- See more at: http://blogtimenow.com/blogging/automatically-redirect-blogger-blog-another-blog-website/#sthash.RotCAdRh.dpuf "TRUTH AND GO": The "thinking game" and the "feeling game"

Monday, May 27, 2013

The "thinking game" and the "feeling game"

So far it works fine with having 2 accounts, one for short games in between and one for long serious games. But often i found my self playing fast (and sometimes stupid) moves even when i still have long thinking time.
This  has to do something with my personality and it makes a good example on how you can learn about your self - and maybe work on some bad habbits- through playing Go!

Sometimes it feels to me like that there are 2 different games ... the one where you can follow your intuition, where you "feel" your next move and ... the one where you really think through variations and possible answers of your opponent. But there aren`t 2 games!
There are, even in games with long thinking time, a lot of situations where you can`t think it through, go allways has both aspects... the right brain thing and the left brain thing! :-)
This reminds me of a book i once read "Zone Press Park" from O Meien ... he talks about finite and non-finite Go.

Here a quote from Senseis Library  

O Meien discusses the concepts he calls "infinite" vs. "finite" go. A position in go is "finite" if it's possible for the player to find the best move through reading. It's when the game is constrained and the possibilities are limited. It is clear he doesn't like this, and his technique of the "zone press" (a term borrowed from Japanese soccer) is designed to avoid it, and push the game into a state he calls "infinite," meaning a position where it is not clear to either player what the best move is, but there is nevertheless a pressure for his opponent to do something to reduce the dominance of his "number one zone", which is the area with the most potential on the board. 

Howsoever... i think i make good progress and the most important thing:
i enjoy playing again very much. And few weeks ago i realised something very very simple and very very important:
I have to be good at solving Life&Death problems  in order to become a stronger player one day! 
It is that simple and you can read about this in many books or on the internet ... and go teachers will point out as well ... but when i remeber a few months ago i really did not like to solve L&D ... i hate it because i was not good at it. But as soon as i fully accepted that in order to become a dan player one day ... i have to incrase my reading ability somehow ... i started to see solving L&D as a challenge to overcome myself and to learn how to fully concentrate.
There are only 3 possibilities:
1. Learn how to solve hard L&D and (maybe!)
become a dan player one day.
2. Don`t learn and stay a kgs 6 kyu.
3. Don`t learn and stop playing.

By the way i will not continue with posting every long game here... but some of them.
I`m sorry if my english is not very good  :-) 
Have a nice game!

 “Competition and faith are my life-long vocations. Like water and fire, I depend on both. When I couldn’t outrank the others, it was time for me to leave. There are two things in my life, truth and Go.” Go Seigen

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Your English is fine man! And to your point about needing to be good at L&D in order to become a stronger, I am 110% with you on that. As much as I didn't want to admit it in the past, L&D provide the backbone for whichever style you choose to play. Without L&D, you go will hit a glass ceiling very quickly. =)

One last thought, strong players actually recommend you spend a majority of time on the easier problems and only a little bit of time on harder problems. The reason for this is that during an actual game, we often encounter easy to medium difficulty of life and death problems that require very accurate reading in the face of time pressure. (And in my experience, balancing out a few hard problems with more easy problems helps to make L&D study less painful. =D)

Unknown said...

And in case my last point wasn't clear, you want to get to a point where you can instinctively solve the easy problems and increase your ability to instinctively solve problems. When you increase your basics to a 100% reading accuracy, then naturally you will be able to tackle harder problems with more time.

A good example of this is the bent in four shape in the corner. In the past, you might have to spend a lot of time to figure out whether or not it's dead or not. But if your fundamentals increase to where you can instantaneously recognize it as a dead shape, you can spend your efforts on more difficult problems.

Hope this makes sense!