Sunday, March 23, 2014

Break

It's been more than a year since the last time I grabbed a book not related to Go. I'm currently facing many challenges both work and family related, that leave me with "fewer than before" spare time, and I realize I must let my mind wander too, so I decided to grab a literature book that I also enjoy so much, and I'll be giving myself a break with Go. I hope it doesn't take long though.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Game review

In the following 3 stone handicap game I was playing white, and had a clear lead (about 100 points) when starting the endgame ("starting the end", sounds weird huh). Everything was going fine and easy, so I started playing fast and light headed. Suddenly, I saw a whole group of white stones disappear! What happened!? I asked myself. My beautiful stones, vanished into thin air! I bet that playing on a computer has a much higher risk of heart attack, compared to a real board... Vanishing stones are a real health threat, really.

Why did this happen? How could this happen? Can it be possible that you can lose a game like that. Fortunately it is, and for me this is one of the beauties of Go, and what makes it really interesting. A group is not dead till it's dead. Groups are never captured unless necessary, and while the game progresses, pressure gets higher and higher. Not to mention if a Ko takes place. Buying oneself tranquility may have too high a cost.

Besides lack of attention, I made the mistake because instead of doing things the easy way, I preferred a "smarter but riskier" way, maybe appropriate for another circumstance. I hope this gives me a lesson.

This is the game, move 223 is my fatal mistake.


Sunday, March 2, 2014

Single digit kyu

Today I hit a milestone in DGS, I reached a 9kyu rank! Fortunately I'm not at the point in which I lose more games than I win, so I suppose there is still room for lowering it even more. I'm still ranked 13k+ at IGS but in that server it takes quite some time to reach a stable level.
Time to go for a beer and prepare for next stop - 5kyu :)




Game review: Most territorial game ever!

I believe the most boring Go game is one in which both black and white draw a straight line through the center of the board. Obviously this favors black as he extended one line further by playing first. White is then forced into a tough invasion with poor chances of success.

The following game I played at DGS didn't go to that extent, but wasn't very far from it. Not a single cross-cut was played (well, 2 actually, but they turned out being irrelevant), not a single fight (except the final invasion). It was sort of a peaceful conversation, "you take this, I take that, and we both shake hands". Even though I love this kind of play in spirit, I must admit that it is quite boring. What do you think?

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Game review

In the following game, a few funny (sad) things happened. First, I had managed to disconnect a big group with no room for eyes, and kept on playing happily without noticing I was in the middle of a capture race, while thinking I was reducing my opponents remaining territory, I was removing my own liberties! By the time I realized it was late, my huge group was dead and the chances of winning were reaching zero. To make matters worse, I made a silly mistake putting my own group in atari, but my opponent didn't notice so I immediately went and fixed it, but allowed him to enter my territory and perform a huge reduction.

I was led by my anger and answered almost without thinking (and thus made a mistake of course) letting him get even more territory.

Afterwards I thought that if he hadn't noticed my previous mistake, I should have fixed it later, in the chance that maybe he didn't see it. After all the loss was almost the same. This mistake made me lose the game.

By the end, an interesting battle took place, after an invasion. I managed to kill the invading stones but I have the feeling that I complicated it too much.

 Checkout the game, I'm playing black.

 Oh, and by the way, now I'm using WGo.js for the SGF player as it's much nicer than maxiGos, isn't it? If you want to see a variation, click on the letters that appear in uppercase.