Thunderstorms, A Premature 25k, and Rhythm
The San Francisco Bay Area is having one of its rare thunderstorms and both of my games for the evening were disconnected. I need to resume games with buyerp (24k) and Rafta (26k). I wanted to start another game but thought it might be unwise given the instability of my connection.
I had played four even games against the LibertyBot (23k) but won only one of them. My rank bumped up to 25k this evening but I feel it is still unproven. I think it may only be "drift" as Tokimaru (27k) likes to call it.
mungo (-) did not feel that it was in my best interest to play the LibertyBot. I too easily allow myself to follow its fast pace and therefore become less likely to play a well-thought game. There's actually a parallel to this in both kendo and fencing. Miyamoto Musashi referred to it as being trapped in the cadence of your opponent. Yuri, my sabre fencing coach, called it following your opponents rhythm instead of your own.
I may still play the LibertyBot, if only to condition myself not to succumb to its rhythm.
I'm thinking of taking another break from playing for the remainder of this week. I'd like to read more of my Go books and do some timed exercises using Drago. My last break seemed to have really helped.
posted by ChiyoDad @ 7:45 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I agree all this. Playing LibertyBot is not a good thing. One's follow it's quick pace as you said, without thinking, and it makes tactical mistakes that human players wouldn't do. We play in reaction to the bot's play. But because of its weakness, it doesn't lead us to play well.
That's why when I realized I could defeat LibertyBot, I stopped playing against it for a while. Instead, concerning the bots, I began playing against GnuGo2 (18k). But after a moment, the conclusion is the same as with LibertyBot. It leads me toward GnuGo3.6 ... Will probably be the same thing in a moment...
In conclusion, playing bots probably help improving in some areas as well as regress in some other areas. That's why
playing humans and review games with humans is the best way to progress.
I played a couple of unrated games against the LibertyBot late last night to test an assumption. If, instead of reacting to its initial attack to the first corner, you tenuki in all the three other corners, the LibertyBot is very likely going to swarm stones around the area of its first attack (trying to kill an isolated and dead stone). This gives you the opportunity to settle your other areas and potentially create 3-4 bases.
Most weak kyu players would not waste their moves on attacking an isolated stone. The LibertyBot, by its swarming, is effectively giving the equivalent of 3-5 handicap stones.
Yes. I even tried to play with 9 handi against me, and I won against it. It lacks stategy. Nevertheless it's efficient enough in local fight for example, to compete well against 25-30 kyu players who aren't aware of its big weaknesses.
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