I get so tired of close fighters!

Yes I know that’s the issue, and I know once I’m better at it, I should be able to actually welcome unsupported approaches and so on, but right now it’s just nerve-wracking. Go is so fascinating–of all the thousand facets, one definite division is between spacial understanding and fighting.

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Here’s an idea - create an open challenge with a rank range, and call it “Peaceful Games Only Please”

you never know! it might work ; )

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That’s a good idea. The real issue is that the fighting games are just more nerve-wracking. I know I have to just get better at them. It seems like some people get better at close fighting first, and others territorial play. What I should probably do (and think I will) is just get into the close fighting games, you know?

Just go play on your side of the board! This is my corner! :slight_smile:

LOL yes.

Yes, I actually think my weakness is exactly the opposite–I know we shouldn’t be just fighting with each other, so I try too quickly to move off. But if the other person engages you, you have to finish the fight before moving on. It’s definitely a part of the art is knowing when something must be responded to and when it can be ignored. (Or maybe a better way of saying it is to gauge when tenuki is a stronger play than continuing the local fight.)

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Have you watched Nick Sibicky Fighting 101? I don’t know how much AI has changed things about fighting but I found it useful in terms of how to think about fighting
Nick Sibicky Go Lecture #47 - Fighting 101 - YouTube
[it’s an hour long, not the nearly two that it seems at first!]

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Whatever the AI changes won’t really apply to kyu players, let alone DDK’s, so I believe we can safely learn from old beginner videos :slight_smile:

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I don’t know if this will help, but I wrote this 19x19 for Beginners series article about playing a balanced Opening:

If someone starts contact-fighting early, and there are still big chunks of corner and edge potential sitting there for the taking, maybe use some of the techniques / focus-on-Opening-priorities stuff to grab an early lead, and then the contact fighting will not be so stressful?

Also, something I point out in the article is that approaching your opponent’s corner is a perfectly normal / regular thing for someone to do once all 4 corners have been claimed. I understand that approaching a corner doesn’t always mean contact fighting, but just something to consider.

Good luck!

I think Vsotvep was making the point that this is not true.

It’s a key realisation that you can let them “fight” your single stone that they attached to, unresisting, while you secure a whole side…

You could try saying to yourself “OK, have that stone, see if I care” and see how it feels in various circumstances…

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No, the important thing is to know WHEN you can move on. That’s one of the main skills to have, knowing when you have to stay and fight and when you can move on. You can’t blithely let someone attack you without determining whether you need to fight, and you also can’t just follow the other person around the board when it will be better to take the initiative.

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I just won a game against a 12k! And he started the game–his very first move–was a shoulder hit. So I am fast getting more confident in my abilities to meet my opponent in battle if that’s what they want to do. But I still prefer we just draw a diagonal line across the board then see who won. :slight_smile: I’m like Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu. I would prefer not to fight, but if you insist there will be a lot of slow motion kicking of my foot to your face.

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I completely agree. I write about this in my article about Settling Your Stones.

A metaphor that has worked for me is thinking of playing a sequence of stones as a little Go story written as a complete sentence - i.e.

I used a shoulder hit to reduce Black’s side framework, then crawled 3 stones down, and settled my stones by connecting back to my corner framework with a knight’s move.

It has a beginning, middle, and end, and it does something important at each stage. As soon as that one sentence is over, then sente passes to the other player and they write another story somewhere else on the board.

For me, it comes down to being able to read the language of sente and gote - in terms of knowing when it’s my turn to attack

There’s usually a negotiation of 3-6 stones as my opponent blocks my attack - but eventually none of the stones are in immediate danger. At that point, each side must play 1-3 stones to settle their new groups on the board - and make sure they can make eyespace or connect to existing frameworks

Who ever secures last gives away sente, so there are many places where stronger players will omit their settling moves to use that sente advantage elsewhere.

But yeah, in general - seeing the movement of my stones as complete sentences helped me understand living shapes much better, and it also helped me see the right time to tenuki - i.e.

If I’m leaving unfinished sentence fragments, then I’m inviting my opponent to come and finish them for me - or

If I’ve finished the sentence, but I keep writing more of it, I’m actually creating a run-on sentence and missing out on the next biggest area of the board - which is probably somewhere else

See if that helps

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That’s really cool. I will keep that in mind.

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I only discovered a bit on when to tenuki around 10k

I think Eugene was suggesting a way of learning this.

And so the point is that you can do this and review what happened after. You might learn of a situation where you think you need to fight when in fact “blithely” ignoring and playing elsewhere gives a better result.

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“Nerve wracking” - Feel your nerves do their wracking - and then look at the board as if it were someone else’s game :slight_smile: Regards, Ed

First, let me give you some background on who I am. I became European Champion when I was 19 years old, at that time (1981), the youngest ever. Later, I went to Japan and studied as an insei and for the next 20 years or so, I was one of the best players in Europe. Even two years ago, when playing in the Prime Minister Cup, I was the best Westerner.
I was always a good fighter and loved fighting and I think all top players in the world are like that.I believe that if you want to become better in go, you just have to love fighting. I think that’s a state of mind.
When I was 2-3 kyu, I had a sudden breakthrough during a game. I loved fighting but I wasn’t very good at it. But during a specific game, I understood that my next move was crucial: it was either him or me who was gonna die. So I started reading and found myself in the midst of thick brain fog. But I really wanted to win, so I told myself not to give up and just kept concentrating - my goal was to just read JUST one move extra. And suddenly, the fog started to clear a little. I believe that because of that, I won my game. Of course, that was a huge positive reinforcement that I needed to study tsume-go (life& death problems).
This type of exercises help you clear your brain fog and visualize. That will give you confidence to fight and with more confidence you will start loving it. Once you acquire the still of visualization through exercise, it will stay with you for a long time.
And one of the most important skills to advance is to have more fun.
So have fun!

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Wow, thank you, what a great story, and nice to meet you and thank you for writing. I have a question for you–do you think using game “analysis” where you can try all the variations you want and the computer keeps track of them for you–what’s your opinion of that? I can imagine you going either way–it helps you to find the variations before you’re good at it yourself, or, it weakens you ability by using a crutch that prevents you from needing to concentrate?

Thank you again, it’s so interesting to hear about!

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