demagogue on 20/7/2013 at 13:49
For everybody's information, me & Chade started the Go ball rolling with a 9x9 game tonight. I (thought I) had a pretty dominating position early on, but I didn't know how to convert it into actually choking him off and he ended up crawling from the edges like demon lichen. Combine that with me throwing pieces away carelessly playing behind his lines, and he totally stomped me by the end.
If I knew a bit more, I'd say let that be a lesson, but as it is I'm not quite sure what the lesson is. But let that be its own lesson I guess... Good game Chade.
Edit: For future reference, you can all watch in on games on GoKGS. We set up a "TTLG" room somewhere. I don't know if you can see past games, but you can try. I'm Keido & Chade is sroberts.
Chade on 21/7/2013 at 23:43
demon lichen :D
Unfortunately, the ttlg room was only temporary. Apparently you need to have been a member for 2-3 months before requesting a permanent room. I'll request a permanent room when I can. In the meantime, any new member can create a temporary ttlg room anytime they like.
For people who haven't played Go before, this is a great opportunity to get started. :)
Go is fantastic for games between people with unequal experience. Go makes it very easy to handicap players (you can get extra stones on the board when you start and extra points as well), and there is a strong tradition of using handicaps to create even games. I'm going to suggest we have a simple rule \that whenever you beat someone, the other person receives an extra stone next time you play.
Dema and I are both beginners in any case, so there's not going to be much difference in experience to start with. I get the feeling I've played a little bit more then Demagogue, but not much. I imagine anyone with a bit of spare time up their sleeve would be able to match us pretty quickly.
Demagogue: if it's possible to look at old games, I'll find the time soonish to go through it and tell you what I was thinking at each stage.
Probably the most important thing is that stones on the 4th and 5th row are vulnerable to being attacked from behind (depending on the situation at hand of course!). Territory in the center is generally harder to take, because you have to defend it from all sides. Your black stones actually covered a lot of ground on the board, but because you had to defend all four sides, you had to use a lot of stones to capture not very much empty area in the middle. Whereas my territory in the corners and sides only had to be defended from 1 or 2 sides, so I had more empty area for a smaller number of stones.
Last thing that comes to mind: there's generally one player who is "leading" and one player who is "following". For the first half of the game, you were definitely the leader! I was worried I'd spend the whole game just sitting there blocking your stones and not making any progress. Then you made one defensive move, which was a good move and probably one you should have played eventually, but it didn't threaten me in any way and allowed me to take the lead. You probably should have played more "leading" moves to build up strength on the left hand side before allowing me to take the lead.
demagogue on 22/7/2013 at 05:15
One comment that comes to mind to me for you -- I read in a book that one trick to always look out for is avoiding "cuts". It's when you have 2 stones separated by a single space. If your opponent puts a stone above or below that single space, the book I read said it's usually important that you connect the two stones by filling that space with your own piece, because in the next turn your opponent can put his piece in that space, and now he's cut your two stones & made them more vulnerable & strengthened his own. I did that trick twice to you (following that book's suggestion), and I got the feeling that contributed to getting a solid wall set up early on and fragmenting your pieces.
Another thing I noticed was that it made a big difference that the edges were so close. I had a good position set up, but it had nowhere to grow to, so like you said spent a lot of stones for ultimately less space.
Edit: Nuth, I've been busy with getting settled in Japan, but it's about time I played you in chess. Are you ok for sometime this weekend?
Nuth on 22/7/2013 at 05:56
Sure, Dema. Anytime is fine. My access to the internet is going to be sporadic for the next several days, so a game now may be quite extended. It may be as few as a couple of moves per day. If you'd prefer to wait until I can make moves in a more timely manner, that would be fine as well. Either is okay with me.
demagogue on 23/7/2013 at 08:12
I saved it, so the game is still around for review ... somewhere. I'll get back to you.
Edit: I remember going through tutorials on that site.
SubJeff on 23/7/2013 at 09:54
Disappointed you haven't played chess with me dems.
faetal on 23/7/2013 at 11:43
I might challenge you again soon SubjEff. I've found that playing the tactics puzzles on chess.com (a lot) has been really useful in helping me see good attack patterns.
Nuth on 24/7/2013 at 14:28
Missed tactics. 23...hxg5 followed by a likely knight fork on e4 would have finished him off, I think. I don't think he would have had enough material left to pose much of a threat.
