I don't have the greatest grasp of what to put in this thread but we'll see. I'd like to ask that any response's comments or complaints be voiced by PM. Im thinking that I will use this page as a weekly blog of my progress and experiences that have stood out to me.

Current Rank: 20 kyu (kgs)

my interest has been sparked again by aranari (kgs) 18 kyu we have been playing a lot of games against eachother the last couple days mostly 9x9s hes beaten me about 7of the 10 times
we played each other with proper handicaps twice on kgs with one win a piece. I would like to improve to the point where I can expect myself to win a 19x19 game with him.

Plan: play 10 9x9s a day on kgs, play 3 19x19s on kgs, and read the james davies tesuji book by the end of the week.

Results:will be updated

hopefully original quotes: "your only enemy is yesterdays you"

Umm feel free to add me on kgs and i will be sure to return the favor

Have you defined a goal for yourself?

Playing lots of games is surely the most important, but what about other ways of studying? E.g. books such as "Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol 2" (which would fit to your current strength). There are also good online resources, such as 321go.org which should help you to get to around 12k. It includes a course and tons of exercises (tsumego). It would take you several weeks to get through this progam.

Btw, welcome to a beautiful game and a cool discussion forum

at 18k, the only thing you need to do is playing.

Good Luck

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长考出臭棋.

Welcome on the path of go. Just my too cents : I'd quickly focus on 19x19 only (being 20k, I believe you've done enough of the small board) as the strategy can only be learnt there.
As far as books are concerned, Tesuji is not an easy book. I wouldn't recommend it that early (even if the first chapter really tells what reading really is). There are other books for beginners which would help you (learn to Play go / GGFB 1-2). Still, as you were told, you should really focus on playing and trying to learn from your opponents.

This. And good luck with your studies.

I wholeheartedly disagree. I think that, while it cannot be wrong to take a look at the big board, any kyu level mistake will also occur on smaller boards. The advantage of playing on smaller boards is that the mistakes do not get diluted by the (relative to the player's understanding) vastness of the big board. In other words, on a big board, you can get away with repeating the same little mistakes over and over, while they would stand out on smaller boards.

I therefore recommend to play (as a rough guideline for a 20 kyu) 70% of the games on 9x9, 20% on 13x13, and 10% on 19x19. Even better would be to also use 11x11, 15x15, and 17x17, but this is not common practice yet.

As one approaches dan level, this can gradually be modified to 30%/30%/40%.

Another advantage of the smaller boards is that the bots are getting pretty strong there now, so it is not difficult to find a good opponent.

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

Just to chime in: play most on the board you enjoy most. The more you enjoy your games, the more motivated you will be to keep playing and learning.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

well fhooey I had hoped to leave an sgf with my most current game with araragi a loss by about 35 moki in an even game. the game started out very well for me but I got cocky and let a stone invade beacause I thought it would be no problem to kill it was one of those situations where it was my choice whether or not to let it through my wal or connect. an i made a choice that problably cost me the game all and all it was a good game for me.

I would post the game if I could just figure out how this sgf thing is confusing me to no end. the last two or three days ive played 30-40 9x9 and about 5 19x19 losing all of them 2 even games to a player I believe was at least 15kyu 1 to araragi. I can't recall the other two I also finished the first two chapters of 321 go. the first chapter was an utter waste of my time but I learned a little bit from the second chapter and I hope the course will improve from there.

im excited to start playing go in real life I think it will be a lot more fun. is there any faux pas I ought to avoid that don't come up in computer go. I really feel like im bridging the gap between me and araragi. if anyone is interested I would appreciate a review of a couple of my games. unless someone can explain the sgf file thing to me. it will have to be done on kgs itself.

My New plan try and get my hands on a few of the books recomended to me finish chapter three in the next two-three days and play 5 or more 19x19 and 10 9x9, in the next couple days, look into an aga membership and finding a stronger player to sort of mentor me. that would be ideal now wouldn't it a man can dream eeh?

my three biggest mistakes in my opinion were g1 f5 and k5

The moves you called your biggest mistakes weren't good, but they were not game deciding mistakes.

I don't like E6, I would have played B6 first to seperate his stones
H6 doesn't protect against the double atari. I think you should play closer to your three weak stones to protect them
C11 allows W D10 which is very painful
Why J6? That move seems to be completely useless.
G1 isn't that bad, since G2 does't work either (G2 H2 G1 F1)

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Sanity is for the weak.

hi guys im going to keep tgis short as im on my ps3 and typing is a pain. I went to a go club for the eirst time and won a 19 x19 game for the first time in two weeks. I learned the joseki around the pincer thats been coming up so often which i think will help me. cant wait for a rematch with araragi!

how is everybody computer time is rare at my house nowadays.but ive still managed to drop from 20 Kyu to 21 kyu HURRAH! :<( im off to try and take it back. ive decided on a mixture of graded go problems for beginers and the second book of go for study. im still playing alot of 9x9 sharpen up my life death skills. well peace. finding kgs annoying lately due to lack of games for 15kyu and up.

well I made 19 kyu wippi 8) anyway still working on go maybe playing 3 games a day
mostly free ive more or less stopped working with books. finding them more and more boring. anyway good kiseido book sugestion. thank you

3 games a day is a good pace. Especially if you review the games after. To improve, you have to mentally identify sequences that work and don't work. When I was first starting, realizing that playing a black stone at 'a' below is immediate suicide (that is, catching myself before I played it) was a huge breakthrough. It's not immediately obvious, and until you can identify the shape (it has to be on the second line like this, for instance) you have to read like 5 stones deep to see that it doesn't work, which is usually too deep for a beginner.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ B @ a = bad
$$ | . . X O . .
$$ | . . X O , .
$$ | . . X O . .
$$ | . . . a O .
$$ | . . . . . .
$$ -----------[/go]

Also, if you find book problems boring, you might try either GoGrinder (free) or, if you have an iPhone, I use SmartGo Pro which has like 2000 problems in it from GoProblems.com. (The advantage being that if the problems are on your phone you can always just whip it out for like 3 minutes when you're waiting on something). I find it easier to get in a "flow" with computer problems instead of book problems, since there's no page flipping involved and it's immediate feedback when you go wrong. So you might give that a try.

Also, what I found useful: just find a set of problems that's large but manageable, and rated quite easy (eg: the 400 easy problems in SmartGo Pro) and drill on them over and over until you get some arbitrary percentage correct (I used 90% as a benchmark). The first time through is really rough. You might only get 30% correct and it will take forever. But with the right size and difficulty you should be able to do subsequent runs much faster and get far more correct, since the problems are familiar. It then becomes enjoyable (aha, I remember this one) and much easier to get into a flow. If the problem size is too small you just end up memorizing the problems and it's questionable whether you've learned anything. But if the size is large enough you physically can't memorize them all 100%, so your brain automatically starts forming heuristics and rules to help with the problems. If it's too large it isn't fun because you end up struggling over each one.

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1k KGS

well yesterday i played go all day like 20 games and i really enjoyed it very solidly in 19kyu hoping to hop up to 18 kyu. got two kick ass review from Danielfox (Kgs 1K). honestly I dont enjoy problems at all. they are always way too easy or next to undoable. I really prefer to just play. im gonna download go grinder see how I like it. go problems has the issue of all user created content has. you find alot of BS. and im not at the point where i can spot the mistakes so i try and avoid go problems. anyway off to play more go

If you get a system going where you can do a trivially easy problem once every 5 seconds you can churn through a lot of problems and it's still some fun. Since then the problem becomes something of a time trial. It's when it takes 5 seconds for the problem and 20 seconds for the process (check you answer, go to the next problem, flip the page, whatever) that you break flow and it isn't fun anymore.

Anyway, that's me. As Helel mentioned, it's possible you're just not a problem person. It will just make it harder to progress as fast.

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1k KGS

played at least 30 games in the last two day and broke into 18 kgs kyu very excited. now im going to limit myselg to 5 games a day while i the learn to play go series and plan to do more go problems. can anyone walk me through how to get other problems on go grinder I think it should help. guys if you want a friend add me on kgs patrickp.

felt it was time for an update my account is still running around at 17 kyu. ive been playing fewer games though. im playing around a strength of 15 kyu. ive also been playing on a charecter named leech who my buddy created (buddy is 1kyu)and we take turns playing games current rank is 11 kyu. and yesteray i beat a 13 kyu that had a 2 stone handicap. that was cool i won with a double ko by a half a point i only needed one of the kos and i could respond to all of my opponents threats then play the other ko it was great. still very crummy at fighting. im working tsumego but its dificult especially to stay focused and read variations before you move. gonna sign of for Wbaduk later today. well thats all folks im trying for 14 kyu by the 30th it will be hard with school starting back up.

well some really good things have happened in my go. Ive made a new account on kgs to get a little leway from my 200+games So ive made the account while i was at 17 kyu. and my current rank on the new account is 13kyu. anyway im looking for a new training regimen and im open for advice. im planning on finishing a few go books
they shouldnt take too long im playing a few games whenever i can. starting to play on Wbaduk which is really cool. IM looking for a good Tsumego collection to work and a good series to read
but mostly more tsumego

What I recommend to a 13k are the following tsumego books (in this order):
- Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol. 3
- Get Strong at Tesuji
- 1001 Life and Death Problems