How to review your own games

[Splatted]

I really need some advice on this. Everyone seems to reccomend reviewing your own games as an effective study method, but I find I'm not really sure how to go about doing it.

Here are the things I particularly want to know, but anything you think worth mentioning is welcome:

1) How long is a reasonable amount of time to spend reviewing a game? (I'm trying to plan a study schedule)
2) What are your goals when reviewing? What do have to do to feel like you've "succesfuly" reviewed a game?
3) What's your actual reviewing process like? (the more detailed the better)

2 might seem like an odd question, but I'm really quite confused as to what I'm supposed to be getting out of the process. Finding a few mistakes doesn't seem to be enough because I do notice some mistakes when playing. If I want to find even more, why shouldn't I just go play another game?

With regards to 3, I feel like it's best not to spend too long trying to work out what I should have done in difficult situations, because I tend to remain unsure about what is best. (This is partly why I asked question 2) Instead, I find I've had more success retracing my moves and looking for a way to avoid the situation all together. Sometimes this leads me to a move that I knew was a mistake at the time, but didn't realise how it would shape the game from then on.

Thanks for any help. If there are already guides for this then feel free to link me to one.

Edit: you can forget about number 2

[skydyr]

I think the usual suggestion for how much time to spend going over a game is about the same amount of time as you spent playing it. If both sides took 10 minutes each, maybe spend 10-20 minutes on it. If both sides took 50 minutes, an hour or two may be better. The idea here is that if you didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it during the game, there may not be a lot to learn since you may make silly mistakes.

Regarding goals, I usually think over the game and try and guess where I went wrong. Sometimes it's easy to see that you got a bad result in this area or that one, and you can try and figure out why. Sometimes it's worth looking at whether you should just abandon an area and try to take a big point somewhere else. It's not much different from reviewing someone else's game. This is also a good time to think about things like 'was this endgame play actually the most valuable one on the board?' and 'I let white live here, but could I have killed?' and similar sorts of questions you may not have had time for during the game. It's also a good idea to try looking for blind spots that you have, like 'I never think about the cap, but if I try it here it seems to work pretty well'.

I actually like going over the difficult positions and trying to judge who has the better of it. I feel that this sort of positional judgement is something that one needs to develop to improve.

Of course, you can take all of this with a grain of salt, as I don't know that I'm of much different a strength than you.

[Uberdude]

For the opening, doing a pattern search of pro games (GoGoD + kombilo) with similar positions can be useful, though of course you need a certain amount of strength to usefully interpret the results.

[logan]

Although you'll probably receive a lot of thoughtfully detailed advice here, I hope I can make a somewhat immodest suggestion, which is that you'll likely find a simple review plan the easiest to stick with and thus grow from in the long-run.

My recommendation is to identify three mistakes you made in each game and reflect on each of them. You needn't worry with how small or large they are. If you do this for one game each day, then by the end of the week you'll have improved on 21 things. Also you can freely focus on any area you enjoy, whether this be the opening, middlegame or endgame. However, to improve the most quickly I recommend putting a slight emphasis on the areas that you regard as your largest weakpoints. As you may be able to tell this method doesn't require you pay attention to the amount of time your investing, so as long as you find three points and thoughtfully consider them.

As Go Seigen said, go is wonderful in that you can improve just by reflecting about it.

Best of luck,
logan

[Bill Spight]

One idea is to try and find the game losing move. Not so easy, but worth thinking about, even if you don't come up with a definitive answer.

It is difficult to review your own games. How do you find your own blind spots? If possible, go over the game with your opponent. Even if you are the same rank, you will have different strengths and weaknesses, and can learn from each other.

Good luck!

[golem7]

I want to add another angle: also pay attention to your opponent's play, find his mistakes, too! When you discover moves where your opponent may have played better you will also find more of your own weak moves that you didn't notice because everything went smoothly in the game.

Regarding question 2: A review is successful if you learn something from it!

[Splatted]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll write a proper reply later because right now I feel inspired to go review a game.

[Magicwand]

out of so many moves there are at least one move that you know you didnt play it correctly.

i am a firm believer of bigger picture.
simple local moves can be read by beginner given enough time.
but opening your mind and playing bigger scale game will make you stornger faster IMO.
always ask yourself if you have to answer your opponent's move.
maybe it is only few point gote move you can disregard.

that is the questions you should ask yourself.

[EdLee]

If you do this for one game each day, then by the end of the week you'll have improved on 21 things.

The reality is more like this: you'll have gained 21 data points, or 21 experience points.
How these experience points translate to "actual" improvement is the tricky part.
I can speak only from my own experience: for broken shapes,
it took 2 to 3 years of such experience points before I finally stopped
making bad broken shapes ("actual" improvement).
For very young children who are super talented, hardworking and who have
good pro training from the start -- in these cases,
perhaps they can turn very few experience points quickly into actual improvements.

For adults (again, from my own experience and from watching other adult learners of Go),
it may take tens, hundreds, or even thousands of such experience points before
there's any "actual" improvement.

putting a slight emphasis on the areas that you regard as your largest weakpoints.

I agree it's important (and very good) to work on our weak points.
The problem is as amateurs, especially at kyu levels, what we regard as our biggest weak points
are often wrong. Just look at all the (common, perennial) threads here on the forum,
and the (common, perennial) questions asked in KGS reviews,
the majority of beginners (including myself, at first) think the weakest area is in the opening. Completely wrong.

[logan]

No Ed, improvement is not the same as never making a mistake.

[EdLee]

Logan, yea, I revised it. It's like this:

(1) if we never make the same mistake ever again, that is certainly an improvement -- agreed?

The very tricky part is the inverse: if not (1), then how do we define "improvement" ?
For example, I spot a mistake. I reviewed it. The next game, I make the same mistake again --
now do you say I have "improved on 1 thing" (your wording) or not? What if I continue to make the same
mistake again and again, having reviewed such mistake every time, for the next 3 years?
Do you say I have "improved on this 1 thing" (your wording), or not? (That's my experience on not just
the broken shapes, but many other areas of Go, BTW, thus my feeling about how we talk about "improvements".)

[jts]

the majority of beginners (including myself, at first) think the weakest area is in the opening...

I don't think this is precisely true. I think a number of not-beginning players (including myself, to this day) have an unfortunate tendency to lavish time on the opening when reviewing games for less experienced players, and then this gives the latter group the impression that they are being held responsible for fuseki/joseki, but not for middle game and endgame.

[jts]

What if I continue to make the same mistake again and again, having reviewed such mistake every time, for the next 3 years?

While I often believe that I have been making the same mistakes for three years, if I go back to look at a game I played 100 games ago, or 200 games ago, or 300 games ago, the mistakes that I remember as being basically the same were actually, on inspection, much worse than my current mistakes. What you remember was making a really subtle mistake, but if you keep identifying that, and similar problems, as mistakes, you will be able to see that it was a glaring mistake. At that point there is a dissonant memory at odds with your new perspective.

(I don't mean to speak to your own situation, or neglect your personal experience, but I wouldn't want beginners who play a lot and review all their games to feel that, if they keep finding "the same mistake" over and over again, they must not be improving. Everyone always feels that they played a sloppy endgame, for example, but there is, to paraphrase you, a sloppy endgame as played by a 20k, a sloppy endgame as played by a 10k, as played by a 1k, and so on up the line.)

[Uberdude]

the majority of beginners (including myself, at first) think the weakest area is in the opening...

I don't think this is precisely true. I think a number of not-beginning players (including myself, to this day) have an unfortunate tendency to lavish time on the opening when reviewing games for less experienced players, and then this gives the latter group the impression that they are being held responsible for fuseki/joseki, but not for middle game and endgame.

Something I noticed in a 1k's game I reviewed for the British Go Journal was I focused a lot on the opening because that is where I could be more sure they were making mistakes and be confident that my alternative suggestions were better, and could give coherent reasons and principles that would be generally useful to the reader. Some points in the middlegame I could point things out for sure with clear reasons, but other times I just said "Well these moves are almost certainly wrong but I'm not sure what is better, maybe this?".

[jts]

the majority of beginners (including myself, at first) think the weakest area is in the opening...

I don't think this is precisely true. I think a number of not-beginning players (including myself, to this day) have an unfortunate tendency to lavish time on the opening when reviewing games for less experienced players, and then this gives the latter group the impression that they are being held responsible for fuseki/joseki, but not for middle game and endgame.

Something I noticed in a 1k's game I reviewed for the British Go Journal was I focused a lot on the opening because that is where I could be more sure they were making mistakes and be confident that my alternative suggestions were better, and could give coherent reasons and principles about why that would be generally useful to the reader. Some points in the middlegame I could point things out for sure with clear reasons, but other times I just said "Well these moves are almost certainly wrong but I'm not sure what is better, maybe this?".

Yes, I think there are definitely good reasons for it! There are more mundane reasons too - like losing track of time, or making a "a few quick points" about the opening and then getting plastered with questions. But whether the reasons are good or bad, it adds up to an unbalanced focus on the opening.

Just out of curiosity, do you focus as heavily on endgame analysis in reviews as you do in your own games?