Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Attacking on the 2nd Line


From a professional game. Iyama Yuta (White) VS Kono Rin.

Black wanted to live inside white's moyo by playing at A, but white immediately played at 70!

An amazing move.

I never knew this group could be attacked this way.

If I played this kind of move I definitely would be scolded by my teachers.

Normal moves I would consider are maybe C9 or B13.

I think Iyama found this move the most effective.

I think he's really a prodigy.

I'm already officially his fan. :)



Moving onto last day of the long weekend.

Today is Hari Raya? Omg I didn't realise.

No wonder so many people stayed at home to facebook instead of going to school.

Selection for Thai U-Go this year is held this weekend.

I really hope all the NTU guys could go, even though it's quite hard to achieve.

After losing to Xiaojuhua by time, I realised I really must buck up on my time management.

Let's see how it goes in this selection...



Today's Tsumego


White to live.
The usual problem made slightly more difficult and much more interesting.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Time to Update

I just realised that I haven't updated this blog for sooo long!!

It's almost becoming non-existent...

Year 2 Sem 2 has started, and is already moving onto its 4th week.

Before I start intensive mugging, I think I should update about my Beijing trip this time.


On the whole, I would say the trip was really fruitful. Even though there weren't many strong players, and there was only one guy whom I lost to other than the professionals, I have to say I learnt a lot. I learnt how the pros think, how they play, and most importantly, I learnt my weaknesses.

One of my main weakness is learning to play fast. One of the teachers, Peter said that if I play a game without time limit, I will play well, but if there's limited time then I have trouble playing. If I play 10 second Go with them I think they can give me 3 handi.

That's a problem I always had. Not being able to read fast enough. I always use up too much time in competitions and end up losing. In WAGC this year, I was also leading in many games but in the end lost due to Byo-yomi. What I tried to do was to reduce my thinking time in easier situations and use more of opponent's time, but that's not easy to achieve. I always end up using time at the wrong place. Time management, is really important.

But then, thinking about it, that's just making up for my weakness. I'm not solving the root of the problem, which is not being able to read fast. I can do tsumego, but sometimes it takes very long. I think being able to play fast like a pro really requires vigorous training. All the shapes are already etched in their mind, and hence they just need to find the first and read for a few seconds and decide where to play. It's amazing.

I know that I will never learn to read as fast as them, but I can at least try. Now that I know my weakness, I'll start working hard on it, other than thinking of ways to make up for it. Many people say playing on the internet is detrimental, but I think since many people play fast game on the internet, it is a good place to train my byo-yomi skills. Last time I was scared of losing hence I didn't play a lot. But now I know that I need to play. I need more experience, so that I can learn.

Of course there are other parts which I need to work on, such as fuseki, middle game, and yose. Actually that's everything, lol. My another weakness is attacking. I am always unable to attack opponent's group effectively and end up losing. Everytime when I'm required to attack or kill I always don't know how to play. Therefore from now onwards I will try to play more messy games so that I can learn how to attack.

And yose. I have trouble counting territory everytime, and if it's a close game I always count wrongly. Sometimes I think I'm winning, but in the end I lose by 1.5 points or more. That's quite a serious problem. Because if I knew I was losing, then I should've tried harder to win instead of playing normally. The teacher told me they always do a rough estimate within 20 seconds. And it is often done through comparison. That's one thing I need to learn. And of course, calculating the value of each yose and finding out the best sequence. I also need to train on that.

I think that's about all I want to say. Will update more next time.

By the way, Singapore has a new President now!



P.S.

Since this blog is called "Easy Go", I think I should post something related to Go everytime. Hence I will post a Tsumego in every post. They are all taken from my facebook page.

Tsumego of the day:


White to live.