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Let's suppose I don't want to kidnap Melinda Gates for the ransom. How do I afford a decent set? I don't suppose anyone has the secret black market cheap import hookup?
McNerd fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jul 2, 2008 |
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Jul 2, 2008 22:45
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 18:11 |
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Gunuin posted:I have extensive experience with chess, which I know isn't going to help me a whole lot with go. One question though: are there sets of opening moves or at least ideas (as there are in chess)? The opening was a bit strange for us as we both basically made some big double eyes in our own territory then we started attacking. The opening isn't as rigid as chess, or at least not like high-level chess, simply because there are so many more options. But there is certainly some theory behind it. Something to keep in mind is that you can roughly (in the endgame, precisely) estimate the point value of a move. In the endgame, if one move secures three points of territory (or takes them from the opponent) and another only two, you certainly want to make the more valuable move, right? In the opening, a similar concept applies. If you watch good players, they spread their initial stones out. They don't put two stones right next to each other, let alone place all the stones required to make a structure with eyes. It's because if you spend that many moves claiming that small amount of territory, you're being very inefficient. If you play like that against a good opponent, by the time you've finished making those eyes he will control most of the board. He won't control it perfectly, not as strongly as you control your territory. But although you can take a little bit away from him, you won't be able to take nearly as much as required to recover. Make big moves when you can. Of course if the opponent picks a fight, you may have to respond, and this entails placing stones near existing stones to strengthen them. That's fine. But even then, be wary: sometimes with beginners (like me) these fights go on too long. The way most fights end is you say "I could make another attacking move, but it's not as though I can actually kill his stones (most of the time you can't!). I'm just encroaching on his territory, forcing him to build his wall and make his territory one row smaller than it otherwise would be. That'll take two points away from him, and if things go well I'll have two points of extra territory on the other side. But if I quit it and play in some unrelated area of the board, the stone I place might be the beginning of a structure that wins me 20 points." The first one to recognize that it's time to end the fight will have a significant advantage. (Of course if you're wrong, failing to play an important move in the fight can be bad news!) Anyway, a lot of this falls under "just play a lot of games." Eventually you'll recognize that two stones which are a few spaces apart can still support each other, because you'll realize what options you have if they're attacked. edit: gently caress that's long. McNerd fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Aug 27, 2009 |
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Aug 27, 2009 15:14
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Space Detective posted:I've always wanted to learn but I am afraid of Go. So learn. The actual rules are very simple: much more straightforward than chess, for instance, and chess itself is really overestimated in this regard. At the beginning there's a really feeling of "Where the gently caress do I play, there's 361 spaces and they all look the same to me," and that can make you feel pretty silly, but that goes away faster than you expect. Of course you're going to get your rear end beaten for the rest of your life: there's always going to be someone who can make you look stupid, but that goes for any game unless it has a serious luck component. McNerd fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Sep 18, 2009 |
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Sep 18, 2009 15:29
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Go tournaments are played with handicaps?
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Oct 19, 2009 18:20
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Blendy posted:If he's played that long it's likely going to take you a while before you can give him a good match. But handicaps can help speed that up. This is true. Handicaps in Go work really, really well. You're surely not ready for this quite yet but you'd be pretty amazed at the skill difference that they can make up for and still allow a fun game, especially if he's willing to point out some of your errors to help you improve.
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Apr 16, 2010 23:48
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Is there a good basic explanation of thickness and how to use it anywhere? This is one of the few cases where Sensei's Library isn't helping me much. I realize this is kind of a high-level idea and I'm a pretty weak player. But I seem to wind up with a lot of big outward-facing walls which, judging from what I've read, should be game-winning if I could exploit them correctly. I'm not consciously trying to use them to make central territory, as I understand that's the wrong idea, but the end result is always that I have a bunch of central territory (at best, or else I can't secure said territory and lose horribly).
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Jan 5, 2011 06:13
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Under 15 posted:I just last night finished reading "All About Thickness" by ishida and it was a pretty good book. The book is heavy on short, simple, full-board diagrams and I will probably go through it again soon. If you are resourceful you can find it somewhere and if you aren't you can get on kgs and scream about it until someone gets you a copy. Just in case anyone's interested, looks like you can get it in PDF for $10, or on a DVD along with four other books for $40. I probably will. http://senseis.xmp.net/?KiseidoDigitalBookshelf
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Jan 5, 2011 15:07
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Anybody mind giving some extremely basic opening advice? I feel that I have a basic understanding of normal opening play, but when it comes to off-the-wall moves I don't know how to respond. I played Black last night and the opening went like the diagram below. I seemed to be caught off guard by White 6. My understanding is that the fifth row is too high for plays like this, for reasons like "you can't form a base" and "hypothetically, letting Black crawl underneath on the fourth row gives him a ton of territory." But assuming it is a mistake, I didn't quite know how to counter it. I played Black 7, reasoning that if he was going to play on the fifth line, I could gain a ton of territory by playing underneath on the fourth, whereas the move also threatens to jump in underneath his stone if he moves away. He obliged me by playing 8 and 10 but it doesn't seem to have worked out so well. (I might be misremembering 13 and 14, but the results weren't great.) I could also have played 7 one row below where I did. This seems a bit more secure for me but if my opponent still responds the same way by playing an attachment on the fourth line, I'm in basically the same situation with less territory to show. Or I could have played 7 at the square-marked point, preventing him from forming a base and threatening to connect to either corner, with an attack to follow? In hindsight perhaps at first glance this looks best, although it might be too aggressive. But it leads to another basic question: what do I do if he just attacks that stone with something crazy like C9/C11/D9/D11, and doesn't worry about forming a base at all? I guess I should just sacrifice that stone and approach from the corners, gaining territory there and maybe reducing his eyespace? Sorry for the wall of text; thanks to anybody who responds, even if you don't bother reading all this and just give your impressions of the diagram. McNerd fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Jan 17, 2011 |
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Jan 17, 2011 00:28
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Under 15 posted:His stone is too far from the edge - you can probably see, even if he played super-aggressively or with contact moves how simple it would be to just draw back and get the profit. Thanks for your response! I've heard somewhere that, as a rule of thumb, moves like contact plays and diagonal attachments tend to demand immediate, close responses like hanes in order to directly strengthen the attacked stone (unless you're prepared to sacrifice it). So I would have been nervous to play this way without very careful consideration. Have I been badly advised? Or perhaps this is just a symptom of how poorly advised this move would have been for him, if I can refute it so casually? In general I guess I need to figure out how to counter an opponent who plays too close, since I hear this is a common beginner mistake and I seem to be seeing a lot of it. Maybe one of the tricks is indeed that I shouldn't always be suckered into playing close in return? Is there any good general advice here, or is it just that as I get better I'll tend to find ways to get a good result from such situations? McNerd fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Jan 18, 2011 |
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Jan 18, 2011 05:52
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Under 15 posted:Great info, thanks very much!
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Jan 20, 2011 06:04
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On a similar note, I seem to remember hearing somewhere that it's normal to place stones a little haphazardly, not try to line them up perfectly on the grid. Is that right or did I just hallucinate it?
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May 27, 2011 00:58
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 18:11 |
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Also this site is great for the basics, though it won't help you with the main problem you're worried about (big board, too many choices, head exploding). http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/
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Jul 29, 2011 23:59
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