12: i like white's position. i am not sure but black lost points in this corner.. Harleqin already explained fully.
22 & 24: useless exchange. better not played.
26: too far. G17 is correct if you want to play here. (i think i would played G17 so..probably correct)
36: if i was black i would tenuki and play R10 then white is in trouble. remember that such move is not always sente.
39: too early for that invasion. 3-3 invasion require perfect timing...now is not that time.
49: i would answer H4.
61: K8 is a better attack.
75: H3 is a better move
79: this move has no purpose. it is not attacking or making any points. really big mistake. if you dont make such mistake you will be alot stronger. it is like losing your turn.

hope it helps

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

Harleqin, your proposed white 2 came to mind immediately as I played my move, it was a branch I had overlooked (and naturally contained disaster). I shall have to read more carefully.

Magicwand, thanks for the input. Below are some questions I have about your comments, the ones I don't mention are just the regular "Wow, you're right, how could I have missed that?"-sort of thing.

39: I am aware that 3-3 invasions require good timing, but I never seem to hit it just right. How much longer should I have waited? I was scared a white move on the left side would erase this potential, but am I correct in assuming that if white plays a move that actually does erase the 3-3 aji, it is too narrow and I can extend upward along the left side?
49: I don't get H4. It seems somewhat submissive, don't you think? At any rate, shouldn't black try to seize the potential again? You obviously think this is a big move, but I don't understand why. Could you explain it a little?
79: I know I said I wouldn't fanboy, but thank you very much for that comment. A move without a purpose is better left unplayed.

This week I have been very naughty, and haven't attended that well to my go studies. Not too bright a start after only 2 weeks. I've put in a lot of extra time at work, but at least I've managed to do about twenty minutes of tsumego before sleeping every night. The world cup finals and the second phase of the StarCraft 2 Beta didn't help either ^^. Next week I have much less hours at work so I'll be able to make up for some lost time. After two weeks I think it's also important to evaluate how the study program works.
1) I don't put enough time in tsumego. I should make this 1 hour a day, and make it the first thing I do every day. Even if I can't do anything else, I should always do this.
2) It feels like reading a chapter every day detracts a little from tsumego (though going through tesuji is also serious reading practice. I was surprised how many problems I could read out. Well, I think I read them out, because I don't look at the answers ^^), so I will put this later in my routine, and let this drop if there's no time left.
3) Playing serious games again is fun! Though I always get really exhausted after a game (my hands are shaking and my head is like a tomato about to explode), I feel this is very good training, and I should not cut down on playing 4 games a week.
4) I have mixed feelings about analyzing the games, because it takes much time I'd rather spend on tsumego. I think it is necessary to get the full effect from games played, though, so I will continue this as well.

Though I still intend to keep to my originally posted study schedule, I have now also included a priority for each item, as follows: tsumego - playing games - analyzing games - reading a chapter from the study material.

Next week I won't take non-go days, as I've had enough of those this week.

While (hopefully) improving a few stones should be reward enough, I've decided to give myself a little (big) present if I manage to make it to 3k KGS: the complete game collections of Honinbô Shusaku, Shusai, Shuho, Jowa, Shuei and Dosaku, which I would like to incorporate into the next phase of studying (which will include pro game study. (I've also discovered that I got paid for overtime this year. There may be a correlation ^^)

I would like to thank every one who has contributed comments on my games thus far, it is very much appreciated.

Where I can find this? :o

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

39: i will tell you how i time myself on 3-3 invasion. if your opponent is not going to spend a move to solidify the corner then it is too early.
49: i will say it is solid play not submissive. if white plays H4 he is pretty much alive. if you answer H4 then you can expend your moyo and attack that one stone. i will say main purpose is not protecting your territory but attacking that one stone.

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

SoDesuNe: I plan to order them from Schaak en Go-winkel Het Paard in Amsterdam. You can find the books on their site.

Magicwand, thank you for your explanation.
39: That sounds reasonable. Though it all depends on your skill in reading the board from your opponent's point of view.
49: Aha, I am not solely defending my own territory, I am also robbing my opponent's stone of a base. A solid two-purpose move and it is indeed a priority to play such a move at that point in the game.

Su 2010-07-11:
Graded Go Problems for Beginners, vol. 3: Level 1 problems 1-86
(Have to go watch the world cup final now.)

Fixed that for you.

You are quite right. That's what I meant of course, obviously ^^

Mo 2010-07-12:
- Graded Go Problems for Beginners, vol. 3: 87-136
- Read Kageyama's Fundamentals, Chapter 1: Ladders and Nets.
- No game today, also no analysis. I absolutely have to play tomorrow. Instead of playing a game I watched Yilun Yang's latest KGS Plus lecture on opening with Tengen and how creative openings should quickly incorporate reasonable follow-ups and depend on solid middle game reading. It was positively awesome and I shall do some more tsumego before going to bed.

Tu 2010-07-13:
- Graded Go Problems for Beginners, vol.2: Level 4 problems 232-327 (These went really well, perhaps because I did some sets from vol.3 last week)
- Read Kageyama's Fundamentals, Chapter 2: Cutting and Connecting
- Played a game on KGS (30min + 5x30sec) against Hoshiminy [6k]: W+22.5 (I took Black)
- Played a game on KGS (30min + 5x30sec) against pcuk [5k]: B+Time (I took Black, and won on time. I thought it was a real shame we couldn't play it out to the end)
- I also registered for Trollnament VI today, and I feel it's a good motivational tool, as well as a source of many serious games. I'm going to practice like crazy for this tournament. It doesn't matter one bit if I don't make it out of the league phase, it'll be good training and plenty of fun. Looking forward to it.

Tomorrow I'll analyze both games in detail, because I made some very big mistakes in both of them. And I'll try to do problems 1-230 from vol.2 of Graded Go Problems. Then I can officially consider that book 'solved' for the time being, and move on to vol.3 (and hopefully vol.4).

[edit:] I did one analysis already. you can find it here:
[sgf-full]http://www.hushfield.com/L19/2010-07-13-pcuk-Hushfield.sgf[/sgf-full]

The added comments marked [dv] were made by my teacher, Dieter Verhofstadt

B113:

Count the liberties of either group. Black has 3, white has 4. So black shouldn't hane (don't hane against stronger stones). This is a fundamental rule of contact fights (with the exception that you should hane if you can capture any cutting stone easily and locally. eg: hane on the first line). On a larger scale, black is sort of/almost connected to the string of 4 black stones, but then white is sort of almost connected to its own string of 2 white stones. And those are sort of/almost connected to other strings of stones, so I'm not sure exactly how to read this, but I think the 3 to 4 liberty count is valid, since both black and white have unprotected cutting points (not presently cuttable, but if either black or white got in to a shortage of liberty situation those cutting points suddenly matter a great deal).

I'm thinking black should push once more and then take sente (maybe make a wedge along the bottom), but honestly I'm not really sure. But the hane feels almost textbook wrong.

_________________
1k KGS

I don't agree. 113 hane doesn't look obviously wrong to me considering how much stuff black has nearby. Usually you should hane if you can. Reading is required here.

But 115 is clearly horrible, it must extend, not atari. 115 is like -20 points, maybe more. After black extends, I don't think white's cutting stone has much future.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

We 2010-07-14:
- Read Kageyama's Fundamentals, Chapter 3: The stones go walking
- Graded go problems, vol 2: 1-150

Th 2010-07-15:
- Read Kageyama's Fundamentals, Chapter 4: The struggle to get ahead
- Graded go problems, vol 2: 150-231 (vol.2 is done)

Fr 2010-07-16:
- Read Kageyama's Fundamentals, Chapter 5: Territory and spheres of influence
- Played a serious game on KGS (30min+5x30sec) against PeterGruen [6k], I lost by resignation. I'll post the analysis tomorrow. (I'm aware I have another analysis to do, so that would mean two analyses tomorrow and more tsumego. Should be enough work). Now I'm exhausted and will watch StarCraft videos for the rest of the evening.

Funny that while I was having some laziness issues in maintaining this study journal (*cough* StarCraft 2!), and was contemplating the effects of keeping track of my progress in this way, it seems like this has become an issue with a lot of people on the forums. I feel like it has a negative effect on my game. I read some of the concern on there being a lot of these study journals nowadays. To be honest, I hardly have time to keep mine updated and read the rest of the forums (I always skip the malkovich forums), so I've hardly read the other journals. Rather self-centered, and I guess there aren't many people out there that are actually waiting to read about whether or not I played my 4 weekly games or did my required amount of tsumego. I'm sticking with my self-imposed study-program though, but I will no longer keep track of every step of the way. Time spent writing all this stuff is time that could be spent actually playing the game. I would like to thank everybody that contributed analyses and advice.

An admin may step in now and close this thread.

No need to completely abandon it. Just keep it at a slower pace, e.g. once or twice a month to report your progress and improvemnt. That would be cool. Since I am around your strength, I am interested in keeping track of your (and others') journals to see which effort is needed to achieve an improvement.

I read journals which interests me, just to know how the individual training method works for the person. Maybe I see, where I can improve my method =)
I must confess, I didn't read your extensive game commentary but I almost never do this, except I requested this for my own games ^^

I would go with weekly, monthly updates. Just as it fits you. Go should be fun in the first place, so as long as you maintain this, everything is perfect =)

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Same here. I didn't read much game commentary, as it's not easy to navigate the tree with keyboard as kgs is. But it's fun to read the progress.

_________________
长考出臭棋.

After A StarCraft-induced break from playing go, I am back for more inching my way up toward becoming a better go player. Let's hope it lasts a little longer than last time. I still intend to focus on Kageyama's 'Fundamentals', Davies' 'Life and death' and 'Tesuji', improving my fighting strength through tsumego and thoroughly reviewing my games. I should play more games and do less of everything else than last time, though. Without games to process newly learned ideas, I will never truly improve.

I played a game against a 5k yesterday, and finally got promoted to KGS 5k. You can find my review of the game below. I would be grateful to anyone who would point out some of the mistakes in my play and/or analysis.

[sgf-full]http://www.hushfield.com/L19/2010-12-20-scotty55-Hushfield.sgf[/sgf-full]

Thanks for reading and it's good to be back.

move 15 : yes it was a bad move. you should never play a move that will self hanne double head. (sorry for bad translation)

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

Hi Hushfield

I like your plan, getting to a stage when you play a happier game (in mind, a calmer one) always does you better in the long term.

Im not a very strong Go player as Im a beginner, however as an ex tournament chess player I realised that my ambition (and to a degree youthful arrogance, due to my grade)led me down a path where i besmirked players on occassion and on one game ending up hitting a table so hard i broke my hand!. I am now embarrassed at such behaviour and when as poker players say I went on tilt my game always suffered.

The Go players I have met, have been very kind in general in explaining the principles. Learning about yourself and your psychology means that you become more rounded, this i believe increases your strength over time.

Your definately on the right track, about not playing games when your mind is not calm. If you want to play a stronger game, I would advise that you always consider your state of mind. I also always considered the level of sleep I had as it definately affected my game.

Sorry to ramble, use any of the above that you see fit and message me if I can assist you any further.

Be truthful, and I hope you achieve your goals.

Regards

markeemark

I played a few games last week, and have still to review them. I am mostly focusing on reading exercises again, as I am still very rusty from my time out. my main weakness is my inability to read ahead, so that's what I am working on. Progress is painstakingly slow, but there is some progress nonetheless.

I played a teaching game with shadonra yesterday, you can watch his review of my game here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zAZ-T_1nII.

I am playing a teaching game with S1NK tonight in te L19 room on KGS, and will record an upload the review of that game as well.

I don't know whether the study journal section is still used a lot here on L19, as I haven't been an active memeber for over a year now (just about the time StarCraft 2 took the top hobby spot in my life). It turns out that much of the same problems that prompted me to start a study journal for go, returned when playing StarCraft. Playing blindly without careful reading, going on tilt from losing streaks,... But if it's the same everywhere I go, L19 and go are definitely the place I'd rather be. I can't say how long I'll stick around this time, since the last post in this thread was made around 6 months ago. Anyway, I fell back from 5k to 11k (!) and am now working my way back up through the KGS ranks.

I played a teaching game with smarre[1k] and another with plusguy[2d] yesterday. The latter was actually my very first game in the ASR league. Proud member of Division Delta I representing ^^ I feel that regular long competitive games with a review afterwards will really help me improve quite a bit.

Phase 2: Fundamentals Revisited
I'm crawling back in the old plan for improving my strength: a good grasp of the fundamentals and reading, reading, reading. Therefore the plan to become better at go is largely unchanged. I made a few adjustments as I feel that analysing my own games is really helpful, but very time-consuming. Therefore I won't try and review every game I play, just a few each week. I'll also keep in 2 non-go days.

Training Program
Weekly
- Do a lot of tsumego, following Benjamin Teuber's method of not looking at the answers ever. I firmly believe in this method.
- Play at least 4 serious games a week, if possible more. This role will be filled mostly by ASR league games. If no opponents are online, I will play other slow games.
- Analyze 4 games played, and discuss this analysis with stronger players. A small amendment form the previous version: analysis is very time-consuming and I'd rather play a few more games in the ASR league than spend more time reviewing ranked matches.
- Take two days a week of absolutely no go study. No books, no games, no tsumego. Being human is a good thing. I burned out on go before (and twice after that). Overkill is not desirable.

Daily:
- Tsumego (between 30 and 60 minutes)
- Read, and try to completely understand one chapter from one of the basic texts mentioned under study material.
- Work towards target of playing at least 4 serious games a week
- Work towards target of analyzing my own games and discussing these with stronger players
- Meditate for 20 minutes (this is the only exercise I will perform on non-go days.)

Study Materials
Tsumego:
- Kanô, Yoshinori: Graded Go Problems for Beginners, (vols.2 – 4)
- Yi, Ch'ang-ho: Selected Life and Death Go Problems (vols. 1 – 6)
- Chô, Chikun: Encyclopedia of Life and Death (elementary, intermediate and advanced)
- Maeda, Nobuaki: “Life and Death: Intermediate Level”
- Bozulich, Richard: “Five Hundred and One Tesuji Problems”

Books:
Kageyama, Toshirô: “Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go"
Davies, James: “Life and Death”
Davies, James: “Tesuji”

Things I will not do:
I will not play blitz games. This one required tough deliberation, because I keep hearing that blitz games sharpen your intuition, which sounds like a perfect fit for ingraining the fundamentals in my play. However, I can't deal with the pressure. I get angry. I play moves I know to be bad. Therefore I will refrain from playing blitz games for the time being. Also, slow games give you the time to create better moves than the ones that are already present in your mind.

Below you can find a review from a game I played against iqpi[7k]. I was hoping for some insight in what went wrong in the first half of the game. I was also wondering whether I missed crucial opportunities during the endgame.

[sgf-full]http://www.hushfield.com/L19/110602-R1-iqpi-Hushfield-L.sgf[/sgf-full]