Rushing to the Finish Line

I’ve been losing quite a bit lately. Whenever I played a live game against a person of relatively equal strength, I seem to do alright for awhile and then completely fall apart at the end. It’s been rather frustrating, but I think I may have discovered my problem: I’ve gotten to a point in my go where I am constantly trying to rush to the finish line.

What do I mean by that?

Well, in short, it seems that I’ve stopped appreciating the game as each move progresses. My head is so focused on the end result of winning or losing that the ability to simply enjoy each step of every game has become obsolete to me. In addition, I’m rarely devoting my attention to a game anymore. I’m always trying to multitask and respond instinctually to my opponents. It’s gotten so bad that I don’t even try to properly read out life and death sequences anymore. I just play what appears to work at first glance.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I seem to have forgotten the whole concept of “playing against myself.” Just today, I made multiple careless errors where I assumed my opponent would play in one area. When in actuality, I would never have expected myself to play there to begin with. So I ended up essentially passing the turn to my opponent time after time.

I’ve gotten myself into quite a bind haven’t I? Haha…