Right now my study plan or activity consists of doing tsumego from 1001 problems and tesuji from get strong at tesuji. No set pace. I also review all my games, especially the ones I lost. My goal is to be 6k by the end of August and then gain approximately 1 stone each month, hoping for more of course. If I stick to this pace I will be shodan before I've played a year, which is my real goal.

I'm planning on reading Direction of play relatively soon. When I get to 6k perhaps.
I also plan on rereading Attack and defense and Fundamentals by kageyama again soon. Last time I read them was months ago.

Here is a two in one problem. Enjoy

White to play on the bottom right side.
White to play in the middle.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . O O X X X X X X X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . O X O O O O O O X . , O . . |
$$ | . . . . . O X . . . O . O X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . O X X . X X . O X . . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . O O X X O . . O X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . O O X X X O O X . . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . O O . X X O X . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . O O O X X X X O O . |
$$ | . . . . . X . . X X X X O O O X O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . X O X O O X X . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

If you can chill and still improve one stone a month, that's pretty awesome. Me? maybe 1 stone in six months if I am chilling properly.

_________________
Sanity is for the weak.

Yeah well I'm just enjoying the process. That's why I call it chilling

I do infact study a bit of go.

Just the ordinary things though, like problems and reviewing my games. When I become strong I plan on memorizing and looking through a vast quantity of professional games. Even at this stage I think it will be useful, but later the usefulness will increase so that's why I'm waiting

And Li kao, yay!

Just a small update. Started school but I think I'll be able to improve at the same rate no problem. It won't be long before I reach 6k, which means I'm doing well in relation to my plan. Haven't done much tsumego or tesuji for a few days, but I'll be cracking down to catch up in the next few days. Reasons are school and rereading Attack and defense (which already made me stronger, though I'm not even halfway yet).


-Also, I seem to be addicted to playing games....

Another small update. I reached 6k quite awhile ago and according to kgs I'm well on my way to 5k (3/4th) so maybe I'll be able to reach 4k around the end of september? I really hope so! That would be awesome. But I think it's possible since I also joined the KGS korean style insei league. I'll be continuing with my normal schedule of randomly doing tesuji problems from Get strong at tesuji and tsumego from 1001 tsumego problems in drago. I'm also considering finishing up the Graded go problems for beginners series (vol 4), I really love that series and I can recommend it to everyone.

So yeah. So far it's been smooth sailing, except for staying at 9k a little longer than I wanted:)
But all in all my 6 months of playing go has been overall successful. But ofc I would have liked to improve faster.

But It's only just beginning!

-----

Ok now something else not many would have seen. I found a move somewhere and I researched it on SL and started experimenting with it in my games. I think it's a fun and interesting move. It was used alot in ancient china.

I'd like to post some games where I played it but it doesn't feel right. If I was high dan maybe.. instead I'll give you some links to the move.


So here it is! My new favorite move (for now:p)
http://www.brugo.be/sequence.php?sid=712&version=002
http://senseis.xmp.net/?44PointLowAppro ... rallelJump

I will keep on improving!

-peace

If you have only been playing for 6 months then I think the way you played against me yesterday was extremely impressive. I felt you were stronger at strategy than tactics, but already pretty good all round. Definitely the insei games will help you to improve because everybody is putting more thought and effort into them than ordinary KGS games.

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

Thank you It was a good game and you're definitely right about the fact that people put more effort into their league games. It's frightening compared to normal KGS play and a great environment for learning. So I can recommend it to everybody

I just received my Goban yesterday and since then I've replayed three games from invincible and found it extremely enjoyable!. I also tried to play on KGS mimicking the moves on the board but I soon entered byo-yomi (10 min time), so yeah..

But I've noticed just going over a few games, some benefits. remarkably, I've start seeing more shape points and possibilities opening up before me. It takes me about an hour and a half, depending on the length of the game, to work through it at a brisk pace, trying not to understand every move but the general flow and purpose behind the moves. It may also have something to do with my strange impulse to whipe the board every 20-30 moves and replay it from memory, trying to see the purpose of the moves in my mind as I do it. (No doubt this is good for me, so I can recommend it to you if you have the time). It might not be as beneficial as 1.5 hours of tsumego or tesuji problems at this point, but I still think it's worth the time, especially because I enjoy it so much and still learn. Sadly I can't say I derive the same joy from Tsumego or tesuji problems but by no means do I dread them.

So how's my progess? Still 6k on kgs but I feel atleast 1 stone stronger than that. Maybe even close to 4k strength. I will try to reach atleast 4k strength this month. I think I'm being realistic and not optimistic at this point, but we'll see.

-Ciao

Nobody gave the answer for the problem in the bottom right.

Here goes!


How about if B goes first? W's center dies - wow, this is really a turning point in this game.

Any other possibilities?

_________________
Ko is the best solution.
With Ko, I can keep eating and drinking until I am full.

Visit >>>Koosh's Study Journal<<<

Hey Koosh thanks for stopping by and sorry for ignoring you:) I was just waiting for the right moment (i.e when I can be bothered), to give an update on my progress.

I've found that replaying games coupled with lots of easy tsumego is extremely effective for me. So how's my rank doing? I'm 5k on KGS and the rank graph is slowly creeping up. The problem is that I keep playing game after game and I can win a few in a row but then my concentration starts to slip as I listen to music and browse around youtube while waiting for my opponent to make a move. Sooo, I gotta play a little less, or atleast take some breaks inbetween games

I feel my strength is atleast 4k, and I also feel like I can take on 3kyu's in even games (or 0.5 komi games maybe) so all in all I'm doing pretty well.

I will reach my goal of shodan within 1 year of playing!

I feel I should post an update in here. I've reached 4k a little while ago and I feel very happy about my progress. I've been a bit depressed lately and played lots of horrible games on bad days which slowed down the KGS progress, but recently I've read Elementary go series vol 1, in the beginning, and I feel I've become atleast a stone stronger if not more from reading it. If I manage to apply the things I learned from the book in the game every time I play I will quickly reach 3k. I need to start doing some tsumego again, haven't really been keeping up with that so much lately:)))

Still, at this pace I will reach my goal easily. So I'm satisfied

EDIT: I just had my first win against a shodan from Japan on 4 stones. Very happy about that game. It shows how much more I understand influence, thickness and walls after I read the book on opening. I can really recommend it to everybody! I think my style is changing alot also. Before I tried to take all the corner territories and give my opponent influence, then invade and try to live everywhere. Now I play according to my opponent, but I like building walls and attacking my opponents weak groups to profit. For this I love the komoku-mokuhazushi combination as black it is very flexible and can play territorially if I want, crossfuseki if possible. For white I like 2 mokuhazushi atm:)

Okay so it's been awhile since my last update. I admit I'm not doing much to keep this supposed study journal up to date with all my epic study plans that don't really exist (maybe that's why). I've just been doing a few tsumego, playing games and analysing them afterwards.

The reason I'm posting is quite simple really. I reached 2k on KGS. I made a new account because the old one got stuck since I played alot of games on it. I decided to play free games on KGS and only play rated games when I feel I want to play seriously and win. I put it at 3k since my other account was 4k and stuck there but I felt I was 3k strength atleast. I've been 3k for a week or two and my new account fluctuated between 3k and 2k even when I wasn't playing rated. Bit weird. I also joined ASR league and it feels nice. I'm in Delta and I hope to be promoted next month. I guess I'll post more updates here about the league and how I'm doing.

For now I'll leave you with the game that got me promoted to 2k. Maybe it's not quite stable 2k yet but I don't care. I have to start playing on a higher level soon. I need to maintain my forward momentum and reach shodan in a few months! Then if all goes according to play I'll have reached shodan in about 10 months of playing. It's by no means impressive but it's a start.


Anyway here's the game, feel free to throw some comments my way, I did find a few mistakes here and there and the interesting thing is I felt a bit behind so I tried to play more severe after one of my groups died. (Shouldn't even have tried to live in there)...but here it is for real this time ;d

Time to update the study journal.

Status report:

Original Goal: 1d in a year or less
Current rank: 1k KGS 1k-1d Tygem.
Time left: 2 months.

How to proceed from here?
I thought about buying the graded go problems for dan players series since it seems really nice, but I'm still uncertain about it. In the mean time I will be working my way through vol.1-6 of the changho Tsumego and Tesuji books. Text is in Chinese, which I don't understand, but that's okay because I don't get as much help for the problem. I do know the characters for black to play and white to play since they are pretty much the same as in Japanese, which I do understand :p

My goal will be accomplished! (Hopefully before mid-march, which is the deadline)


------

I've noticed that when I decide to play for territory, I always end up with extremely close games, especially if I play Japanese players (they seem to be everywhere on kgs). If I play speedy influence style which Is my favourite, I will win by alot, resign, or win by resign:)

I find it easier to play for influence and get into some fights (messy but fun, like sex:p) since I'm strong at fighting (and at... WAIT! did you really think I would say that? I would, but...). I'm not so good at playing the Endgame and the Opening, especially a territorial opening:)

So how do I fix this? Continue to play and review my games of course. I also have Invincible, the games of Shusaku, which I enjoy tremendously but sometimes find hard to understand. (Note: it takes a long time to go through one game but I enjoy it so I do it occasionally). Mainly though, problems and playing games is my way of improving fast, and it seems to work


That's it for my current rank, see you when I'm kgs 1d

Here's a game from Invincible that made a big impression on me.

Played over two games from Gokifu...a tradition which I enjoy very much. The games I played over just happened to be figthing games, see for yourself...

I think I might have become a fan of Hirata Tomoya...



This Hong guy is seriously strong. I might have to stalk him aswell:)

While replaying games on gokifu.com I came across an amazing game... Simply incredible.

Words cannot describe how I felt when replaying this game. The play of Lee amazed me, and the sequence he used to end the game was beyond imagination!
His play kind of remind me of Lee changho. Especially move 14.

Hi!
Are the sources you mention the only ones you used so far in studying go?
If not can you make an approximate chronological list of material used(books, exercises, how much you played)?
Thank you!

Hi OV!

Thanks for posting them games. It was really interesting to look at the Lee Jihyun game in light of the "Ten Golden Rules", which I've been studying recently. So many examples of "defending before attacking" and "playing away from where you want to attack". For instance, White's f5 is exactly the kind of move that looks so slow, but is also so full of power.

The ending was very pretty, but it seemed White was dominating the endgame anyway. I was just thinking that this game is a great example of how to use an attack to win, without necessarily killing anything...but then the kill came anyway.

_________________
Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here: