Ok, I'm not particularly planning on a regular journal, unless people are interested in progress, but I've decided to hit 3d KGS (currently between 1 and 2 dan) and 1d IGS (not really played there for a long while, and resurrected my old 4k account) by the end of the year.

My plan is as follows:

a) professional games

Just Play Go uses GoSWF, a flash based player that has a most awesome guessometer. I don't want to just randomly play through games, I want to study them, so I've decided my goal is to perfectly predict professional games. My routine is as follows:

1) Hit the double forward arrow to note the total number of moves, and the final board position (to get a feel for opening moves and general flow). Look at it for about 10 seconds, then return to the beginning.
2) From that point, the only moves that hit the board are correct guesses, regardless of how many guesses it takes to get there. The system is 1/x points per move, where x is the number of guesses it took (so if you always get it right on exactly the 3rd guess, that's a total score of 0.33 points per move).
3) I log my final score, and the percentage, and then do a full re-run. I log the 2nd final score and percentage. Sometimes I play through the game a couple more times that day, sometimes I don't.
4) 24-48 hours later, I do my third "proper" run, and log the final score and percentage again. I score myself based on the average of the 3 proper runs.

I'm going to do every game that JPG publishes.

Why do I find this helpful? I consider both thinking and memorisation useful for training whole board assessment, individual reading, local urgency, and general shape. Run 1 forces me to get inside the professional's head "What next? Is that miai? Is that urgent? Is the best local response fixing here, or cutting there? etc". Run 2 checks how well I can remember the flow of the stones and the move order. And Run 3 sort of tests a mid-term memory of both.

b) Go problems.

Particularly tesuji, but L+D and other interesting problems from GoChild. I'm aiming to do about 1,000 a month, with one re-run each month of each, and take no longer than 15-20 seconds over any of them. Whilst I can see the attraction for some in treating these as a daily struggle puzzle, professionals seem to agonise for all of, I dunno, 3 seconds, over most of the dan level puzzles I've seen them do. What's more infuriating is that they get them right too, so it's clear that good instinct, memorisation of shape, and reading all need to combine.

So, I give myself 15-20 seconds to read out a right answer. If I get it wrong, I do it again, and if I get it wrong again, I move on. I keep a track of my total correct, and percentage correct, of both "1st attempt" and "1st or 2nd attempt" answers. I want the correct answers, the wrong answers, and some of the sequences to brand themselves into my brain, as opposed to labour for 15 minutes on a single problem without guarantee of success. It's my instinct I want good, and the fact I have to read each line to see if it works before clicking will hopefully keep my reading sharp too.

c) Games.

I intend on playing 10 serious, ranked games each month, starting on IGS.

So, does anyone want to do any of these sorts of things with me, and we can keep sending each other results, thoughts, questions, comments etc.. and act as a sort of training partner?

That sounds awesome.
I'm currently trying to do 20 problems a day (so about 600/month), although I don't have the answers. And also play about 10 serious games/month. I'm not as strong as you, since I'm doing the 1k/1d fandango on kgs, but I'd love to collaborate a bit on something like this. I really want to breeze (lol) a couple of dan ranks.

How would you see it going? I'm trying to review at least one major point in my games (a joseki that didn't work, a tactical or strategic choice or whatever). Maybe it would be interesting to swap a few sgfs and get a 2nd opinion on our reviews? Not sure if a couple of stones weaker is the sort of studybuddy you were after, but I assume we'll have slightly different skill sets.

To be honest, I have no idea. I mean, one idea if anyone likes the actual plan I have would be to do the same games and problems, and keep tally of scores on Google Docs or something. That way, if my partner did a set, or a game, I'd try to fit in doing it too - it could be a sort of competitive motivator of sorts (competition not to score higher, but to do as much work as the partner )

Also, it would be good to share emails with anyone that wanted to be a part of it, and throw .sgfs at each other whenever we have something to share. I could always set up a simple email distribution address at my domain with anyone who wants in, and create a Google Doc spreadsheet that we can all have space on.

Frankly, it's all rather loose in woolly in my head (with respect to co-ordinating with other people), but I'm genuinely trying to improve this year, and the obligation to work hard because of mutual accountability will hopefully stop my natural inclination to procrastinate.

FWIW, my progress this month so far:

1 game on IGS - hugely frustrating, but a half point win, so I'm contented enough for now (I was lucky, not only did I give 2 stones, but also 5.5 komi - I had just assumed I had 0.5 points instead, so I misjudged my advantage - I played overly passively in the end, and was really lucky not to throw the game)

Problems (all from GoChild Intermediate):



Pro games (match, players, total moves, 1st run, 2nd run, 3rd run, average %):
Kisei 5 - Cho U vs Iyama Yuta - 322 moves - 179.27 - 275.84 - 288.99 - 77.0%
BC Rd2 - Gu Li vs Dang Yifei - 292 moves - 170.44 - 241.07 - 247.65 - 75.2%
BC Rd2 - Zhou Hexi vs Choi Cheolhan - 137 moves - 76.93 - 120.29 - 136.5 - 81.2%
BC Rd2 - Sun Li vs Lee Sedol - 286 moves - 167.68 - 233.13 - 272.2 - 78.4%
BC Rd2 - Chen Yaoye vs Ryu Jaehyeong - 170 moves - 87.46 - 143.96 - 157.58 - 76.3%

The idea of throwing each other fusekis, josekis, .sgfs, and questions sounds good too

My study plan is just memorizing games and solving tsumego. Although I'm not interested in joining you with your plan, I am interested in how it works out for you. If you would like to play on a weekly basis or have study sessions where we could discuss games or joseki on kgs I'd be happy to do that.

TopazG,

I'm not sure if I fit the bill, but my study interests bear a strong similarity to yours.

Professional games

For many of the reasons you mentioned, plus the fact that studying and memorizing professional games an enjoyable way of increasing my knowledge and appreciation of the game's strongest protagonists, this is something that I do irregularly and would like to do more often.

My method is similar to yours.
First, I watch the game at a fairly fast clip, just to get the jist of it. Then I play through the game slowly, trying to guess moves, puzzling over unexpected moves, and trying out a variation here and there.
Then, I open the game in Goscorer (From GoGoD) and see how much I remembered.

What I haven't been doing, but I'd like to, is to keep tabs on my results (perhaps on the first 100 moves), to test my memory a few days later, and to set a reasonable quantity goal - something like 10 games a month. Working together with a training partner might give me the impetus to do so.

Go Problems

Again, my approach and interests are similar to yours, but unstructured. While I also like to do problems that are solvable relatively quickly, this is more often in the two minute range except for problems I've done repeatedly (Get Strong at Tesuji, 1001 L&D, with the book upside-down and sideways). Again, I like the idea of figuring out a way to keep track of my progress. Go Child seems like a good choice, though I also have a few additional problem books that I'm currently digging through.

Games

Since I've abandoned blitz, pretty much all of my games are "serious." However, I spend a good deal more time playing than studying, and I'd like to shift the balance a bit.

While we're not on the same level, and sharing problems wouldn't be of much use, sharing interesting professional games is plausible, and having a study partner for reasons of accountability might also make sense. I've been at 6k now for about 9 months, and by adding some structure to my studies, I think reaching 4k is not an unreasonable short-term goal. Let me know if you're interested.

_________________
Patience, grasshopper.

One thing: I like looking over the games on justplaygo, but I'm not sure they're the best to memorise. Perfect example: the top 2 games on there right now are incomprehensible to me past the opening, and even there bits are shakey. (That's Lee Sedol into Siptan semis and Cho U wins NEC) Especially the Lee Sedol game - why did white resign there? He already owns nearly half the board, surely life on the top shouldn't be too hard to make big enough to have a chance. Obviously I'm almost certainly wrong, but I'm just too far behind to comprehend why.

As far as I can see, White's dead on the far right, which makes White a fair bit behind. It's because that Black group on the bottom stops White from killing the dead-looking Black group in the middle right, giving Black enough liberties to kill first.

Unless my reading's wrong

Yeah, some games are crazy, but it's not really the positional judgement I'm looking for so much as the thought processes behind the moves that got them there. I'll respond more fully later hopefully!

Ok, I've created an email distribution list. If anyone wants to be on it, PM the email address you'd like me to add. I've no idea what we're going to talk about, but it could be a good opportunity for questions and ideas or something.

Any ranks are completely welcome, but I'll probably limit it to 5, or 8, people, or around that anyway.

EDIT: I've removed the direct link, as signups have been pretty fast. Please contact me anyway if you're interested in joining

Sounds impressive

Out of curiosity: why IGS?

Michael

_________________
Go is easy: don't play bad moves.

a) I prefer the lack of social-ness when I just want to play Go. If I go on KGS, I get lots of PMs and people watching and all sorts. On IGS, I just have Go to play
b) I prefer IGS' ranking system
c) I prefer IGS' default time controls

d) Also, I prefer the play style on IGS

which is?

I don't quite know how to put my finger on it. My guess is that on KGS, players seem to spend so much time on theory (particularly josekis, fusekis, common shapes etc) that throwing curve balls seems to put a lot of people off. I've found a few games where I'll be playing people my rank who know their josekis that fall to pieces if you play a trick play or just a plain mis-play that happens to not be well theorised.

On IGS, I find people just don't know, or care for, theory very much. That doesn't mean they are worse, but I haven't come across players who suddenly seem to lose it when you make an overplay or simply make things complicated for the sake of it. I just get left with the impression on KGS of "OMG, what was that?" compared to "Meh, whatever, bring it on, I can do that too" on IGS.

Sorry, probably not a very helpful answer

actually, I get it

Tsumego is much harder to study than theory.