@dokbohm I shall try to find time to review your 13x13 games.
Incidentally, do you use a smartphone or tablet (and if so what sort), or just a computer? If you have a smartphone, the free app WeiqiHub has a lot of problems at your level, although they call them 15 kyu. Once you have the fundamentals from the OGS course, this would be a great way to practise. There is also a gentle progression to higher levels, all the way up to strong dan, so you need never run out! To find the easiest problems, tap âTrainâ in the bottom right, and then âTopicsâ, âBeginnerâ and then âCapture / Escape / Connect / Split in one moveâ. These â15 kyuâ problems are mainly about stuff like recognising stones in atari or which can be connected, and would train you to see much faster the things you currently overlook â exactly the sort of seeing you said you had trouble with a few posts back. â15 kyuâ problems in other sections are a little harder, but you could try them in due course.
As you can see, you get 5 minutes to find the black move which captures one or more white stones. An actual 15 kyu can do that in a few seconds, and I hope you would not find it too hard either. Once you have done a (different) problem, it looks like this
yes these problems are good to answer and i have done qiute a few of these problems but even with trying those some i get some i donât or take quite a few tries to get to the answer. supposedly they are teaching me something about reconnication of shapes which they do, but in a real game situation i donât see these problems ever coming up. but i will try to do some everyday just to see if they help
You should be able to get all the âin one moveâ problems at 15 kyu, except perhaps the splitting problems, right first try. If not, perhaps you are going too fast (sounds familiar!). It is natural that you find the others harder. In both cases, always try to solve in your head before playing a move. Also, when you only solve a problem after trying a wrong move, reset it with the rewind button, look at the original state and reconstruct and justify in your mind the solution. If you do not understand the solution even after revealing it and thinking hard, take a screenshot, making sure to include coordinates (in the app settings under the cogwheel on the home screen), and post a question here including the screenshot, which you can upload with this
That does not matter. The main benefit is not learning specific shapes but training your thought processes. Stuff like seeing at a glance all stones connected to a single stone (properly connected by the lines), and systematically thinking how each move might be answered.
There is a benefit to learning shapes too, but not whole problems, just fragments like this
where you should immediately spot that if the a stones have no other liberty, White can capture them with b. (Edited to show required extra vacant spots)
I am sure they will, and perhaps you will find them fun in their own way. Just do plenty of easy problems, and a few at the limits of your ability, and make sure you do them properly, the way I described above.
One final comment: it would be easier to read your posts if you used some punctuation, especially a full stop at the end of a sentence.
both con=mments you made are really great about punuation i have a hard time seeing the letters eye sight is very bad and people here get upset if i use caps to be ablr to see the words iam not computor literate only have access to a older computor no other way to play this game , the other thing is my grammarly doesnât work on this site for some reason donât know why but my spell checker is not working i have a mild form of dyslexic eye symdrone which comes and goes and make forming sentences really hard sometimes â the bright note of post was showing me how to send a screen shot of one of my games i never knew how to do that i will very soon send a post with one of my games for you to hack apart âby the way thanks for all the input you tried to give me i do really aprreciate the time you have taken maybe some of your advice will sink in to this old feeble mind â-again thanks
Well Iâm afraid the screenshot upload thing is a bust. Nothing is working when it comes to trying to send anything using those icons you suggested. I will try again, maybe when I have a visitor who can help me a little more with some computer knowledge. At least for some reason, the spell checker started working again here, so maybe my grammar or at least spelling, wonât be as bad, and I apologize for that.
I am sure that makes it hard to play Go as well! I am glad you manage at all. Maybe that makes practising seeing things in puzzles the way I described even more useful.
Not at all! It would give me satisfaction to be able to get you playing a little better, so that you find it more satisfying â but I have to warn you that pretty much all Go players find the game as frustrating as it is fascinating!
That is a shame, but for your public games on OGS it does not matter, as I can look there (and have done so, for example for this post), or you can just post a link to your game. Looking at games on line is actually easier, as I can run through the moves. Where it would help a lot is with explaining puzzles that stump you. Actually you do not even need that button to upload a screenshot, as I have just noticed: you can just copy a screenshot to the clipboard, then paste in your post!
Good idea; I look forward to it. I cannot really help much, as it depends on your specific equipment, and is much more effective if demonstrated in person.
This last post is certainly a lot better spelt, punctuated and capitalised, and hence easier to read!
well iam moving my goals up another notch after some successful games, which i meant my previous goals so now iIâm going to 115moves and maybe lower it to 10 stones of mine to be lost before that, we will see how that works who knows if i keep this up i will be able, actually to complete a full game in a couple of weeksâ well maybe realistically months but it is a upward move for me.
Moreover, you are making live groups much more often. That is a good way to stop them being captured! You do, however, still build rather slowly because you mostly make solid connections â do you remember my suggestion 9 days back? This one:
(click on the up-arrow in the quote to see the diagram again)
However, you might find that if you make bigger groups, they try harder to kill them â at the moment they just ignore them because they are building faster.
Now you are making live groups, I see nothing to stop you playing some of your games to the finish (especially 9Ă9, as they do not take long), and getting them scored.
Keep doing the WeiqiHub problems as well, and they should make a big difference.
thanks for the input yes i need to make more eyes and such, but Iâm usually in a defensive position most of these games, so itâs hard, iam still finding it very hard to see why i should stay till the end when i know i will lose, seeing when i resign as it is is bad enough but then getting your nose rubbed in the rurbarb well that hurts â losing when resigning at usally 30 40 % for the oppoenent and up is one thing, but going to the end then losing by say by 80 to 100 % well i just donât see the point. my goal system is working fine as it keeps me motivated more to see if i can last that long, knowing the end result will always be me losing and me ever getting under 25k, well thats just impossible for now but thanks for the above i will try some more eyes or trying to make eyes till i have to give up and go back making chains just to survive till 115 moves or lose more than 10 stones
What are these numbers? They sound more like win probabilities, and 40% : 60% is odds of 2 to 3, which are fairly short odds. Of course 80% is 4:1 against and rather longer, but still with an outside chance; 90â95% is time to resign.
But anyway, you are better served, if you look at AI estimates at all, to look at the estimated score, not the win probability.
Play a handicap series
I would also like to remind you of another suggestion: play a series against a 25 kyu bot with a big handicap, adjusting it each game. Play real games, trying to make territory by surrounding your opponent, playing to the very end and letting the computer score the game.
Do this by starting a game on 9Ă9 against the computer, against the 25 kyu bot Agapanthus, use Custom Settings to make yourself Black, Time Control = Fischer, set Initial time & Time Increment & Maximum time = to their maximum values, Komi = Custom:0.5, and give yourself a 6-stone handicap (which you will have to place yourself: place them as below). You will probably win as long as you can keep your stones joined up in a couple of groups. Adjust the handicap up after every game you lose and down for a win (press Rematch and alter the handicap), and see how low you can get your handicap. Make the games private if you like, or public if you want a review.
iam not a big fan of playing agaist a bot i have never won against a bot in go that is, in chess i have. only a couple of times , i believe your suggestions do have some good points mind you about the handicaps i didnât know you could do that - so i will try but playing real people is what i play chess and go for the exhange betweens moves is what i like the banter etc- so the bot idea has a limited appeal for me as such but i will give a try
I agree that playing a person is more satisfactory on many counts (and in real life it is a lot better again). I would play people most of the time, just slotting in one or two bot games now and then to see how your handicap is getting on, and to get a taste of making territory.
Some advantages of a bot are:
Availability: They are there whenever you want them, and (almost) never time out or disconnect.
Consistency: Their standard is reasonably reliably known, so they are a useful yardstick
Patience: There is no need to worry that you are wasting their time, however well or badly or weirdly you play.
there is a problem with some of the 24k lower bots alot of times when i click on them that they are not available it happens about three out of five times , its a small problem i know but its not as easy getting a game also iam not allowed to play higher tier bots â whats that reason???
i tried that method and yes it seems to work early on in the game neat middle not so much but i will try to use it more when opening in the first 15 or so moves
