I really am just dumb, I think.
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i understand completely i feel the same
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Don’t worry, we all do.
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Corner shapes are hard. Youll win some and lose some
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It’s very common for beginner players between 15-20 kyu to struggle at this stage, because it takes time to learn what makes a LIVING GROUP
PLEASE SEE THIS DISCUSSION OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “ALIVE” AT SENSEI’S LIBRARY
In the game you posted above, your blunder came at Move 44.
If you look at the suggestion from the OGS AI review, it will show you one way you could have saved that group.
I posted a couple of other variations in the text chat for that game, and you’re welcome to look those over as well.
There is a particular set of skills you can practice and learn if you’d like to get better at this, and it’s the idea of LIVING SMALL - i.e. being painted into tight spot and being very careful to make moves that can end up with your group living with two eyes. If that’s something you’re open to exploring, I strongly suggest this set of tsumego puzzles:
CHO CHIKUN’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE AND DEATH
A lot of these will be in the format of “Black to kill” but it can also be “White to live” if White gets the first move in that area, so it’s just good to start training yourself to see these risks and opportunities from both sides
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Seems to me…you took a very long break from the game…game put you at a much higher rank than you should have been because of the introduction of the new rank system, which makes any ranks before 2022 completely meaningless.
Then, when you came back to the game, you had to lose a bunch of games to find your rank again….because of that, your mental state has pushed you into a negative cycle of thought, whereby, your playing worse because of your mindset.
Be patient with yourself friend… be kind to yourself. Play to have fun, and do your best to cut out the self deprication….we are, all of us, students of this game. Just yesterday I threw three very winnable games myself, and had to take a step back because I was getting in my own head about it, and I know that playing go in such a mood is never a wise idea…especially if I want to win.
Another piece of advice I have for you…jump back into playing 19x games. Your progress was actually pretty good from what I can tell…however…even back in 2016 you let your negative mind set win you over, and you actually resigned a game you were winning…
Ask yourself this…would you allow anyone to talk to a child the way you talk to yourself? The answer is no. So, if you wouldn’t let a stranger talk to a child like that…then why are you talking to yourself like that? There is no reason for it, and you are far more valuable than the words make you sound, look, and feel.
Why am I talking about mindset here so much? Because go is played in the mind before a stone is played on a board. If you go into a game expecting to make terrible mistakes and make yourself look a fool, then you are far more likely to actually make those mistakes. And as such far more likely to trap yourself in a negative mental spiral….I’ve been there…I’ve been living with depression and anxiety for more than 15 years now… I get it.
But yeah…jump back into 19x games…and play with reckless abandon. Who cares about ranks… they don’t really matter… yes I want my rank to go up…but I want to also learn the game. And sometimes we have to lose games to learn…and losing provides is chance aplenty to learn.
You got this my dude.
Also also…hit me up if you ever want a game review.
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So play each other. You can’t both lose*.
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You can’t say you are dumb when you had a good game with a result in your favor for the 3/4 of the game. Don’t fool yourself.
It’s nothing exceptional to get overwhelmed by the complexity of go and rather a good sign on the quality of the choices which were made.
I just hope this will encourage you to continue your adventure.
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You are not stupid, you just lack tsumego practice. Perhaps just one move, which didn’t cost you the game, was stupid:
but I didn’t do better in a recent game I was Black and played A after this:
You may also want to review this thread:
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Thank you. I used to do those puzzles. Living small certainly seems to be the way on 9x9.
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Thank you. I did enjoy the 19x19 far more than other options, but I don’t really have the time to play now and it’s hard to play on mobile. Correspondence is fine, but I like to sit down and play a session. It’s an option though.
I expected some skill would have been retained, but it seems like I’m back to square one, which is not encouraging.
sometimes we must go backwards… to go forwards. I am experiencing this myself in my go right now. ive lost 4 of the lst five games ive played, and it foesnt feel good. However, its learning. We must learn to accept the weaker parts of ourselves in our games if we are going to eventually become stronger players.
you will get there…peraps its worth finding a time to dedicate to palying longer games… set asside one evening a week specifically for it. or even if you cant do that… then perhaps its a matter of finding other ways to consume go… watching twitch streams, go videos on youtube, as long as your brain is thinking about go, some improvements will be made, even if its not the most optimal way to improve.
again tho…im here to help with any game reivews or whatever.
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Improving at go means making dumb moves less frequently.
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Well, what shall I say?
I scratched at 4k two years ago, for a short time, then fell back quickly, and, well, I REALLY fell back hard, back to 10k within perhaps half a year, while my health is dwindling and the depression got stronger 
So, it may be that my “subconscious” is occupied with my physical health, heavy panting (as comes with late stadium of COPD), increased frequency of breathing and pulse so that my system gets enough oxygen, maybe there still is too little O₂ for my brain?
So, @hpb0215, I can empathize with your feeling but … I don’t think that “too stupid” describes it correctly – and self-deprecation doesn’t really help us, it only makes us feel worse.
I’m open for slow corr. games, and when I can, I write Malkovich Log entries. Let me know if you’d like a game invitation from me.
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Thanks. I tried a 13x13 yesterday, which was more enjoyable, to be honest. I didn’t mind losing because I was at least able to get some small wins that kept groups alive. I missed making a monkey jump though, which could have swung things.
Thank you. I’d be happy for a correspondence game.
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Health can be a deciding factor for playing go. Indeed, it’s also hard to play go when your mind is dealing with something…slightly more pressing than placing black and white stones. Go is one of those games that commands more of us than we like to admit at times… certainly that is the case for me. Every game costs a great amount of mental energy, and for a person like myself, who wants to grow stronger at go and yet must manage mental health at the same time, it’s a challenge that persists, and one that I must inevitably come face to face with as I slowly climb that ladder.
That said, though, I’ve also come to the realisation that we, even though we seek greater power in go… we should only do so through the lens of enjoying the game itself. And through that enjoyment, more is gained than something so arbitrary as strength. Wisdom doesn’t belong to the strong alone, and Go has taught me much about myself, and continues to do so, as it is often a mirror of ourselves in ways that we don’t always know until it is pointed out by someone else.
Just the other day, I uploaded about 20 games I’ve played into a program that tells you your style of go, and if you are a safe player, or aggressive, classical, or modern… and so on. The program revealed to me that I play very, very safe Go. I shared the results with a friend who is also a go player, and we were talking about it, where I remarked that I never realised that I played so safe… almost to the extreme, and they pointed out and said, “Well, of course you do, you’re a trauma survivor".
And once again, I came face to face with the idea that psychology has a profound effect on how we play this game… and psychology is often formed by other extenuating circumstances, be they health, history, or the environment we exist in.
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If I had a penny for every missed monkey jump in a game, id probably have a good few dollars/ pounds, which isnt much, but it keeps happening! you are not alone. Im glad to hear you are enjoying the game more! I would argue that is a critical step in the right direction. Well done!
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Hi. I tried a 19x19. It unfortunately ended in timeout but the AI suggested my opening was pretty poor. You mentioned a review, so if you had any pointers, I’d be v grateful.
Thanks.
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I don’t really think the opening was as bad as you think ngl. Looking at where you lose points:
Move 18-20: that knight’s jump can be possibly cut and as you are invading deep, that isnt something you’d want? (I believe after R8, immediate cut is not that good but like you will have to defend the cut at one point which makes it less ideal? and after S9-S7 black can go for an immediate cut or just play elsewhere (since there are many empty areas still on the board and come back here later)
Black also doesnt approach your stones well so I believe your shape at east seems good after move 24.
After there if I was white I’d worry my H3 stone getting surrounded and dying, since it is a single stone if you think you cannot save it, leaving it alone and sacrificing is also fine. What is not fine imo is g4 move, since it helps enemy w/out contributing to save stones.
S10 I assume you miscounted, happens.
Fast forward to move 45 (after enemy tried to invade lower left corner but fail), well, your shape on lower left side is alive at this point even if black tries to invade further (especially since you can connect it to your side stones easily), so there is no need to chase that 1 stone and spend time. There is a huge area at the center without stones from either side, claiming the area around there is much more valuable. move 47 is similar, left side is hard to invade from black but you are putting there one more stone (overconcentrating stones at one place)
move 53 is similar.
Then what ended up is basically your right side invasion ends up being surrounded, but you manage to come ahead in tactics somehow and made it live with capturing lower right corner.
One thing I can say to make you remember about claiming areas is as following, if you look at the position after move 45, you’ll see you have stones facing towards center(stones that influences center) at north, northwest, west and east when black has southwest south southeast and northeast. In a really simplistic sense I’d expect the territory to be split as north south with black getting some from northeast. (of course in the game that rarely happens this simple since both sides try to steal away territory from each other or you need to think your east stones live etc.) When I look at the end of game, even though things went horribly wrong at the east side for black, at the center you can see black got entire south to the center, and can probably try to claim the northern center (you can fight back to it even at there, just to show the point.) Not claiming the territory in time can end up with your opponent claiming that territory for themselves, which as you can guess is not really good.
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