I just found myself looking for the kibitz text field in that diagram for adding my wise guy comment about this

_________________
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

All in all I consider it a healthy thing when anyone spends less time on the internet, but do Boidhre's go-playing cronies know how he's doing? I hope he hasn't quit go!

Hey jts, the depression I was in (on and off since November) got worse in late December and amongst other things I lost interest in go. I haven't been posting as each week it's a case of "maybe next week my interest will come back and I can make a happy post" but that hasn't happened yet. At the moment, while I haven't decided to quit go, I have no interest in playing it. I still keep an eye on this forum though and pop along to the odd go meeting.

Ah well - didn't want you to think you were forgotten. Here's hoping for the best.

Hope to see you back on form soon! I miss our exciting games

_________________
我が道を行く。
I'll do it my way....

I'm back I think. The depression that started in November and resulted in me steadily losing interest (and pleasure in) go has finally abated. My interests are returning broadly and the mental fog has been lifting. I've been playing a bit, I'm rusty and somewhat weaker than I was but I don't mind that. I started doing tsumego again for a while before bed each night a few weeks ago, I've not been drilling them properly or anything just doing easy ones at my leisure and honestly just hoping the enjoyment of doing them not fading (Graded Go Problems Vol. 2 and similar). For the next while I'm just going to play a game or two in the evening after the kids have gone to sleep, fit some tsumego in where I've a chance (fun!) and maybe play out some pro games from one of the John Fairbairn books on SmartGo (purely for pleasure, I doubt they'll make me stronger).

It's nice to be back and feeling pleasure playing the game again.

Glad you're feeling better.

So 4ish months since I posted a game, I might as well start off with one where I did something particularly dumb. I'm enjoying myself at the moment, if depression is good for one thing it is when it's over you really do appreciate the little moments of happiness in the day. I had a lot of fun last night playing go with my son, he beat me with 4 stones on 9x9 which is good since he hasn't played any go in months.


I added some comments and a couple of variations to this game, just to get back into the habit of thinking about my games when reviewing them. I hope you can join me in laughing at the error I made.



Edit: Updated sgf, turns out I did something wrong and the GoWrite board markings didn't come through.

Thank you Ed, a possible inane question:

You recommended a very large knight's move from the 4,4 stone as a pincer. I'm really unsure as to how to deal with the following and this causes me to rule out such moves (I did consider this move but rejected it due to not knowing how to handle ).

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . , . . . O . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . 3 . 2 . 1 . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

My initial thoughts are:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . 5 . . 4 . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . 1 . 2 3 . . . O . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . O . X . O . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

This looks ok for black.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . 2 1 4 , . . . O . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . O 3 X 5 O . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

This I don't like as much, but I don't know many variations for this three space extension.

B ponnuki in sente! B is so happy. This is one reason the attach is (often) not good for W.

It's a ponnuki in atari, I really have no idea how to handle those.

Welcome back! Shodan in no time.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Thank you for the review. Shodan in no time? Hah!

Boidhre, also, a good habit for is the 2nd line atari, not (a) (there are exceptions, of course):

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . X . . 2 1 4 , . . . O . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . O 3 X a O . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

I ordered some books because, eh, I felt like it.

Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 4 - This should be a tough book for me right now and the latter section being far too difficult I think. However I could have said the same when I bought Volume 3 and I solve most of that fairly comfortably now. A book to grow into, hopefully in the not too distant future.

The Theory and Practice of Tsumego - As I said in the other thread: Probably too difficult for me right now but the premise and contents sound fascinating and I think I'd like to read through it sooner rather than later. Plus it might surprise me and have a few section accessible to a weak sdk.

The Art of Positional Analysis - The guilty pleasure. I love the idea of this book, a collection of articles from Kido where various pros go through a series of games explaining how they do positional analysis in them. Almost certainly 2k+ stuff but I think it'd be interesting to read and play out a few of the games focusing purely on analysis of the positions.

I looked long and hard at the Life and Death book in the same series as the Positional Analysis one but it's dan level problems and really there's little point in me even looking at them right now I think. I don't actually think I need any more books right now, but I like collecting books as a kind of side hobby to a hobby so I'm indulging myself here rather than getting things I think I need right now to improve. GGPFB 4 is perhaps justifiable, barely.

I got hammered on wBaduk as a 16k.

The game was odd, we were playing with very long time settings, 5 mins + 60s x 10 (opponents choice). My opponent kept not playing for minutes on end, their clock would run down into byo and they'd lose a few periods. Then they'd play a move and their main time would reset to 5 minutes (byo staying as they were 60/7 or whatever). It was quite annoying to play against. Sometimes 20-40 moves would play quickly then 6-7 minutes wait for a move, and often just a standard joseki move or similar, in the more complicated parts of the game they often moved quite quickly so I don't think they were abusing the clock for reading time. The clock resetting though was very odd.

Anyway, the game, as you can see I got outplayed quite badly. Though my two large screw ups padded the margin of victory a bit.



Playing on the iPad was nice, having to manually input the game into GoWrite afterwards was not so good.

A few comments.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Comments at 32, 52 and 114. Thanks Bill.