Games 51-109

Time for an update. Another 50 (mainly 9*9's) have come and gone so where am I now?

I am still playing in a state of bewildered 'oh dear' ness but have actually increased rating slightly to 1052 and currently 24 Kyu. I even reached the heights of 23 Kyu yesterday but since I am still a 25 Kyu really I fully expect to drop back quite quickly.

As stated my knowledge hasn't really increased much but I have found two ways in which I seem to have made some improvement.

The first is in invasions. In the first 50 games I was regularly chewed up by invasions and it was quite disheartening. Now I seem to be getting much better at killing of any invasions ability to live (much easier presumably on a 9*9 board) and several of my wins recently have solely been because of an opponent being in the lead then launching a huge invasion that fails and in the process of failing gives me the win. This probably would only be done by other 25 Kyu players but it reminds me a bit of my phone Go app. I play this fairly regularly and early on was getting smug at beating it fairly regularly ( at easy setting which is 15kyu apparently. I have my doubts) - until I noticed that the AI seems incapable of attacking an invasion at all so every game I was guaranteed *(almost) to build a full 6 space invasion with two eyes. When I realised that was (often) what was winning the game and I stopped doing so, as not being realistic vs an opponent with half a brain ,the games became harder. For some of these games some of my live opponents seem to think I am like the phone AI and will let them build a live invasion.

The other way is that I am recognising play traits with some opponents. A couple I played recently twice and they were very aggressive, successfully so early on but once they had a couple of captured stones they would go all out to capture more allowing me to subtly creep up on some large group of their stones and suddenly take eight or so. At which point they would quit or go all in and lose more in the process. The second game (once I knew what they were like) was often a bigger win as I would set up situations to do exactly this.

Most opponents have been a pleasure though some have been weird. My biggest win was against a stronger player. Where he outplayed me but at the end of the game (which was close) launched a single stone invasion that I did not respond to (no need , there was no way he could survive) and it turned out that single stone lost it for them as I won by 0.5 points. After placing the stone I passed and he passed and on seeing the score he started again and passed. So I passed and the same occurred. Eventually he bowed out but it was unusual and I was naturally happy to play it out (by not doing anything) as my win would have increased.

Lovely Internet Stuff

One thing which I love about learning a game of universal popularity is that there are loads of resources online to allow you to study and learn without needing (perhaps) a teacher or local play group. One potential issue is that hardly any of it is aimed at me and players of my level. So there is an awful lot of, 'as you can see this group here is dead with no chance of survival' - with my reaction being, 'what, really, how.....I don't see that' whilst the discussion moves on to ever more complicated discussions. Even some of the beginner videos seem in skill level way beyond me. Of the ones I like I enjoy Dwyrin's channel  but think that will be better for me when I am on 19*19 more consistently and have improved to perhaps 22-20 kyu.  I also rather like the New York Institute of Go's channel but tend to watch just the stuff aimed at lower players (I will re-watch the higher level stuff as and when I can get the most out of it). Stephanie Yin is also a great presenter and I like the way she talks through issues and play examples (in one of her videos one of her points was 'never cut on the second line' and I have seen other people do that to their cost several times now in my own games so thanks Stephanie ;) a lesson taught that sticks is a good lesson)

Finally my current goto youtube channel is (drum roll) Nick Sibicky's channel. It might be the live audience or that audience not being too much higher than me but I am getting an awful lot out of these and they are fun too. My current vlog aim is to steadily watch most of these (I might subscribe at some point) and then move onto the Dwyrin beginner stuff. Hopefully I will have taken the plunge to 19*19 by then as well.

Anyway thanks for reading!