Yeah, I meant to comment on that, too. Fights that have only local effects are more commonly and less confusingly called capturing races or life-and-death problems. If they aren't either of those (and sometimes even if they are), then they are definitely having global impact.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

Hey I'm kinda in a hurry here. Can you just tell me how to get 1 stone stronger without all this life-changing nonsense? I'm kinda busy playing Starcraft2.

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of go?

_________________
Sanity is for the weak.

Hey Balmung, lets play a Malkovich .

One of my stranger habits is that I like to look at people's time usage on KGS games. It's the only server I know of that puts these timestamps in, but it only is useful during the main time.

In your last game on KGS under your posted username, the time limits were 1 hour + 5x30 Japanese byoyomi. You were using about 5.5 seconds per move and your opponent about 5.

In another game with 30 minutes main time both you played about 9.5 seconds / move your and opponent around played about 13 seconds / move. (Unfortunately, that game ended in resignation at move 55 and you appeared to lose your temper and accused your opponent of sandbagging.) In the comment you bragged about your life and death skills being a few stones stronger than your rank and because your opponent outplayed you in a corner L&D, something you feel is one of your strong points, you may have felt motivated to make this accusation.

However, when I looked at the problem in question, I would say that aside from just being rude, the accusation did not have technical merit. I suggest you test this by posting the problem in question to goproblems.com and see where the difficultly falls when others try to solve it. This can be a humbling experience. I've done this myself many times and it never fails to motivate me to go back to the basics.

In another 30 minute main time game you resigned at move 138 and you were playing about 4.5 seconds per move as compared to over 7 seconds per move from your opponent. Actually you weren't that far behind for your level, so I'm not sure I understand the resignation.

Now these games were back in mid-September, and people change, so I don't want to harp on it. But I'm thinking two things:

1. Players are often tempted to match their opponent's speed regardless of the time limits. I've seen even high dans fall into this trap.

Some basic math: If an average game takes 240 moves or so (including endgame), you play 120. If it's 30 minutes main time, that's 15 seconds per move and you even finish the game before going into byoyomi most of the time. If you want to play faster, that's fine, but why not choose faster time limits in that case?

2. I'm always skeptical when people claim to have some critical skill that's significantly beyond their playing strength. Fortunately you didn't exactly say reading ability, otherwise I'd suggest that's baloney immediately. Maybe go to wbaduk.com, get an account and go into their "Test Room" web page. This will attempt to break down your skills into these areas:

Pattern
Opening
Haengma
Maek (Tesuji)
Endgame
Middle Game
Life & Death
Judgment

For me, it was a good to remove any kind of vanity about my "mad skills" in any area.

A change in attitude can help you "bring it" to your games, but fantasizing that you already have it and just can't "bring it" may not be the path.

Nobody does any significant reading in five seconds.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

the games I was refering to our on my current account. many levels of play have passed since the games you saw.

_________________
“I’m here to play go and chew bubble gum, and I’m all out of gum”- misquoted duke nukem

But the problems remains the same: you are playing too fast, and you seem to believe that you should be winning games simply because you think you are better. Nobody wins games on merit. You probably could be strong in the areas you mention, but not if you play bad moves and then give yourself the excuse that it was just because you were too emotional and impatient. It is not the player, but the stones they play that decide the game. Humility and respect are not only virtues, but for a go player elements of his strength.

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

I was going to say "Like", but that's not strong enough. Consider this pointless post a "triple like" of daal's.

You could always post one for analysis - particularly one where you thought your fighting skills were good and the rest of your game let you down. It would be interesting (for you hopefully!) to see the assessment of some of the dan players here on whether they agree or not

Thanks, I think that's what I was trying to say in a lot more words.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

No that is innacurate. I only think I should win game is when the player plays alot weaker than I normally do, and I'm not losing from playing fast by it self I'm losing from arrogance and tunnel vision. I personally don't care if I have lost a game if I played it to the best of my abilities.

I remember I played a 5 kyu I lost to by like 10 points and I made two major flaws that would have won me the game. One flaw was dealing with an invasion properly, and that probably could of gone either way but it would of gave me the lead. The second flaw was not playing the correct move to kill a large group of his that would have ended the game. Even though I missed these moves I had taken my time and did not care that I lost I rejoiced.

The fact is I love my loses when I and my opponent play our best, and that is because your loses of your best ability games improve you the most. Wins truly have no meaning for the context of improving.

My arrogance comes in when I lose a game playing horribly, and knowing that win or lose I can play better than I did.

_________________
“I’m here to play go and chew bubble gum, and I’m all out of gum”- misquoted duke nukem

If your average moves are 5 seconds per move then you are playing too fast, at least if you want to improve.

Playing faster than 20 secs per move on average is most likely too fast. Play your next game with 50 minutes + 5x1:00 byo-yomi, and don't get to yose in your main time. Use it to read. Read everything, everywhere. Assess every open area of the board, read the likely variations, and then read again, for each move you want to play and one alternative in each local region. Find ways of doing combos that will allow you to get two results that complement each other. Then move. You should average about 7 or 8 moves (your moves, not total moves) for each 5 minutes, so by move 150 or so in the game you hit byo-yomi. From this point, make no moves in under 50 seconds. Again, read, re-read, and read things you don't expect your opponent to play but could be plausible "just in case". Every time you are in a difficult situation like a group hanging in the balance, deliberately use a whole period and then just over 50 seconds in the next period too.

If you don't have the patience for this attitude, you don't have the patience to improve. If you really want AGA shodan, focus and don't let yourself play fast unthinking moves, ever.

What's your current KGS account handle?

Balmung, you are changing your original quote from teachers (hard to find?) to (very, very rare) geniuses,
of which then some could be bad teachers.

From what I see in the first part of your thread, I get the impression that you are pre-occupied how good/strong or bad/weak you are.
Near the end you ask

I suggest you to look into Janice Kim's study plans (Janice Kim is 3p professional).
http://www.stuorg.iastate.edu/cygo/How% ... Go%201.pdf
http://www.stuorg.iastate.edu/cygo/How% ... Go%202.pdf

There she writes:

"Lastly, don't worry too much about your rank (...).

My personal experience was that I never knew how much I was improving, or even if I was improving at all. When I first went to study in Korea I think I was probably about 4 kyu, and the first time I returned home after several months, I competed in the US Open as a 6 dan, winning three and losing three games. I only mention this because when I started my teacher was giving me a 5 stone handicap and I was losing, and when I visited home he was still giving me a 5 stone handicap and I was still losing, (...)

Go is so varied that I don't think we ever get to a point where we really know what we are doing, but we can learn how to think and approach each new situation with a clear mind. So try as hard as you can not to think about your rank, which is really only a limitation.

We can all play 2 to 5 ranks better than what our technical rank may be anyway. If you follow a go study program like this, I feel confident that you will reach the dan levels more quickly than you hoped. "

_________________
Greetings,
Tommie

3dan EGF (AGA no 13477) || Tommie on KGS: 'June'|| DGS: 'Zhi Laohu' 纸老虎 = 'paper tiger' || Senseis : http://senseis.xmp.net/?tderz ||
ENFP (MBTI) - 'Find your own style within the Fundamentals of Go! '

I second Joaz. Post a game for review. You will get more helpful advice.

Some of your words are so true.

However, that is again ... tunnel vision. It would not have ended the game, as the opponent would
- objectively know that you both could be wrong (e.g. the group is alive as it stands, connectible, has aji, is seki, too small, ko material, etc.),
- have no clue*,
- being ignorant,
being arrogant and therefore
- simply play on.

With other words, as often said in post-game discussions: "this would have been a different game".

Free yourself from this obsession, accept your whatever-status-quo-rank
OR
try to improve by self-study a/o learning with a teacher.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*In a team championship I played against s.o. about 3 stones weaker. From about the 50th move, I think I am winning.
With move 86 he allows me to attack his second group in ko for his life).
With move 106 the issue is settled, his group is technically dead with only remaining 3 liberties.
He chose his option to chase my cutting groups (into his prospects of moyo) - which I gladly accepted. I win both chases.
With move 152 I put his 26-stone group in atari, just for safety, as I wanted to exclude the distant imponderability of a kind of approach ko of him.
Quite late he plays a 'meaningless' ko involving one of my earlier cutting groups and two kos (he takes one, I can take the other and so on)
At move 261, Black made hastily his last move in byoyomi, I took a picture of the game situation, adjusted his clock,
replied (wrongly) to his move ... and realized my error
I should have taken out the 26-stone group, which is since 110 moves in atari, not 'make 1 extra point'.

During the whole tournament game (1h + byo) he played moves inferior to mine (my evaluation), was forced into byoyomi quite early
playing 1 hour in it,
while (different than usual) only entered it after the incident. Eventually, I lost by only 18.5 points.
He was ignorant enough not to realize that he'd lost otherwise.

Why do I tell this? It sounds similar to your story.
I do realize that this loss is entirely my responsibility, as Go is a marathon and with every single move we should be on guard,
as (with an overlooked atari) it can be over in an instance.

I even didn't bear a grudge against him, as I recognized a habit in his tenacity which is close to mine.
(Not just resigning 'because you committed an error' or 'are behind' in our own faulty evaluation.
Give the opponent opportunities to commit errors too.
If 50% of thos 'lost' games can be won, then the overall winning percentage has increased to 75%).

We, you, I have our playing strength including these incidents and habits.

_________________
Greetings,
Tommie

3dan EGF (AGA no 13477) || Tommie on KGS: 'June'|| DGS: 'Zhi Laohu' 纸老虎 = 'paper tiger' || Senseis : http://senseis.xmp.net/?tderz ||
ENFP (MBTI) - 'Find your own style within the Fundamentals of Go! '

Balmung, I repeat my invitation to a Malkovich game, I'm really curious to see how strong you are. FYI, I often times feel I am stronger than my rank too, but until I can prove it on the board it doesn't count for anything.

i have seen your game and you were stronger than your opponent.
do you want to play a game with me?
how many stones do you think is good? let me know answer to both question.

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

Yea, I'll play. How do you feel about 7 stones? I am around 4-5k, but I haven't played many games in a while. The handicap will be a little low but I think its okay for a Malkovitch game.