My recent approach to study (I'm going to prove its worth)

[schawipp]

Yes for that reason, I personally prefer looking at the answers. When I say easy problems, what I mean are easy given average amount of time, in other words, if medium means 50% one minute time limit, and easy means 90% with the same time limit for each problem, lower the easy problem time limit so much that you only have 50% hit-rate, getting through the problems as fast, and quickly as you can possibly muster.

Hm... I'm not sure if I can follow. Solving problems with very short time constraints and with "50% hit rate" sounds like you are mainly training for blitz games. Even there, I would recommend to strive rather for a 90%+ hit rate. I'm currently trying a mixture of medium grade tsumego (e. g. "1001 life & death problems") combined with easy ones for the subconscious - e. g. "sandbagging" on http://www.goproblems.com by deleting all cookies (=> starting over at 30k and advancing towards sdk or dan as quickly as possible...) .

Well - even for apparently easy problems it maybe a good idea to look at the answers after being sure to have found the solution. If the answer was different it is important not to click further to the next problem but to analyze why the own answer fails (it's similar with lost games, analyzing one's own mistakes may feel annoying but it seems to help).

That's how it should work in theory ...

[Bill Spight]

IMO, easy problems -- and I may define them differently from you -- are not reading problems. With reading problems arguably the journey is more important than the destination. But with easy problems it is the solution that is important. So why not look?

I classify Cho Chikun's elementary problems set as easy. It is, I can solve them all (a couple though still get my brain blood flowing.) It's essentially shape-sense at this point "huh, I know this shape, I have read it already 6 times." But I'm finding it makes a deeper mark on my brain *not* having checked the solutions for them. In some cases I have been wrong 5 times, and I've found later (either by my own reading or because the problem appeared in an NGA assignment) and then, realising my folly, the impression I got from my own stupidity was stronger than just failing the problem, even if it was 5 or 6 times in a row, checking the solution afterwards.

True. Unfortunately, early errors, particularly if they persist for some time, tend to become permanent. Not that they are not corrected, but they are not forgotten. They are repressed. Thus, they can resurface in times of stress or inattention. (The return of the repressed, as Freudians say. )

I was fortunate in that in my first year of play my weakest opponent was 5 kyu (approximately 4 kyu AGA today, I guess). That means that I did not pick up a lot of bad habits, and most of my errors were quickly punished. In addition, many of them were pointed out in postmortems. Better to avoid folly in the first place.

Well, I guess I have the advantage of having played "a lot" and done "a lot" of tsumego. So, what I'm learning now (even if it is used to clean up the basics) is not first instinct any more, so they are not early errors any more, but systematic errors. It's like hitting your finger each time with the hammer

I have thought about this a little more, and, while there is no hard and fast distinction between easy and hard problems, I think it is important how often plays come up in games. For instance, if the problem is not too deep and everything is obvious but an eye stealing tesuji, which is the point of the problem, then looking is good. OTOH, if the problem is a one lane road 23 moves deep, the point is reading. Looking spoils the point.

[Bill Spight]

Yes for that reason, I personally prefer looking at the answers. When I say easy problems, what I mean are easy given average amount of time, in other words, if medium means 50% one minute time limit, and easy means 90% with the same time limit for each problem, lower the easy problem time limit so much that you only have 50% hit-rate, getting through the problems as fast, and quickly as you can possibly muster.

Hm... I'm not sure if I can follow. Solving problems with very short time constraints and with "50% hit rate" sounds like you are mainly training for blitz games.

I interpret things differently. There is a well known principle of learning and training that, as a task becomes easier, it is good to make the task more intrinsically difficult, to maintain the level of difficulty. (And a level of difficulty of 50% is a good one.) Reducing the time limit is one way of making a problem more difficult.

I remember the talk where I first heard that idea. The example given was learning to fly a helicopter. The first task was to keep the copter over a 1 acre field. When the student could do that, the next task was to keep the copter over the field while chewing gum.

[RBerenguel]

Yes for that reason, I personally prefer looking at the answers. When I say easy problems, what I mean are easy given average amount of time, in other words, if medium means 50% one minute time limit, and easy means 90% with the same time limit for each problem, lower the easy problem time limit so much that you only have 50% hit-rate, getting through the problems as fast, and quickly as you can possibly muster.

Hm... I'm not sure if I can follow. Solving problems with very short time constraints and with "50% hit rate" sounds like you are mainly training for blitz games.

I interpret things differently. There is a well known principle of learning and training that, as a task becomes easier, it is good to make the task more intrinsically difficult, to maintain the level of difficulty. (And a level of difficulty of 50% is a good one.) Reducing the time limit is one way of making a problem more difficult.

I remember the talk where I first heard that idea. The example given was learning to fly a helicopter. The first task was to keep the copter over a 1 acre field. When the student could do that, the next task was to keep the copter over the field while chewing gum.

Yup, I remember whee you introduced this. Loading, isn't it?

[Mef]

Continuing From earlier, If we assume that KGS Ranks are approximately two stones weaker the EGF ranks, KGS 7 Dan is the only way to go for me.

I suppose you may as well set your sights high. After a glance at the profiles of the current KGS 7ds ( at least the ones that have English) it looks like you're trying to join the ranks of Pavol Lisy (EGF 1p) & Singapore's WSMG/WAGC representative. Looking at those who barely miss the cut, the strongest identifiable KGS 6d appears to also be a French 6d.

[RBerenguel]

Continuing From earlier, If we assume that KGS Ranks are approximately two stones weaker the EGF ranks, KGS 7 Dan is the only way to go for me.

I suppose you may as well set your sights high. After a glance at the profiles of the current KGS 7ds ( at least the ones that have English) it looks like you're trying to join the ranks of Pavol Lisy (EGF 1p) & Singapore's WSMG/WAGC representative. Looking at those who barely miss the cut, the strongest identifiable KGS 6d appears to also be a French 6d.

Antti is 7d KGS (or was last time I checked) 7d EGF, miao is (IIRC) 6d KGS and I guess he just got stable 6d EGF, Namii, even if just blitzing on KGS hovers from 6d KGS to 7-8, 6d EGF. Sample from people I see enough online to remember both EGF and KGS ranks

[Elom]

A generalization by month is completely fine I turn 15 by late November. Surprisingly, it seems that 4kyu is a little strong for a 15 year old, but as I've been playing for 3 years (started Oct 2011) my progress has been slow.

Just to clarify, 4 kyu is strong for a 15 year old in the _UK_ (which is something I'm unhappy about. Think about it-- if an 11y old making snailpace progress for about 3 years is enough to make you one of the top 10 Juniour Tennis players in the UK, it would make the future of tennis look... so-so )

Okay, I just want to show:

"...Later I saw him replaying a pro game from a record at blitz speed: learning by osmosis/patterns rather than conscious thought..."

"...So in the morning I would do life and death problems and replay games. They way they replay games is not like the European way, where we replay from books very slowly, reading the commentaries. They would replay the game really fast. Sometimes it would take them only fifteen minutes to replay a game. So sometimes I replayed ten or fifteen games a day..."

Now, I am not saying that deliberating for a long time over a masterpiece doesn't have its place. All I'm saying is that we should take a leaf or two, three, four or maybe more from Korea and China, considering they are the best Baduk/WeiQi playing nations (something which I intend to elaborate on further in the future.)

Why do we replay through pro games? Why is it that replaying pro games is the main form of study by so many pros? We have to ask ourselves these questions before jumping to conclusions, it is the most dangerous exercise.

After much contemplation, thought, deliberation-- well, okay, you should probably take this with a catious pinch if salt, but it's safe to say that I have a few "pro game pointers":

--It is widely believed that pro games only become more useful the stronger you get. But one thing I notice is that people say that you should only do this when you are x-rank, as if replaying pro games is one, single activity. Look, there was a time when we tbought that the ATOM was indivisible, even though the evidence did not completely support this claim-- it was just the thinking of the time.

One thing I wish I did more of as a beginner 3 years ago was to replay through lots of pro games at "level 1". I found many of my old games last month! Yes! Err, when you see them, you would understand what I mean. At the same time, I managed to get to 10th kyu like that, and it was about that time (Jan 2013) I started replaying through more pro games more quickly. A year later, my play was unrecognisable. Yet my rank did not change but two ranks. But now I understand. I used to think it was a wasted year in terms of Go-improvement for me. But now, I realise how important it was, so that I can fight against 1-dans on IGS, and almost beat 3 kyus on WBaduk yet another year after.

[oren]

Why do we replay through pro games? Why is it that replaying pro games is the main form of study by so many pros? We have to ask ourselves these questions before jumping to conclusions, it is the most dangerous exercise.

The main forms of studying from pros I've seen in order...

play and review
tsumego
reviewing professional games

[Elom]

Why do we replay through pro games? Why is it that replaying pro games is the main form of study by so many pros? We have to ask ourselves these questions before jumping to conclusions, it is the most dangerous exercise.

The main forms of studying from pros I've seen in order...

play and review
tsumego
reviewing professional games

There are many pros who study by reviewing professional games more than anything else, but of course, not necessarily when they where an insei. And of course, there are also many other pros who mainly do L&D problems. It depends largely on the pro. But what does reviewing pro games do for them? Is it the same for us amateurs? That is the question...

[Elom0]

I'm coming to developing a theory, but it's scattered about in my brain, so I can't quite put it alltogether in one text yet. But now I can say, that: go problems may fall into two main wide categories. Closed Problems, which are life&death and endgame score counting puzzles. Open problems, although these probably shouldnt be classed as 'problems' as such. Extending this to the Shogi, Chess and Xjianggqi, it seems that Open are those that occur generally in the earlier stages, while closed problems consist of tactics, capture or mating. Therefore, it seems inappropriate to consider problems as either tesuji or life&death. It seems that All problems are either open problems, or closed problems which are either Life&Death/Tactics&Capture or Counting Endgame/Mate. And then in addition to these, it could also be a tesuji problem. I've also made an astounding revelation a few weeks ago. Ever since. but when I trying using inuition more than calculation when solving life&death, suddenly life&death becomes much easier. It seems it was endgame problem I should have taken a more calculating attitude. More on that later, but to me I think this is on of the three major key attitudes that's been holding me back, when discounting health issues since 2017 and especially 2019 to today, so it applies from autumn 2011 all the way to most of 2016, so it's pretty major. I haven't started playing go again but when I see to my health properly and then get back to playing more go and then get to the same level I was at in 2016, I'll likely improve much faster from that level.

The main tool I'll use would be a thing I share with a top pro. I've always loved reviewing games, like Ylee Seedtol. Play games or Re play, view games. I'll just replay slash review that have already been played, and these could be my own games or others' games, but if they're others' games they'll usually be pro-level games with pro-commentary. Then, Reverse-reviewing games after I've reviewed a game. In fact, when I play a game, in real life or online, if I immediately review the game on the spot at the end, it must be a reverse review from the last lay to the first. It's more effecient this way since the game gets more 'closed' towards the end, meaning there are more defininte answers you can find on your own. Anyone can figure out the best play for the last 10 moves of endgame if they try hard enough. Then, if one looks at the game again with a stronger player they can start at the beginning to look at the more open problems that require pro intuition. The main aspect here is the purity of the training. I'll be training like AlphaGo.

The goal is euler 1 dan by January 1st 2023, which is about equivalent I guess to about EGF 3 dan to 4 dan, around the level you can remember your games from memory well. Let's set the second-best player in the world at having e^10 skill points . . . A skill level equivalent to winning 1/(e+1) game against that player is having e^9 skill points. Repeat the process all they down to e^1 skill points, so e skill points. The range of skill points between e^0 and e^1 is considered 1 dan, and those between e^0 and e^-1 are 1kyu. I would extend this further to say that if I made a pro professional system, I would set the criteria so, although of course most pros would already then be at 4p; the pro examinations would take enough people so that so that all those Euler 4 dan or above will have the chance to be pro through skill level. There wouldn't be any female-only pro exams, however; instead, female amateurs would be invited to play in the preliminary stages of professional tournaments more often. There would be a few players who do not qualify based on their skill level being Euler 4 dan or above, instead needing only to be at least Euler 1 dan but one of a few selected to become pro because they are either extremely good at teaching, or by having other skillsets that would be very useful to running the organisation, such as a degree in maybe logistics, or perhaps advertising and psychology and biology, or any other skillset useful to the pro organisation. A degree is good but a PhD is even better. Or a person could just be really, really good at recording pro games at the beginning stages of tournaments, in which case there are too many to record without a dedicated pro type.

I set a high school diploma at 1 kyu (although I am at about John Fairbairn's level at understanding the american education system), Bachelors degree at 1/2 kyu, Masters at 1/4 kyu, PhD and Qualifying through medical school at 1 dan, and every 6 years of speciality training as an extra dan for doctors (although I invented my own system for training junior doctors into consultants, despite having (sadly) no experience in the field). So these would be a way to view those other skills. The solar system operates on timescales of 3 years and the universe operates on ratios of 3/4.

Back to the purity of training, I think that teaching Joseki to anyone is absolutely useless until about euler 1 dan. I will now never even tell beginners first corners, second sides, third centre. I'll tell them 'can you figure out what the best opening plays are, on your own'. This is something they can figure out on they're own if they're prompted that a basic concept of opening. Stuck on a Joseki during a game? Tough. Use your knowledge of basic principles to figure out what the best moves are, and if you can't try a simpler joseki next time or just be happy with simply trying to find good moves in the sequence. Until euler 1 dan, I'd say only do closed problems or review games, including pro-level games with commentary, but not texts about open concepts should be kept to proverbs and real games, in the form of pro-game commentaries. Then at the dan level one can start focusing more on deep study of joseki, and open concepts and problems such as fuseki problems.

[CDavis7M]

What a very respectful and inaccurate view of the high school diploma. As if a 1 Kyu is a player that barely stayed out of jail, did not get pregnant, and is now on their way to clean toilets in the military or at Wendy's.

...

Reading this, I wonder how helpful it would be to review my older games. Now I will review immediately after. Usually with quick and dirty AI analysis but that's it. ... I wonder if I reviewed my own games like I review title matches.

[Elom0]

What a very respectful and inaccurate view of the high school diploma. As if a 1 Kyu is a player that barely stayed out of jail, did not get pregnant, and is now on their way to clean toilets in the military or at Wendy's.

...

Reading this, I wonder how helpful it would be to review my older games. Now I will review immediately after. Usually with quick and dirty AI analysis but that's it. I wonder if I reviewed my own games like I review title matches.

Haha, but then again I won't be surprised if that's exactly how a pro sees most even Euler 1 kyus: didn't get their group into a hopeless fight, didn't create bad shape or make wrongly timed probes, and can finally play proper endgame when there are something like 15 moves till the end, haha .

Although in terms of game reviewing, now I think about it, on a psychological level it might have the effect that when you're playing, if you know you're going to review your game and essentially compare it to the likes of a top professional title match, then it makes it more difficult to make silly mistakes, haha

[Elom0]

In baduk, chess, shogi, xianggqi, makruk, etc a game is either winning for white, a draw, or winning for black. 1, 0.5, 0. In baduk however in addition to Victory points you have a number of territory points. But this can only be known from a position from which perfect play is known. So in the opening I would never say a move is a certain number of points better. I instead would use winrates; I feel I have a 60% chance of winning against myself from this position. But when I get to a point in the late endgame when I know the result, I can say 'this move gains or loses so-and-so points'.

So when pros say this move in the opening gain or loses a certain number of points, I'm not super sure about that. Indeed I've also heard pros say that some players don't have reading as a weakness or that they're reading is good enough or perfect. I think it was in the context of saying that in China and Korea the difference in reading ability between top pro and mid-level pros is not. However in Japan Sakata Eio and Ichiriki Ryo seems have and seem to currently dispute that notion based on their performances--they both happened the best in Japan and the best in Japan at reading. Technically you can always get better at reading. Then we have Lee Changho, Choi Jung, Shin Jinseo, Fujisawa Rina, and the number one Korean female pro for a while Cho Hyeyeon. All number ones who happen to be experts in the Second half of the game. Moving on to more number ones, Rui Naiwei, beater of number one lee Changho, and Lee Sedol use the opening as decoration to get into a fight.

All this seems to say that focusing on the objective second half of the game first is more important and the difference between being number 1 or number 2, or just another top player.

When it comes to AI, I don't pay too much attention to the actual winrate or playouts any AI gives to any position, but rather it's relative opinion and ranking of different positions. Then I decide for myself how much better each position is. In other words, it seems an AI can tell you that a position is better, but it's folly to try to use AI to determine how much better. That's for you to determine.

From 2022 October 25th, around the same time I start my coconut-based diet, I'll start my Alpha-Zero-style self-play training of playing and then replaying the game from the last move to the first move, time-reverse reviewing, or treviewing for short, in baduk. In addition I can do Life&Death puzzles, only Life and Death, in 2023 January. From 2023 February I'll start a similar in chess, shogi, xianggqi, but only the self-play and time-reverse review. Anyway for a few years I've thought of appending 'Surrounding Gardens' with a story called 'Point Zero/Soule Impact' (with it's own little jingle too), this just adds more metaphorical meanings to Point Zero/Soule Impact' .

When I say something Like 'I'm 60% sure', that's the percentage version. The decimal version is 'I'm 0.6' sure. It means if I have to give exactly how many victory points I have, it 0.6 victory points.

Area-control fraction is the proportion of territory each person controls. Implied Area-control fraction is the area-control implied after adjusting for komi. If victory points in baduk are determined by implied area-control 'I have 0.6 Victory points'' can mean I think I control 60% of the area.

[Kirby]

From 2022 October 25th, around the same time I start my coconut-based diet, I'll start my Alpha-Zero-style self-play training of playing and then replaying the game from the last move to the first move, time-reverse reviewing, or treviewing for short, in baduk. In addition I can do Life&Death puzzles, only Life and Death, in 2023 January.

I must have missed something. It seems like you're planning to do some sort of go training here - why are you waiting until October? What's wrong with starting now?

[Elom0]

From 2022 October 25th, around the same time I start my coconut-based diet, I'll start my Alpha-Zero-style self-play training of playing and then replaying the game from the last move to the first move, time-reverse reviewing, or treviewing for short, in baduk. In addition I can do Life&Death puzzles, only Life and Death, in 2023 January.

I must have missed something. It seems like you're planning to do some sort of go training here - why are you waiting until October? What's wrong with starting now?

Well essentially I'm focusing on piano and improving my sense of rhythm at the moment first , I want to test coconuts like I'm doing a study, so I'll do other healthy things until then too.