I agree that I spent too many stones on the bottom. The single biggest predictor of my success is that when I play for profit, I win. When I play such that winning depends upon killing a large group, it's a toss up at best.

After seeing very good results in August, September has gotten off to a poor start. I suppose it's possible that my success was a statistical fluke, but I think the more likely explanation is mental lapses in my game. It's amazing how evident the difference in my play is when I am in a good mental state versus when I am tired, over confident, or pressing for a win. While it's frustrating to lose when I know I can play better, this is one of the things I like best about go: it provides an opportunity for introspection and reveals something about my inner mental state, sometimes before I become consciously aware of it.

I hope I start winning again soon, but more importantly I hope I sort out some of the underlying issues that have caused my game to suffer. If I hope to play to my potential, I have to take care of my body, mind, and spirit. That sort of self-care pays dividends in life as well as over the go board.

After a second month that ended up being very similar to August statistically, I finally got my KGS rank to 4k. I had to play a handicap game as black for the final win that pushed me over the line, which is fitting since that has been my Achilles heel.

I honestly didn't play that well and was way behind until white made a big mistake at move 141. Still, I'll take it.

I'll not offer advice but instead observations heh -
Hmm, for your double approach on the corner, isn't this the situation where white wants to draw back to the 3-3, since he has support on both wings what follows will be a tough fight (which I guess is white's advantage being the stronger player)? Now that didn't happen but how would you compare your result to taking the 3-3 directly then try for light reductions after instead? Since the black group on the outside ends up heavy here and immediately come under attack (also, did you consider sacrificing them with 46 at K7? to get a strong wall facing the centre?).

Speaking of blunders, I had my opponent start (as in let me take first) a Ko for 60 points in the very late endgame - when the biggest threat on the board was maybe 12 heh.

Yeah, the double approach was bad. 24 was awful since it didn't really connect the groups, and 32 made my group very heavy. I saved it, but at the expense of giving white power all over the board. I didn't deserve to win that game, but since I've also blundered away games I should have won it all evens out in the end. It's hard to maintain that perspective when I lose, though.

This whole thread is interesting, but I found John's suggestion to work through a large number of pro games particularly interesting. I also appreciated Kirby's counterpoint about the value of tsumego. I think I'd like to choose one approach or the other to try out for a set period of time and see what happens. I've done a lot of tsumego in the past (though I think I could still stand to drill some of the basic life and death shapes), so I'm leaning towards going through a large number of professional games.

I'm not sure what pro I'd choose to focus on. It seems like I'd have to choose someone who I desire to emulate. I'd probably choose someone in Logan's ebook collection. Cho Chikun? Go Seigen? Chen Yaoye? Lee Changho? Iyama Yuta? There are lots of great choices!

For choice of pro, I think studying a pro who matches your style while keeping the game at an understandable level would be best.

I think my particular preference will be Lee Changho or Cho Chikun, followed by Lee Sedol. Lee Sedol, though, requires deep reading (for his fighting), so I think I'd hold off on him until I'm stronger.

Also, for the url tag:

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Go Books

Chen Yaoye and Lee Changho both show up in the go style estimator web app, which is why they were near the top of my list.
Cho Chikun is also territorial, I find Iyama's games easy to understand, and Go Seigen is Go Seigen.

Still, I'll probably go with Chen Yaoye or Lee Changho.

And yes, I've made links many times before. Just had one of those moments.

Heh, cool to see that the style indicator will actually pick up differences (in particular it says I'm calm (passive I think heh) where you get much more on the fighting side) - as a side-note do you agree with the scales as they apply to you?

That thread is interesting to follow! I've gone over quite a few games of Fujisawa Hideyuki - based on the idea that older japanese pro's would be simpler at better to "absorb". All pro games go way over my head, because even when the ideas I do understand arise on the board I'm only seeing the tip of the iceber, but Fujisawa (and in part Otake Hideo) I find something more instantly recognisable to me than I do in the modern games (be it Iyama, Lee Sedol etc etc).

Based on that I think you should maybe reflect on how you intend to go over them though. Studying them deeply? Memorising? Trying to understand them only very superficially? Or just mindlessly play them out over a board (digital or real)? If the first I'd second Sparky in that the deep reading required to see the countless of "bad" lines in fighty games will be hard, but for the latter ways of study? You don't really need to understand, just go with the flow and be inspired - this has been my way of going over games. Once mindlessly, just playing the stones (using the Go4Go app where it replays it with 5 second between moves), then once more where I think just what the move does and why it's "good". Then I move on to another game unless I was fascinated by something in particular.