Abyssinica's Study Journal

[Abyssinica]

19 May 2014

*Did problems 836-873 out of Cho chikun's elementary. I finish this tommorow hopefully.
*Watched Nick Sibicky Go Lecture #72 - Kyu Game Reviews

[Abyssinica]

This guy wrecked me when I was 15k. Oh how the tables have turned.

http://lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=4511

[Abyssinica]

20 May 2014

*Did problems 874-900 out of Cho Chikun's elementary. I'm finally done with it, and now I can progress to intermediate without having to worry about what's behind me.
*Read a chapter and a half out of A&D

It's been a month since I've started this journal. When I started, I was on the cusp of reaching 10k and now I am halfway through the 9k ranks. (Yes, I do realise I would be higher if I had played on my main account against Justin, but I was legitimly scared of his abilities from my memory of when we last played. I still retain a fear of losing.) I have no doubt that if I can get over an obsession of punishing and thinking my opponets are terrible when they do something that is clearly bad or just "out of the ordinary" like I did two ranks ago, I can get to 8k and maybe even 7k by the time I get over this again! I feel I should do tesuji problems now, though. There's been too much life and death, and a combination of the two would be immensley more helpful. I'm going to see if I can't order both tesuji and get strong at tesuji soon.

And for the record, this is the last game I played against Justin9202.

http://lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=4516

[Abyssinica]

21 May 2014
*Did problems 41-51 out of Cho Chikun's intermediate. The 1-2 point is very interesting, and these problems are way more challenging. It's like when I started with the elementary problems again.
*Watched Bats Lecture Series - Ke Jie Continues!
*Beat an 8k in an even game. Of course, even if this happened two times in a row, the chance of me beating an 8k when they're one stone stronger is ~30% or something. I can't remember the actual number.
2 games and TWO reviews in one SGF!

http://lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=4522

[Abyssinica]

He's always crushed me by a lot and I finally get my chance...and....and

http://lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=4523

[Unusedname]

A couple ideas.

O17 takes away one of white's extensions so is semi-sente
I agree that I don't like E6. I don't know if it's wrong but to me D9 looks much better
Interesting. I never thought about it like this. I would have jumped the 3-3 as well.
I think H7 is a better move for what you're trying. It's another difference between sente and gote. in the game doesn't have a severe follow up, but if white tenuki's H7 then H6 is a nice move. (imo)
because the K18 group is strong now, O15 doesn't really do much. There might be a better way to defend.

I really like your friends comment at

[Abyssinica]

Yeah,he seems a good source of comments.

22 May 2014
*Did problems 52-66 out of Cho Chikun's intermediate
*Did some other tsumego in ITGO
*Read a bit of A&D

[ez4u]

A couple ideas.

O17 takes away one of white's extensions so is semi-sente
I agree that I don't like E6. I don't know if it's wrong but to me D9 looks much better
Interesting. I never thought about it like this. I would have jumped the 3-3 as well.
I think H7 is a better move for what you're trying. It's another difference between sente and gote. in the game doesn't have a severe follow up, but if white tenuki's H7 then H6 is a nice move. (imo)
because the K18 group is strong now, O15 doesn't really do much. There might be a better way to defend.

I really like your friends comment at

I can't agree with that comment. I like the invasion of 3-3. The timing is just right IMHO. There is no way for White to get a good result. Look at the position after . The two marked stones are both inefficient in terms of their relation to White's new wall. In addition, both are low so that it is difficult to prevent Black from punishing them further. However, I am less happy with . It is understandable since Black proceeds to sketch out a huge area on the left side of the board. However, that area is still quite open and the resulting plays start to crowd Black's upper right corner. Personally, I would have been very tempted to play at 'a' to finish off White's center-oriented influence and then wait and see what White is going to try from here.

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[Abyssinica]

I guess playing a to reduce all that influence I gave white would have been a much better choice; I don't know why I didn't think of that considering I played e6 in the first place. I always think it's very big to jump into a 3-3 from a symmetrical double wing, and even a double wing in general, but maybe it's not always the best policy.

23 May 2014

*Did problems 67-76 out of Cho Chikun's intermediate. Finals! Half days of school starting today and ending Thursday!
*Read a teeny bit out of Endgame.
*Watched Bats Lecture Series - 04/11/2012

I wonder if there's any other potential source of go videos besides Dwyrin and Nick Sibicky.

[Abyssinica]

24 May 2014

*Did problems 77-83 out of Cho Chikun's intermediate They're kind of draining right now, but I really should put more time into them right now. I did solve one in a minute which was really odd though.
*Ordered Get strong at tesuji + Get strong at invading
*Played a game with Dsaun He did a Korean joseki and we both messed up. It led to an interesting corner sequence while I bungled the low chinese. I ended it by playing some invasion I know exists and seeing how it panned out before resigning.

[Abyssinica]

25 May 2014

*Did problems 84-96 out of Intermediate

[Abyssinica]

I beat a 7k player because he made two weak groups that I was already spillting while he made them both larger and larger. Kgs doesn't want to give me my 8k yet, it seems.

Also, an 8k player, while certainly having a fair amount of knowledge to impart, is really not an authority you should trust completely on whether something is invadable or not. I am significantly stronger than 8k, and you shouldn't fully trust my judgment on such things either.

I remember this quote. Now I am going to say that I have no clue about anything and wonder how I thought 8ks were the bomb when I was 18k. I suppose I think the same about 2ds now.

[Abyssinica]

26 May 2014
*Did problems 97-104 out of Cho Chikun's intermediate.
*Read a bit out of endgame Specifically the Tesuji chapter.
*Watched Nick Sibicky Go Lecture #7 - INVASIONS!

[Abyssinica]

27 May 2014
*Did problems 105-113 out of Cho Chikun's Intermediate
*Read the first 100 or so pages out of A&D again
*Watched Nick Sibicky Go Lecture #73 - Jubango Game #3

Prodigious is the best go player I know "personally." He is EGF 5d.

Kheldragar: Why do I always feel like I don't know what to do if there's not a large moyo on the board
Kheldragar: And why does it feel that somehow I get the huge reduacble thin one and my opponet gets the solid thick one
oren: need to study opening more?
Kheldragar: Maybe a change in style?
oren: I think with some of your moves, I would have solidified the right side
Kheldragar: Like completely change how I play
oren: and then just win easy
unusedname: that sounds hard x_x
Kheldragar: I can't tell how many points are needed to win
Kheldragar: That's the problem
Prodigious: moyo games are really hard to judge
oren: usually about 60 will do it
oren: but yeah moyo games can be crazy
Kheldragar: Oh
Kheldragar: heh
oren: saw Cho U and Cho Chikun play a funny game where it really ended up looking like a wall across the middle of the board
oren: http://eidogo.com/#url:http://gokifu.com/f/rt6-gokifu-20110804-Cho_U-Cho_Chikun.sgf
oren: maybe not the most amazing moyo game
oren: but it was big
Kheldragar: If prod says moyo games are hard
Kheldragar: THen damn
Prodigious: hard to judge what is enough
Prodigious: you need very good positional judgement
Kheldragar: I always feel like I don't have enough
Kheldragar: Sometimes when I read through A&D
Kheldragar: I feel the example games aren't games
Kheldragar: They look utterly foreign

My last game was a game in which I fared very poorly entering into the middle game. Of course, I was able to get the starting move in the top left-hand side, and though my opponet let me get a lot of big moves, I still won by about 25-30 points. It's kind of weird because usually I'll just make a huge moyo that's very loose and reducable, constantly feeling like I don't have enough points if I got all of the moyo. I need to completely change how I play that. I have one huge moyo; my opponet knows where to reduce, and is always the one reducing.

To give an example, it's almost the end of the game with about 20-30 moves left against a 7k. I think it's fairly close so I will not budge one point. S.E (Because I'll just use that because I can't actually count) gave the score at B+30 at the beginning of the sequence. If I had relented, I would have had B+10. But no, I said "Your move will not work" and tried to cut it off/kill it. It worked, and I ended up ruining a large portion of my territory. W+20.

[Abyssinica]

28 May 2014

Kgs 8k!
*Did problems 114-122 out of Intermediate
*Watched half of Bat's sanrensei lecture and all of his real one

Things to do almost everyday in the summer

1. Two books that I really want to study and go over in a lot of detail are: Enclosure Joseki by Masaki Takemiya and Modern Joseki and Fuseki. Maybe it'll take in a few months to get all the concepts, but I am willing.
2. Return to going over games out of Invincible or studying Lee Changho's old style.
3. Doing Cho Chikun intermediate problems as well as problems out of my soon to arrive Get Strong books
4. Watch more Go videos
5. Re-read some of the books I already have occasionally, such as the tesuji part out of Endgame, A&D, the Direction of play, etc.

I would love it if I had the attention to study for 5 hour periods at a time. I really would.