About 2 weeks ago, I was playing a game of Go at the Stellenbosch club against Jaco. I had to give him 2 stones, and felt I had to attack strongly from the beginning. I let this cloud my judgment too much, and I left a group too weak at one stage…
Jaco pounced on the group, and ended up playing cat-and-mouse with it across the whole board. I realised that all was lost without a big kill somewhere, and spotted some potential cuts or kos which may be able to be used. He was in trouble with time, so I figured that was in my favour. After some more playing, I was also in byo-yomi, and it was time for my last ditch efforts. At this stage, the best I could do was force a small capture in exchange for him defending his huge group. The question was if he noticed the threat to his large group.
It turns out he didn’t. I managed to cut his group off, and it seemed as if I’d turned things around. If I’d won now: the ethical question is whether, since I had to rely on a reading error by him, I should have resigned earlier. And if, once he’d made the mistake, whether I should correct him or not. Given that he is under time pressure, brought on by bad time management earlier in the game.
Furthermore, the reading question was not entirely clear. After cutting him off, I blundered in response to his next move (as he and Bernard pointed out afterwards) – also due to time pressure. So all was lost. Until he started a ko I couldn’t possibly win. What we both missed at first was that by backing down from the ko, I once again threatened his whole group – my backing down move was one he would have seen the implications of if not for the ko. I noticed this before him, and he missed it. He connected the ko, and lost his large group again.
He resigned.
The result: he, who dominated the game, and was just unfortunate to make the last blunder of the game, loses rating points, while I, who was under pressure and outplayed and experienced the handicap as far too much, gain rating points. Quite a farce, in the end.
Should I resign these games? Some say yes, some say no: a high-dan player said the other day you should resign when you run out of ideas. The problem is that I have often got a lot of highly-unlikely-to-realize ideas, and they quite regularly win me games. Not because I’m better than the other player, but because they get careless, or overconfident, or inattentive. The question is if this tenacity by me is a good thing, or a thing to let go of.
Tough one. I hope a couple of people chip in with thoughtful answers, since I also want to know!
Hi! I’d like to add you to the Go Blog aggregator at http://planetgo.org/, but your RSS feed only shows extracts of each post. Do you think you could have it publish the whole posts in the RSS, and mail me when that’s working?
Thanks. :)
- Chris.
Changed
I’ve wrestled with this one too. Have you been on the other side of that situation in a game? You’re way ahead, yet your opponent continues to thrash about, and either exploits a weakness or lulls you into a bonehead play. I’ve come to the conclusion that being able to maintain concentration throughout the game (even if you are far ahead) is just as important as the rest of the game. So, given that, I don’t see it is a bad thing that you, being behind, push and kick with all you’ve got. You may eke out a win, your opponent may learn to respect the game to the last stone.
I will add one caveat: as your high-dan friend said, once you run out of ideas, it is time to resign. Slapping stones down without some goal to aim at is just an exercise in futility wasting your time and your opponent’s.
I can’t remember being on that side. Typically, I manage to hold on to my won games. The one exception is when I have an early lead, but get a surrounding group or cutting stones into trouble, but that’s usually more a strategic error than a tactical bonehead play.
Thanks for the response.
Not being a go player myself, I will just add a general comment on my feelings about learning in strategy games:
a) If an opponent can still lose a game through blunders, inattentiveness and silly mistakes, he still has something to learn.
b) If you can only win to taking advantage of said mistakes, you also have something to learn, but you should not deprive the opponent from his learning opportunity by letting him get away with poor play for whatever reason.
I tend to learn more by suffering the consequences of my mistakes than I do from being prevented from making them in the first place.
Thanks for your point, Carel. I’ve heard a similar viewpoint from a fellow Go-player called Chris.
However, I can’t help comparing this situation to that of locking your keys in your car. It’s something you’d hardly ever do, you know you shouldn’t do, and sometimes your mind just wanders that little bit. After it’s happened, sure, you kick yourself, and think “Damn! How stupid am I?”, but at the same time I feel a victim of a kind of cosmic injustice: “Why me? Why did _I_ have to be the idiot who locked himself out?”
I guess the question is how effective the experience is at stopping you locking yourself out the car again? I’m not sure that it doesn’t raise your paranoia levels just a little before you settle into your regular groove, and after that, I expect the likelihood of locking yourself out hasn’t really changed from before the previous incident.
Your take?