Hit 5k last month. I've been doing problems continuously, stopped watching quite so many go videos, and have been playing more games. Finished 1001 L&D (2nd time), and about half way through Get Strong at Tesuji (also second time).

Played a game where I was behind the entire game, but through a couple of clever plays and mistakes by my opponent, was able to win the game. Thought it was interesting, and would love some pointers on the fuseki. Particularly how to not give my opponent so much that I need to catch up the entire game...

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Go Books

is a strange choice, really. After the exchange of and , your supposedly stable group in the top right has been weakened. What is your compensation? is worse shape than G18, so you have a chance at some point to play J18 on the edge. That doesn't happen in the game. I think can be regarded as heavy: jump to H14 and look to play G11 next for a framework.

Still, there must be better options at - D18, E17, G17.

might make more sense at D6. When comes you suddenly don't have an easy position.

Thanks Charles! felt weird when I played it, but I'm unfamiliar with 3-4 enclosure reductions. I wasn't certain about G17, and then B jumps, W has to follow, but it looks better than what I played. I never even thought about D18 or E17...I'll have to consider those in the future, as well.

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Go Books

Hit 4 kyu today! Well, temporarily, but its a first! And I feel like I've been playing well enough for it.

Here's the game with some comments. One comment I missed...I think white should have poked at the B center group sooner, a few pokes could have strengthened white and reduced black significantly, in sente. Instead, white lives small.




Also, I've been tracking the books I've read. There's a common pattern...I enjoy problems. GSAT is a bit easy for me now (least the 1-3 star problems). Still struggled with about 10-20% of the 5 move problems from 1001 L&D, so I'll definitely be going through that again some point in the future.

Reading Progress
[*] for theory books
There are a couple of books that I've glanced at, but these include start-to-finish books.

7 kyu
In the Beginning * : Reread 1
1001 Life and Death
Get Strong at Tesuji
Graded Go Problems for Beginners v2 : Reread 2
Elementary: Life and Death

6 kyu
Opening Theory Made Easy *
Graded Go Problems for Beginners v2 : Reread 3
Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go *
Graded Go Problems for Beginners v3 : Reread 1
This is Haengma

5 kyu
1001 Life and Death Problems : Reread 1

4 kyu
Get Strong at Tesuji : Reread 1 (In Progress)
Reducing Territorial Frameworks * (In Progress)


Future books
Making Good Shape
Graded Go Problems for Beginners v4
Get Strong at End Game
501 Tesuji
Attack and Defense * (reread, it's been awhile since I last read it)

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Go Books

Hi Sparky,

Here are a few ideas.

maybe on the fourth line at d10? Then if white invades at c12 or c8, black can shut him in and aim at invading the bottom later with his newly acquired strength.
Extend at d12 instead?
Is this invasion good or necessary? White just made strength around f8 so black might be attacked, plus the bottom is still open since white doesn't have a stone around n4. Maybe playing at the top was bigger...
Pushing at m13, to remove w's second eye and attack this group, seems interesting. It means black will be able to attack using the walls he made. This should enable him to turn his moyo into territory naturally.

Thanks Shenoute! The first three make a lot of sense. For the last one, did you mean R13? Or somewhere else?

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Go Books

Yes, r13. Sorry for the mistake

For some reason, I saw the ponnuki, and ignored it as relatively strong. Thanks for pointing that out.

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Go Books

"It's all a deceptive facade"

Actually at 50 I think black may already play at r13 and put pressure on the group.

I'm still playing, mostly against CrazyStone (lvl 9 of 10, of which I lose 95% of games) on my phone (I know, I know, I need to stop playing against the computer...) and a few games on Tygem. I've played a couple of games on KGS, but through a series of opponents joining a game and then immediately resigning, I was pushed up to 3k. Surprisingly, I won my first game at 3k! Even if my 3k status was a fluke.

Before getting to that game, I have been doing some tsumego. I've read half way through Reducing Territorial Frameworks (very enlightening, but also a difficult read), Making Good Shape (half way through) and the first section of Getting Strong at Endgame. Going to finish RTF and MGS before finishing the rest of GSAE. Now, if I could only apply those principles learned to my games...

In this game, my biggest question is . I hate playing against moyos and influence (it's how I lose most of my games against CS and other players in general). I'm not sure if I should have played where I did, I think black should have responded at Q11 or Q12?

The result ended well for me, I reduced black's moyo, and was able to play large moves elsewhere while living in the center, but I don't think I should have lived that easily (live, sure, but at the cost of black getting a lot of strength elsewhere).

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Go Books

I think you've improved even faster than I man. Great motivation to see - keep up the awesome work!

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My Baduk Journey

Won a game tonight that promoted me to 2 kyu. I think the rank is unstable, I haven't played enough to solidify it, but I might be a strong 3 kyu. I did give away too much influence that game, but through a couple of reading mistakes from my opponent, managed to turn the game around. It's happened twice against 1 kyu opponents, where I felt like I was being pushed around everywhere, but then my opponent plays away one move too soon, and it turns the game around.

Instead of studying endgame problems, I'm going through GGPfB v4, and I'm about half way through it. It's now on the easier side, or at least not so difficult side. I'm going to continue doing tsumego/tesuji problems, and save the end-game problems for a little bit later. I'm also re-reading Attack and Defense. It's a good book to come back to every so often.

I also decided to get a teacher, and I'm optimistic about it. I think it'll help figure out my biggest weaknesses, so I can shore those up. Of course, I think I'm weak at everything...

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Go Books

Great work! Your quick improvement is definitely a testament to the value of doing quality tsumego. I'm trying to catch up, but you're not making it easy.

I've gone 21-8 in ranked games (as a 5k) in August, so I expect I'll move to 4k soon. I think that could have been even better if I didn't have one off night where I kept pushing for a win and ended up losing four games.

Who did you find as a teacher?

Awesome! One of the reasons you may not have ranked up yet (with that high of a win rate!) could be due to the quantity of games you've played, and your most recent wins are weighted down by your large number of games (not a bad thing!). Also the reason why I don't necessarily believe the "2 kyu" rank since I haven't played enough games on KGS recently to stabilize my rank at 4 or 3 kyu (something I aim to fix).

Logged in tonight briefly, but didn't see you on. Hopefully we can get another game in soon.

Kaz had an opening (I requested to be wait-listed from earlier this year), so I'll be starting lessons from him.

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Go Books

I look forward to hearing about your experience. He certainly sounds like a good teacher!

Played my first 2-stone handicap game against a dan. And lost. Horribly.

Some comments included.

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Go Books

Here's a little review from me.





Also, I realized you play lots of handicap games, but not many even games? Why don't you try playing more against 4-2 kyus? From past experience, I think 3 stone handi games are slightly easier (when against 6-7kyus) compared to even games vs 1-2kyus for example. I have a feeling you'll settle in somewhere around 4-2kyu nicely

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My Baduk Journey

Thanks for the review!

Yeah, I think I should have kept the game simple in a lot of places (especially in the beginning), and the atari instead of the hane in the lower left was a very poor choice. It's an unfamiliar joseki, and I knew the result was bad, but still playable given the handicap. But by mid-game, it was over.

Regarding handicap games, I do play about 1/3 to 1/2 even games, though I guess I don't post many of them. I auto-match on KGS, which means a smaller portion of games are even, but I also play on Tygem, so always even games there. But since I'm on a mac, its harder to download games from there.

Again, thanks for the review.

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Go Books

Starting to play more regularly on Tygem.

Update on tsumego progress:
The last 30 problems of Graded Go Problems for Beginners v4 are hard, I've stepped away for it as I don't want to stare at a problem for 5 minutes feeling like I'm not making any progress.

I've read through the first couple books of Lee Changho's L&D and Tesuji. Definitely mid/low-SDK books, they can be read through in a night. And 4th volume of Tesuji is definitely DDK (30 minutes to read through).

Worked through all the C problems in the first volume of The Book to Increase Your Fighting Strength at Go. Solved the majority of them. They require reading sequences up to 30 moves long, but there's plenty of forcing moves, so it doesn't have a high branching factor. There's a couple of "gotchas" you have to be careful of. But the B problems start to get a bit harder, especially reading without hints.

Have volumes 3 of Lee Changho's Tesuji and Life and Death next on the list, along with 501 Tesuji?

My current plan is to spend 1 hour a day on problems (time permitting), and then add games in a few times a week, on Tygem or KGS. Seeing how far this can get me until December.

Depending on if I get accepted to grad school will depend on how much time I can devote after December...which if accepted, will be "not much."

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Go Books

GGPB4 is hard! I don't think I've ever finished it. I feel like it's really volume 5 and there should be a different volume 4 to bridge the gap between volume 3 and it. The v3 problems always make sense to me, even if they take a while to calculate, while suddenly a lot of the v4 problems seem to be very "abstract", with a lot of open space, and I feel at sea looking for handholds to get my thinking started. I will probably start a thread at some point asking how stronger players approach some of these problems.

Do you have the Maeda tsumego books? That's what I plan to attack (at least the first volume) once I finish 1001L&D (49 problems to go!) and maybe before I try to finish getting through GGPB4.