Quote Mania 7

"Before I fall, I’ll look up to the sky with a smile." 

 From a song from the Prince of Tennis Musical

I am writing this right after I lost a pretty interesting game. I was white and my opponent played a cross-fuseki (well, I accidentally let him). Cross-fuseki's are my mortal enemy. I don't know why, but whenever one is played, either by me or my opponent, I start playing badly. That is not the topic, but I just wanted to throw my frustration out there.

Anyway, I felt like I was on the losing end the entire time, made some not-so-smart decisions (as if I ever make smart decisions) and he/she ended up with a big moyo that I had to invade. I almost lived, but almost isn't good enough so I lost. To get to the point, the game was frustrating, but fun.

In Quote Mania 3 I said that losing games is important to get stronger (which also happens to be general knowledge). But that's not the only thing. For most people, it would get boring to always win their games. Where is the fun if there is no challenge?
Sure, the best would be a game that is a challenge but you still win (for me anyway), but should I let that stop me from enjoying a game where I lose?

Not only did I learn something, I had fun playing and got motivated to do some more studying. Losing can, and should, be fun as well!

Quote Mania 6

Welcome to Quote Mania, where random quotes are forcefully related to go!

'The second you think you are doing well is the second you are finished.'

This.
This is so relevant I shouldn't be giving an explanation. I will give one, because I want to, but I shouldn't have to.

Hands up if you have ever lost a game you (thought) you had won. If your hand isn't up right now, I think you might not be human.
We've all had that game where everything just goes right. You're in a good mood, your opponent is challenging, but not better than you, and you are winning. Nothing could possibly go wrong. Right?

Usually this is where I lose focus on the game and lose. Either I was really winning and made a (stupid) mistake, or I wasn't winning at all, I was just being delusional. One way or the other, I get overconfident and lose.

It's not a bad thing to know if you are ahead or not in the game. You should count during the game! But when you then find out you are winning, getting overconfident is pretty much the worst that could happen. It makes you greedy, unfocused and generally not a nice person.

Overconfidence = bad. Stop it.

Which is a lot easier said than done.

Quote Mania 5

Welcome to 'Quote Mania', the series where I take a random quote completely out of context and forcefully relate it to go!
The 5th quote to be discussed is:

'People die if they are killed.'

 It's from the anime Fate/Stay Night. (but I just saw it floating around the internet)

Alright, this is not a serious quote, but it can actually be related to go quite simply. At least, if you replace 'people' with 'stones'. Unless you want to go all nuclear tesuji on people and smash their heads in with a go board, but that is a different story all together.

You see, I know that it's very important to not leave any weak groups on the board. There are like a million (ok, two) proverbs about it, and it's mentioned pretty much everywhere.
Actually, my style of play is quite safe, but sometimes I get a little over confident. Basically I take a big point, believing that my group will life anyway. In the process I leave the group looking like this:

And usually, I am right. The group CAN live. But while I make petty moves doing that, my opponent takes control of the entire board.

Trying to lessen my 'safe-play' is all nice and well, but I shouldn't be taking the wrong approach to it and stop defending. I should defend and then attack, not attack and then defend.


The quote is true, my group will die if it's killed. The issue is that it won't get killed. It will get kicked around, tortured and left near-death. And all in vain, because the game will be lost.




PS. There probably won't be any updates for at least 3 weeks. After that I will go to BIBA and see if I can update from there, and otherwise I'll be back in 5 weeks :).

Quote Mania 4

Welcome to 'Quote Mania', the series where I take a random quote completely out of context and forcefully relate it to go!
The 4th quote to be discussed is:

'If you keep running away, it will become a habit.'

Taken from the k-drama Monstar. (Ok, how did this end up in my list? I've never watched Monstar..) 

Although this might not be as relevant for players with different styles, for me this is actually a big problem.
I have been told a few times that my style of play is 'too gentle' and 'not threatening'. Which is true, because I am not a big fan of fighting.
Up until a while ago, I would even actively avoid fights because I didn't feel confident and had no idea on how gain profit from fights. Needless to say, I lost a lot of games because of this.
So, I needed to change that. I have been watching some lectures on attacking, and doing some problems everyday to improve my reading. Most of all, I try to force myself to play more aggressively during games. I made a rule for myself that I have to attack something (unless my opponent is very aggressive) and get into a fight. This might lose me some games I would have otherwise won, but I'm never going to improve if I don't practice. 

But, and this is where today's quote comes into play, it is hard. It happens to me quite often that by the end of the game I realize that I didn't actively attack anything, or that when I got attacked I just ran away, instead facing it head on. I keep running away from a direct confrontation, even when I should be able to get a decent result out of fighting. 
This habit was so 'natural' for me, that I didn't even want to get rid of it, before I realized that it was completely hindering my progress.

Of course, this doesn't only apply to fighting or the lack thereof, but also to other things. (Bad) habits are formed easily, but hard to get rid of. But even then, it is not impossible, and I believe it is important to at least try to get rid of them.

So for now, I will just keep trying to become a more aggressive player and to stop running away. 'Attack and Defense', here I come!

Quote Mania 3

"Don't just give up. 

Life is about getting knocked down over and over, but still getting up each time. 

If you keep getting up, you win."

Another quote from NANA by Yazawa Ai. 

Maybe you remember me mentioning that I kept quitting go? It was kind of the reason I even started this blog. Maybe you also remember that I said that every time I went back to playing go, my rank kind of jumped. No extreme amounts, but usually I would 'skip'  1 or 2 stones.

So for a while I would then feel that I was getting stronger very fast, and honestly I was. But then after a while I would naturally stagnate. Even though I knew there is more to go than just a rank, frustration would ensue and I would feel that nothing I did would make me stronger and I would give up. And all that in less than 2 weeks.

But go isn't something where you will improve a lot in a very short time. Of course, it depends on the amount of time you put in it, and your initial rank (ddk's will improve a lot faster than dans, usually), but even then you'll have to be patient for the 'results' to kick in.

You will have to do tsumego on an almost daily basis for a while until you notice a difference in your reading skills, you'll have to apply newly learned theory a few times before you'll get it right, etc.

Honestly, you cannot get better at go without losing, because you need those learning moments to get stronger. It might be almost impossible for me not to think about my rank or getting stronger (because I'm competitive like that), but at least I shouldn't let it hold me back from enjoying go.

From now on I will not see losing as a bad thing, but as an essential part of improving.

Quote Mania 2

‘There is no certainty, there is only adventure.’

It’s time for the second quote mania! This was said by Roberto Assagioli, an Italian psychiatrist. I honestly have no idea who he was or in what context it was said, this is one of those quotes I just saw floating around on the internet.

Regardless, I think it is quite applicable to go.

You never know where your opponent is going to play. You might have an idea, you might even be 99% sure, there is always a chance that your opponent will play elsewhere.

I think everybody gets surprised by moves now and then, whether they are good or bad.

To me, it’s exciting when that happens. A little frustrating, but exciting. It is what makes go fun, because you’re always learning new things. When you find out that the unexpected move is bad, you have learned that it doesn’t work. When you find out it is good, you have learned a new way of playing.

I think it gets frustrating when you start judging the surprising moves as bad. ‘Nobody has played that before, therefore it is a bad move.’ Admittedly, I have done that too. Some 150 moves later  I realized that maybe, it wasn’t such a bad move after all and I should have thought about it more. Result: I had lost a very frustrating game.

So, I changed my mindset. When I play an opponent who consequently makes surprising moves, I do not get frustrated anymore, but excited. Because I will get to experience something new. Because I can learn from it. Because I can go on an adventure!

Quote Mania 1

I have mentioned this before, but I am a communications student. I chose that study because I'm quite into words, writing and, obviously, communicating. Although I wouldn't call myself a great communicator, I am interested in how others communicate.

Anyway, this whole blog happened because I like writing (and go, obviously). 
While I was thinking about content for this blog, I suddenly thought of a file that I have had on my laptop that I made a few years ago. It contains quotes and phrases that I think are interesting, either because they inspire me, motivate me or just because I liked the way they were written/said.

They come from all over the place.

Even though none of them were written with go in mind, some can easily be related to go. So I will try and connect these quotes about everyday life and motivation to go. Perhaps they can even be useful, but I doubt that. 
The quote for this week will be:

 'People are only what they think of themselves.'

The source is NANA (either the manga or the anime or both, I don't remember) by Yazawa Ai.