If in doubt, do the right thing.

If in doubt, do the right thing.

A couple of rules i try to follow when playing Go, because I lost too many games by ignoring them:

A couple of rules i try to follow when playing Go, because I lost too many games by ignoring them:

• Think at least 10 seconds about a move.
• Read at least 4 moves ahead.
• Read "broadly" instead of deeply.
• Think about life/death of ALL my groups that are not obviously alive. Later, recheck often.
• Check whether my opponent has weak groups. Check whether recently undefended group can be killed trivially.
• Check whether a ladder breaker has been played.
• Count points often, while opponent is thinking.
• Play sente moves early.
• Play sente move with largest threat first.
• If in doubt, invade instead of reducing.
• No overplays in the endgame, unless behind by a lot.
• If intuition says I'm ahead by a lot and I have no exact count, trust intuition & play defensively.
• Make sure I know exactly which time system is used.

• Always think at least 10 seconds (or the clock increment, whatever is lower) about a move, even if it seems trivial.
• Try to read at least 4 moves ahead.
• Try to read "broadly" instead of deeply. Too many deep lines are sub-optimal and thus a waste of time, because one of the very early moves is a mistake.
• I should think about life/death of ALL my groups that are not obviously alive, before playing tenuki. Later, recheck whenever opponent plays near one of my groups or every 5 moves.
• At least once a game I should check whether my opponent has weak groups. After every move I should check whether my opponent just left a group hanging by not defending or defending incorrectly. One usually doesn't expect these kind of egregious mistakes and thus doesn't look for them, which means many opportunities for early wins will be lost.
• If there's a stone trapped in a ladder, check after every move of my opponent whether a ladder breaker has been played.
• After every second move of my opponent I should count points, while my opponent is thinking. I help myself by remembering the result via two lines of stones representing tens and ones, for Black and White, respectively.
• Play all sente moves as early as possible. It's easy to forget them until it's too late.
• Play the sente move with the largest threat first.
• If in doubt, invade instead of reducing, especially if opponent's moyou is huge.
• No overplays in the endgame, unless I know for sure I'm behind by a lot.
• If my intuition says I'm ahead by a lot and I have no exact count, trust my intuition and play defensively.
• Before the tournament starts, make sure I know exactly which time system is used. It would be really unfortunate if, with 10 seconds on the clock, I have to ask myself "Do I get overtime or is it sudden death?"

The point of these is not that they are non-obvious or hard to understand, but that they are easy to forget and at least in my case common causes for losing a game. Some of them are easy to forget especially if you don't play against a good variety of opponents. I've played against at least one opponent who never left one of his groups hanging and so I've come to expect this kind of diligence of all my opponents. And then I lost a game against a different player that I could've won early, because this opponent did ignore an obvious move killing his entire group. I didn't look for it, because I didn't expect it and noticed the opportunity only once it was too late. The same happens in Chess. You wouldn't expect a player like Magnus Carlsen to overlook a mate in 2, but he does on occasion and if you're not looking for it, you will not find it.

By the way: If you try to follow any of these rules religiously for a while, it should become a habit eventually, making it much easier to follow the rule without having to remind yourself of it constantly.