Go and Power

Sometimes I feel that people think that the only thing that determines your strenght in Go is how many moves you can read ahead.
I am the living proof that this is not true:) Reading is one of the things I am very bad at. During my progression from 2d to 5d I have improved at many things but reading. Sure reading is important, but it is by far not the only thing that matters.

quote/ Miu from History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi (a manga on martial arts):



Imagine that power equals reading power in Go, I don't have much power, but I do beat strong people occasionally. There must be something else to strenght besides power. (As for me, recently I had a level-up at getting lucky, hehe.)

(Altough I know that it is unwise to reveal details of my Go – my friend wrote about his style in his blog and it was effectively used to scheme a counter strategy against him – I'll just hope that those people who would do that to me don't read this.)

I have relatively strong skills in positional judgement. Another friend pointed out that this enables me to control the flow of a game: when I think that I am ahead, I play along with my opponent, when I don't, I resist. And it might be somewhat true.

Since I am not strong at reading, I try to simplify the game whereever I can. It is the exact opposite of what most people in Dan range do on KGS, I'd like to call that technique randomizing a game. It is somehow scary to play against those people, but in around 50% of their games they just defeat themselves.

If you get the right idea of it, even if you don't have much power, this is what can happen:





Looks cool huh^^

(And this is what can happen to you too if have great power but nothing to back it up.)

I'm sorry that the post didn't turn out as informative as I had planned. I have a non-disclosure agreement with myself and cannot reveal confidential information. (Apart from the manga, all origins from my head. You probably won't find anyone else telling you the same thing. If you do, cool:) )