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A monthly column by Pieter Mioch featuring a thorough game commentary tastefully seasoned with go-related stories and clues to the meaning of life. "If you never question anything, you won't get very far" IntroductionSunday the 25th of November was a beautiful day with clear skies and a nice temperature in Nagoya. Catalin Taranu had to play a game for the Chubu Keizai newspaper pro-ama match for which games are played at least once a month. The 28 year old Rumanian was chosen (not completely at random) to defend the honor of the pros in Central Japan. His opponent was a university of Nagoya graduate from China whose name in Japanese reads Ri Inri, I doubt if this is read the same in China. Allow me the liberty of adjusting the Japanese reading to "Li" which seems a more likely spelling. Mr. Li works for Denso Information Technology Corporation (Denso Aitekku) and is a doctor of engineering, developing and working with a virtual environment in order to design and make car parts for Toyota. If you're interested and read Japanese you can find more about CAD/CAM/CAE and PDM at http://www.i-tech.co.jp/ He recently beat the strongest go player of the Toyota go-team, a Mr. Koike, which made him the celebrity of the denso go-team. At the beginning of the game the usual ritual of quibbling and dibbling about how many handicap stones Mr. Li should (may) take against Catalin was shorter than usual. If the players would both be Japanese this can take some time and only after one of the participants managed to convince the other of his worthlessness and absolute zero skill at go can the game start. To be sure, Mr. Li did attempt to take 4 stones but after Catalin's "Well, it's all the same to me, your choice" the issue was quickly settled at 3 stones. Japan may or may not be among the strongest go countries in the world but one thing is sure, when looking at the Rumanian pro playing against a Chinese amateur and with a Dutchman for the Japanese newspaper coverage nobody can deny that they did a good job in spreading the game of go during the last century. If it weren't for Saijo 8p Catalin would probably not have found his way to Japan. If it weren't for the China-Japan Super matches Mr. Li would most likely not have picked up go. During the pre-game interview Mr. Li mentioned that he got interested in go because of the China-Japan Super matches and because of the first Chinese top pro since Go Seigen who could hold his own and stood his ground against the Japanese top contenders: Nie Weiping. Usually at these pro-ama matches the pro has a hard time controlling the damage to the amateurs positions. Although you will not ever find a letter on paper about it, it seems good manners to keep the outcome of the game between 1-6 points in either way. A month ago a pro beat the amateur by 11 points and was visibly embarrassed by the big lead. The game between Catalin and Mr. Li was not quite the same story, though. In the post game comment Catalin confessed, "well this nobi loses so many points for black, I felt that it didn't really matter how I would play but that I just couldn't lose."
Never count the game before the stones are back in their
bowl is but all too true a proverb. Mr. Li came back
with a vengeance and when Catalin played one move just a
bit too quickly black was leading by about 8 points.
You can imagine he didn't really feel like that and played 3 rash moves in a row, black kept his cool and didn't fumble the ball but skillfully connected all his stones after which resignation was the only option left for Catalin.
The GameThe diagrams below are printed in two colors, one for the actual game and one for the explanatory diagrams and side-tracks, as follows:
Back to reality, I'm not Catalin and this Daigo game is not of the kind of level you might expect from amateur high dan-level players. I'm not at all satisfied with my own game, but then again, who is. If you once in a while *are* rather glum with your own game this is often but a misinterpretation of the facts, such is live. Is ignorance bliss? Well, that's a hard one but to sidetrack the issue and dismiss the question, I'm pretty sure ignorance will stand in the way of any significant progress.
Whatever happens, especially when being behind by more than a small margin, it is unwise to let go of the initiative when you don't get compensation, preferably weak points in the enemy positions you can strike at with intention to kill.
Just to fill some space to give you the chance to work up a sweat before scrolling down, here's a bit more about an idea I half mentioned in an earlier episode of Daigo. Except for unambiguous words as "atari, eyes, ko and a couple more, paying great importance to terminology and putting advanced go concepts in words works exactly as trying to get somewhere by first traveling half the distance and then half of half the distance and so on: It looks as if you're doing the right thing and that you are indeed getting somewhere but eventually you'll realize that you are not getting quite at your destination. There is nobody on this planet who knows or can put in words (even the go-wonder himself) how exactly Lee Changho managed to become what he is today, one of the very few candidates for the title of world's strongest player, in such a very short time. There are no lists of problems and games a player needs to memorize before he will get somewhere. The process of turning raw talent and eager energy into a successful go player is a complete mystery, you can do this, you can do that but it is not possible to put your finger on what exactly did it and made the difference. One thing is sure, however, improving has little to do with trying to hunt for the exact meaning of a go term. Sorry to bother you with a sci-fi novel I enjoyed reading very much, it is by Robert A Heinlein and called something like "Tunnel in the Sky". It's about these cadets who have to spend some time on a planet and survive there as the last part of their education before graduation. The instructor warns each cadet to be alert and to especially watch out for the "Stober" (writing this from memory, please correct me Heinlein fans). It turns out that this Stober warning is standard for the test (although there are a number of different planets used for the test) and that there is not actually an animal called Stober. The warning is purposely without details and is meant to make the cadets watch out for that being which is highest in the food chain and deserves being afraid of. Still with me? So all the cadets are pretty scared for this Stober thing without knowing what it is or what it is supposed to look like. All the participants in the test make up a mental image of the Stober and, small wonder, they all come up with different pictures or try to apply it to the wild life they meet. And, second small wonder, they all have it wrong. I very much feel that a lot of go terms are treated precisely the same way as Heinlein's "Stober" i.e. there is something what deserves a special term and everybody knows and understand the general idea but there's nobody among term-studying go players who has the perfect description.
Go terms are things you slap, at best, on a *real* mess
of thoughts and confused ideas going around and around
but it's not the term which defines the concept, the
term is a big wooden crate full of, sometimes usable,
junk.
The go prodigy will first have a whole string of often pretty complicated and seemingly unrelated thoughts on matters which for him all are connected to each other by one powerful and obvious idea, a feeling if you like. Improving for the average go player -you and me - too has everything to do with seeing the obvious and making ideas interlock in a new, and smart, fashion. Starting to name (groups of) ideas and concepts and applying a term to it is an after thought, it even can help others becoming aware of the necessity of thinking into a given direction, it also can help abbreviate long explanations when analyzing among players of very high level. For us amateurs go-terms are something we can play with, show off a little every now and then. At times extremely useful to help others along but always lacking "that" most important ingredient for which you'll have to go digging around inside your skull and not outside of it.
About Shape, Again"Bad shape, uh? Bad shape, what's wrong with it?! If it works it works!" And more strong language much in the same spirit as what I used to advocate while still in Europe. And it's true, however, it is only *part* of the truth. Bad shape it due to its nature a less efficient way of accomplishing a certain task, it often causes a premature lack of liberties for one thing. It also will leave more vulnerable points and weaknesses which somewhere in the future might be exploited by your opponent. "If it works it works!" is also my motto but poor shape will limit your future scoop of action. The more less-efficient shapes you have on the board the harder you have to think and continue to be aware of the vulnerability of your positions. The better a shape, the less you need to worry about the future and the more freedom of choice you can enjoy. Not worrying about bad shape is only skin deep, after 20-30 moves your shapes will come back to haunt you and suddenly you discover that there is almost no room for action left and that you need to reinforce right away in order to keep your stones together, in order to survive.
In every game you have to just sit back one or two times to let the dust settle and to see how things actually are going. This also is a good opportunity to try and find answers for all the moves you know your opponent is going to hit you with. Evaluating the whole board position, however, does not necessarily mean that you're supposed to count the score in some detail. Getting the rough picture is enough. Especially when there are many situations left on the board which are not decided yet one way or another it is a good strategy to try to determine about how much you territory you can permit your opponent to make. It may be not all that interesting or much fun, but to actually let your opponent make quite some territory is a perfect way to lull him a bit and to prevent him from starting wild and unpredictable fighting. I remember that when I first came to Japan and played with amateur 5-6 dans at local go clubs I very much felt frustrated because my opponents were not prepared to get involved in big time fighting. And, what's worse, when trying to provoke a fight and in doing so attempting to create an atmosphere I felt comfortable with, I lost (even faster).
Will white find a way to destroy black after all? Is black so confident that he doesn't realize white is aiming at a quarter of the board? Find out in the next episode of Daigo! [Daigo 1] [Daigo 2] [Daigo 3] [Daigo 4] [Daigo 5] [Daigo 6] [Daigo 7] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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