Crank it up.
I'm back! Well, ... almost.
My quarterly global conference has concluded once again and I'm absolutely exhausted. I'm functioning on just two hours of sleep. No Go tonight but I will play a game or two tomorrow.
I haven't been idle in the offline Go scene and there's a little to blog about. I'll need to save most of the stories for later days.
I'm a anxious (as in, "Suffering from anxiety") about starting up again with matches on KGS. I expect to be clobbered. I read a few more chapters of my Go books during my time offline and I think I'm suffering from a form of analysis-paralysis. I know enough about basic opening moves to know the many ways to respond, say, to an approach on a corner stone. What I lack is the experience, depth and reading ability to determine, under some circumstances, which response might yield a better result and how to play towards that result. This has been my experience when playing against GnuGo 3.7 beta in an even match at a lower strength setting.
To quote the proverb, "There is no loss in Go". It can be interpreted as a rough equivalent to Nietzche's "That which does not kill us makes us stronger". Experience is the best teacher and it's time to get back to playing.
posted by ChiyoDad @ 6:03 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Yep, it's hard to begin playing again after a break. There's the fear of doing badly. There's no other remedy: force yourself to play. And i promise, after the first game (assuming that it doesn't end too early with a bad resignation or escape)You will be eager to play more. And more. I swear, KGS isn't enough for me anymore. Just today, i brought my portable go set to school and played a game with a friend. Even though i won easily (i gave him a 9-stone-handi)It didn't really detract from the pleasure of playing.
Still, i gtg study sometime soon.
Play on!
Chiyodad, If you've been studying without playing much, you should almost be looking forward to getting beaten. You're integrating new concepts and "rewiring" your Go skills.
I find (at the below 20-kyu level) that I will study something, like Joseki, and learn all the different approaches, etc. Then I try it out in a game against a 25 kyu and he makes a totally unpredictable move, like ignoring a pincer. I end up in a bad position because I have no idea what to do. Then you spend 20 minutes after the game in an SGF editor and learn more than you did from the book.
If you play just as well as you did before the break, you're probably not stretching yourself and trying new things.
Good luck! look me up for a game if you see me on KGS.
Many thanks for the supportive words, Brad! I tried a game today and did not perform well. My opponent granted me the courtesy of not reducing what little territory I had left and spared me a more severe loss.
Thanks also for your suggestions in Sensei's Library (in my comments section) and for the plug on your info page! I've already downloaded the joseki library and am weighing my options with The Many Faces of Go. For the present, I just need to steel myself for getting back into game.
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