How to improve at 19x19 when you're better at small boards

I get this impression too, and also a feeling that sometimes you’re too focussed locally, even when fighting locally between groups, and that there is something in the whole-board view of games that you miss considering or holding in mind, (perhaps from more experience on the small boards ?).

There were global moves in both games which relied on the life and death/connection status of groups in a bigger way, even in ‘‘local’’ fighting between groups, which you sometimes missed.

I think that this is a lot less common in 13x13 (which I think you’d mentioned is what you mostly play ?), for example, to have quite as much global space involved in which cutting and connecting on as grand a scale are critical (or at least as frequently as it can be on 19x19 ?), or if not, perhaps it’s just an area which you might overlook ?

But in 19x19 fights, it’s very often important to consider bigger, global moves and implications in the fighting too, when choosing where to respond (above the local tesuji etc.)

I think there are also generally more options/directions to hold in mind when groups are entangled (and more groups/cutting aji/global issues in general), given the larger board, on 19 compared to on 13.

(for example, in the first game, you missed H2 to connect your groups around move 105, and O12 around move 169.

And in the second, I think you missed the elephant-eye peep to cut at P13, around move 129. Or something like exchanging Q15 for R15 first, then P13 – I left the variation in the game. it’s miai to push through in two places, and then the big eyeless White group looks to be in big trouble)

I think these types of global connect-cut moves are very intuitive to me as a mid-high dan, whose focus is fighting, on a 19x19 board, and many other players 5-6d+, and it feels to me your fighting in these games maybe lacks that feeling/constant awareness a bit even though the very local moves/shapes/responses also seem ok and rather solid.

That would be consistent with this too, in the sense of global positional judgement.

There are some other things too, but I can’t quite put my finger on them at the moment.

For my part, I was able to get from 2d-6d KGS within less than a year (less than a few months from first reaching KGS 2d to 5d, then some months later to 6d) by playing many games in which I took my time at each point to really consider each move, the global situation, etc. and try to improve at every point

(actually rather slow games, anywhere from 30-60 minutes main time, but usually at least 45. I had the time for this, though.)

I suspect that engaging in fighting and situations which made me less clear or sure what was going on, created complications, etc. helped me get an experiential feel for them and what can happen, and thus developing my intuition.

But I would say that taking my time and really trying hard to read as much/well as I could, and consider options and play the best move, also gave me a lot of experience that I wouldn’t otherwise have had, had I put less into that.

(At the time, there was not strong AI, so I reviewed all of my games manually, searching for even just a few points that I didn’t understand, and going over variations which I wasn’t sure of or could have gone differently, to explore the possibilities.)

If there are situations like that now, I think that you could use the AI, especially if you have the real-time supporter AI on OGS, which suggests further branches in real-time as you play more stones, to get an idea of what it might suggest.

(for example if you aren’t sure where to play etc.)

But it does also suggest moves which might be more difficult for a human to handle, so if you don’t understand a continuation down one branch or find it harder than a more understandable-to-you choice, often it can be better to play what you can at least somewhat grasp or follow-up on (unless you are doing it to learn and as a challenge), than an AI tesuji which doesn’t make sense to you.


In terms of fighting and opening and midgame, I see in those two games that you played based on influence a lot – it feels fine in the opening to me (relatively) before your opponent invasion/reductions and the fighting begins, but it feels like the falling behind in the midgame was due to using the influence inefficiently and letting the opponent build light groups, or run through your potential.

How about looking over some pro games and/or high dan games more often to get a better sense of where they tenuki or play differently ?

I’m not sure if that would help you, but I remember that having seen that helped me a lot when I was developing my global sense.

High dan and pro games also helped me see moves like the type of global tactics that you missed in the fighting, a lot more easily (those moves tend to be played and taken advantage of very quickly in high dan games, especially weaknesses like the elephant-eye peep, if they are left unfixed by the opponent – probably easier to understand than pro games in that regard as it occurs more frequently)

I used to watch them when they were more common on KGS many years ago, although I’m sure that trying hard to find the best move at each move, also helped a lot in that regard.

(It’s possible to see tesuji etc. or style, then not try to find them in one’s own games when one plays, of course)

I suspect that if there is some issue with understanding midgame/opening positional judgement, that could help, or being exposed to stronger players discussing/commenting their games and how they think about global positions.

(I was always stronger in fighting before, so also had some feeling like my opening/positional judgement/choices may not be as strong, and both helped me a lot along the way to have seen.)

I think others might have better recommendations, but things like this ?

Other players also recommended this in another thread.

In terms of tsumego and tesuji, actually I had done none in the period when I went from 2-6d+ (I felt the deep reading and doing my best in many games was enough), and when talking with a pro about it it was something they didn’t feel was necessary if playing a lot either.

However, I think I have found it helpful to have seen stronger play and techniques before (not necessarily local tesuji, although those also, but things like global fighting, opening or midgame tactiques that stronger players/pros use)

And I’ve since done some tsumego and tesuji problems (and other types of problems - whole-board, etc.) which I’ve found very helpful, especially some common shapes/key ideas like handling 3-3 invasions or the 8-space shapes in the corner, or conceptual global/whole-board or direction of play ones in discussion with stronger players about the possible options/answers and all of the merits or drawbacks.

(we have a group session each month in our club which does the latter from real game positions, and usually there are a lot of global possibilities and interesting discussions)

Maybe you could also ask for a few pointers from your dan opponents in general, as they might have more insight and perspective into your play after having played you ?

It’s usually possible to get a feel for your play after having played an entire game with you, and they might see useful things, or have helpful positional judgement analysis.

If you find someone willing to review/discuss together with you in more detail after the game, that’s often great for learning, too.

(especially if your main experience/speciality isn’t on the 19x19 and you might not have been exposed as much to how other dan players think – it may be less nebulous and easier to understand when reviewing with a human who can discuss and explain the concepts too, as compared to the AI :slight_smile: )


It might or might not help directly with what the positional judgement issue is you’re feeling, but you can also learn to count more often (for example, at least once in the opening/beginning of midgame, later in midgame, before taking an important global decision, and in the yose), if you know how to do that.

(to simplify the method often used, counting the solid territories of each player, if you assume all forcing moves around the edges/boundaries of it are played)

This is 11, for example,
image

And this is 4.
image

It can help a lot in general (even if you play with influence, to get an idea of how much your influence has to give you in value, if you give away more territory to your opponent, for example) to be aware of, or to spot some areas of positional misjudgement, for example if you find yourself 15-20+ points behind in early midgame.

(although your opening didn’t seem bad in either of those games, it was more a matter of things like midgame fighting/direction, and not tracking important connections which severely affect the life and death/groups balance on the whole board)

(especially in the first one for your groups, and in the second missing an opportunity later, and also leaving a bit of an exploitable shape with aji/cutting points at K4 (move 51).)

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