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 Post subject: Challenging 5 Dans—Hades Redemption
Post #1 Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2019 8:16 pm 
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I played at a go club in my area for a year and a half. I went from 9K to 3K. I stopped playing there. When I left the club, there was a 1 Dan, a 2 kyu, and a 4 kyu. The 1D had been at the same rank for ten years with no progress. The 4 kyu was the same. The 2K, my rival, had been steadily progressing but had played the game for close to ten years.

I haven’t played go steadily for 3 years. However, my rank has climbed through casually watching games online. I got to KGS 1k, Tygem 1D. I figured I would be competitive when I rejoined the club.

In three years time, with the advent of Leela, the 1D and 2K are now 5 Dans! The 4K is now 1D. Imagine my shock. I thought they were fooling me, but they weren’t. The 2K went up to be able to beat IGS 6dans even in 3 years just through using Leela and studying his games. I feel like I have failed my go.

I have decided to work my way through Cho Chikun’s life and death problems as well as study all of my games through Leela. I want to redeem myself. I have fallen behind the guys in my club. I want to make it to 5D and be able to compete with them again. I am proud of them and their incredible progress. I am ashamed of not pursuing my goals as strongly as they have.

My biggest problem with improvement is my own ego. I want to win every game and losing makes me feel horrible. I need to become okay with losing, and just get better by talking my mistakes and learning from them. I need to let go of my ego and thinking I have to be the smartest person making moves on the board.

Thank you all, and wish me luck in my journey.

*Does anyone have resources or advice for a study regimen. If I can come up with something concrete, I think it will be easier to hold myself accountable.

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 Post subject: Re: Challenging 5 Dans—Hades Redemption
Post #2 Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2019 9:48 pm 
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Wow that's insane improvement. This makes me wonder if I should use LeelaZero to help self-review games myself.


Edit - actually going up 4 stones in the dan ranges in 3-4 years is impressive but not impossible. a bit less surprised now lol

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 Post subject: Re: Challenging 5 Dans—Hades Redemption
Post #3 Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 12:42 am 
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That is amazing and uplifting for everyone, that even if you're older, you're still able to deepen your knowledge about the game so that it leads to consistent improvement!

I wonder if that is also the reason behind the strength of the french players.. when I went to my Go club I heard something I had read somewhere else too (I think it was on the dgob forum about the EGC), that the french players ranks are no longer corresponding to the other european ranks, so french 1 Dans are easily beating other European 3-4 Dans and so on.
In the Go Club it was said, that it was because french players only play among themselves, so their pool of players seems to be as a whole stronger, so it is harder to climb their ranks, but now I am thinking.. maybe it is because they're also using Leela more rigorously?

I also feel Leela and other AI are god send, now you don't have to wait for a stronger player to be around, why didn't XY work? Why is Z the better move? Everything can be explained with using the AI and experimenting around with moves. I still haven't fully integrated it into my learning regime myself, I only use it for quick ~10 minutes reviews after games (time is valuable after all).. but now I think maybe I should also play against it more often or at least spend more time on longer reviews, experiment with openings and so on! Could you maybe ask, how the players in your local go club used Leela?

Good luck on your journey!

As for study regime, I would say less is more as long as you can do it consistently and don't burn yourself out, by taking on too much. You can always adjust to do more later, if you feel you have enough time, but if you start out with a lot, and then go back to doing less it might feel like giving up and that can be a blow to overall moral.

Regarding Leela I am a site supporter on OGS which has integrated AI, so that is always nifty if you don't have much time, it'll review your game (but you can not play around with moves) so it shows you your biggest mistakes or best moves, who was leading and so on. I also feel playing on OGS with that feature lessens the blows to the ego, because sometimes you can see you were actually leading the entire game, until some devastating mistakes, or you were losing the whole game and then.. what is there to feel sad about? At least I realized how terrible my sense of judgement was.

On my own PC I also use Leela to review the pro games I replay, to understand move sequences etc. and situations in my own games, per day I don't use more than 10-15 minutes on a game, and don't do it for every game.

I would say doing tsumego consistently every day without a break is the most important, after all reading is one of the most important skill in the game and the one you can most easily hone.

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 Post subject: Re: Challenging 5 Dans—Hades Redemption
Post #4 Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 5:53 am 
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Quote:
I also feel Leela and other AI are god send, now you don't have to wait for a stronger player to be around, why didn't XY work? Why is Z the better move?


Yeah, it eliminates the confusion. Two players at 1D strength could be thinking about 3 or 4 possible moves in a situation. They both could argue the merits of their moves. But with Leela it is easy to plug in. And then you find out both players are wrong. The 5D told me to run the first 20-25 moves of every single game I play through Leela and start to get a feel for what she thinks is the best line of play.

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 Post subject: Re: Challenging 5 Dans—Hades Redemption
Post #5 Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:15 am 
Judan

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DeprivedWaste wrote:
I wonder if that is also the reason behind the strength of the french players.. when I went to my Go club I heard something I had read somewhere else too (I think it was on the dgob forum about the EGC), that the french players ranks are no longer corresponding to the other european ranks, so french 1 Dans are easily beating other European 3-4 Dans and so on.
In the Go Club it was said, that it was because french players only play among themselves, so their pool of players seems to be as a whole stronger, so it is harder to climb their ranks, but now I am thinking.. maybe it is because they're also using Leela more rigorously?


Sandbaggy French ranks have existed long before strong AI. I think it's down to a combination of factors:
- France has strong kids who improve fast (UK doesn't, maybe because we don't have a summer go camp like them, cultural differences, HnG in French???)
- France is overly strict about rating resets. If a real 5k plays on KGS and 6 months later gets KGS 3d and goes to a tournament they make him enter as 5k. In England the 5k-now-3d tell this fact to the tournament organiser (maybe a friend corroborates), get entered as e.g. 2d, beat some 2ds, lose to some 2ds, and so get reset in EGD as 2d.

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 Post subject: Re: Challenging 5 Dans—Hades Redemption
Post #6 Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:31 am 
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Hades12 wrote:
Quote:
I also feel Leela and other AI are god send, now you don't have to wait for a stronger player to be around, why didn't XY work? Why is Z the better move?


Yeah, it eliminates the confusion. Two players at 1D strength could be thinking about 3 or 4 possible moves in a situation. They both could argue the merits of their moves. But with Leela it is easy to plug in. And then you find out both players are wrong. The 5D told me to run the first 20-25 moves of every single game I play through Leela and start to get a feel for what she thinks is the best line of play.


Ah, I'll def. do that too then, I mean I memorize pro games (only ~100 moves) exactly for that reason, getting a better feeling for the game / whole board situations, but reviewing your own games with Leela in that way instead of looking at isolated situations might help even more.

Uberdude wrote:
Sandbaggy French ranks have existed long before strong AI. I think it's down to a combination of factors:
- France has strong kids who improve fast (UK doesn't, maybe because we don't have a summer go camp like them, cultural differences, HnG in French???)
- France is overly strict about rating resets. If a real 5k plays on KGS and 6 months later gets KGS 3d and goes to a tournament they make him enter as 5k. In England the 5k-now-3d tell this fact to the tournament organiser (maybe a friend corroborates), get entered as e.g. 2d, beat some 2ds, lose to some 2ds, and so get reset in EGD as 2d.


Very interesting insight into the scene, as a tournament beginner I have to admit I was very confused about the processes here in Germany, and that they just let me state a rank and then you were practically overlad by yourself in terms of finding out where your board is, and how those dang clocks work haha, even a simple matter as finding the list to sign in the result. Luckily I attended my very first tournament with two other go club attendees (sadly I got sick midway..) but without them I would have felt lost even more, but obviously you can not expect people to hold your hand, but a bit more open information somewhere beforehand would be welcomed from beginners I think, at least for my part, even though its not rocket science.

That said I am looking forward to my second tournament (sadly no others from my Go club attending!), and just to make Go a part of my lifestyle.

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 Post subject: Re: Challenging 5 Dans—Hades Redemption
Post #7 Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:57 am 
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Your story illustrates another thing: for most people the biggest obstace in reaching reasonable strength (mid-dan amateur) is simply keeping up the interest and activity in go.

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 Post subject: Re: Challenging 5 Dans—Hades Redemption
Post #8 Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2019 8:46 am 
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hl782 wrote:
Wow that's insane improvement. This makes me wonder if I should use LeelaZero to help self-review games myself.


Edit - actually going up 4 stones in the dan ranges in 3-4 years is impressive but not impossible. a bit less surprised now lol


4 stones in 3-4 years isn't impossible. The 2k is now beating 6D in even games. That's 7ish stones in 3 years. And getting to 5/6D after being stuck at the same rank for years is crazy to think about. Strong AI has completely changed the amateur scene.

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 Post subject: Re: Challenging 5 Dans—Hades Redemption
Post #9 Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2019 7:38 am 
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First update: I have decided to go through Cho Chikun's Encyclopedia of Life and Death, the elementary set this week. I am currently on problem 725 out of 899. I'm using the posted ones on OGS. They are fairly easy for someone around 1k or 1D. I have heard the Intermediate set is a little more difficult. Next week I will try to knock out that set. And this upcoming Sunday, my friend at the club is going to give my a flashdrive of about 10 gigs of go books/resources to use to study.

My goal tonight is to get on IGS, a server I haven't played on in a very long time. I registered as a 1D and I am going to see if I can play some solid games. I might get a game on Tygem tonight as well. I am going to try to study and review two or three times as much as I am playing though.

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