I was playing against a teoretically weaker player (my teorical 25k vs 30k). At the end of the game, I won. No surprises here, my ranks and my stats are feeling great. But my gut is telling me I lost the game. I don’t want to disrespect my oponent, wolf5161 was triying to score more than me and failed, so it’s his/her lost. But I had no control at all of the match. I tried to give away my corner for the center and failed. I then tried to control the side and failed again. I felt like wolf5161 was better than me at fighting, and that we were having a slow, heavy and ugly struggle at the top of the board that was going to be resolved in his/her favor. So I tried to let him/her go and expand on my corner. But wolf5161 had the control of the game, and I was forced to keep the fight going. Did I finally won? Yes. But I don’t know why. And I need help to figure out this game, because I am unable to learn anithing from it, and I think is good for me to understand what hapened to improve my play.
Edite: I was playing with the app Sente Online Go and it said wolf5161 was 30k, but here it says he/she is 25k. Not really important for my question, but again, I don’t mean to be disrespectful.
You played 4 which is a useless stone. If white come to play here to try to cut then you can capture him.
Instead you could play 1 and this is a direct threat to capture 3 stones so white must save them by capturing 1 stone (or by connecting) and then you can play 3 which capture a bunch of white stones.
You have to read, to see this things first before getting more theory and concepts. It’s more a way on your own, seeing lack of liberties, cut, connection, captures…
Every one want to understand quickly when starting go but there is no way until you get some experience.
25k is the minimum rank displayed on OGS, although the actual Glicko ranking can go lower.
That said, you can also directly look at the Glicko value and see that your opponent was actually higher ranked than you (522 vs 427) if that makes you feel better.
Thank you very much for your kind reply. But I was white in this game. I mean, my question is not why I lost, but why I felt dominated and beated even if I won.
This move was not only useless, it was harmful, so it’s worse than passing. By playing at A, black can now atari and capture.
Now don’t beat yourself up too much. We all did such mistakes as beginners (as a matter of fact, black did not spot this opportunity in the game), but it’s the kind of low-hanging fruits that will quickly make a difference.
Maybe this is partly what explains my feelings. Perhaps what I felt was that if black attaked me more I won’t have know how to deffend. Black way of playing throw me off balance, but perhaps it was less agresive than what I felt was.
The engine of the game is the capture or even better the threat to capture, so it’s wise to use it like at all time. Now the way to use it is another story. Someone just trying to capture will miss some deepness. And overdoing is quite common, it’s a balanced game and many times when you win something you lose something else
That’s essentially saying that if black played better, you’d be powerless. Sure, any of us would feel completely powerless if faced against a much stronger player.
But black is not that strong, they’re a beginner like you, and like you they make a lot of blunders and often fail to punish yours. It’s common for beginner games to be decided by huge blunders rather than strategic thinking.
Yes. But it was a rough ride for me this time. Normally black and white stablish a territory and try to build a base. Then it normally became obvious that I don’t know how to deffend, or attak, or I forgot to make live, and I lost. And that’s fine. I have yet to lost more than 80 games to make 100.
It was just that this time it looked like we were all the time in urgent positions, and I was failing all the time to block. I knew we both were playing badly, but didn’t know how to stop and play better.
But well, it is a experience. I’ll keep playing and eventually I guess it will become clearer to me how to avoid getting caugh in a senseless fight.
It can be very helpful, as a basic principle, to look for ways in which your stones are/will be connected or not and cutting points – usually, leaving too many cutting points at once in a shape can be difficult to manage and defend, and if you can’t form a coherent shape or defensive line without cuttting points, it is often better to make a more indirect defence, or defend from/fight towards a different direction.
For example, here Black captures the 3 White stones in a net :
Even if we want to play from this direction, It would be more solid, stronger shape to play a more indirect move often, if a closer move leaves multiple atari/forcing moves or multiple weaknesses – to just jump, for example :
Or we can play this way to go out and split Black’s shape, without creating the extra forcing move/atari (we fill one less liberty of our own this way as compared to K11 in the game)
It’s called a “split shape” and forcing the opponent to split our stones is often not good and very advantageous for the opponent (also very good when we can do it) – unless we are doing something special like sacrificing one side).
It’s difficult to make both groups strong or play coherently with both at once, after they’re split. https://senseis.xmp.net/?SplitShape
A more coherent shape would be to connect the stones like this :
Here is another example of forcing the opponent in between one’s stones – it would be better to play a more indirect shape to defend, which is much more solid too :
It’s like a concept “squeezing out the toothpaste” too :
I think that if you pay attention to how well a move is connecting the other stones cohesively, and the cutting areas and forcing moves a move leaves in the shape it will help a lot.
Usually, some sort of thin shape or shape/stones trying to do too much is what makes the position too “busy” or difficult to defend, and reducing the cutting points and keeping the shapes connected better willi help – and it also takes time to learn ^^. (even until 1k+ there are a lot of things to learn ofttten about things like split shape or defending well )
Observation: count liberties! Always be counting liberties.
your liberties:
If your group has one liberty, this is the hardest to decide on. Sometimes it’s not worth saving something small (3 or less stones).
If your group has two liberties, you are in danger. If it’s your move, ask how to save.
If your group has three liberties, may be in danger.
More than three? Consider that safe-ish.
their liberties:
If their group has one liberty, this is the hardest to decide on. Sometimes it’s not worth taking something small (3 or less stones).
If their group has two liberties, they are in danger. If it’s your move, ask yourself how to kill! Is it a ladder or is it a net? Also, in a two liberties vs two liberties capture race, if it’s your move, you are winning.
Observation: local moves that gain few points and offer no extra safety should be minimized.
If you group is safe (or alive with two real eyes), consider playing away a priority. This is what is called tenuki.
Why tenuki? We do so to stake a claim in another area, to support another battle, to cause another conflict etc.
The board is huge. A living group in each quadrant is a nice goal.
“Am I safe here? Okay, I will play somewhere! No? I will stay”
Observation: seems like you are doing problem practice, so play more games.
If you want a recommendation for studying, I recommend Clossius.
Its funny but i posted a comparable article some days ago. Its paradox but seing your post gives me some hope and this is what i want to share with you.
i invest a lot of time in improving but instead i fall back to DDK. The guys from the forum give me a lot of advice - but its hard to understand at my level how to apply to my games.
And now i see your struggle with mistakes that are “obvious” even to me. i think we need patience and get back to the reasons for playing: its fun and its a great game.
you mastered the concept of eyes, cut, connect on an initial level, maybe reading and anticipating one or two moves. practice this, go to the next level, read one move more, find more “patterns”. At this level you proceed fast if you invest.
play & review, best with another player
practice tsumego
maybe read a book (i have done too much).
e.g. “lessons in the fundamentals of go” is a book that should not be missing. look through it and see the basic concepts like ladder, net, cut, connect. its a bit too heavy at your level but you dont need to be fond of the technics after the first time. now and then get it from the shelf and revisit…
I left a game review for you. Kinda sparse commentary but a few ideas you should work on:
Look for excuses to play away (tenuki) whenever possible. If you don’t die or get attacked for playing away, play away. This applies most in the opening.
Learn some beginner proverbs and remind yourself of them while you play. Go is too hard to have experience in every situation, so some simple ideas about “play first in the corner, then sides, then center” can guide your play more than you’d expect.
Do tsumego problems every day. If you are diligent about this you need nothing else to become a strong player.
Thanks a lot. You are right, clearly. I was just too busy triying to block my oponent (which I was unable to do) and was scared to lost territory so I let cutting points. But if the oponent have cutted me more often, I will have lost more territory because of that mistake. That is why I felt like I was losing all the time.
