David's Go Dojo

Continuing my thoughts from the good shape question I posted here, I have some comments about three different approaches to the situation. For review, White making the simple connection between his groups at K5 is considered inefficient, and trades away short sighted security for diminished influence and reduced territory. What therefore is the “right” move?

The move to J5 forms what is known as an “empty triangle” between the stones J4-J5-K4. When you recognize yourself making a move that makes this shape, reconsider and look to see if there is another, stronger, and more efficient move available. The empty point surrounded by these three stones is worth a single point being traded for three moves, a horrible exchange! Even if Black plays into the “trap” at K5, when white takes at K6, it gives away the initiative (gote). But worse is if Black responds at J6, and gives your empty triangle atari. This is a bad path to go down for White, almost certainly.

The hanging connection: K6 forms a connection of sorts between Whites two groups of stones, but also ends up poorly for White when black responds at the key point, J6. This places White’s stones in danger creating the need for him to connect at K5, allowing Black freedom to strengthen his stone at J6 and by extension his position at the top at J8 (not shown).

This is the strong attack from White, and forms the good shape we have been looking for. It sets up White for a follow up move at K6 to create “a bamboo joint“, a strong shape that creates an almost unbreakable connection. It also gets ahead of the Black stones very well, so that a follow up from Black at H6 is met by White at J7.

This problem was presented in Kageyama’s “Lessons in The Fundamentals of Go” in chapter 8 on “Good Shape and Bad”. For a review of this book, see here.

Tonight I had a game with Bob with a three stone advantage, I played black and took these pictures at the midgame point I stopped to count: The left side is White’s perspective, the right side is Black’s. I counted at this point of the game and found I controlled a great deal actual territory vs the influence of White. I felt pretty sure of victory based on this count and tried to just play a locked down game from there on out. Here is the result at the end:
and (same perspective both times, slightly tilted against the light to show the lines)The final score of the game came to victory for black of 84 points.

I feel that at the mid point that I took the first pair of shots, I was already well ahead, after a blunder by white that cost 5 stones in the lower right corner, but more importantly, a lot of influence and sure territory; I believe I counted 70 points.* Bringing this game home to a very sound victory was exhilarating. Bob won’t soon give me three stones again, and I should perhaps have played a more even game. But it was a very very fascinating game. I need to go to work now, but perhaps later I will try to create an SGF file from the pictures shown here so that I can use the game position for counting study. Guo Juan gave advice that it was important to count at least twice every game, and this is definitely borne out by my experience thus far. Counting gives the definitive answer to the question: How should I play now? Am I behind and thus need to get aggressive, or am I ahead and need to defend and maintain only? In this case, I can clearly see how it helped me win a won game. Until next time, namaste.

*How many do you count in the first and second picture for both sides?

Okay, while waiting for this work situation to die down, I was browsing reddit and found this great link: Interactive Go Maps.  Because of my recent exposure to dangerous levels of free thinking, this seems particularly cool to see today.

It is White’s turn to play. If he does not do something, Black will go to A and make it a moot point, in a big loss for white.What do you think the correct move is for White?

I am keeping up as best I can with the daily tsumego study program, but have yet to know if there are results in my play.

Just a quick post to share some of the things I’ve been looking at related to Go:

   While listening on KGS, someone mentioned that a great professional to study is Takemiya Masaki 9 dan. He is a Japanese pro who apparently plays with an interesting style, creating large moyos and playing with what some people call a “cosmic style”. The commenter then gave this link to a page full of recent games by this pro for study, along with a couple of pictures. I’d like to go back and read some of these and replay them on my new full size set and get a feel for what they are talking about.

For those who would like to see what a Go lesson is like, there is a YouTube video up here of a lesson from Ing Goe, it’s quite long at around 96 minutes but is a good idea of what its like to get a group lesson from a well known instructor.  Guo Juan has a couple of free lectures up also at her site that are similar.  Oh wow, in checking her site, I just found the following offer to Study Go in China: and a blog from one of last years students.  Wow, I’m definitely going to go back and read that later for sure…  

Currently, I’m reading The Master Of Go by Yasunari Kawabata, a novel that my mother sent me for my birthday. It won the Nobel prize for literature in 1968, and is loosely based around an important match between the old “invincible” Master of Go, Shusai and the young challenger Kitani Minoru (although the author uses the fictitious name Otake’). It obviously features the game quite prominently, but it’s central theme seems to be one of comparison between the old world, and the new modern age as it came to Japan just before the start of the Second World War. It’s an enjoyable diversion from more practical study, and is good literature to boot. I would recommend it to those who are looking for a historical novel about Japan, or just love to read and think about Go and Go culture. I haven’t finished it yet, but afterwards I’d like to play out the match that is being described so as to gain greater context to the events.

And finally, as a help to my commitment to study life and death problems each day, I found the following program, GoGrinder, a java based study program for practicing Go problems. It also comes with a selection of 347 problems to get you started, although I think I will continue to pull mine from a variety of sources…

Anyway, happy Saturday to all, and until next time, namaste’.