Hi guys I have been working on improving my play over the course of the past couple months and it was working great. I went from 12k to 9k on kgs and was pushing 8k then this past week I'm not sure whats going on I try to play my normal game but I am being beat by people 2-4 ranks behind me. to be honest it is frustrating me to no end I was wondering if anyone else has found themselves in a similar position and if what what they did to over come it

Happens to me (~10k OGS) too … like it also happens that I beat people 2-4 stones stronger.

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

Take a break, that's what I do when I lose a lot.

Don't forget: progress is not linear and not continuous.

What do I do when I get frustrated? I blame myself and punish my furniture.

Joking aside, what am I blaming myself for? I'm blaming myself for not being something I'd like to be: a better go player. I'm blaming myself for not living up to my hopes and expectations. I'm blaming myself for doing whatever it was that I did that caused me to lose the game. As my furniture can tell you, this is not a good idea. When one loses a game, it is for a good reason: You didn't play well enough to win. For whatever reason, you were not able to play better. I find that simply acknowledging these facts helps me to ease my frustration.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I make a video.

I am up to 66 so far in the last year.

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- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

It's easy to become a bit too rank-obsessed and to let that prevent you from trying new things that might eventually improve your game. I ran into that situation at around 6k. I would learn a new concept, but not understand it well, so when I tried it out, I would get demolished the first few times. At first it made my shy away from anything I didn't understand, but what I found useful was to create a separate experimental account which I used to try concepts that were advised by stronger players, but that I didn't understand well. I played my usual style on my "real" account and used the "alternate" account to try strange new things. I figured my alternate would lag my real by a few stones, but it turned out my alt reached 5k before my real one did.

Also remember that rank is just a measure of average performance; actual skill in any given game is more fluid. Though I'm 4k on KGS now, realistically I might beat a 2k on a good day and lose to a 7k on a bad one. And I think the range of possibilities is even wider closer to the DDK range.

Still, Brady has the most positive approach to blunders there is. He figures out what he did wrong, and all of us benefit as a consequence.