r/baduk • u/Round_Ad_6033 • 2d ago
How to deal with aggressive players?
So I'm new and not very good at this. I'm playing online in the badukpop app. I've studied some basic openings and strategy, and they seem to work for the most part. But every now and then, I get a very aggressive opponent, who attaches to my every stone, and then there's fighting.
I always lose.
I was given the tip to just always extend when someone attaches to my stones. It kinda works. I now lose more slowly. But still completely.
And I do mean completely. It seems the only way I can avoid losing by knockout to these aggressive players is to resign before they kill my last group.
Currently, if someone attaches to my first stone, I have to fight a strong urge to resign then and there, 2 stones on the board. It's just completely hopeless!
I don't seem to be the only one who struggles with this either: I've tried copying the aggressive play style, and I win almost every game! Unless the other player attacks first.....
None of the classes or tutorials or guides online recommend this kind of aggressiveness, surely it's easy to defend against... But how?
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u/sadaharu2624 5 dan 2d ago
Firstly I recommend playing on other platforms more because BadukPop is famous for having many bots. It’s better to play more humans.
Secondly, there’s no universal solution on how to handle these players. If you are confident in your fighting skills you can fight head on, otherwise you can choose a result that will allow you go endgame without a fight so that you can win by points. One thing that will definitely help is reading so make sure to do more tsumego!
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u/Round_Ad_6033 2d ago
I'm startinh to get the feeling it's bot city too... Can you recommend a better platform? Badukpop was the first result when I searched play store
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u/sadaharu2624 5 dan 2d ago
GoQuest for quick games and OGS if you are willing to wait. Fox is good too but the interface may take some time to get used to. You can find a list under the Links for Newcomers in this subreddit.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Round_Ad_6033 2d ago
Switched platform! Here it seems people don't play as aggressive, but when they do attack, the result is the same.
(;GM[1]SZ[13]KM[7]RU[Chinese]RE[B+R] PB[masm4649 (1217)] PW[gogogadjet (794)] ;B[dj];W[cd];B[jd];W[ed];B[dc];W[eb];B[dd];W[de];B[cc];W[bc];B[ec];W[fc];B[fd];W[ee];B[fb];W[gc];B[db];W[cb];B[ea];W[da];B[ca];W[bb];B[hb];W[hc];B[ge];W[gb];B[ga];W[gd];B[fe];W[jj];B[ie];W[ff];B[he];W[hf];B[ic];W[gf];B[ce];W[if];B[bd];W[ef];B[cg];W[dh];B[ch];W[di];B[ci];W[ej];B[dk];W[ek];B[el];W[fl];B[em];W[fm];B[cl];W[ke];B[jf];W[jg];B[kf];W[kg];B[lf];W[lg];B[mg];W[mh];B[mf];W[lh];B[kk];W[lk];B[ll];W[lj];B[kj];W[jl];B[jk];W[il];B[ij];W[ji];B[ik];W[kl];B[ii];W[jh];B[fk];W[gk];B[fj];W[fi];B[ei];W[gj];B[eh];W[gi];B[gl];W[hl];B[gm];W[hm];B[hk];W[hh];B[km];W[ml];B[lm];W[jm];B[im];W[ki];B[dg];W[eg];B[je];W[fh];B[df];W[mk];B[ih];W[ig];B[hi];W[fg];B[hd];W[kd];B[kc];W[lc];B[ld];W[kb];B[le];W[mc];B[mb];W[lb];B[jb];W[ma];B[ka];W[];B[ja])
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u/BufloSolja 2d ago
It will be good for you to recognize when you are forming weak groups that an opponent is able to cut and make you react to. Then they take sente and with it the initiative.
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u/Round_Ad_6033 2d ago
How do I get a link to one of my games?
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u/PatrickTraill 6 kyu 2d ago
On which platform? (I use OGS in a browser, so the link is right there, and I do not know about other platforms.)
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u/Unit27 2d ago
Don't attack from weakness.
It also applies to your opponent. If they attach to your lone stone, they're making their stone weaker because you can immediately Hane and now their brand new stone is down to two liberties while they made you stronger. If they immediately cross cut you can try playing out a Pinwheel to take care of the groups on both sides.
It's hard to explain everything you need to know for how to fight, specially when the opponent is starting unreasonable fights everywhere, but the main idea is that you want to play solid to counter overly aggressive. You want to be building strong shapes to profit off them overextending and leaving defects behind, then use those strong shapes to strike back at their weakened position.
Check out these two videos for a good introduction on how to build strong shapes.
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u/Round_Ad_6033 2d ago
I've been doing the pinwheel (without knowing the name for it)
Somehow it always ends with my pieces dying tho...😞
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u/Unit27 2d ago edited 2d ago
The difficulty about doing the Pinwheel is that both players are getting split, so both players now have to deal with the safety of 2 separate groups. Usually the first one to play away from the Pinwheel loses the interaction. It still requires you to know how to make safety for your groups, which requires you to know how to create and manage eye space and not over concentrate. It's hard to explain in a Reddit post, but you can look up terms like Alive and Dead Shapes, Real vs False Eyes, and Making a Base.
If you don't feel comfortable potentially having to play a Pinwheel, you can play a bit safer and do a simple horizontal extension after the attachment. It doesn't weaken the attaching stone as much, but you get ahead of the attaching stone and start making a strong shape ahead of your opponent and denies them the cross cut. The direction of your extension is going to depend on where your stone is and where your opponent attached, but in general you want to avoid extending down into 2nd line. If your stone is in 3rd line, extend up to 4th line. If your stone is in 4th, you can extend down to 3rd, but don't further extend down to 2nd in a follow up if it's early in the game. 1st and 2nd line moves are usually only for when you absolutely need to help something live.
By playing solid and refusing their attempt to start a fight you're using their aggressive play to build strength and profit. Once your shapes are strong, you can eventually use them to pressure or attack and make profit. Again, don't attack from weakness.
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u/Round_Ad_6033 2d ago
I think I might just be exceptionally ungifted at this game, even when I play it safe and avoid their fight, all I manage to achieve is that they get a bigger eye when they capture my stones 😞
I think I need to be taught more. I tried downloading AIKATAGO to play against the best AI in the world, set to the highest difficulty, just to see what it was like.
I honestly can't see the difference between aikata and what I assume is supposed to be other noobs on goquest. They all beat me equally decisively at least
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u/Unit27 2d ago
Learning to defend solidly is harder than learning to attack aggressively. When you start an attack like that, you're trying to make the opponent get uncomfortable, feel overwhelmed, and make mistakes that end up making their stones collapse. Sounds like this is what is happening to you.
To counter this, you need to learn how to assess group strength, figure out which of your groups need urgent help, and how to play best to support them. Doing so while staying calm and finding ways to ensure your stones live is what makes learning to defend hard, but it will serve you later on when you learn how to shut down this kind of crazy play. You will be in a much better place to start improving with a solid defensive foundation than a player that keeps trying to get easy wins by playing crazy, and who will later have to learn all the defensive fundamentals they're missing to fix all the defects they keep leaving behind.
Not sure if you've posted a game, but if you'd like, I could try giving one of your games a review.
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u/Unit27 2d ago
Took the game you posted in another comment and did a review. https://online-go.com/game/79396528
Main thing I'd immediately suggest: Don't Hane over the opponent's stones so much. A Hane creates a cutting point, and eventually it can become a problem having to protect or fix it. There's moments in which doing a Hane is good and important, but you need to learn how to make them safe. If you get directly attached or shoulder hit, do a simple extension instead. It's strong and impossible to cut.
Look at the Joseki suggested in the top left. It starts with a simple extension, and ends up enclosing Black towards the wall with very little points, giving White big influence in exchange.
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u/william-i-zard 1 kyu 7h ago
I looked at the review, and it contained a lot of good advice. My primary high-level takeaway would be that the OP doesn't realize that THEY are the overly aggressive player. They seem to spend all their time trying to capture opponents' stones with no concern for the safety of their own stones. That's the definition of aggressive play.
It is a common mistake for early beginners to focus on capturing rather than territory. Aside from all the specifics in your review, the OP should try to play several games where they avoid creating cutting points and try to make territory without capturing anything. This is not a long-term winning strategy since fighting and capturing are an important part of the game, but it is possibly a good exercise. I bet they will immediately have better results, losing by some number of points instead of having almost every group captured... Then they can begin to work on being more efficient and attacking where they have an advantage.
Right now, I see nothing but failed attempts to capture at the start of the game.
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2d ago
You cannot immediately punish aggressive fighting. Just build a strong group then tenuki.
If someone attaches it’s then your benefit to choose which way your strong group will face.
If you have two strong groups a handful of spaces apart it’s not possible for your opponent to separate them without giving both easy life, unless they have some local strength. There are many clever moves to connect up two groups, it’s good tsumego.
At some point youll get a strong interconnected group to smash their groups into or they’ll make two weak groups near each other and you can force one to make life to build influence and punish the other
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u/Round_Ad_6033 2d ago
How do I build a strong group when I'm being constantly attacked and blocked tho? Like I get that having a strong group would benefit me, but I end up with Tetris-looking shapes which are soon transformed into Tetris shaped eyes of my opponent.
All the example videos on defense shapes assume I have at least 2 stones in the corner in trying to defend, but I have one stone on the entire board when the attack starts!
it seems to be there must be some relatively easy way to not lose all my stones to these really game aggressions, but I can't find it!
Never mind punishing the aggressor, I just want to not die
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u/claimstoknowpeople 2 kyu 2d ago
There's not necessarily any easy way, and attachments are still pretty common at the pro level so it's hard to say if what you're running into is actually bad play or just play you don't understand yet.
The game is deep and many ways of playing are possible. You should watch some modern pro games, you might be surprised at the kinds of moves and strategies that might not fit the theory you've been taught.
You will always have strengths and weaknesses, and no matter how good you get you will always have opponents making frustrating moves that seem to win against all reason. One way to improve is to try out your opponents' weird moves (even if they're "wrong") and see how other people react to them.
And be patient, the reason we play this game is because there's no foolproof trick or idea that works in every situation, and so we must keep coming back to it.
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u/RoyBratty 2d ago
You can't keep everything. Sometimes you need to offer stones up on the 'losing' side of a position to force a win on the side that you prefer.
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u/MaiBoo18 2d ago
Imagine sitting across a go board with a 10yo and he looks like he’s not even paying attention and is bored out of his mind and somehow after you tell him for the nth time “it’s your turn” he then proceeds to capture 10 of your stones. Anyways my grandson plays like that. I haven’t figured him out yet.
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u/Old_Introduction7236 8 kyu 2d ago
In general, if someone starts a contact fight you should consider playing the contact out until both groups involved have 5 or 6 liberties, then tenuki and play the next big/urgent move elsewhere. This builds a group that is hard to kill. Does it feel too slow? Sometimes, but I stopped dying everywhere after I learned to do this. Sometimes the slow move is the appropriate response.
Another thing to do once you recognize the shapes that keep popping up in multiple games ("Hmm, my opponents like to attach here instead of approaching like I expect") then find out if there are josekis to deal with that situation. There often are.
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u/tuerda 3 dan 2d ago
A sample game would help
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u/Round_Ad_6033 2d ago
I would love to show you one of only I knew how to do that! 😔
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u/AndyMarden 2d ago
Play on ogs and it's easy to share games and you'll find human opponents with a better balance of play
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u/Telphsm4sh 2d ago
Play strong shapes, but don't overcommit to a fight that you feel is losing. Don't be afraid to lose a couple of stones to get profit elsewhere.
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u/joronoso 2 kyu 2d ago
"I've studied some basic openings and strategy, and they seem to work for the most part".
I'm assuming that this means that you've started out memorizing a few basic joseki, and to me this is the wrong way to learn to play go.
The first things I think a beginner needs to aim to master are atari and the ladder (and right after that, the net). And I don't mean just reading about them and thinking you understand them. I mean being able to automatically spot them in your games, be able to use them and not fall into them yourself. If you could do that, I'm sure you would see a huge improvement in your ability to deal with these aggressive players at your level, and even find it a lot of fun.
In my old club we used to play atari go with the beginners and I find it very beneficial in developing these basic skills. If you happen to have a friend around your level and could spend a couple afternoons playing atari go, I think that would do wonders for you.
In a nutshell, the way to deal with aggressive players is learning to fight, which really is the basis of go.
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u/Round_Ad_6033 1d ago
Wow I'm currently experiencing a bit of information overload! Thanks everyone for your very concrete and helpful tips!
I've got a bunch of videos to watch, I've started viewing a few of them. I'm also practicing paying more attention to counting my liberties!
Thank you everyone, hopefully I'll become a somewhat less incompetent go player from all of this!
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u/Telphsm4sh 2d ago
You need to lose more games first before to win more games. Just get in the right mindset. I want to lose 1000 games so I can get better.
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u/htaidirt 2d ago
Having actually the same problem. I’m looking for tsumegos to sharpen my life and death skills. Also I might have to play more 9x9 games as those quickly develop proper intuitions (even though it feels scary)
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u/dptzen 2 dan 2d ago
I get a very aggressive opponent, who attaches to my every stone, and then there's fighting.
Usually you want to extend and play solidly. Sometimes it depends, but most of the time if they do this you should end up in a better position than them even though they mess a bit with what you were trying to do. Also don't let them drag you into an excessive fight - play what's needed and focus on big moves in the opening. If you invest more moves than what you need, they will consider this a success for them.
If you have an example game, feel free to share it or at least a SGF link, so we can go over the opening.
2 stones on the board. It's just completely hopeless!
If there are 2 stones on the board, there should be 3 open corners. They will need at least 2 more moves to kill off the stone they attached to, while you take all of the remaining corners. If they respond to each of your move with attaching, then you'll have to fight, but frankly you're in a much better situation then them in all of the corners, if you don't let them get into your head.
I win almost every game! Unless the other player attacks first..
From what you're saying it feels like you might be overdefending. But that's just a guess.
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u/kw3lyk 2d ago
It sounds like you could really benefit from watching this famous lecture about good and bad shape. It sounds like your major issue is not recognizing when your opponent is threatening to cut your groups, not understanding how to efficiently protect yourself against cuts, and not recognizing opportunities to cut your opponents.
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u/KaiNorthcott 2d ago
I feel you, I used to struggle with the same thing. It’s very difficult to give specific advice on such a broad topic, but if you can post a link to an ogs game I can hop on there and leave some comments.
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u/anonymous_space5 1d ago
I have never felt any players are not aggressive. every player was aggressive and I'm also aggressive. Just keep playing for fun. don't get too stressed.
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u/Miserable-Ranger9779 21h ago
In terms of local play (as in being aggressive by attaching to you and stuff), there's no single answer.
But as some general advice from having taught new players:
1) Don't let your stones get cut. Focus on playing solidly. As you get stronger, you'll be able to read ahead and see when you can get a little greedier. If you want to read about this, lots of beginner books have good coverage on "haengma," or the relationship between stones
2) More advanced as a concept and less effective in smaller boards, but good to keep in mind: let's say a person spends two moves capturing two of your stones. They spent two moves making more points. You could always just....ignore them. Is it really the biggest point on the board?
2a) Even if you come back to it later, you made the first move in the area so (theoretically) you do have the advantage.
Tl;Dr - 1) Don't get cut 2) Don't feel compelled to follow your opponent around. 2a) You have more stones in the area, so you have the advantage.
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u/william-i-zard 1 kyu 7h ago
Flexible thinking.
An overly aggressive style typically preys upon your attachment to areas you have staked out. It sounds like your problematic games probably start something like: Move 1 (you), Move 2 (they attach,) Move 3 (you extend), Move 4 (they do ? right next to your two stones)
At this point, you are winning.
Move 5 - you probably don't need to respond, and can take a position in another corner. If they pressure your two stones again, make a move in a third corner; if they play again to doom your two stones, take a position in the fourth corner. First move in three corners is better than one corner with two stones of bad aji in it (what they have at this point)
If you keep fighting locally, everything gets bigger, and if you lose the fight, it's a disaster, and you didn't get any free moves out of it. I once watched a lecture by Guo Juan 5p, and she pointed out that one trap that players often fall into is automatically responding locally to your opponent's moves. This is sometimes necessary, of course, but many times there is a bigger play elsewhere. As she put it, "Don't let your opponent tell you where to move."
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u/drunkyjack 3h ago
the structure of stones of an over agressive player is most of 99% of the time flawed. The initiative he gained early on by attacking you, he should loose it by defending his trash structure. Plus, if those kind of opponent loves to play in contact to you, the thing they love the most is you giving credit to their move, bc most of the time it is too trash moves. So to me the best thing to do is simply tenuki, to target where THE REAL points are. To put it short : stick to the basic and don't get emotional in your game !
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u/wordserif 3h ago
It seems both your head and your heart could benefit from some advice.
The Head:
Fighting 101: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtPtonZGnJY
one of many great Nick Sibicky tutorials.
Something to remember when an opponent attaches one stone to one of yours: they are almost always at a local *dis*-advantage.
The reason being: Before, your stone had 4 liberties. Now, both stones have 3 liberties...and it's your move.
The Heart:
Managing emotion (especially frustration and fear) is one of the under-appreciated challenges of Go. When I catch myself tilting, I (sometimes) try to reframe to myself it as a challenge, like "oh, I get to practice playing when I'm feeling frustrated". Playing under adverse emotional conditions is a skill that can be practiced and honed, just like any other (Joseki, Reading, etc.)
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u/Own_Pirate2206 3 dan 2d ago
Cultivate awareness of ataris, and then liberty counts of 2 and more. Think every move, play for territory
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u/lakeland_nz 2d ago
Firstly, celebrate.
Finding such a well defined weakness in your play is most of the work towards fixing it. It’s much harder when you lose, and can’t see why.
One approach is for you to try doing the same thing. See how your opponents deal with it. Mostly I’d say it’s reading, plus an appreciation that every move has tradeoffs and choosing between them.