another blog

while browsing facebook I stumbled upon a (better) blog about the way of go.

http://gogameguru.com/5-tips-dealing-unexpected-moves-go/

you can find lots of other cool stuff there:)

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:) )

the Go player's posture

When I learned under Kobayashi Chizu sensei, she taughe us about the differences between the habits of European Go players and Japanese conventions (sitting at a Goban on a table).

From what I remember of her teachings, this should be a pretty good example:



Since the guy in the picture is right-handed, his bowl is placed at his right and the lid where prisonders are supposed to be put is in both players' field of vision (though for pros it is impolite to count the prisoners in the lid).
Furthermore you can see that the elbows are off the table, the hand is off the lid until the moment he knows where he would play and reaches for one stone from the bowl which he would place on the board in a confident way.
From my experience it is not that strict at the tournaments, but you should avoid rattling with stones or play with them making a lot of noise because it annoys approximately 100% of Go players. Except of course the one Boom! you make when putting the stone on the board.


Alright! Find 3 mistakes in this picture:

:)

Takemiya Masaki sensei playing a 3-handicap game. (Jan 2008)