The Start Of A New Journey (Plan To Become Pro)

[Kirby]

Perhaps it will be more manageable if you first make the goal of getting 6k. After that, 5k, etc.

[hailthorn011]

Perhaps it will be more manageable if you first make the goal of getting 6k. After that, 5k, etc.

Well, that's sort of what I'm doing. I reached 6k yesterday, so I'm aiming to be 4k-5k by the end of June. My longterm goal may be unrealistic, so I'm setting up realistic goal markers along the way. By next Christmas, I hope to at least be 1k. I say 1k because just getting there will be difficult, and I believe it is more realistic than saying 1d. If I can reach 1k by Christmas, I plan to ramp up my studies by getting professionally taught.

I could try and get a pro teacher before then, but if I hold off until I've reached 1k, I can legitimately say I'm going to have a good shot of sticking to my long term goal, and having pro teachers is definitely a requirement.

Hopefully, I can reach higher than 1k by next Christmas. 2d would be great. But I'm keeping myself to reasonable goals on the way to attaining the unreasonable one. If that makes sense.

[Kirby]

Sure, it makes sense. It's nice to keep a long-term goal in mind. I personally find it easier to really focus on a short-term one.

At work, we do this, and if things get off schedule, we can reassess the situation.

So you can work toward 5k by date X. If you make it, proceed as scheduled. If not, replan.

It's one way, anyway.

Good luck, and have fun.

[hailthorn011]

Sure, it makes sense. It's nice to keep a long-term goal in mind. I personally find it easier to really focus on a short-term one.

At work, we do this, and if things get off schedule, we can reassess the situation.

So you can work toward 5k by date X. If you make it, proceed as scheduled. If not, replan.

It's one way, anyway.

Good luck, and have fun.

I agree with what you have to say here. I understand why it gets harder to rank up the higher you get. Once you've got the fundamentals down, it really comes down to your life and death ability, and joseki know how. At least that's the impression I get. I figure 30k-1k is really just mastering the fundamentals, recognizing shape, and having a basic knowledge of tsumego.

In the Dans, it's reading ability, flexibility of strategy, and tsumego/joseki skills.

A stronger player can correct me if I'm sorely mistaken, but that's what I currently think about it.

Oh and today I reached 16k on Wbaduk. I'm playing on an account I created awhile back, so I'm sure I have some ranking up to do, but it's tough. Even at 17k, players are capable of giving me a challenge. Not surprising, honestly, but it does catch me off guard sometimes.

[nyuubi]

It's not really joseki. I play alot of people who always deviate from Joseki and play their own ideas. I think it's basically reading ability and tesuji knowledge. All the other things like opening and endgame are side-dishes to the middle-game where reading really shines. If you can't keep up with the reading of an opponent, you can easily lose the game or even get killed. That's not to say you should ignore endgame, joseki and fuseki. I studied alot of fuseki and recently some endgame too. I found it really helps, but what makes or breaks a game is the middle-game and who can read better. If reading ability is similar then it comes down to fuseki/endgame skill. If you are serious I suggest you always have a tsumego book/or print out tsumego with you.

[tchan001]

It's not really joseki. I play alot of people who always deviate from Joseki and play their own ideas. I think it's basically reading ability and tesuji knowledge. All the other things like opening and endgame are side-dishes to the middle-game where reading really shines. If you can't keep up with the reading of an opponent, you can easily lose the game or even get killed. That's not to say you should ignore endgame, joseki and fuseki. I studied alot of fuseki and recently some endgame too. I found it really helps, but what makes or breaks a game is the middle-game and who can read better. If reading ability is similar then it comes down to fuseki/endgame skill. If you are serious I suggest you always have a tsumego book/or print out tsumego with you.

http://tchan001.wordpress.com/2011/06/0 ... lculation/

[hailthorn011]

So, today I reached 3 important milestones:

1. I began playing on Wbaduk and Tygem (IMO, Tygem is so much better. A lot cleaner and more visually appealing.)

2. I joined the CGA.

3. Schnapps is my "teacher" for now. I put that in quotations because it's nothing formal. But his assistance has definitely been invaluable in this endeavor.

My goal for the next few days will be familiarizing myself with corner joseki sequences that I may not know. I had a game where someone played a sequence I wasn't familiar with, and it hurt. So I'm going to rectify that.

I've also been doing intensive tsumego study with SmartGo. I'm currently on a set of 10-20 problems that I go through each day. I'm doing this until it becomes second nature and I never get them wrong.

Also I plan to compete in the AGA-Tygem Pro Online Prelim (if possible). And this isn't to win (although if I do, yay), it's for the experience. I've never been in a high stakes tournament like this before. And just because I don't expect to win, it doesn't mean I don't want to. I just think getting the experience is the most crucial part for the time being so I won't go into shock when I attempt it for real.

I've also found out that listening to Jimi Hendrix significantly helps me solve life and death. I dunno why, but listening to Purple Haze just gets me through the problems.

And tomorrow (well, later today) I will resume reading Attack & Defense. All in all, I'm feeling quite good about how things are currently going.

And last but certainly not least, I'd like to thank all the people who have helped me out so far. It's been a blast. The Go community is great and very supportive.

Just remember folks: Only YOU can prevent forest fires!

[speedchase]

I've also been doing intensive tsumego study with SmartGo. I'm currently on a set of 10-20 problems that I go through each day. I'm doing this until it becomes second nature and I never get them wrong.

I personlly don't think this is a good Idea, you should learn to solve problems, not memorize their solutions.

[Shaddy]

I've also been doing intensive tsumego study with SmartGo. I'm currently on a set of 10-20 problems that I go through each day. I'm doing this until it becomes second nature and I never get them wrong.

I personlly don't think this is a good Idea, you should learn to solve problems, not memorize their solutions.

Ditto. Also, 10-20 problems a day is not that many; consider doing around 50 IMO. If they're taking too long (this is more than 3 minutes for me, maybe 30 seconds for sdk), they're too hard, and you should do easier ones. My 2c

[nyuubi]

I think counting how many tsumego you do is a fallacy. They are supposed to increase your reading ability, right? So it should be time dependant, not number dependant. And yeah, 20 is not many at all. I think you should do atleast 2 hours of tsumego a day, probably 3

[snorri]

If you're going to do something crazy ambitious, that's a good age / life situation to do it, before you have a lot of personal and professional responsibilites. 2 years is nothing. I've wasted much more time than that working on poorly managed projects, many times over. Looking back, if I'd ripped two years out of the middle of one of those fiascos and used it to do something nuts like trying to become a go professional, I don't think I'd be much worse off for it. On the contrary, I'd think it would be a good story to tell. Now I have a wife and kid and of course other factors come into play when making such decisions. I say you have to do things like this when you have the luxury of having no one to answer to but yourself. So good luck, halithorn, and enjoy the ride. I envy you.

The main piece of advice I'd give is to get yourself physically near people who have done similar things or are in the same process. I don't think the internet will work. There's a lot to be said for real human interaction. You have to smell the lifestyle, be immersed in it. The internet is too easy to turn off.

[crux]

"When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either." -- Leo Burnett

http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Reach%20For%20The%20Stars

[RBerenguel]

I've also been doing intensive tsumego study with SmartGo. I'm currently on a set of 10-20 problems that I go through each day. I'm doing this until it becomes second nature and I never get them wrong.

I personlly don't think this is a good Idea, you should learn to solve problems, not memorize their solutions.

Ditto. Also, 10-20 problems a day is not that many; consider doing around 50 IMO. If they're taking too long (this is more than 3 minutes for me, maybe 30 seconds for sdk), they're too hard, and you should do easier ones. My 2c

When I was regularly solving Lee Ch'ang-Ho's tsumego & tesuji, I did around around 45-55 minutes a day (commute), although I always tried to solve around 80 in that time (40 from one set, 40 from another.) As other people say, 10-20 is not a lot. Currently I'm not doing many tsumego/tesuji problems but days I do (twice or thrice a week) I solve 40-50 still. I think you are severely underestimating tsumego & reading practice in your training.

[Bill Spight]

I've also been doing intensive tsumego study with SmartGo. I'm currently on a set of 10-20 problems that I go through each day. I'm doing this until it becomes second nature and I never get them wrong.

I personlly don't think this is a good Idea, you should learn to solve problems, not memorize their solutions.

Ditto. Also, 10-20 problems a day is not that many; consider doing around 50 IMO. If they're taking too long (this is more than 3 minutes for me, maybe 30 seconds for sdk), they're too hard, and you should do easier ones. My 2c

Well, if you break study up into

1) Fuseki

2) Joseki

3) Whole game

4) End game

5) Sabaki and Shinogi

6) Tesuji

7) Tsumego

then 10 - 20 tsumego promblems per day is a lot.

[hailthorn011]

Alright then, okay. I'll do more than 20 a day. I'll spend about 2 hours of my overall study time on tsumego.

So this is how my average day will look:

1. 2 Hours Of Tsumego (Various Kinds)

2. 2-3 Serious Games (With Review Afterward)

3. Read a chapter of Attack And Defense

4. Professional Game Study (For Fuseki And Shape)

I say 2-3 serious games, because playing games with 30mins main time, and having a review afterward will take a decent chunk of time. When I've reviewed with stronger players over the past few days, I've sometimes spent two hours on just on one game. Or at least it was something like that.

But the point was noted about having to solve more tsumego. So I'm giving myself plenty of time to do so. Maybe I won't use SmartGo for this as much if y'all think its ability to tell me when I'm right is a hindrance.