mentality

Why do I lose when the other one is weaker?

Hi everyone, first of all  I am going to tackle you today with the theme of how important mentality is while playing a sport like Baduk or Table tennis and so on. I got this interesting link about this theme from a friend, who plays go for years and got to 2-3dan. http://tabletennis.about.com/od/beginnersfaqs/a/why_you_lose.htm He also noticed firsthand how the pressure while playing is influencing his games against other dan players. I have to agree with that. Recently everything is going wrong around me and as I played my last Baduk tournament again as 1k i lost  every game. I cant say for sure that it was only because I was feeling down about everything that went wrong in the last months of my life, but it definitly is part of the reason why I lost so badly in the last tournament. But even minor things can set off an unbalance of your concentration therefore I can only point out right now that it happens from time to time. If it happened  and everything went wrong don´t try to break the situation forcefully. In most cases that way makes everything even worse. You have to regain your mood always step by step. that´s about all i can say about it here a second link which i got as well http://www.mentalgamecoaching.com/IMGCAArticles/Tennis/StopLosingToWeakerPlayers.html I hope all of you will have a good day, your admin yunyuki Kirigaya aka Kiriya

Mental technique

If you do to much and forget balance this is what happens but.... if you do it right then... that´s what´s going to happen:  you play more naturally (and win chance goes up)  how to fight pressure during games

I think all people now about the  first breath in, close your eyes and slowly breath out  technique for trying to relax during tests or go games, but just how many people are able to deal with their pressure this way ? In this case for me it doesn´t really help as i am as nervous as before and even start thinking more and more about it while trying to clear my thoughts. So i searched a year ago tor becoming better at tournaments on how to deal with pressure or nervosity during games. The technique i found is one they use often in Tennis games. As i said sometime ago Tennis is a sport which puts a big deal of mental pressure on the player, so this can be applied to go players as well i think. For me at least it worked and is one good technique to deal with pressure and there are for sure more (i will search for more  of course) The technique is rather simple: First close your eyes (and no it´s not the technique above^^) and then try to imagine a page. Now it becomes difficult, try to imagine all the pressure points in a summary on the page. And now the most important part you have to imagine it how it gets erased around 60-80 percent. It depends on each person which is the best balance, but a a bit of pressure can be good to stimulate the senses during a game, so not fully erasing it is important. If there is enough time during the game, do it many times around 5-6 times at least . I can only say it works in my case and for Tennis players it seems to work as well. I hope it can help last but not least a picture which says it as well and looks cool on top of it

3 kind of play-styles

The power-type, the option-type and the allrounder-type The allrounder type (probably) player 8 dan Inseong

The Power type player Jonas Welticke 4dan On the left the optional type and allrounder Volkmar Liebscher 3dan These 3 types have advantages as well as disadvantages inside their prospectiv rankings. In the long run playing go, normally many go players become the allrounder style, but there are many who never change their style, even after becoming real strong. For example the calm style of Yi Changho, which depends on calculating and calm observing, as well as waiting for a possible mistake of the opponent, which can be said to be an allrounder type. For example Lee Sedol can be said to be a power type among the pro players. That is because his opening seems to be lacking in strength against the other players, but with creativity and reading power, he can change most of his games to his favour. At last but not least, there is Hayashi Kozo, who is really famous among amateur players. He is a pro which  belongs to the option type class player. He has a wide range of knowledge to choose from and is using that against his opponents. He uses a simple but effectiv step by step play, which containts almost no risks for playing, when he is winning. These are the 3 types and many of you will aready  have the question:" why do I say something so obvious ?" For answering this question I have to say first, that many didn´t notice their own style or try to change it. There are many as well which say it is not like i said but it´s divided into aggressive playing, calm(flexible) playing and safe playing. But if you just go with that, there is bound to be trouble. Because what is a power type player to do without using his power because he is playing safe or a flexible player who isn´t playing flexibel or a aggressive player who can play solide but isn´t doing it, just because it isn´t his playing style. There is also the case of knowing your own weakness to overcome with this type of analyses which is better than the emotional analyses. That is because if one says during a review don´t be greedy or this was too aggressiv (which can al be true  of course), it doesn´t give you very much after the review for the next game. It will help you understand why you played the mistake in your game, but it will not necessary help you with your next game the information about the emotional analyses. I think it´s more important to see the mistake itself (not in personality or style) but in the situation analyses itself (for example thhe focus was globaly on the board and still the answer was wrong). Then it will almost for sure mean that the analyses was wrong during the game or that the player didn´t knew that something could happen. If the player knows one has to play there to protect the group to safely win the game, but didn´t see it, then it´s different from beiing greedy. As well if one didn´t count then the chance is high that one didn´t knew that the points are not enough as one defended his territory (maybe even did one move more to protect even though there was nothing). That´s why instead of the generaly known emotional type analyses i want to suggest the capability analyses to be used more often. That´s of course only how I see it and doesn´t mean that i don´t see usefullness in the first meant analyses but for me the one (not sure if it existed before) but myself invented analyses is at least for me more usefull. Please try it our yourself and give feedback on this blog with kind regards Yunyuki Kirigaya

Mental training 1

After in my last article explained philosophy , I invented myself a * how to train your mentality* for playing in tournaments or for important matches.

The first key point is repeated excercise.
It´s obvious if you think about itm but where lies the self esteem while playing, where doews the confidence lies when playing.
It´s not our ranking and not the count on how many games we have won, but the things we know we can do well.
For example learn basic patterns or study certain fusekis bfore tournaments or repeat josekis or study certain josekis  for the use of it in a tournament.
It not only gives an  boost in selfconfindence but even helps one playing in a level above his normal self.
Why you ask?
because we would by then know what we want to play if it happens or becomes similiar. That´s because we thought about it a long time to prepare for it and this gives us a safety feeling if comes down to what is expected.
Of course the possibility of something else happening in the game is high, but!!!!!!!
that doesn´t mean that preparations were for naught.
If something else happens, it´s only outside of the predictions but not outside of the game, the way one practices and studies before a tournament can by applied during a game as well and because one did study beforhand, it becomes easier to think during the game itself :-)

Even if you are weak as long as you practice certain situations...

you will be able to handle similiar ones with confidence  and even beat someone stronger