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.