Mittwoch, 30. November 2011

Worklife vs. Go

Worklife wins.

As I had barely enough time to do more than 3 or 4 tsumego since monday, there is nothing new to talk about.

So doublhane is in recess until sunday December 4th.

Montag, 28. November 2011

A Lesson in Patience

Another monday, another local Go meeting. My opponent tonight impressed me pretty much. I played him the first time ever . He is about 1 to 2 kyu and so we played at a 9 stone handicap. We were eating something before we started to play and he talked about how patience is the most important virtue in high handicap games. The ability to wait for the one mistake and then take your profit; to withstand the urge to make up for the points you are "behind" within the first 20 moves.

The impressive thing was that he wasn't just all talk. It was exactly what he did to me in the game. He had a very calm way of playing. At no point I had the impression that my enemy is rushing against my walls trying to overwhelm me by sheer force. He just played calmly, built up pressure over time and then crushed me slowly.  

So I  had the opportunity to meet yet another player who can beat me at 9 stones. In comparison to last week's go meeting I was satisfied with my game today, though. I played reasonable solid, kept my opponent stones separated and his groups weak. Then came the moment in which I chose to attack instead of defend - after all I believed there were plenty of opportunities to connect my threatened group -  and lost my huge (huge!) center group that kept two other huge white groups separated and weak. 

Sadly, I'm really bad at remembering high handicap games so I can not provide you with detail or analysis. But: I ordered two books to write down kifus two weeks ago. As they have to cross the Atlantic Ocean to get here (Germany), it might still take a while, but soon I will start to record my games. 

One more thing: Doing life and death problems for two weeks now starts to pay off. I solved a rather complicated (for my level) life and death situation and managed to survive an attack that was meant to kill my corner group. I tried to recreate it, but the surrounding was important too and I can not get it right. Again, soon I will stat keeping kifus and things won't be lost to me that easily anymore.

Samstag, 26. November 2011

Game Review Part I: Laying the Groundwork for Defeat

It is time for the first review of one of my games. It was played on Dragon Go. I was 14 kyu, my opponent 11 kyu. The game was set on a 4 stones handicap and a komi of 1.5. It lasted 278 moves. I lost with 9.5 moku.

Here is the final board:


I'm not very satisfied with the way I played that game. I am not only clearly the weaker player - I also made some really unnecessary mistakes and dull moves of the kind I like to think I do not do anymore. In other words: The game offers a lot to learn for me ;)

Today I will cover the first 61 moves. You will witness me being invaded, cut apart and falling behind bit by bit. I consider it a success that I was able to just be behind 9.5 moku at the end.

I will also ask for a game review on 'Life in 19x19'. In case anyone wants to follow or comment, here is the link.

EDIT 28.11.2011: The discussion on 19x19 showed me that I've made a lot of mistakes in my review. I added some comments to point out my mistakes.

The full sgf is available here.

Mittwoch, 23. November 2011

A Bend in the Corner - or: Death by Tenuki

Today I re-discovered a concept I have read about a couple of months ago: The 'bent four in the corner'-shape. I could never actually put it to use, so it was kind of dead knowledge to me.

I came across it while solving problems (again). It took me quite a while to get through the problem. I will try to not bore you by discussing every detour I took. But: One of the detours towards the solution led me to the bent four. And that is the one I want to talk about.

Here is the tsumego. I will also present the solution. So do not expand carelessly, if you want to solve it at your own.

Diagram 1
Black to start a ko.

Montag, 21. November 2011

White Wall of Power

Every monday our local Go Club meets in a pub. With my strength about 14 kyu I'm the weakest player in town - and so I got completely destroyed on the board ... again ;)

Sonntag, 20. November 2011

Tsumego of the day

The last time I wrote about a tsumego, I wrote about why I was able to solve it - my willingness to work through it more methodically and patiently, my increasing ability ... yadda yadda and so on and so forth ;)

Today I will show you a tsumego I failed at. I did not fail because I read something wrong, or did not see something, but because the solution just lies a few steps deeper than I was able or willing to read into it. It is, as if someone had drawn a line on the ground to mark the threshold of my abilities. I just need to cross it to become stronger.

Here it is. If you want to solve it on your own, do not expand the post before you're done with it.

Black to kill!
Diagram 1

Samstag, 19. November 2011

Things that made me stronger - Part I: A Lecture about Leaning Attacks

Today I start the series "Things that made me stronger". Every now and again every players seems to come across something that triggers some insight in the game and with it a sudden surge in strength. One could call this phenomena moments of revelation. In this series I will talk about mine.

Part I: A Lecture about Leaning Attacks

Freitag, 18. November 2011

On Solving Tsumegos

I think I might write about tsumegos quite frequently over the course of the next weeks. I've neglected them complety for at least 8 months and now hat I've (re)started doing them, they begin to fascinate me more and more.

As I am not a particular strong player, the tsumegos I discuss in the weeks and months to come will be quite basic (even embarrassingly so). What is interesting to me is that I begin to develop a, well, certain mindset that helps me to solve tsumegos and that promises to improve my game quite a lot.

I share these thoughts here, because I believe this change might be of interest for other players around my strenght (10-14 kyu'ish). So at least today's post is more about the way I solve tsumegos and what I think about them than about the problem itself.


This is the problem I will refer to:


Donnerstag, 17. November 2011

About 'Double Hane'

What is Double Hane?

Double Hane is a blog about the board game Go (other names are weiqi or baduk). It will be a place to share my thoughts about the game and discuss all things Go.


Double Hane is not the blog of a high dan player. I'm in the process of becoming single digit kyu right now and Double Hane's purpose is to shed light on the game from a beginners's perspective - mine. I plan to document and discuss my thoughts, errors and improvements and I hope this will be of interest to other players too. Maybe someday it will even help someone to overcome hurdles I now still have to face.


I plan to update the blog at least once per weak.


Why the name 'Double Hane'?