Mini Lecture Series:
Estimation Made Easy

Hey, this is Zee from Simple Baduk!

First of all, thank you so much for supporting Simple Baduk by purchasing this lecture!

Watch the lecture here:

My goal with Simple Baduk is to make lectures that truly benefit players who seek improvements in order to enjoy Go even more.

I am starting this Mini Lecture series to break information into bite-size so you can learn different elements of Go without feeling too overwhelmed. I assume you play Go for purely entertainment purposes and want to improve so you can have even more fun with Go.

When I was learning, I hated doing problems and reading Go books, but I enjoyed sitting there and get information fed to me by teachers. I was lucky enough to come across a few incredible teachers who can break Go down into little pieces and shove them in my head without me even trying to learn. All I had to do was sit there and listen. That is what I want to do to you.

I am trying my best to copy the teaching style of those teachers so you can learn Go with ease.

The main instructor of mine was Kim Mansoo from Yoo Changhyuk Baduk Dojang. I think Yoo gave the Dojang to Kim and it is called now Kim Mansoo Baduk Dojang. If you heard of Yoo Changhyuk before, then you should know that he was the God of Attacking. Kim's style is similar to Yoo, but less intense.

The reason I am introducing my background is to give me some credibility when I say what I am about to say now.

As an amateur player, you shouldn't play territorial style.

That is what both Kim and Yoo say to their students too. When they teach Go, they strictly tell students to expand fast to lure invasions and attacks for profit. They never allow their students to play different style until students hit about 3 kyu in dojo rank, which is about 6 dan on Tygem. As the students improve, they will start to find their own styles and gradually switch their styles over time.

That sounds a bit strange, right? Here is the reason: lower-ranked players do not know how to properly deal with getting attacked.

Professionals can efficiently reduce and even do deep invasions without dying or giving away too much. However, amateurs usually give away too much profit to their opponents while running or just die for no reason.

On top of that, amateurs make tons of deadly mistakes in their games, but if you make weird mistakes while running, you are probably going to lose the game. However, if an attacker makes mistakes while attacking, then the worst situation is when the opponent runs away or lives. The game can still keep going. Do you see where I am going with this?

As amateurs, we inevitably make mistakes. A lot of mistakes. But the consequences of making mistakes for the attacking side are significantly lower. That is why we need to become the attacker instead of the defender. In higher-ranked games, defense is much easier than attack, that is why a lot of them like to play territorial style and reduce/invade later on.

However, I see quite some instructors are recommending AI josekis and Fusekis to amateur players. In fact, all the popular Western instructors teach students as if their students are 7 dan players. One of my friends was learning from a popular instructor for about a year, but he only went from 1 kyu to 1 dan after numerous sessions. That is not right. I remember I went from 5 kyu to 1 dan in only 3 weeks with the right instructions. And, that kind of quality instruction is what I am trying to offer to our Western Go community.

As an adult amateur Go player who seeks improvements, here is what you need to learn:

 Proper fuseki theory

 How to utilize San Ren Sei, Chinese Opener, Mini Chinese Opener, and Kobayashi Opener

 Basic tricks to deal with the above opening strategies

 Basic understanding of Life & Death

 Basic understanding of End Game

 Common shapes  Lee Changho's estimation system

 The easiest ways to deal with all the common invasions

 Only a minimum understanding of how to reduce/invade

 Only a handful of standard Josekis

 How to simplify Josekis in case the opponent wants to drag you into a weird Joseki fight

 When to Tenuki

 How to spot weak groups

 Theories on attacking

 How to deal with or use Thickness

You don't have to master everything. Only a little bit of information for each element is needed in order to become a solid dan player.

In this Mini Lecture Series, I will take care of everything for you. All you have to do is sit there and watch my lectures and you will improve like magic.

The first class is going to be on Estimation. You don't need to do estimations every other move in your games, but I see quite some amateur players do not estimate enough.

First of all, you don't need to count every intersection in order to estimate the situation. That is a HUGE misconception. There are easier ways to estimate game situations than brutally counting intersections. In this lecture, I will show you 4 ways to estimate that doesn't require counting. For those math nerds and big brains out there, I have also included a quick section on how to properly count to get more accurate estimations.

I highly recommend you to use estimate fuction as many times as possible in your games. However, the Estimate function on OGS is not reliable because it is too conservative. This function on FGS is slightly better, but it's too optimistic. That is why we need to learn how to properly estimate even if we have an estimate function built into those platforms. If you don't know how to estimate on your own, then you can easily get mislead by the system and make weird decisions. Think of estimate functions on those platforms as visual aids that can make your own estimation easier instead of completely relying on them.

Here is why we need to make estimations. I see a lot of players out there who don't realize that they are winning and pick weird fights and throw their games. I also see them get euthanized simply because they didn't know they were behind during their games. If we just estimate the game only a few times, then all these won't happen. You will be able to confidently avoid fights if you know you are going to win even if you get your tail cut off. You will be able to make some radical moves to stir up the game if you know you are behind.

When do you make estimations? Every time you want to play away. Simple, right? But that raises another question. When do we want to play away? That information is on my YouTube, so be sure to check it out.

Thank you for reading 1000 words so far！

In short, if you are DDK, then use Palm Method and Elimination Method. If you are SDK and lower dan player, then use the Elimination Method and Lee Changho System for early/mid-game and the Accurate Counting Method for late games. If you can handle the Efficiency Method, then feel free to use that one.

One thing is for sure, you do not need to do estimations in end games. Just pick whatever is sente and big and play them.

In order to use Accurate Counting Method requires you to have some End Game knowledge, but your end game will get so much better if you use ACM during your games. Don't worry if you don't know how to play end games because the end game lecture is on its way!