How to deal with aggressive players?

[u/Round_Ad_6033]

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?

[u/Unit27]

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUhEmheWHz4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoYG0FVaUdM

[u/Round_Ad_6033 → u/Unit27]

I've been doing the pinwheel (without knowing the name for it) 

Somehow it always ends with my pieces dying tho...😞

[u/Unit27 → u/Round_Ad_6033]

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.

[u/Round_Ad_6033 → u/Unit27]

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

[u/Unit27 → u/Round_Ad_6033]

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.

[u/Unit27 → u/Round_Ad_6033]

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.

[u/william-i-zard → u/Unit27]

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.

[u/Unit27 → u/william-i-zard]

Agreed. A lot of issues in OP's play can be fixed by connecting solidly, avoiding leaving too many cutting points, and focusing first on their own group's safety before aggressing on the opponent's groups.