Concerning go, my city (and country) could be in a far away galaxy where noone has heard before about go. I'm not saying i'm the only one playing, there are others who are also stronger than me. All i'm saying is that there is none around to play face to face, there are no go clubs, even a go federation so essentially i progress alone with the occasional help of stronger players who want to review my games on KGS.

So let's begin. I knew about go from the flyordie server. I used to be an avid connect-4 player and when i was bored i would watch some go game. I never played there or played once-twice but i deduced the rules and was satisfied by just that. On August of last year a friend of mine mentioned an anime Hikaru no go (you all know where this is going) and i was hooked immediately. From late August to mid October i was playing non stop and managed to attain the rank of 9k on KGS. I met a guy (strongest in my city) and we played a couple of times during that period so that probably had it's effect on my progress. But i don't know, internet gaming is not my thing, lost touch with the other guy and gradually stopped playing altogether. From early spring of 2013 i started slowly playing again and in recent months i had picked up the pace of playing and studying and managed to attain the rank of 5k KGS. Since i'm also a student i have cut down considerably the amount i'm spending on go since the end of summer so right now not having played in a long time i'm 7k KGS.

So you may ask what's the meaning of all this and why should we care, well i'm making this journal primarily to motivate myself to start studying and playing go again and secondarily in the off chance that it might inspire others to do so too.

My goal is not to be become shodan in x time or something silly like this. I just want to deepen my understanding of the game, to stop making stupid moves, to be able to concentrate on the game from the beginning to the end, to be able to follow the logic of a pro game, you name it. This journal won't be as fastidious as others' but i'll try my best to keep it interesting.

What's wrong with planning to reach Shodan, like... let's say: in six months, starting from 4-5-kyu in June/July '10?



Well, you really are a boiling kettle when it comes to motivational speech. Or you're British.

I will gladly review your games when I have the time or play a game with you. Though know this: Everything I might try to teach you comes from the foggy mind of someone desperately trying to hold onto the smallest integral number with a d right at his side =)

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Oh hey SoDesuNe, your guide and struggles inspired me to write this.

What i mean by ''My goal is not to become shodan in x time or something silly like this.'' is that i'm not bothered about rank as long as i keep improving at an adequate pace.
Rank will come later if i do things right

Everything. It puts the wrong emphasis on it. Trying to understand the game instead of concentrating on a number will lead to better long term result.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

You are of course both right and my remark should be read with a wink (hence the smiley) : )

When I look back those three years, I was indeed a fool to believe this lousy study regime could bring me anywhere near Shodan. I had no clue of the troubles laying ahead. But in the end, that's Go. You read a line and are confident it will succeed only to stumble across a strong resistance you missed. The hope is to be cleverer next time.
Although I missed my goal in every regard, I still strive to become stronger. That's why I think, the goal in itself is of no grave matter as long as you keep struggleing whether or not you will eventually reach it.
The only sure thing is, that you will learn on your way. And the only important thing is, that you start walking.


"Just one game," they said, and started to play -- that was yesterday."

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

First time of update has arrived.
First of all let me mention the books i've already read.

1. Learn to Play Go 1-5
2. Opening Theory Made Easy
3. Lessons in the fundamentals of go
4. Graded Go Problems 1-3
5. Elementary Encyclopedia of Life and Death

From Graded Go Problems vol. 3 my right answers were at about 85-90% and i have solved a couple of problems from the fourth volume but i've decided to leave it alone for the time being since i consume a lot of time in every problem.
I ordered the Elementary Series and i've been reading from there and until i finish these books i won't read anything else. I decided i should read simultaneously In the Beginning, Tesuji and Life and Death and after i finish those the next three. I have already read up to a point from those books so here's my progress from Friday.

In the Beginning: 20 pages

Tesuji: ''Ko'' 10/14
''When liberties count'' 4/6 (up to where i am)

Life and Death: ''Shortage of liberties'' 6/6
''Two-space notchers'' 5/6
''An eye in the interior'' 5/6
''Three-space notchers'' 4/6

Also played this game on KGS (left unreviewed)

About the game it was first game in 15 days so plz don't be too harsh :p i know my opponent missed a chance to kill bottom left and i made an unnecessary ko in the end so all in all not very pleased. This perfomance is so lucklaster...All day Friday i was sitting on the couch watching movies :p

ps. I tried to post the game using the sgf tag but the eidogo goban was blank and there was a message in the middle saying ''Received invalid game data''. Any ideas?

Works for me. You need to preview your post after uploading the file and get the link from there.

Some thoughts on the opening. We're around the same strength, so take with a fistful of salt.

Some comments from me as well. Same grain of salt : )

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Thank you both for the review i think i learned something here
I haven't studied fuseki yet so in every game i get behind in the opening but my main problem is direction of play. I have absolutely no idea where to play and i end up playing stupid moves. In every game i get to byo yomi by move 100 and have to play almost instictively for the rest of the game. The fact that i'm a slow thinker doesn't help either :p

I don't think direction of play is your main problem, the thing that struck me looking at your opening was that I couldn't see what your plan was. Your moves weren't working together towards a common goal. I think trying to play moves that work somewhat better with distant stones might be worth a nice bit to you. I'd just focus on trying to figure out what you want and make appropriate moves in the opening rather than just reacting locally as you are right now. That's worth a lot more than studying some joseki at our level. One way of looking at it is look at the board after 30 moves and ask your self "are all my stones saying the same thing?"

But, eh, I could be completely wrong.

WEEK 1
Let's name this week one and see how far i can keep this trend.

So here i am again after 2 months of absence My oh so lovely catatonia did it's job and put a stop to what seemed like a promising study schedule. Oh well...
I hadn't lost completely go out of my sight in that period but the studying was pretty negligible and the number of games played was nil. In the past 2 weeks or so i started again studying and playing and here are the results in the elementary series books

In the Beginning: Read during October-early November
Tesuji: ''When liberties count'' 34.5/44

Life and Death: ''False eyes and placements techniques'' 4.5/5
''The door group is dead'' 2/4
''Incomplete shapes'' 6/9
''Review problems'' 3.5/6 (those were really hard)

You might wonder what the hell does 0.5 point mean. In the end you either solve a problem or not, right? Well, half a point -in my logic- means 3 things: a. i found the right move/moves but not read all the variations which arise from them b. i found the right move/moves but didn't refute all the other moves c. both a and b
Also i have stuck to my choice to read those 3 books and then move to the other three. If that's wise or not i'm not sure perhaps someone could enlighten me. As far as playing is concerned i have played 2 super-blitz games(10 sec no main time), lost both of them even though i was ahead in the first me thinks, 2 ASR games, won one lost the other and 1 Pandanet Europeans Team Champs game against a 2d in which i didn't do that bad i believe. My current rank is 7k? but i think i could go to 6k easily.
Here are my 2 losses.

The game against a 2d was reviewed afterwards.
The other is the most embarrassing game i have played in my life. It was my first loss in the December ASR league.

Here is a problem for which i think i found an alternative move. The solution suggested is S13 but i think T14 also works



What do you think guys?

How do you handle T13?

Sorry, this is what I mean, I don't see a way to avoid a seki.

If it's seki that means that T14 is also correct right?



In all cases it's either gote-seki (like the solution) or b manages to kill w inside. Don't know what i'm missing.

WEEK 2
2nd week since the return of the prodigal son

First of all my progress from 9/12-15/12 in relation to the two books i'm studying

Life and Death: ''To make one eye'' 7/8
''Half eyes'' 3/3
''Bent four in the corner'' 6.5/7
''The one-two points etc.'' 5/6
''Placement:Attack and Defence'' 4/5
''Throw-ins'' 5.5/6
''The L group'' 3.5/5

Tesuji: ''Linking groups together'' 17.5/20

From Friday-Sunday i was such a slucker i did the above till Thursday

In general i'm not a playing maniac -also hate blitz- and when i do it's probably ASR games which last over 1 hour so i tend to play only a couple of games during the week. I'll post 2 games from ASR that were left unreviewed.

was bad i think. Up to this point i believe i did ok.
After that i started being way behind in time and after move which was a huge oversight on my part i was in SD and had to play intuitively for the remaining 70 moves. I started playing aggressively which in the end paid but i was lucky to find which pretty much sealed the game. Well, he was also in byo-yomi after move 188 so he also wasn't exactly safe. All in all this game turned out to be a good blitz practice -and a mistake festival-


As for the other game it was more clear. I sucked big time. I added some comments here and there but they're not much. As you can see i spent the entire half hour by move 95! What can i say i'm a notoriously slow player


If anyone wants to review i'd be delighted.

Here are my comments on the last game. Hope it helps.

Thank you Patel, it does help.

personal stuff following if you're bored just skip to the question

I read something in Ember's journal about OGA and made me think about something more general; my emotions during a game. First of all i'd like to stress how competitive i am when it comes to mind games. Since i suck at everything else in my life it seems like all i have to depend on my intellectual abilities (not entirely sure about this but it can't be far from the truth). Couple of months ago i used to be very disturbed about a stupid mistake, a misreading call it what you like and especially after a loss i thought i didn't deserve i would get very angry. In the course of a little more than a year (since my beginning) i have smashed to smithereens 3 wireless mice and a cellphone Now, i think i have long overcome this attitude but still i can't control my emotions some times and occasionally i'm aware of their physical manifestations. The most dramatic is numbness in my palms especially, when i'm in severe time trouble.

I'm just curious about the experiences of other people. A friend of mine told me about some famous KGS players (6d+) that tend to curse, leave angrily, use sarcasm to mock their opponents etc. What are your feelings? And more importantly what ticks have you observed during your games?

OGA and getting angry during or after the game are different things, but they are related since they obviously have the same source: dissatisfaction. When I was still actively playing, I've never got really angry at myself, but I severely suffered from OGA, since I knew I would most probably get dissatisfied with my poor play (which always made me feel reluctant to start a game). So it seems there are two main ways to deal with the satisfaction: smashing wireless mice and cellphones, or refrain from starting games. Both are obviously not the best reactions and do not solve the problem, but I haven't found any medicine to encounter it. I will ask Ember how she got over her OGA...