@jarosawjusiak6716 asked: @BenKyoBaduk Do you know what was a game changer for you? Was it tsumego, or you just simply practiced reading during the game? Or maybe it was joseki studying? MY REPLY: @jarosawjusiak6716 I have multiple answers for this quickly off the top of my head. 1. Attitude and mindset; paradigm With the right experiences, influences from others, varied Go experiences, time spent IRL around strong players and a willingness to open my mind to feeling differently about things I was able to make some important shifts that affected my strategies, impression of unexpected moves/ways of playing and my attitude towards losing in various ways. Some of this attitude stuff also has to do with appreciating the power of offense, having a competitive attitude with your moves on the board, always wanting to find better moves and more ways to pressure the opponent, and cringing and hesitating to play anything (eg. defense) with low effect on the score (low value / point value), trying hard to find ways not to do so. "No pain, no gain" attitude and avoiding trying to make things easier for yourself (for example you should read ladders out move by move 1-by-1 to cultivate yourself, eventually you can read them correctly in 2-3 seconds). Also things like always reading lots of things on the board instead of only turning "on" your reading mode in a pinch, which brings me to the next answer... 2. Reading a lot more in games was a huge for me After my training for 5 months in Korea in 2009 as a Canadian 5-6 dan who wanted to keep up the pro dream and delay university, I trained myself mainly just by playing a lot on Tygem because I couldn't afford a teacher or whatever else, so I played a lot, and I decided to start 5X-ing (maybe 10X-ing?) the amount of reading I do during a game. I remember that "five times as much" was what I told myself. I find reading things out in games more enjoyable, providing more variety of things to read, and more motivated. Doing this skyrocketed my reading ability. After about a decade not really training at all, I started teaching full-time like this in 2021, and when I started fitting in some training for myself starting around late 2021 (not nearly as much as I'd like because I was so busy building a business from nothing), my improvement simply resumed from where I'd left off, and I kept reading a lot in each game, and over the past 3 years I've noticed more drastic improvements in my reading again, more than tsumego ever did for me although we still need to work in some tsumego too. One other thing making my reading continue to improve, which is pretty much the same thing as reading a lot in games, is that I read things out a lot when I'm teaching, for example when I'm doing game reviews or teaching games. Looking at Go boards every day even if not training, and reading things in my head instead of clicking through with the mouse, makes my reading keep getting better even while I'm not otherwise playing or studying :) I think it's the same thing though--reading lots of things in real-game positions, not just what we think we NEED to read, but a whole lot more. Invasions, attachments, large nets, reading out the way the opening might play out, reading in joseki when you don't know the way. There's plenty to read during your opponent's turn even when you're not in trouble anywhere.
1) I made a note to check out your video on the one space low pincer to a 34 stone. More because I like to approach 34 stones low and need to be ready. 2) yes, i am aware of additional benkyo baduk resources on the web. 3) I could be interested in supporting via patreon. finances are tight, and I splurge a little for youtube premium to not watch ads, but maybe i could swing something. Love the channel. Great atmosphere and instruction. Cheers!
Thank you so much for that :) Yeah the pincer is not only the one anyway but is super strong up to 2d or somewhere there at farming mistakes from opponents :) lots of general techniques to learn as well both from the tricks and the normal variations. Cheers!
QUESTIONS FOR YOU: 1. You may find many tips and Go wisdom nuggets in this one, including the review. What were any major things you learned from this video? 2. Do you know about the other BenKyo Baduk places, such as the Discord community, Twitch streams, Patreon, Twitter / X etc.? 3. Would you have any interest in private lessons, or joining or learning BenKyo League, the classes I run and things like this? It's never too early for these things. very open to questions, can also put you in touch with any of my students to chat. discord.gg/BenKyoBaduk Twitch.tv/BenKyoBaduk X.com/BenKyoBaduk
Hey ! I liked your thought about how you were poor at reading, it gives us some hope ;) do you always count 1-2-3-4 when reading? I usually go black white black white in my head but I'd like to try your way, it seems better ! Also I liked the liberty fight and your tips about it. 2 - I'm on your discord but I'm not familiar with it and only using a phone. I considered the league but I'm a bit scared about how it works and I don't know if I have enough time to play these days (usually 1 to 3 games a week). But I may try it soon ;) Great video as always, thanks for the lecture :) see you !
Hey! Thanks First thing: I actually don't do any sound/counting thing normally but just a bit for videos. I wouldn't say my reading is so "fast" but I think doing some kind of counting would slow it down. I verbalize (and naturally slow down) my thoughts for videos and streams though. To be honest, the mouse also gets in my way visually lol, when I play by myself not for content, I keep mouse off the screen until I know where I'm playing, and often hand off the mouse unless we're playing fast. Second thing: The league is for any level (sounds like you're not beginner though) and is super wholesome as a community. Also, we have no required number of games to play per month, and the scheduling is super flexible and easy too. Thank you for the comment and nice feedback!
1. Joseki and corner fight analysis was definitely interesting and sth I can profit from. 2 and 3 - I'm already an Benkyo League member. I liked you sharing your reading skills were poor. I mean I find it interesting because personally I'm ridiculously poor at reading for my level so it gives me some hope :) It is still hard for me to believe that such a strong player was struggling with technical skills. Usually it's kind of opposite. Strong and gifted players are good at fighting, reading, tsumego but quite often lack whole board thinking, have not so great direction of play and win most of their game by cutting and killing opponent's groups. Once they reach dan level, they are more balanced and use readin skills for their own safty first rather than attaking all the time. I could find any example of a intermediate or advanced player who's weakness was reading ability.
I'm so glad I could spark some hope, yes I was just like most of my students tend to be (I think weak reading/technical skills and stronger strategy/territory skills is a common player shape) and my wall was reading and such, and when I improved at that I made it past some walls. I feel pretty balanced now.
@@BenKyoBaduk Do you know what was a game changer for you? Was it tsume go, or you just simply practiced reading during the game? Or maybe it was joseki studying?
@@jarosawjusiak6716 I have multiple answers for this quickly off the top of my head. 1. Attitude and mindset; paradigm With the right experiences, influences from others, varied Go experiences, time spent IRL around strong players and a willingness to open my mind to feeling differently about things I was able to make some important shifts that affected my strategies, impression of unexpected moves/ways of playing and my attitude towards losing in various ways. Some of this attitude stuff also has to do with appreciating the power of offense, having a competitive attitude with your moves on the board, always wanting to find better moves and more ways to pressure the opponent, and cringing and hesitating to play anything (eg. defense) with low effect on the score (low value / point value), trying hard to find ways not to do so. "No pain, no gain" attitude and avoiding trying to make things easier for yourself (for example you should read ladders out move by move 1-by-1 to cultivate yourself, eventually you can read them correctly in 2-3 seconds). Also things like always reading lots of things on the board instead of only turning "on" your reading mode in a pinch, which brings me to the next answer... 2. Reading a lot more in games was a huge for me After my training for 5 months in Korea in 2009 as a Canadian 5-6 dan who wanted to keep up the pro dream and delay university, I trained myself mainly just by playing a lot on Tygem because I couldn't afford a teacher or whatever else, so I played a lot, and I decided to start 5X-ing (maybe 10X-ing?) the amount of reading I do during a game. I remember that "five times as much" was what I told myself. I find reading things out in games more enjoyable, providing more variety of things to read, and more motivated. Doing this skyrocketed my reading ability. After about a decade not really training at all, I started teaching full-time like this in 2021, and when I started fitting in some training for myself starting around late 2021 (not nearly as much as I'd like because I was so busy building a business from nothing), my improvement simply resumed from where I'd left off, and I kept reading a lot in each game, and over the past 3 years I've noticed more drastic improvements in my reading again, more than tsumego ever did for me although we still need to work in some tsumego too. One other thing making my reading continue to improve, which is pretty much the same thing as reading a lot in games, is that I read things out a lot when I'm teaching, for example when I'm doing game reviews or teaching games. Looking at Go boards every day even if not training, and reading things in my head instead of clicking through with the mouse, makes my reading keep getting better even while I'm not otherwise playing or studying :) I think it's the same thing though--reading lots of things in real-game positions, not just what we think we NEED to read, but a whole lot more. Invasions, attachments, large nets, reading out the way the opening might play out, reading in joseki when you don't know the way. There's plenty to read during your opponent's turn even when you're not in trouble anywhere.
@@BenKyoBaduk That is absolutely fantastic answer, so deep and detailed. Thank you so much for your amazing feedback. I really do appreciate it a lot. Personally I hate tsumego. I force myself to do it every day, at least 5-10 problems but I don't like it at all and I see no progress over last year. Reading during the game is a completely different story and for some reason I find it enjoyable but got often frustrated because my reading is very slow and inaccurate. I may be able to read a sequence of 10 moves properly but counting liberties on imaginary shape hardly ever works well for me. That's why your feedback is so precious and gives me some motivation to continue or maybe even increase my efforts on reading during the game and patiently wait for improvement.
I don't think so, but maybe the "forcing move" one is used more often when it's particularly mandatory to respond, and maybe not when something is "sente" but kind of still ignorable (mutual destruction). They're probably the same though, just a choice of words. I usually just say "sente" but I think some people like Michael Redmon might like "forcing" because it's more English-accessible, although he still says "sente" too. Ultimately there are some Japanese Go terms we have to know, and some we can replace. We don't really NEED 'keima' or 'kakari', but trying to go without 'sente', 'atari' or even 'hane' will get one lost fast haha.
Woah, a talking fox! Well, my oldest major memory of a big change in myself for endgame was Guo Juan talking about it (I think? so long ago) at a tournament in 2008, and then I had a tournament game right after that (I think I was 1k) and applied it immediately in a huge way. Into late middle-game I was even with my opponent (a known solid 1d) but I noticed he was making lots of little corridors in the center, and I realized it was a chance to ignore most of those moves--if anything just getting in the way a touch here and a touch there when necessary for just a single exchange or two--and grab the big second line stuff. By the end of the game I won by I think it was 20.5 or something like that. I remember reviewing with people and knowing that it was pretty even before that, maybe I was behind. That's where my appreciation for move values began (because this stuff is not just endgame, it's move values in general and even affects how you think about moves in the opening or during fights). Beyond that, where did I learn a lot of the knowledge... Hmmm, not from a book. Honestly I think a lot of it was being shown/told by stronger friends of mine, bringing questions about these moves to them. It's funny but I don't really remember a particular resource, though I can say that when I went to train in Korea as a Canadian 3d (which was 2009...I guess not long after that 2008 tournament now that I think about it!) we were drilled every day on all sorts of things including endgame, so I guess I basically learned this stuff as a 2-3d, leading up to my return to Canada. After that, CGA helped me update my rank a few stones ^_^ I think move values is one of the most important Go topics, because it's literally the most connected topic to the objective of the game. Anymore questions welcome! My response won't always be an autobiography lol
@@BenKyoBaduk Dang, I was hoping for a more concrete "here are some resources that one can study and use to directly improve at endgame". Thanks for the details, anyway! I do agree that very often too many people focus on abstract concepts about Go rather than the actual goal of points. And I very frequently see this lead new players astray when they try to improve solely on the back of proverbs and rules-of-thumb. I think it is important for players to learn to visualize where their points are and where their opponent's points are and to at least try to count them, very early into learning the gsme.
For me the hardest part of the endgame is to calculate if to tenuki after a move that can destroy your territory, and just go to destroy your opponents as well. Sometimes it is better than letting your opponent get all the biggies, but is risky if not calculated well
@@pi4795 Yes, offering mutual response or mutual destruction is ballsy but necessary to not fall behind when playing the endgame properly; but it is hard to know for sure who exactly stands to lose more.
@@JustACuteFox What you said is totally on point, yes! Re: endgame - I can find you some, you may find them just as well though. What I REALLY recommend is for you to ask in my Discord server, people there are really good about helping and love to give their input and share the resources they know. You could for example ping "@Go Players" there (one of the roles) and ask for it. You might consider doing that in the #go-general channel or #endgame channel. discord.gg/benkyobaduk
@jarosawjusiak6716 asked:
@BenKyoBaduk Do you know what was a game changer for you? Was it tsumego, or you just simply practiced reading during the game? Or maybe it was joseki studying?
MY REPLY:
@jarosawjusiak6716 I have multiple answers for this quickly off the top of my head.
1. Attitude and mindset; paradigm
With the right experiences, influences from others, varied Go experiences, time spent IRL around strong players and a willingness to open my mind to feeling differently about things I was able to make some important shifts that affected my strategies, impression of unexpected moves/ways of playing and my attitude towards losing in various ways. Some of this attitude stuff also has to do with appreciating the power of offense, having a competitive attitude with your moves on the board, always wanting to find better moves and more ways to pressure the opponent, and cringing and hesitating to play anything (eg. defense) with low effect on the score (low value / point value), trying hard to find ways not to do so. "No pain, no gain" attitude and avoiding trying to make things easier for yourself (for example you should read ladders out move by move 1-by-1 to cultivate yourself, eventually you can read them correctly in 2-3 seconds). Also things like always reading lots of things on the board instead of only turning "on" your reading mode in a pinch, which brings me to the next answer...
2. Reading a lot more in games was a huge for me
After my training for 5 months in Korea in 2009 as a Canadian 5-6 dan who wanted to keep up the pro dream and delay university, I trained myself mainly just by playing a lot on Tygem because I couldn't afford a teacher or whatever else, so I played a lot, and I decided to start 5X-ing (maybe 10X-ing?) the amount of reading I do during a game. I remember that "five times as much" was what I told myself. I find reading things out in games more enjoyable, providing more variety of things to read, and more motivated. Doing this skyrocketed my reading ability.
After about a decade not really training at all, I started teaching full-time like this in 2021, and when I started fitting in some training for myself starting around late 2021 (not nearly as much as I'd like because I was so busy building a business from nothing), my improvement simply resumed from where I'd left off, and I kept reading a lot in each game, and over the past 3 years I've noticed more drastic improvements in my reading again, more than tsumego ever did for me although we still need to work in some tsumego too.
One other thing making my reading continue to improve, which is pretty much the same thing as reading a lot in games, is that I read things out a lot when I'm teaching, for example when I'm doing game reviews or teaching games. Looking at Go boards every day even if not training, and reading things in my head instead of clicking through with the mouse, makes my reading keep getting better even while I'm not otherwise playing or studying :) I think it's the same thing though--reading lots of things in real-game positions, not just what we think we NEED to read, but a whole lot more. Invasions, attachments, large nets, reading out the way the opening might play out, reading in joseki when you don't know the way. There's plenty to read during your opponent's turn even when you're not in trouble anywhere.
1) I made a note to check out your video on the one space low pincer to a 34 stone. More because I like to approach 34 stones low and need to be ready.
2) yes, i am aware of additional benkyo baduk resources on the web.
3) I could be interested in supporting via patreon. finances are tight, and I splurge a little for youtube premium to not watch ads, but maybe i could swing something.
Love the channel. Great atmosphere and instruction.
Cheers!
Thank you so much for that :)
Yeah the pincer is not only the one anyway but is super strong up to 2d or somewhere there at farming mistakes from opponents :) lots of general techniques to learn as well both from the tricks and the normal variations.
Cheers!
QUESTIONS FOR YOU:
1. You may find many tips and Go wisdom nuggets in this one, including the review. What were any major things you learned from this video?
2. Do you know about the other BenKyo Baduk places, such as the Discord community, Twitch streams, Patreon, Twitter / X etc.?
3. Would you have any interest in private lessons, or joining or learning BenKyo League, the classes I run and things like this? It's never too early for these things. very open to questions, can also put you in touch with any of my students to chat.
discord.gg/BenKyoBaduk
Twitch.tv/BenKyoBaduk
X.com/BenKyoBaduk
Hey ! I liked your thought about how you were poor at reading, it gives us some hope ;) do you always count 1-2-3-4 when reading? I usually go black white black white in my head but I'd like to try your way, it seems better ! Also I liked the liberty fight and your tips about it.
2 - I'm on your discord but I'm not familiar with it and only using a phone. I considered the league but I'm a bit scared about how it works and I don't know if I have enough time to play these days (usually 1 to 3 games a week). But I may try it soon ;)
Great video as always, thanks for the lecture :) see you !
Hey! Thanks
First thing: I actually don't do any sound/counting thing normally but just a bit for videos. I wouldn't say my reading is so "fast" but I think doing some kind of counting would slow it down. I verbalize (and naturally slow down) my thoughts for videos and streams though. To be honest, the mouse also gets in my way visually lol, when I play by myself not for content, I keep mouse off the screen until I know where I'm playing, and often hand off the mouse unless we're playing fast.
Second thing: The league is for any level (sounds like you're not beginner though) and is super wholesome as a community. Also, we have no required number of games to play per month, and the scheduling is super flexible and easy too.
Thank you for the comment and nice feedback!
1. Joseki and corner fight analysis was definitely interesting and sth I can profit from.
2 and 3 - I'm already an Benkyo League member.
I liked you sharing your reading skills were poor. I mean I find it interesting because personally I'm ridiculously poor at reading for my level so it gives me some hope :) It is still hard for me to believe that such a strong player was struggling with technical skills. Usually it's kind of opposite. Strong and gifted players are good at fighting, reading, tsumego but quite often lack whole board thinking, have not so great direction of play and win most of their game by cutting and killing opponent's groups. Once they reach dan level, they are more balanced and use readin skills for their own safty first rather than attaking all the time. I could find any example of a intermediate or advanced player who's weakness was reading ability.
I'm so glad I could spark some hope, yes I was just like most of my students tend to be (I think weak reading/technical skills and stronger strategy/territory skills is a common player shape) and my wall was reading and such, and when I improved at that I made it past some walls. I feel pretty balanced now.
@@BenKyoBaduk Do you know what was a game changer for you? Was it tsume go, or you just simply practiced reading during the game? Or maybe it was joseki studying?
@@jarosawjusiak6716 I have multiple answers for this quickly off the top of my head.
1. Attitude and mindset; paradigm
With the right experiences, influences from others, varied Go experiences, time spent IRL around strong players and a willingness to open my mind to feeling differently about things I was able to make some important shifts that affected my strategies, impression of unexpected moves/ways of playing and my attitude towards losing in various ways. Some of this attitude stuff also has to do with appreciating the power of offense, having a competitive attitude with your moves on the board, always wanting to find better moves and more ways to pressure the opponent, and cringing and hesitating to play anything (eg. defense) with low effect on the score (low value / point value), trying hard to find ways not to do so. "No pain, no gain" attitude and avoiding trying to make things easier for yourself (for example you should read ladders out move by move 1-by-1 to cultivate yourself, eventually you can read them correctly in 2-3 seconds). Also things like always reading lots of things on the board instead of only turning "on" your reading mode in a pinch, which brings me to the next answer...
2. Reading a lot more in games was a huge for me
After my training for 5 months in Korea in 2009 as a Canadian 5-6 dan who wanted to keep up the pro dream and delay university, I trained myself mainly just by playing a lot on Tygem because I couldn't afford a teacher or whatever else, so I played a lot, and I decided to start 5X-ing (maybe 10X-ing?) the amount of reading I do during a game. I remember that "five times as much" was what I told myself. I find reading things out in games more enjoyable, providing more variety of things to read, and more motivated. Doing this skyrocketed my reading ability.
After about a decade not really training at all, I started teaching full-time like this in 2021, and when I started fitting in some training for myself starting around late 2021 (not nearly as much as I'd like because I was so busy building a business from nothing), my improvement simply resumed from where I'd left off, and I kept reading a lot in each game, and over the past 3 years I've noticed more drastic improvements in my reading again, more than tsumego ever did for me although we still need to work in some tsumego too.
One other thing making my reading continue to improve, which is pretty much the same thing as reading a lot in games, is that I read things out a lot when I'm teaching, for example when I'm doing game reviews or teaching games. Looking at Go boards every day even if not training, and reading things in my head instead of clicking through with the mouse, makes my reading keep getting better even while I'm not otherwise playing or studying :) I think it's the same thing though--reading lots of things in real-game positions, not just what we think we NEED to read, but a whole lot more. Invasions, attachments, large nets, reading out the way the opening might play out, reading in joseki when you don't know the way. There's plenty to read during your opponent's turn even when you're not in trouble anywhere.
@@BenKyoBaduk That is absolutely fantastic answer, so deep and detailed. Thank you so much for your amazing feedback. I really do appreciate it a lot. Personally I hate tsumego. I force myself to do it every day, at least 5-10 problems but I don't like it at all and I see no progress over last year. Reading during the game is a completely different story and for some reason I find it enjoyable but got often frustrated because my reading is very slow and inaccurate. I may be able to read a sequence of 10 moves properly but counting liberties on imaginary shape hardly ever works well for me. That's why your feedback is so precious and gives me some motivation to continue or maybe even increase my efforts on reading during the game and patiently wait for improvement.
Are there some nuances between a forcing versus a sente move?
I don't think so, but maybe the "forcing move" one is used more often when it's particularly mandatory to respond, and maybe not when something is "sente" but kind of still ignorable (mutual destruction). They're probably the same though, just a choice of words. I usually just say "sente" but I think some people like Michael Redmon might like "forcing" because it's more English-accessible, although he still says "sente" too. Ultimately there are some Japanese Go terms we have to know, and some we can replace. We don't really NEED 'keima' or 'kakari', but trying to go without 'sente', 'atari' or even 'hane' will get one lost fast haha.
Hmm
What did you study for endgame knowledge?
Woah, a talking fox!
Well, my oldest major memory of a big change in myself for endgame was Guo Juan talking about it (I think? so long ago) at a tournament in 2008, and then I had a tournament game right after that (I think I was 1k) and applied it immediately in a huge way. Into late middle-game I was even with my opponent (a known solid 1d) but I noticed he was making lots of little corridors in the center, and I realized it was a chance to ignore most of those moves--if anything just getting in the way a touch here and a touch there when necessary for just a single exchange or two--and grab the big second line stuff. By the end of the game I won by I think it was 20.5 or something like that. I remember reviewing with people and knowing that it was pretty even before that, maybe I was behind.
That's where my appreciation for move values began (because this stuff is not just endgame, it's move values in general and even affects how you think about moves in the opening or during fights). Beyond that, where did I learn a lot of the knowledge... Hmmm, not from a book.
Honestly I think a lot of it was being shown/told by stronger friends of mine, bringing questions about these moves to them. It's funny but I don't really remember a particular resource, though I can say that when I went to train in Korea as a Canadian 3d (which was 2009...I guess not long after that 2008 tournament now that I think about it!) we were drilled every day on all sorts of things including endgame, so I guess I basically learned this stuff as a 2-3d, leading up to my return to Canada. After that, CGA helped me update my rank a few stones ^_^
I think move values is one of the most important Go topics, because it's literally the most connected topic to the objective of the game.
Anymore questions welcome! My response won't always be an autobiography lol
@@BenKyoBaduk Dang, I was hoping for a more concrete "here are some resources that one can study and use to directly improve at endgame". Thanks for the details, anyway!
I do agree that very often too many people focus on abstract concepts about Go rather than the actual goal of points. And I very frequently see this lead new players astray when they try to improve solely on the back of proverbs and rules-of-thumb. I think it is important for players to learn to visualize where their points are and where their opponent's points are and to at least try to count them, very early into learning the gsme.
For me the hardest part of the endgame is to calculate if to tenuki after a move that can destroy your territory, and just go to destroy your opponents as well. Sometimes it is better than letting your opponent get all the biggies, but is risky if not calculated well
@@pi4795 Yes, offering mutual response or mutual destruction is ballsy but necessary to not fall behind when playing the endgame properly; but it is hard to know for sure who exactly stands to lose more.
@@JustACuteFox What you said is totally on point, yes!
Re: endgame - I can find you some, you may find them just as well though. What I REALLY recommend is for you to ask in my Discord server, people there are really good about helping and love to give their input and share the resources they know. You could for example ping "@Go Players" there (one of the roles) and ask for it. You might consider doing that in the #go-general channel or #endgame channel.
discord.gg/benkyobaduk