Right then.

I've been playing sporadically for about six months, and know enough to realise two things:

1) I'm in for the duration. This is not going to go away.
2) I'm have hit a wall. Evenly-rated games on OGS are starting to go against me, sometimes pretty crushingly. And my rating has stabilised.

This second thing is annoying. The initial acceleration based on just playing games randomly and learning on the fly has petered out, and I was enjoying that.

So some kind of systematic approach is required.

Time is an issue for me... as is concentration span, apparently. I have a small collection of books that are so far mostly unread, partly because I am still trying to figure out the best way to benefit from them. I have a board, but nobody to play on it with, though it certainly makes it easier to play things out from books - I am terrible at reading kifu, even shortish ones.

Actually, a list of things I'm terrible at is a good place to start (other than "everything" which, while technically the case, is not good for generating next steps):

1. Reading ahead. By far the weakest thing.
2. Shape. Also pretty bad.

The first two lead to being bad at

3. Fighting.

I am also terrible at reading Go books. The kifu thing is gradually getting better but I have a big problem with reading books making me want to play immediately. Since with OGS there are always turns waiting, I suddenly find myself online and playing every page or so. This leads to a lot of re-reading, or abandoning the book altogether

I suspect that I am also leaning much too hard on OGS's Analyze Game feature, leading to atrophy of my reading skill.

I feel pretty confident with fuseki (ootakamoku currently rates me about 7-8k despite my terrible tsumego, vastly stronger than my general play for sure). Even the immediately following parts seem to go pretty well.

The short term plan is to try and do a lot of tsumego to help with the reading. I have GoGrinder and Magic Baduk for Android, both of whose beginner grade problems I find challenging enough at the moment. The challenge of reading books I will have to overcome... perhaps banning myself from OGS until I've read through a chapter and played through the diagrams on the board, then playing some moves, then going back to reading. In fact banning myself from OGS for a little while might be a good idea in general, since it lends itself too well to my ADD study habit

Other than that I feel like I should play realtime games, but am unsure how I want to do that. There's a club in central London on Thursdays that could work, and KGS also seems promising.

Books I have sitting around:

Bozulich, The Second Book of Go (I am halfway through this and it has been super helpful, but have become bogged down in the Counting Liberties section)
Otake, Opening Theory Made Easy
Jasiek, First Fundamentals
Kageyama, Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go

I've just discovered dwyrin and Nick Sibicky on YouTube... they are really enjoyable (and much more digestible) but again, not sure if they're quite what I am after. I feel like I am lacking the most basic of skills and need to sort that out.

Wish me luck.

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

Good luck!

Remembering a few simple joseki and invasions is fun, and replaying pro games from your favorite player for the first 100 moves until you can do it by heart (one game at a time) is also fun and gives me the feeling I learnt something. However, most people seem to advice to just play a ton of games until you reach 5 kyu or so.

Try other servers for a bit and mix it up.

This is funny … I have the feeling that using this feature strengthens my reading (I play lots of correspondence games there) … sometimes I spend an hour just for the next move, and I think it broadens my imagination of possible moves sequences.

While I also love ootakamoku, it (like other similar sites) constantly estimates my playing strength about 10 stones stronger than my actual rank <shrug> so it might be a good idea not to be too flattered by such estimations.

Greetings, Tom

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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?

Indeed! And I don't feel much stronger in the opening than other people of about my strength... ranking systems may be internally consistent, but oota-to-OGS is definitely apples-to-oranges.

Nearly waded out of the Counting Liberties chapter now. I feel like I might come back to that one once I've seen all the six types of fight and needed to be able to read them out - the key for now is understanding that they exist, and that there are practical differences.

[edit: A first run through GoGrinder's beginner 150-problem set gives me a 54% first-time success rate. On one hand... that's terrible. On the other hand... improvement cannot possibly be far away!]

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

Week one: still not much better at tsumego, perhaps some hard limits have to be set. 50 problems between being allowed to make moves online.

It's not many, but a big problem at the moment is doing tsumego makes me want to play, so I log on and lose a couple of hours Carrot and stick, carrot and stick...

In other news, first rumblings of discontent at all the Go from my marital associate. Must try and not create a Go Widow.

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

I would give printed problems a try - it helped me a lot at one point - with problem apps and online problems I was clicking on something too fast just to see if it works, whereas with paper it is easier to force myself to read more thoroughly before cheking the answer. Really reading instead of trying things out by instinct is really important when doing tsumego... Naturally your mileage may vary.

Playing Go is just too much darn fun.

Still unable to sit through more than a few tsumego at a time without rushing off to the Internet. But the dwyrin lectures (and I've only watched two so far!) are making me noticeably stronger - and since all of my games are presently correspondence, this is happening dramatically in mid-game. A couple that started out with me getting herded around are now looking like reasonably comfortable wins... so thanks dwyrin (and also some things from the sample of Robert Jasiek's First Fundamentals, which I subsequently bought).

There are a couple of games I am losing comfortably as well, and I'll post those when they're done for advice.

@TIM82: The paper tsumego idea seems sound. Do people think it's worth getting GGPFB #1? Or start with #2?

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

Nothing wrong with continuing to play, and it will help you ingrain shape knowledge and other fundamentals into your framework so that you don't have to think about it consciously. You will know that X is the shape move, and can read from there to make sure it works.

Regarding Graded Go Problems for Beginners #1, the concepts in it are very basic. Capture a stone. Pull out of atari. Create a ladder. The vital point of the farmers hat or bulky five. How to make a corner enclosure. If you're solidly in the DDK ranks, you may find it too easy.

I have no experience with any of the GGPFB series, so can't help you there Checking http://senseis.xmp.net/?GradedGoProblemsForBeginners for some reviews and example problems.

Perhaps you could also try the first pdf at http://tsumego.tasuki.org/ - these don't have answers and will at some point become too hard probably, but just to get the feel on whether the paper format has anything to give to you?

I appear to have developed a fear of losing.

This is, frankly, ridiculous.

Just play.

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

Ridiculous? Perhaps. Common? Most definitely.

I have a fear of losing when I play on the KGS because that is where I derive my rank. The same would likely be true if I had an AGA rank and regularly played in AGA tournaments.

But you should not fear losing. Losing is a part of go as much as winning is. And whenever you let fear control you, you avoid playing the most enjoyable of all games.

So do not fear losing, joeller. Instead, fear the unplayed game.

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"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

You can also thank our ancestors. Without this instinct, our species might've been extinct a long time ago.

(There is a somewhat recent clinical case of a woman who has literally no fear -- a very rare condition. )

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage has to do with action in spite of fear.

You're right -- continue to play.

A second pass through GoGrinder's 150 basic tsumego has revealed that... I learned nothing (I gained about half a percent - even though lurching trains and fat fingers led to a few false negatives, that's still not awesome).

Going to go back and have a think, but first I'm going to have a look on Sensei's and try and burn the live-and-dead shapes into my brain.

Also, I spend a lot of time on OGS still. And I feel like the criticisms in this thread are valid. I am learning things, no doubt, but I'm not learning them very fast or consistently, and the feedback loop is very long.

I need to negotiate with my incipient Go Widow about devoting the time to play whole games on KGS at night without becoming too antisocial

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

Yes, it is very long because the amount of materials you have to digest is immense,
and you need tons and tons of actual experience, hundreds and thousands of shapes and situations,
plus continuous reviews and feedback -- for similar reasons, medical school takes an additional 4 to 10 years after the undergrad program.

If I were you I would purchase or borrow a Fuseki book. Pick a Fuseki you like to play stick with it, then look for a strategy book that covers that idea in detail, then look for problem books that solve problems related to the Fuseki...

So of late there has been very little time or energy for Go... play even on OGS has been sporadic at best (I haven't been starting new games or accepting challenges), and as a result I have built up a losing streak that has busted me down a couple of stones.

The demands of the outside world will get worse before they get better (though there is light at the end of the tunnel!), but I don't want to lose touch completely.

I had another go at the GoGrinder basic tsumego, and was slightly surprised to see a 60% first-time success rate. Still nothing to shout about, but it's some kind of improvement. Looking at the stats I think it might just be that I took much more time per problem, rather than my insight having improved.

One of my cats has figured out how to knock the bowl over to make the lid come off and get the treasured white stones out. This was funny the first couple of times

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

Minor update.

I have not been studying as such, but I have started playing more on OGS again, and have discovered Graded Go Problems For Beginners, and feel like it has immediately shown the way forward. Currently re-doing volume II; nothing in it has troubled me much but I got a handful wrong the first time, and the repetition has absolutely made me stronger in games. Apparently vol III is significantly harder, but given how much vol II has helped, I am excited to see what it has in store. Great books!

I feel like a few of the "now fix shape" or "X forces bad shape" type ideas are starting to make sense; you see that doing those things then affects the later game even though you can't really read out the outcomes. I find this very cool.

I've been experimenting with the Low Chinese opening, not necessarily because I know anything about it but because it's good to just look at one starting point and see what the different outcomes can be.

Currently hovering on the border of 12k and 11k OGS. The numbers themselves are not important, but the direction they move in is encouraging.

I still need to visit the Go club!

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

Hi joellercoaster, I also like Graded Go Problems For Beginners.

So, this feels like a good time to check in. I've been playing about a year now, entirely correspondence on OGS. I play a few moves each day, and try to always have 3 games on each board size going at once.

I still haven't formally done any study, but maybe it is time to change that (he says, again)

I've played 147 games of Go on that time (split between 9x9, 13x13 and 19x19, though initially I played 9x9 exclusively and they turn over faster, so a disproportionate number of those are small board), winning 111 and losing 36.

Although I have a policy of only challenging players with higher rank than myself (aiming at 1-3 stones, though some much stronger), that win ratio makes me think I haven't been aggressive enough in picking my opponents (I have failed at the "lose a hundred games as quickly as possible" task, but I will do "better" this year ).

I am presently OGS 9k.

I've read some books; Most recently Kageyama's Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go, which I will no doubt read again. It gave me a few lightbulb moments about how to think about things (rather than any technical insight) and shone some light, and I think it's ideal for people about my level as I was feeling a bit aimless (still do, but it was food for thought).

Other things I read this year that helped a lot:

Bozulich, The Second Book of Go - great orientation, "what the hell is going on?" kind of answers
Jasiek, First Fundamentals - "here are some stupid beginner things, try not to do them"
Kano, Graded Go Problems For Beginners 2 - immediately made me at least a couple of stones stronger, and the benefits accrued for a while afterwards too

I also want to point up just how useful Nick Sibicky's Go lectures are on YouTube. They are a great source of ideas that percolate around my head when I'm too tired or unfocused to read or play, and I feel like they've benefited me hugely. I think I've watched the first 40 or so.

Weirdly, I am presently feeling more at a loss than ever as to what to pay attention to. Now I have the outlines of (some of) the huge areas of knowledge that need attention looming like crags out of the mist, and I wonder which cliff to start on. Some options:

1. There is a copy of Opening Theory Made Easy in my desk, that seems pretty friendly. I could just read that.

2. I still only know one joseki, and I get it wrong more often than not anyway. Kageyama's chapter was enlightening; don't study joseki as a series of rote patterns, but try and benefit from understanding the fundamentals of each one and why the variations are the way they are. That seems like it could be a fruitful avenue to pursue; what do you wiser heads think?

3. I feel like I only understand shape in a very crude way. Shape Up! seems aimed maybe a little above my level but it also covers an area I feel really deficient in.

4. I'm not the greatest fighter in the world, though I'm getting better. Games at my present level seem to end up as brawls a lot, so that's an opportunity I suppose

5. I am also starting to really struggle with 9x9 (and to a lesser extent 13x13), which until now has been kind of a victory march. People in the SDK range seem much, much better than me at this form of the game. I think that probably gives me some insight into what I need to work on, but what?

The absolute right thing I know is to go and start on Graded Problems III. But, you know. Other than that, what should I do? The world is my oyster but it's a big big oyster, and I feel like I could use some pointers.

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi