The story here is not new. I've been acquainted with Go for nearly 20 years. In my one period of dedication, I worked my way to 8kyu and was very pleased that I broke into SDK and was learning. Then, of course, life happened, the local club dissolved, job lost, job gained, kids, house, etc. But now I'm returning.

I have a shiny new KGS account, have found the reborn local club and have played a handful of games both online and live. Online, I am pleased to see that I didn't lose too many stones and have lost my provisional rank marker and am making progress through 13k to 12k. Live, I played some handicap games, lost against a 5-kyu with 2 stones, won against a 10-kyu with 3 stones and had the invaluable opportunity to play an even game against our local 2-dan.

My provisional study plan is to get reacquainted with the game, shake off the rust and compile a list of topics to pursue more deeply. My short term goal is to break back into SDK before mid-July. After that, I'll reassess.

I have a about 20 Go books to work with from my previous stint as a dedicated gamer. I intend to play at least 4 "30 minute" games on KGS per week. That number may often be higher and so the better but I with my schedule I can certainly do 4. I intend to hit the local club at least twice a month and plan to get in at least 2 live games per, most probably against stronger players.

For review, I intend to post games here and on KGS in a review room set-up by the local club. I do a light review of each of my own games but I need to develop a more rigorous approach.

For study, I am doing a sampling of problems everyday. So far, I'm working 1001 Life and Death Problems, Get Strong at Opening, and Tesuji as the mood for any one topic strikes me. I've also been reading Making Good Shape which I am enjoying a lot but I feel its a bit beyond me .. I can see the good shapes but can't quite follow all the variations demonstrating the strengths and weaknesses. I've not gotten to the problems in that book yet. My goal here is just to stretch the reading muscle again.

Thanks to the community to shepherding me along. I'll post a game shortly for comment and some initial thoughts on my weaknesses I have observed.

Here's a very fun game I had played last night against another rusty returnee. His provisional rank was 16k?. But I saw him decimate a 14k with a 2 stone handi and so I offered to play him even. He agreed and it was a blast, ending up with a 0.5 win.



Here are my own comments -

I didn't really have a plan for my invasion on the right. I stumbled into a living group based on his mistakes. While I was pleased to just make it out alive, I know there is something better to do here.

My invasion left, and the resulting ko have me trouble. I botched the ko by trading the corner and lost a ton of points. I get nervous in ko fights, trying to assess ko threats. The result is timid play damaging play.

In the endgame, I felt I was almost ever in gote and losing points. I am sure I missed tesuji's along the way that perhaps could have given me a little more edge in the count.

Thanks in advance

Thank you EdLee!

Can anyone around 1d explain why G17 and F16 instead of F17 in upper-left joseki isn't good?
4-5 short variations will be really helpful for EiggHead and all other beginners up to 3k

I think it's a great way to study joseki: reviewing it after game and trying to find why real deviations wasn't good (or why it works so well

v00d00, G17 and F16 are thinner than F17 or E16. B may not be able to do anything immediately,
but W may have annoying problems later when things change.

After two great weeks followed by two horrible weeks (mostly due to work), I'm sitting down to play again.

I am still working problems but am really focused on getting in at least 4 serious games per week. Before work interrupted my life, I had gotten to 10kyu. I found using all my time in a 20 minute game to be very satisfying. It can get tight sometimes but I relish the chance to stop and think. My rank drifted up to 9kyu. I played a shakedown game today against an 8 kyu which I resigned. I was very happy with my opening and game out of the opening very far ahead. I ended up resigning after making 2 very basic errors of missing snapbacks. I am not discouraged though as I had wanted to get in a game just to begin to get my head back into playing.

So, back to Tesuji problems tonight and perhaps another game.

Not feeling especially keen this morning so instead of another game, I reviewed my latest one as a number of fights piqued my interest.



My own comments .. other are always welcome.


21 was a boneheaded move, bad shape and needlessly complicated my fight for life in the bottom/left. Instead of B4, C8 seems to be better move.

35-40 I got luck in the fight to kill white's group on the bottom. Too many cutting points and the double hane was just asking to get cut via M4, N3, K5, L5,J5 (double atari). Meanwhile, White's group looks vulnerable to me but I haven't sketched out a good attack on it. As it turned out, I let it go in a questionable ko-fight decision.

I felt I didn't handle the L&D aspect of this fight very well. In the end I got by ignoring 2 ko threat. The first was laughable but the second, 62 @ D5 deserved a response. But I find I'm very timid in ko fights. I decided here to trade the corner for the bottom. They seem about equal in terms of points, unless I am just flat wrong on that count.

70-85 was just rubbish on my part. Including just being utterly blind and adding to a dead group (the 2nd time I made such a basic error since my 2 week break). Now my stones on the upper left are thin and desperate.

I liked the capping move at 89 (J9) and it set off a running fight for white's group on bottom.

121 took some thought but I was still unsure of it. In the end, I blew the kill with 125 @ S1 ... should have played @R4 instead. So white ends up living and I've got a huge wall facing the upper right corner.

158, white invades my moyo. All I remember thinking was "drive him towards my thick wall and don't play to close to it .. so I play 159 to secure the upper right corner.

161 @ S13, I am fond of this move .. am I foolish?

The following fight for the life of the white group is too complicated for me to explore alternatives. In the end, I killed it but I felt that I was lucky rather than especially skillful. I was getting tense that my wall along the 7 line would get captured and had thought to connect it underneath along the right side. I thought White inexplicably let me capture many stones in the N,O, P lines which eventually cut white in two and let my wall live with ease. But I was tense.

Find a better local move for .

You mean F2 no doubt

I've two very fun games as white against fellow 9k's and came out of each with the win. The result is that I've achieved my goal of returning to 8k, the strongest level that I've ever previously achieved. From here on out, its virgin territory for me.

The latest game was kindly reviewed by a fellow local club member and was rife is strategic and reading errors all around. While I never really fell behind in the game, I felt off-balance, as my opponent never did what I expected him to do.

New goal - 5 kyu September .. 3 stones in 3 months.

My plan remains pretty much unchanged ... 3-4 serious, long games per week with self-review and posted for keener eyes than mine. Still working tsumego daily, still working with Tesuji and with Making Good Shape.

A new point of study will be ko (looking foward to ko section of Tesuji). I am just really shy when it comes to ko. Its as if I REALLY want to fill in the ko, ignoring threats to simply achieve the original aim. I know I have to slow down, assess the value of the ko, the number/value of the ko threats on the board. I am inspired by a page on Sensei's that I found - http://senseis.xmp.net/?IfYouDontLikeKoDontPlayGo. Heh.

Also taking one of my 5 year old daughters to the club tomorrow. Another guy has a 6 year old sister that he is bringing. Looking forward to just watching her play some capture Go!