

Let me provide another example.

2012-05-27-Median-Marta.sgf

Here I didn't really think about this concept during the game, but it is still a nice example of the difference between influence and direct profit. Every invasion I made here was on the third line, and thus profit-oriented. My fuseki is also strongly turned towards territory, whereas black is gaining a lot of influence. You can see the outcome - it was very difficult for me to cope in the middle game, because black forces had more support all around. I made a massive reduction of black territory, and still lost the game. That is the power of the fourth line.

Nothing is simple

I'd like to put emphasis on the fact that this territory/power relationship does not come down only to choosing 3^rd or 4^th line. Go is a very complex game, and this is probably the simplest way to understand the difference, but in reality, there are many ways to go about these general ideas. The white fuseki in the second game is a good example.

So, the lessons to take from this post are the following:

• Be aware of what your are playing for - influence or profit.
• When you do pick a strategy, make sure to stick to it, and steer the play towards your strength and the opponent's weakness.
• If your opponent is playing an influence game, make sure you defuse that influence as soon as possible, and preferably, try to get some profit while you're doing it.
• If your opponent is playing a territory game, try and make a strong "power" wall against his "territory" wall, and use it to gain more than him in the long run.
• Do not focus exclusively on profit or exclusively on influence.

Now go and play some games! :) Or write a comment.


¹ "Third" and "fourth" here doesn't limit to any specific side of the board - it is merely the third or fourth line from an edge, whichever edge you may happen to be looking at.
² Typically this would be a keima (knight's move) or a  kosumi (diagonal) on the 3^rd line.
³ Have

A neat connection problem

Black has to connect all 3 stones:

http://eidogo.com/#2aruR40

I have found this problem in SmartGo Pro, and it gave me quite a headache. In the end, I couldn't solve it, and felt a bit dumb for it when I saw the solution. ^^'

Have fun!

How I lost against a 14k and won against a 7k

Today I played two games.

The first one was against "cousin", who is a 20k? on KGS, but claimed to be around 13-14 prior to the game.

2012-05-16-Median-cousin.sgf

I didn't like my opening. Up to 6 I'm OK, but with 8 I started goofing up. Luckily, he was nice about it and didn't punish me. 8 and 10 are huge mistakes, as they leave me with no good follow-up in terms of shape. Not to mention that he could atari after 8 which I kind of ignored. That would work out for him much better than the game-play. Lesson learned! I need to spend some time on playing against approaches where I am one step behind.

27 and 29 seemed strange. He probably felt that my upper side was getting too strong. I didn't really cope with the situation well, and that sort of stuck with me up to the end of the match. I feel that 55-59 went hugely in my favor. I wanted to use that momentum to win the game. I made a game-losing mistake with 76. In retrospect, I see that I simply should have played lighter (H9, for example), and that would have been the end of it. I overthought the situation, because I was looking at that K9-H12 connection all the time, and forgot to keep things simple. Lesson learned: always ask yourself: "Is there a simpler way?"

With this in mind, I stepped into the next game. It was against a 7k called "kcang". I don't like handicaps. I really don't. I have nothing against the system per se, and I will always accept it if the other person wants to use handicap, but I rather like to not use a handicap when I am playing against a stronger player and trying to learn. I don't mind being beaten to a pulp.

2012-05-16-kcang-Median.sgf

Lately, I've been playing the first 3 moves as an opening with black quite a lot. I'm starting to dislike it, and move more into an "approach before you enclose" state of mind. So I should have played 5 at Q5 really, but I wanted to give this "passive" attitude a bit more time to settle in my mind. He chose to extend after approaching (6,8) which is gote. That felt strange, but it lifted my hopes. Tiny details, tiny details. When he invaded the upper side, I decided to pincer from the side because I had already enclosed my corner. When he takes his base, I can expand the corner and attack at the same time. He decided to make a wall on the fourth line afterwards. Yay for him. My first instinct was to find a way to neutralize it, and making a thick right side seemed easy as well as profitable. Once I noticed he started to make another wall there, I decided to let him, because his lower left was wiiiide open. I was pretty sure I could live there, so all he would have in the end is the two walls and territory in between. I think his fatal flaw was the attachment at 38. Afterwards he defended his left. I wouldn't. I would hane with 44 on J5 and fight to the bitter end. 48 was another big mistake. It was cuttable, and he could not afford a cut there. 59 was my big mistake. I should have simply turned there. Now he managed to cut me off, and that was baaaad. At 78 he could have killed me. He was ahead in liberties, and he just had to start filling up, and I would have nothing to fight back with. Instead, he tried living on the side for some strange reason, and first chance I got, I played L11 for safety. I don't know if he didn't think of filling up my liberties, or simply didn't see the defense of L11. In any case, this was the big mistake that let me win the game. Well, it would have been very close otherwise... He made a mistake in the lower right probably out of desperation. 128 simply does not work in that situation. I'm pretty sure that the 3-3 stone can live inside even without the support from Q5. I tried living in the lower left, but failed. I think that 187 was the main mistake, and should have been played at C4 for life. Maybe not. One simple response that comes to mind is B2, after which I really don't know what to do.

One thing that struck me about this player was that he was very insecure about shapes. Apparently, reading books on shape, failing at a lot of tesuji, and time spent at www.goproblems.com do pay off. Now I am officially only 1kyu from single-digit! Onward!

Best two out of three

Today I played three games against someone I never met.

I was browsing the English room on KGS, and he was the same rank as me (although I had a ?, since I haven't played in a while), and his game was without a time limit. I like that for a warm up. He won the first game, and invited me for a second, in which I prevailed. We then decided to play a third game for the match. I'll leave the result of the third game secret. :)

2012-04-30-skyee33-Median-1.sgf

I played black in all three games. In the first, I loved the opening. I like seemingly peaceful openings that leave room for nasty (creative?) invasions / reductions. I noticed in all three games that my opponent opened wide in the corner when left alone (when pressured, he runs in rather than out, though). I kind of tend to do the opposite and play for a safe corner whenever I can. Up to move 16 not much really happens. His invasion seems weak. He has no room for a proper base on either side. I would play C11 if I were him, giving me room either to jump two points north or one point east. In any case, I handled it badly. I should have pincered first. I wasn't too dissatisfied with the result because I kept my eye keenly on the right side, hoping to do something big there, and maybe a small reduction on the lower side.

Up to move 65, I make fun life on the side. After that, I actually planned out 67 and 69, hoping to bring the four stones back to life if I get the chance. On the other hand, discarding those stones would let my 69 invasion live. The only thing I really feared was him capping the 69 stone, and me being forced to make life underneath. He made a silly blunder with 84 after which I thought my win was secure. However, greed took the best of me.

We had a fun little ko then, which worked out OK for me. I should have secured another eye for my bottom right group then. Instead, I tried to save the other bottom group by killing off his snake. Naturally, I failed and lost all three groups.

2012-04-30-skyee33-Median-2.sgf

We started the second game first with a handicap of two stones. He thought I don't need it, so we restarted without.

Here he was the one to do fun things. Move 18 is the first of them. I'm pretty sure that K5 is a good defense however he continues, but I'm not really sure, and right now, I don't have the focus to explore. If any reader finds a weakness there, please mention it in the comments. :) 26 ha me baffled. The peep at 28 is fine, but it seems too early for that here. There are still big moves on the board, and for the move to make sense, he had to follow up at 30, so he lost sente. His continuation seems to indicate he wanted to surround me completely, but that's plain crazy. Right?

Anyway, when I played 37 I regretted it at once. I was sure he would pincer me, and make an easy kill. He let me get away. ^^' Which was lucky. 37 Was a greedy move. Making a move on the side would be better. After 43 the game is basically won. When I played 51 I noticed that he had a fatal atari at H8. I just apparently neglected that H9 does nothing to prevent it. XD The rest of the game is me clumsily halting his advance, and a neat little capture race to finish it off.

The second game was shorter than the first. It has always been a trait of the weaker player to take longer to realize one should resign. :)

2012-04-30-skyee33-Median-3.sgf

I like how he took territory on the north in 14-26. I'll play with that a bit and see if I can optimize it a bit. I messed up with 43. A much better answer would be P15. I was lucky with this outcome, though, because he missed a fatal point at 60.

I didn't think he had to resign there. He still had room to swing the game around. He was probably already tired (I know I was), so he didn't want to bother. Also, I'm sure we all know what a bitter taste a lost capturing race can leave, so I can't really blame him.

The best defense is a good offense

Actually, the title of the post is a bit misleading. In my experience, this attitude will more often then not get you into trouble. This time, it worked for white.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6978482/sgf/2012-04-20-Kobran-Median.sgf

This is a game I played yesterday at RAF's Go club against a new member who claims to be around 10-12k. I thought it would be an even match. He won impressively, but it was a decently close game all the way to the end.

I haven't played a stronger player live in quite a while, now. I almost forgot the feeling. ^^ It is very peculiar. Playing a game of go feels a lot like fighting an actual battle, while still keeping a very strong friendly relationship with the opponent.

Comments to the game itself are given inside the .sgf. The are in Serbian, though, so if anyone needs them translated to English, please ask. ^^'