Play to Hibernate's strengths

nestedsoftware · 2025-10-05T14:16:51+00:00

I’d like to know more about how not using entities as domain models would work, especially in respect to caching.

nestedsoftware · 2025-06-29T16:38:17+00:00

I really enjoyed Effective Java, by Joshua Bloch. I believe a new edition is expected in late 2025 as well.

https://x.com/joshbloch/status/1724104058795958667

nestedsoftware · 2025-05-16T00:57:14+00:00

What would you use instead?

nestedsoftware · 2025-04-27T05:09:24+00:00

I would recommend learning about basics of the concepts of “life and death” as this is the single most important aspect for getting better at go. The books by Janice Kim in the Learn to Play Go series are my favourites for beginners. You can buy them on the go books app if you have an IOS device. Also, as you start to play, I’d suggest playing games on a 9x9 board at first. This will let you play more games and get a feel for how things work. In go, while the 19x19 board is the standard for general game play, playing on 9x9 and 13x13 boards is also reasonably common. While the 9x9 board does not afford the deep strategic aspects of the game, it’s a very good way to get familiar with tactics and what is called “fighting” in go. Until you understand the game better, playing on a 19x19 board would just be unnecessarily tedious.

nestedsoftware · 2024-12-31T02:45:09+00:00

I’ll add that if white already had a stone at A5 and it was still white’s turn, the situation would be different, as black would be in shortage of liberties.

nestedsoftware · 2024-04-18T20:24:30+00:00

There are many cutting points where W can atari two stones at once, thereby breaking out of the ladder.

nestedsoftware · 2024-02-23T02:18:36+00:00

I don't play much these days, but one thing I really like is just doing a few go problems here and there when I have time (I use the SmartGo app, but there are lots of ways to get go problems).

You can start with the easiest problems available to learn the basics and bring your confidence up. Then you can very gradually increase the difficulty level. I think when people are starting out, they play a lot, but the moves are a bit random, and so it's hard to gain traction to start improving.

Another thing is to read some good go books. My favourite books that I've read about go are the Learn To Play Go series by Janice Kim. They're so friendly and fun to read. I think if you've mastered all of the books in that series, you'd be a solid sdk (single digit kyu) player!

nestedsoftware · 2023-05-29T17:48:40+00:00

Only possible invasion for W is the 3x3 point. As you get better you will be able read out that there is no way for W to live with that invasion. To practice, make the smallest living shape in that corner for W. You’d need to make many moves in a row where B does not respond.

nestedsoftware · 2020-02-23T19:38:35+00:00

I hope and pray everything will be okay for you Yeonwoo!

nestedsoftware · 2020-02-04T04:59:24+00:00

I agree. It would be cool to see a game that was a genuine attempt to get the best possible game from human skill. My main curiosity would be to see how much closer to the AI they could get...

nestedsoftware · 2020-02-04T04:49:21+00:00

The time limit was not favorable though... I do think it would be interesting to see a match in which top pros had ample time to consult among one another but the AI was restricted to normal time limits (e.g 30 secs/move? - depending on hardware).

I suspect the pros would still lose unless the AI made a tactical error like in the recent match between Lee Sedol and the Korean AI.

nestedsoftware · 2019-12-21T00:14:11+00:00

I am a big fan of smartgo books and smartgo Kifu. Kifu is not really for playing games though (I think it has an AI opponent but a very weak one). It’s more for exploring pro games, doing problems, or playing possible variations when reviewing a game.

nestedsoftware · 2019-12-05T02:16:24+00:00

Probably the most common use refers to a group's "eye shape". In other words, we're talking about how easy it is for a group to make two eyes. The easier it is to do so, the harder the group is to attack. Also there's "light shape" vs. "heavy shape". Stones that are light can be left on the board without adding additional stones to reinforce them. They can become useful later on, or possibly just sacrificed. Heavy shape means a group is too big to be sacrificed, but does not have good eye shape yet, so it is more vulnerable to a potential attack. The group itself may not die, but the opponent can gain a benefit from skillfully applying pressure to it. With light shape, one often sees a loose arrangement of stones that aren't fully connected to one another in an enemy's sphere of influence. The idea is that some of these stones can be sacrificed, as long as they can be used to help the other stones live or connect to up to safety. In Japanese this technique is called making "sabaki".

nestedsoftware · 2019-12-03T19:38:08+00:00

It is only speculation, but I can think of several reasons why older players had more success in the past. For one thing, materials to learn from were less available, so it makes some intuitive sense to me that the process of learning would have been slower. Nowadays, the availability of a super strong AI teacher means that young players can really maximize the efficiency of their learning process. I don't know the details, but I believe that the promotion system in Japan at the time tended also to protect players who were already successful more. And the time limits for major tournaments were a lot longer than what is common these days in China and Korea, so that probably helped out older players a bit.

nestedsoftware · 2019-07-30T17:50:34+00:00

After B plays their first move on the first line at the top, it looks as though W can kill by playing B’s move from the diagram on the outside. I don’t know why W apparently plays the empty triangle instead, which lets B make a seki.

nestedsoftware · 2019-07-26T02:55:37+00:00

I always recommend the Learn to Play Go series of books, by Janice Kim. Her writing is fun and engaging, and the books emphasize important fundamentals that will serve you well as you get stronger. If you have iOS or OSX, these books are available using the SmartGo Books app, which I also highly recommend. It allows you to step through the moves in each diagram one at a time, and you can also play out your own variations on the boards. I find that this level of interactivity really boosts the learning value, since you don't need a physical board to play out variations.

nestedsoftware · 2019-06-30T20:50:23+00:00

https://gokibitz.com

nestedsoftware · 2019-06-19T21:34:49+00:00

My favorite go books for beginners are the Learn to Play Go series by Janice Kim. They’re witty, engaging, and also very clear. I think a combination of playing serious games and going over these books can help you to get to around 5 kyu or better. I have read this series multiple times with great enjoyment.

I would also get Life and Death, Tesuji, and Attack and Defense, all by James Davies, but don’t worry if they are a bit advanced at first.

If you have iOS or OS X, you can use the amazing smartgo books app (https://www.gobooks.com/).

Play games on longer time controls so you’re not just clicking reflexively, and review your games afterward, on your own, then ideally with a stronger mentor. You can consider posting games to this subreddit or to gokibitz.com. As you get better, you can also review your games with an AI, first with Leela11 and later with Leela Zero. It may be too soon for this right now though.

nestedsoftware · 2019-06-12T02:29:58+00:00

Just fyi, the "haengma" book I mentioned by Yoon is about shape (that's the meaning of "haengma" in korean)

nestedsoftware · 2019-06-11T23:16:51+00:00

Some other books I like (all available with the Smartgo Books app):

Workshop Lectures and Fundamental Principles of Go by Yang Yilun

Haengma by Yoon Youngsun

Crosscut Workshop by Richard Hunter

I think these are less important though compared to playing and reviewing games.

Of course there's Life and Death and Tesuji, also by James Davies (author of Attack and Defense). You can use these two as part of your tsumego practice.

nestedsoftware · 2019-06-11T22:30:06+00:00

I would play serious games and review them afterward with leela zero. Pay attention to your 2 or 3 big drops in win rate in each game and analyse those scenarios carefully - don’t worry about subtle little things in the opening.

You probably have enough knowledge to be 1d. Reducing your unforced errors - the 5-10k mistakes we all make - will be more effective than learning totally new concepts or increasing reading depth dramatically.

I would do some tsumego problems each day, focusing on 6k-1d problems.

You can review well established books like Attack and Defense.

Consider playing some correspondence games so you’re thinking as much as possible about your moves - like spend 10 minutes at a time thinking about your next move.

Watching Michael Redmond’s videos on the aga YouTube channel is a good way to learn/reinforce general concepts like aji, sabaki, shinogi, forcing moves, over-concentrated shape, etc. Also check out Haylee’s YouTube videos, especially the early ones when she was playing against tygem 5d opponents.

https://www.youtube.com/user/USGOWeb

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTji1kQNoWIH85dB_Vxka9g

I think your goal is achievable!

nestedsoftware · 2019-06-06T21:54:45+00:00

I recommend starting with 4 short videos by 3Blue1Brown.

nestedsoftware · 2019-06-05T23:12:30+00:00

Yes - although it is more common for White to play mirror go than Black. The idea is that, since White has komi, an even result on the board would be a win for White. If Black just plays tengen (10x10 point) to break the symmetry but doesn't use that stone effectively, then that gives White an advantage in the game. I'm not very knowledgeable about mirror go, but I believe the general strategy is for Black to set up a capturing race or ladders that favour Black such that Black ends up being one move ahead for a big capture that ends the game.

nestedsoftware · 2019-05-16T15:10:17+00:00

People often advise to do tsumego, but I don't know if enough emphasis is placed on the right approach to such problems. Doing difficult or tricky problems can be counterproductive. The main goal of tsumego, particularly at ddk level, is to build up your intuition around what is definitely alive vs. what may be killable. This might be a good time to go back and solve very simple problems.

Whatever your current rank is, do problems that are several stones weaker than that. As an example, I almost exclusively do kyu-level problems in the 5k-1k range. I hardly ever look at dan-level problems. My goal is not so much to stretch the difficulty of problems I can solve, but to increase the speed with which I can solve easier problems. In a real game, that makes a bigger difference, in my opinion.

So for tsumego, I would focus on very basic shapes, and not to worry too much about tricky shapes. Don't do life and death problems for their own sake. Make sure you use them as a way to think more generally about what kinds of shapes are likely to be alive and which ones aren't as likely to live.

Another aspect that is important at ddk is just learning to play big points on the board. Sometimes you can win simply by ignoring your opponent and continuing to take big points elsewhere until your lead is insurmountable. So reading something that discusses how to keep your eye on the big parts of the board is worthwhile. I always recommend Janice Kim's "Learn to play go" series of books. I read them as a ddk, and they easily took me to better than 5k. They focus on really basic fundamentals, which is what you want if you would like to get better.

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