So after returning to go after a long (too long) hiatus I've decided to ramp up on my go study to push myself farther than ever before. So I don't really have a settled rank anywhere yet so I'm just going to assume that I'm playing ~4-3 kyu aga ratings at the moment and work up from there.

My goals are less about ranks and more about playing better against some people in my local club. I think this is a good goal since trying to keep a solid rank online is to stressful for me

This is my current study plan.

March through:

1001 life and death: Current problem 189
Get strong at tesuji: Finished all 1 star problems, Half way through 2 star

Study closely:

Making Good Shape
The Basics of Go Strategy
Way of creating a thick strong game
Whole board thinking in Joseki Vol 1

This study plan with at least 5 thoughtful games followed by a review a week, I think will carry me into the new year with enough momentum to actually improve some.

Wish me luck!

Good luck! AGA 3-4 kyu seems to be roughly equivalent to where I am so it'll be interesting to see how you tackle things.

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So you've got an eye?
That don't impress me much

The things that have been killing me in most of my games with 1-2dan players is joseki mistakes that put me very behind in the middle game. The other thing that is hard to learn is when to pick your fights. If I can get some handle on each of these weaknesses I think I'll improve a stone at least. The hard part is doing it.

Well last night was a little less than successful at the club. I played 4 games three giving stones (6, 3, and 2) and one taking 6. After being absolutely exhausted, I could only bring myself to actually try in one game. That was the 6 stone game against our clubs 5d. I thought I was doing pretty well for most of the game, especially halfway through the game when he told me that I "play much better than 4kyu". Well that didn't stop me from blowing the game on 2 reading errors in the late middle game. I ended up resigning when I heard his lid over flow with black pieces. He offered me this critique of my game "strategy very good, but calculation is poor" This was a theme in all the games of the night. I blew every game after losing a large group to some cut I never bothered to read. Maybe I was just tired, still getting over my flu, but I feel a little bit ashamed of the way I played. I gave a 9k 3 stones, started a noticeably dumb fight, lost,resigned. Then I played him again at 2 stones, was beating him by 30+ points when he cuts and captures about 15 of my stones saving a previously dead group of his own stones, of course this was all after I recommended that we should go back to 3 stones for the next match.

It was a long day, I managed to get in some tsumego (20 problems from 1001 life and death) and started to dig into basic strategies of go. I think if I keep this pace up I'll begin to dream in 19x19.

So maybe do more tsumego, less other stuff - reading is obviously your bottleneck and the fastest way to improve.

No doubt this is the best way for me to improve, I just find tsumego a little/lot tedious. For some reason they gust end up feeling like math homework for me. But I do want to get better so I guess it's a little bit of a do or don't get better moment for me.

So It looks like I've found a way to make tsumego more interesting. The test room on wbaduk is great for me. Being timed it forces me to read more efficiently, it doesn't give the answer but still lets me know when I'm wrong, which seems to be a lot of the time at the 5k level. The diagnostics says my game is horribly weak for a 5k but I can usually beat 4k on the server. It seems the like the problems for the middle game and opening are ridiculously hard and I can never seem to get too many right.

Having had a little bit of a study binge over the weekend.
-3 Blitz games played (lost all of them horribly and embarrassingly on wbaduk)

-1 teaching game received + review (got smoked by a 1d)

~ Around 200 tsumego done from books (70+ From 1001 l+d problems, 100+ from get strong at Tesuji, 30 from Making good shape)

-Innumerable easy GoChild problems done

-Read through 1/2 of The Fundamental Principles of Go

-Started going through Whole Board Thinking In Joseki Vol. 1
Only by sight at fist, then reading the answers, will start on board sometime next week

I'm in a pretty similar position. I frequently get told that for my level my strategy is good but my mico is weak. I've been slowly going through a tesuji book as a result which I hope will help.

I think the key is finding the type of problems that will be the most interesting for you. For me, it's definitely tesuji over L&D.

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

I would go as far as to say, except for the basic life-and-death shapes one you should only do Tesuji problems.
Simple Tsumegos as in "1001 Life-and-Death Problems" just train your reading (incl. concentration and calmness), but with Tesuji problems I feel, that you not only train your reading but also your vital point spotting. In the end it doesn't really matter if you can brute-force 20 move ahead in every direction but miss the one Tesuji, which would solve the situation.

I think, I wrote this once in my own study journal: A Dan-player told me, there are Tesuji problems to know what to read and Tsumegos to be able to read it out. But then again, every Tesuji problem requires you to read out the sequence.

But, well, Jedo is right: Do what you enjoy most and you can't go wrong!

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

My playing seems to be rising a little in level. This game was versus a 2kyu and I lost by resign but, the game was almost even for a long time.

Some new go books came in the mail yesterday, and I find myself incredibly excited. Dictionary of Basic tesuji vols. 1 and 2 along with a book from the master play series. Skimming The tesuji dictionary has me the most excited. This book seems to be very dry, but the information contained within is incredible. To say it is a dense text does it little justice. My current plan of study is to play out each diagram on my board, play the solution, remove it, spend 5 minutes per position reading Kitani style. Kitani style reading is something that is mentioned in the new Master Play book I ordered, The territorial styles of Kitani Minoru and Cho Chikun. The author describes how Kitani was know for reading in reverse order, he would start his reading, not with the most likely move he felt, but with the the one he trusted least. Then he would systematically work up to what he felt was best. I see that this process can be applied to this tesuji book. Even though I "know" the right answer, having to read out the wrong answers will no doubt improve my reading and intuition at the same time.

I've recently found that life and death tsumego are not the best way for me to study. I see how they should benefit other people, but I think I have an attitude problem solving them. I don't enjoy getting them right because it seems obvious, and get very frustrated when I read them incorrectly, so I feel like is actually discouraging me from reading in real games. Reading in real games is something that brings me great joy. Nothing feels better than reading out a long sequence that allows me to save a lost group, or kill an unsuspecting opponent.

This is especially fun when playing Chung, a 5d that I play alot at my club. Currently I'm 0-3 against him at either 6 stones or -50pts komi. He is a great player and getting to play him semi-regularly is the best thing about the go club I've been attending. After a very fun game we played on monday, he said that we should decrease my handicap against him to 5 stones! The opening was great fun, Since I had a reverse komi, I decided to just have fun, here are the first few moves. (I made SOOOOOOO many joseki mistakes XD)
[sgf-full](;GM[1]FF[4]CA[UTF-8]AP[CGoban:3]ST[2]
RU[Japanese]SZ[19]KM[-50.00]
PW[Chung (5d)]PB[Andd (2k?)]
;B[jj]
;W[dp]
;B[oq]
;W[cd]
;B[qo]
;W[qc]
;B[pd]
;W[pc]
;B[od]
;W[re]
;B[pg]
;W[nb]
;B[mc]
;W[nc]
;B[ec]
;W[nd]
;B[df]
;W[ed]
;B[fd]
;W[ee]
;B[dc]
;W[ce]
;B[hc]
;W[cc]
;B[cn]
;W[ck]
;B[dm]
;W[co]
;B[fq]
;W[fp]
;B[gp]
;W[gq]
;B[ep]
;W[fo]
;B[eq]
;W[eo]
;B[gr]
;W[hq]
;B[cq]
;W[dq]
;B[cp]
;W[dr]
;B[bo]
;W[do]
;B[bm])[/sgf-full]

So today I had my first lesson with Joey Hung 8D. It went well, and we set our current goal, Shodan in 2 weeks! I guess its time to really buckle down before classes start again.

Sunday was the Massachusetts Go Association Winter Go Tourney. I entered as 4k and went 0-4. After a day in a slump, I believe that I've finally narrowed in on the soft point of my go. My reading is incredibly sloppy. I can manage to fight pretty well since my intuition of shape is usually better than my opponent's but my basic reading skills are lacking. It is a good thing then, that some go books arrived at my doorstep last night. I ordered the Yi Chang Ho life and death collection and a chinese printing of the Gokyu Shumyo. I figure these along with 1001 life and death problems should last me till I'm 3d

I've already worked my way through the green beginner volume of the Yi Chang Ho set. I could solve most at a glance but a few I found far trickier than some of the five move problems from 1001 life and death and took me a minute or two. The books are rather small, only 123 problems per volume, but since there is a page per problem, I feel a lot less distracted than having the peripheral noise that is in larger problem books. It seems I have a little bit of a wondering eye when it comes to problem books.

So green down blue is next. I can already tell the next book is much harder, so it might take me more than a day to solve it all. Tsumego binge before I have to start classes and that long commute to school!

the gokyu shumyo is incredibly hard already so that one will last beyond 3d level most probably.

What i found helpfull in my game is to get better shape, maybe a book about shape is good for you at this point so you know better where you should start to read instead of having to figure that out first.

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admin of the ASR league and KGS admin

I'm treating the gokyu shumyo as my set of tsumego that I can't solve yet but attempting them anyway as a practice in reading deapth and focus. I have no illusions of solving them completely for a long time.