My Shodan Challenge - Zero to Hero in One Year

[Simba]

Haha, I kind of achieved a 'goal' without really meaning to - was playing a teaching game with a 12k in real life, and I said something like "a lot of your moves are inefficient in their shape - lots of empty triangles, you have far more of those than me.", then I looked around the board and realised I'd played the entire game without an empty triangle!

I think I might be 4k now but I've not got the rank on KGS. I've beaten two 10ks on 6 stones now in free games (W+80ish and W+34.5), but I feel I want to study more before taking on fellow 5ks on KGS - quite afraid I'll get roasted. Currently reading through 'Tesuji', 'All About Thickness' and 'The Direction of Play', as well as studying GGPfB volume 4.

Hopefully my next post here will be saying "Yay, 4k!" or even "Yay, 3k!" haha, the latter perhaps being a bit optimistic given I seem to be afraid of the players of my rank each time I rank up... I get intimidated really easily . When I'm intimidated I play so badly...

[Simba]

Done quite a bit of go today - did the first 102 problems from '200 Endgame Problems', and played a game with my brother on the go board I got for my birthday (so thrilled with that!) Spent most of the day thinking about go in some form or other (will have done around 10 hours of go today by the time I go to bed probably).

If I can gain 0.1 stones per day over summer, with days off here and there, I will reach my goal of 1d by the end of summer quite nicely. That works out to be probably around 0.01 stones per hour I need to gain. Hmm, I hope that's feasible... I want this badly, and Mum always has brought me up with the saying "work hard and put your mind to it and you can achieve anything you want". I want for my family and partner to be truly proud of me for doing something great - maybe if I become British Champion or something similar one day I'll have achieved that goal. Becoming 1d over summer is just the first step on a lifelong journey ^_^ .

Let's do this! Fired up lion, rawr!

[amnal]

Haha, I kind of achieved a 'goal' without really meaning to - was playing a teaching game with a 12k in real life, and I said something like "a lot of your moves are inefficient in their shape - lots of empty triangles, you have far more of those than me.", then I looked around the board and realised I'd played the entire game without an empty triangle!

I think I might be 4k now but I've not got the rank on KGS. I've beaten two 10ks on 6 stones now in free games (W+80ish and W+34.5), but I feel I want to study more before taking on fellow 5ks on KGS - quite afraid I'll get roasted. Currently reading through 'Tesuji', 'All About Thickness' and 'The Direction of Play', as well as studying GGPfB volume 4.

Hopefully my next post here will be saying "Yay, 4k!" or even "Yay, 3k!" haha, the latter perhaps being a bit optimistic given I seem to be afraid of the players of my rank each time I rank up... I get intimidated really easily . When I'm intimidated I play so badly...

This attitude is a standard online-rank-anxiety sort of thing, but is of no benefit to you.

The only problem a 'roasting' could cause you is damaging your rank. If you really care about this, start a new account in play using that. There is no penalty for doing so, but there is a massive penalty for not playing games because you're afraid of losing.

[Numsgil]

I second amnal.

Jitters about rank also just naturally go away if you play games routinely. When I'm really on the ball I play over a hundred ranked non-blitz games on KGS in a month. All with appropriate handicaps given my current KGS rank at the time.

If I get absolutely destroyed by someone who's supposed to be weaker I just chalk it up to sandbagging or stylistic deficiencies, review the game a bit, and just move on to the next game. Sometimes I get the same opponent again and I'm the one doing the destroying Failure loses its sting if you fail daily.

Also nice: once you have dozens of games, the system is pretty confident about your rank. It takes a lot of failures to move your rank down significantly (also it takes lots of wins to move it up, but once you hit mid SDK you aren't advancing faster than it can keep up). I sometimes have losing streaks where I'm like 2-10. They suck, but the system just drops my rank by like a 3rd of a stone, and once I'm back on my feet the rank recovers pretty quick.

On the same note, when you get a rank promotion you know it's not a glitch but a real improvement in skill, since you not only had to play as well as the next rank up, but play long enough to fight the inertia you had for your previous rank. I've never had KGS promote me when I didn't think I was ready

Just force yourself to play ranked games for every game, unless you're goofing around with friends or something. It helps the system (and you) figure out how strong you are, and makes progress easier to track. And it helps you learn to deal with nerves and jitters.

[cdybeijing]

I used to be like the OP, and as amnal has referenced, I became paralyzed and never wanted to play ranked games or give proper handicaps on KGS unless conditions were perfect.

Later I realized that KGS rank is only an indicator of how you play given the innumerable distractions surrounding you. I deliberately sank my rating two stones and began playing all the time against anyone at any handicap. I mostly detached myself from my rank and now I am able to comfortably use my KGS account for it's real purpose: to experiment as much as possible, gain as much experience as I can, and enjoy go whenever I have time to do so.

When you really achieve 1 dan or whatever goal you have set for yourself, I don't think you will need a KGS rank to prove it to yourself.

[Simba]

Have been having a lot of issues with depression lately, feeling down all the time and such, and go isn't helping one bit. I'm playing badly, losing to weak players and just generally sucking. I'm taking a break from playing games until my depression becomes a bit better. My mental health is more important than playing go.

Until I feel less crappy, I'm going to be treating go as simply a puzzle game - solving L+D problems and such, not playing any actual games. I find these a lot more fun than actually playing (I'm pretty majorly into puzzle solving and such - have done things like timed sudoku competitions before). As a useful consequence, hopefully my reading will also get better and I might become a stronger player.

Going to do Cho Chikun's 'Encyclopedia of Life and Death', at least 100 problems per day. Should have the elementary ones finished in a week, then onto intermediate. My puzzle studying is working somewhat at least, I had a group in the final game I played online that could be killed (I read out how to), but my opponent (7k) failed to do so (he just tenukied it, didn't even try).

Hopefully next time I post I'll be feeling less down and out. The past couple of weeks have been really ugh. I need a big hug.

Until next time~.

[topazg]

*hugs*

[stalkor]

if your depression gets better, do you feel more depressed then?

[shapenaji]

Now I'm thinking of all sorts of fun achievement awards:

Psychotic - Winning a game in which score Estimate reports 60+ swings of 50 points or more

[onou1]

Another virtual hug. Let us know when you're back in the game.

[Simba]

*Huggles* . My depression is a bit better now, and I've been playing go a bit more (mostly on OGS and DGS).

Have played a few KGS games, mainly slapping around people my level (5-6k) which is a bit surprising, but can't complain! Out of curiosity I challenged a 3k bot last night to a few games. First game I took black with no komi, and I made it resign. Second game I took black with komi 7.5, and lost by 0.5 points >_< . Third game I took black again with 7.5 komi, and made the bot resign .

Have been playing some against topazg (7-stone handicap games) and seem somehow to be winning! The past few days I've noticed I've become a /lot/ stronger at attacking - not entirely sure how, but it seems like I can attack way better than I used to now.

I suspect I'm maybe a 4k at the moment. KGS ranks me as 5k/6k borderline, but my games this month have been:

1) Loss vs 4k (2 stones for me).
2) Win vs 7k (2 stones for him).
3) Win vs 6k (even).
4) Win vs 5k (even).
5) Win vs 3k (black, no komi).
6) Loss vs 3k (even).
7) Win vs 3k (even).
8) Win vs 6k (white, no komi).
9) Win vs 6k (2 stones for him).

Many thanks must go out to topazg as he's given me confidence back in my game (he said our last 7-stone handicap game I played like a 1d ^_^ , that was a pretty massive compliment.)

Will be interesting to see where my rating on KGS stabilises this time!

Time for some tesuji problems ...

[Marcus]

Dude, you'll be smacking me around soon!

Feel free to look me up on DGS for a few games (Marcus316 is my handle).

[Simba]

Hey everyone .

Just a quick update - I've finished my challenge now ^_^ . I began to (albeit slightly nervously) claim 1d from 14th February 2012 - a few hours before my 1-year anniversary.

I've not officially got 1d on KGS yet; I have a lot of rating inertia now annoyingly but I've won 24 of my last 25 games at a ~2-3k level, which has got to be pretty much impossible if you're not 1d.

So yeah. I guess there we go . Thanks to everyone who has believed in me, supported me, taught me, learnt from me, got to know me, and even just played with me over the past year! Credit especially to John and Andrew as my first teachers, Graham for knowing absolutely everything, Chew for being awesome to talk to and just being like "arrrrrrrgh those crazy dan players and their magic!" with me, Billy for giving me someone to explain thoughts and ideas to and questioning my explanations to make me refine them not only for him but in my own mind, Leo for being the first person I could view as a rival to play each week, Paul for being my latest teacher and helping that final push to 1d... So many awesome people. I know I'm missing just so many, there are just so many amazing people in go.

It's been a long and sometimes tough journey, but this post should go to show that with enough work (estimated 400 games, 10,000 tsumego), you can become 1d, even if you're just starting out playing today.

February 14th 2013... Tempted to aim for 5d, but hmm, might be too difficult. Either way, I want to be strong enough to put in a decent challenge for the British title next May .

That's all for now *Runs off for that real life crap known as work...*

~~Simba

[topazg]

Hey everyone .

Just a quick update - I've finished my challenge now ^_^ . I began to (albeit slightly nervously) claim 1d from 14th February 2012 - a few hours before my 1-year anniversary.

I've not officially got 1d on KGS yet; I have a lot of rating inertia now annoyingly but I've won 24 of my last 25 games at a ~2-3k level, which has got to be pretty much impossible if you're not 1d.

So yeah. I guess there we go . Thanks to everyone who has believed in me, supported me, taught me, learnt from me, got to know me, and even just played with me over the past year! Credit especially to John and Andrew as my first teachers, Graham for knowing absolutely everything, Chew for being awesome to talk to and just being like "arrrrrrrgh those crazy dan players and their magic!" with me, Billy for giving me someone to explain thoughts and ideas to and questioning my explanations to make me refine them not only for him but in my own mind, Leo for being the first person I could view as a rival to play each week, Paul for being my latest teacher and helping that final push to 1d... So many awesome people. I know I'm missing just so many, there are just so many amazing people in go.

It's been a long and sometimes tough journey, but this post should go to show that with enough work (estimated 400 games, 10,000 tsumego), you can become 1d, even if you're just starting out playing today.

February 14th 2013... Tempted to aim for 5d, but hmm, might be too difficult. Either way, I want to be strong enough to put in a decent challenge for the British title next May .

That's all for now *Runs off for that real life crap known as work...*

~~Simba

Who is this Graham of which you speak, that apparently knows everything - You must send him my way!

In seriousness, really big congrats Simba, looking forward to seeing you at the Candidates this year hopefully

[karaklis]

estimated 400 games, 10,000 tsumego

Congratulations. Good job. One game and 25-30 tsumego a day doesn't seem unreachable (though 10000 tsumego is really a huge amount)

Could you please describe a bit more in detail

- how did you play, more fast or slow games?
- how many of your games did you review?
- which tsumego did you do at what strength?
- which method did you use to study tsumego?