If you play a very bad move, you may get angry or feel depressed.
If you have a tendency to become like that, then you have a very hard time turning around a game.
In fact, the more angry or depressed you become, the more you make a bigger mistake, and you lose more stones. Then you will get even more angry or depressed, and you will make a even bigger mistake. It’s a vicious cycle.
If you do that, you will never learn anything from that kind of emotional game.
Believe me. I’ve experienced it many times when I was an apprentice.
In my case I tried to study at least 10 hours, often 15 hours every day, Monday through Sunday, for 365 days without going to high school. Then I lost often for almost 3 years. Can you imagine how angry and depressed I was?
If you think you made a terrible mistake and lost a game, feel free to resign a game. Then watch a movie, walk outside, or do anything to refresh your mind. If you think you calm down, then you can review your game. If you don’t want to review it, then study a Go book.
Your main goal is to become strong. So don’t let your emotions control you. You have to manage yourself to control your emotions.
People who don’t care about their mistakes and / or people who are optimistic, tend to have a higher winning ratio in general. So it’s important for you not to get angry or depressed.
My first Go teacher was really good. He taught me that when he played a mistake, he naturally got mad at himself. But then he closed his eyes and counted 10 seconds. Then he often calmed down. When he opened his eyes, he could often find a move to minimize the loss or find a move to turn around a bad situation.
So you might want to write that down, put the note on your computer before a game, and when you make a big mistake, you should read it, close your eyes, and count 10.
Also you should keep in mind the following:
1. Regardless of how strong you become, you will always experience making a mistake or a flop. We are all humans, so we all make mistakes. So you might want to live with that. Even top pros make a serious blunder. A top pro couldn’t resign a game and resulted in 35 point loss. Pros usually resign a game when they are losing 10 points or so. So counting a 35-point loss was such a shame. I guess this pro really lost his mind during a game. In fact, he did it more than once. Later he never lost his mind during a game and won more than 50 titles.
2. You may think you make mistakes more than your opponent, but that may not be true. Your opponent also makes lots of mistakes, maybe more than you do. But people tend to feel that you always make mistakes more than an opponent. When I look at my students’ games, their opponents often make more mistakes or bigger mistakes. But I don’t pay much attention to it because they are not my students.
3. You may think that you made a mistake, but it can often be a good move. I have had experience like this many times. I thought I really played badly. But when my first Go teacher reviewed it, he told me that my moves were good. When I review my students’ games, the moves they thought were bad, were not necessarily bad. Some moves are good. So be optimistic.
A state of mind can make you two stones weaker very easily, sometimes four stones weaker. I’ve experienced it many times. So the psychological effect is really big.
As long as you’re my students, I’ll help you. So be optimistic. So be optimistic, then you may very well increase your winning ratio.
via Go, Igo, Weiqi, Baduk. Kaz’s original Igo-advice & fundamentals of Igo http://ift.tt/1qw4sBP
August 01, 2014 at 02:58PM
Weiqi To Go 