My week in numbers (was "Tiny steps towards shodan")

[RBerenguel]

The 67th, after Get Strong at Joseki 2 & 3 which were on discount in the local bookshop.

Collected games from a TV 9x9 tournament

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[RBerenguel]

Back at tsumego! As usual, I've suffered a "meh, go" period. It happens, I've got used to it by now. It was triggered by excess of work, essentially, but of course, it followed the usual pattern of 2 months off, give or take. During August I had a mild really stressed period where I had to take a week off of work and I actually played some blitz, but then I hibernated (only playing NGA games, doing almost no tsumego, just waiting for it to tick again,) until I got a shipment of Korean books from a friend. Still, I didn't just start solving its problems or anything (I tried, but the time was not ripe so I left them around.) Then, 2 weeks ago somehow I picked up Anki (which I hadn't opened in more than 1 month and had ~500 cards for review) and took the time to bring it back to normal. I have also started working on those books (the "easy tsumego" first, I'm creating SGF files to add it to Anki when I'm done.)

So, solving tsumego daily again (as usual Cho-Elementary, Cho-Intermediate, LCH Tesuji and Tsumego 1, some excerpts from DBT1 and a couple others.) I have added LCH Tsumego 2, and this is the last LCH book I have converted to SGF, so for now I have a little more work before I can add anything. Yesterday I finished reading Magic on the First Line, and I'll probably add the first section to my Anki decks soon (I liked the book very much by the way.)

Numbers, numbers.

In 2 weeks, 868 card reviews, of which 500 were during the first 3 days. Then back to normal, where I'm having 20 reviews each day (now it's increasing because of adding LCH-Tsu-2.) Of course, my game saw a steep drop during my idling period, but I wasn't focused on go, so I wasn't focused on the games either. I'm slighty more focused right now, let's see if I can make it to Christmas. My reading seems to be more or less where I left it. Sadly, the sharpness I had once back from the NGA camp (due to deep-reading slightly hard problems) is gone. And since my workday is mentally draining, I don't really feel like doing it... Although I know it would probably boost my reading if done constantly. I have to think about it.

I have also played over 6-7 Go Seigen games from the "Collected games." Now that I have a small magnetic board it is slightly easier, no need to take out the big & nice board. I can do it on the sofa.

By the way, any of you play backgammon? I got interested in the game during... August? September? (usually my not-interested-in-go periods see a rise in interest in other weird things, usually it's shogi though) and have read quite a bit of books on strategy and tactics. It's a nice game, and I like the idea of the doubling cube. With some work it probably could be used in 9x9 tournaments for fun and profit

[RBerenguel]

Code: Select all

<Namii> So, you have 3 check-in points [RB:   each after 2 weeks]       [11:15]
<Namii> I'll give you three sets of 50 tsumego, each will be checked at a
        check-in point
<Namii> Also by each check-in point, you need to achieve the milestones:
                                                                        [11:16]
<Namii> 1) 8 games (at least 5 have to be 25 min main time + optional
        byo-yomi, less than this counts as 1/2 games)
<Namii> 2) watch 20 pro games (most should be Japanese 80-90s title games), no
        need to spend "too much time" on these, just try to focus on the flow
        of the game and shape. If you have kyu-friendly commented games,
        that's great                                                    [11:17]
<Namii> 3) Play any NGA games if challenge is during NGA
<Namii> Furthermore, by the 2nd check-in, Lee Changho tesuji 3 has to be
        finished (Spend max 5-10 mins per problem, then check the answer)
                                                                        [11:18]
<Namii> And by the 3rd check-in, tesuji 4 has to be finished
<Namii> Let's call this the Steel Man challenge
<rberengu`> nice
<Namii> Then optional is that after the challenge, go through tesuji 3&4 again
<Namii> Oh, and keep up with anki training                              [11:19]

Okay, starting today. Will be done by mid January. Good warmup for Barcelona's tournament

[Abyssinica]

I think I'm going to borrow your steel man challenge for December.

150 Intermediate life and death
8 games of your time settings
Finish 501 opening problems
Finish the capturing stones sections of my graded go problems
Finish 100 problems in 501 tesuji
Replay 30 pro games

[RBerenguel]

I think I'm going to borrow your steel man challenge for December.

150 Intermediate life and death
8 games of your time settings
Finish 501 opening problems
Finish the capturing stones sections of my graded go problems
Finish 100 problems in 501 tesuji
Replay 30 pro games

How many problems is your plan? Keep in mind I'm doing ~20/day with anki, so it's 150+246+~300, assuming I don't pick any book while I'm bored

[Abyssinica]

I think I'm going to borrow your steel man challenge for December.

150 Intermediate life and death
8 games of your time settings
Finish 501 opening problems
Finish the capturing stones sections of my graded go problems
Finish 100 problems in 501 tesuji
Replay 30 pro games

How many problems is your plan? Keep in mind I'm doing ~20/day with anki, so it's 150+246+~300, assuming I don't pick any book while I'm bored

As of right now it's probably ~800 problems if I can estimate the capturing stones chapters as ~100 problems. The bulk of that is in 501 opening problems which are problems you could do a lot of in a relatively short amount of time.

[RBerenguel]

Yes, 501 Opening Problems is relatively light, although some answers will leave you puzzling how you were supposed to find *that*

[RBerenguel]

Well, challenge started already. Did a few of the tsumego in the first package (damn, they are harder than what I expected ,) fell a little behind on Anki (I think the day before I didn't finish, so yesterday I had a little more than usual... will clean up pending today.) Played 2 slow games, lost both (actually played 3, but a resigning opponent on move 1 doesn't count much.) I'll review them this afternoon, which should then be no games. Just played a blitz where I had a nice winning position and blundered. Even though I'm a fast reader, time pressure still gets me from time to time, and got me here. Allowed a ko that I should have avoided, didn't ignore a threat that could be ignored (it involved killing a disconnected group once the threat is ignored, I didn't even pause to think about that, which is what ticks me most.)

[RBerenguel]

First Sunday after starting the Steel Man challenge (see here to know what it's about.) For now:

• Kept up with my Anki problem lists
• Replayed 4 pro games:
  • 1980-06-18a Takemiya-Kato
  • 1980-06-19b Otake-Honda
  • 1980-06-19a Rin-Kobayashi
  • 1977-01-12 Hashimoto-Fujisawa (3rd Kisei game)
• Solved (or "first-ran") 37 of the list of 50 problems
• Took Lee Chang-Ho's tesuji 3 out of the shelf (hey, first steps are important)
• Played:
  • 3 slow games on KGS (1-2)
  • 1 slow game on IGS (realised my self-set rank is incredibly off, won)
  • 1 semi-blitz on Tygem (lost, let's say it's blitz for the sake of counting)
  • 4 blitz on KGS (1-3, meh)

This makes for a total of (according to the challenge rules) of 8 games (4 slow, 3 blitz and 2*0.5 games) so I'm already done with this part. I'll probably add quite a few more games, this was way too easy! Also, I'd like somewhat better winning percentage, and I can only do this... losing. Or getting better xD

I feel quite behind on replaying pro games, weird, since this should be the easier part. Weird.

I also read Soltis' Studying Chess Made Easy, got a few pointers on good ideas. Now I'm reading Soltis' The Inner Game of Chess. It's about calculation.

[RBerenguel]

First two weeks of the "program" done!

Numbers:

I could only give solutions for 44 out of the 50 tsumego, still waiting to know how many I did actually get right. I kept up with the daily Anki training, currently is around 15 problems per day.

I played

• 11 kgs blitz (3/8...)
• 4 KGS slow games (2/2)
• 1 igs slow game (1/0)
• 1 tygem blitz (0/1)

So I amply passed the goal of 5 slow and 3 whatever. Probably the two week period I've played most games, with the possible exception of the first NGA camp.

I lost track of how many pro games did I go through, though. I'm pretty sure I passed the 30 mark, but don't know by how much. This second "level" I'll keep better track.

Edit: heh, the goal for replaying pro games was 20, no 30. I definitely passed that.

[RBerenguel]

First two weeks of the "program" done!

Numbers:

I could only give solutions for 44 out of the 50 tsumego, still waiting to know how many I did actually get right. I kept up with the daily Anki training, currently is around 15 problems per day.

I played

• 11 kgs blitz (3/8...)
• 4 KGS slow games (2/2)
• 1 igs slow game (1/0)
• 1 tygem blitz (0/1)

So I amply passed the goal of 5 slow and 3 whatever. Probably the two week period I've played most games, with the possible exception of the first NGA camp.

I lost track of how many pro games did I go through, though. I'm pretty sure I passed the 30 mark, but don't know by how much. This second "level" I'll keep better track.

Edit: heh, the goal for replaying pro games was 20, no 30. I definitely passed that.

30/50...

[RBerenguel]

I'm not happy about losing a group, but won in the end. Haven't really blunder-checked it yet, just counted.

[RBerenguel]

Second phase of Namii's challenge (more details here) completed.

It was quite tricky to fit everything, time-wise with my added pursuit of memorising Go Seigen games. I'm pretty sure I did horrible on the assigned tsumego, and if I was to give a qualification to how I handled Lee ChangHo's tesuji 3, I did horrible. I ended up leafing through the second half of the book. But it's an awesome set of tesuji, and I have started SGFing them so I can repeat them ad-nauseam as usual. On the gameplay level, I played 4 slows and 7 blitz, making the cut on games. Results, mixed: on blitz I lost 5 and won 2, on slow I ended 2/2. I replayed 15 or so pro games (10 on Saturday, 5 or a few more on Sunday) which together with the Seigen games of the period makes it more than 20 already.

Now to the final level, which involves more of the same, but Lee Chang'Ho Tesuji 4. Luckily, this is easier than 3 (I remember doing the first 20 or so a few months ago.) Let's see if I can SGFify LCHTe3 before the next deadline.

[RBerenguel]

20150101 - KGS - blitz (2/0)
20150102 - KGS - blitz (1/2)
20150103 - KGS - blitz (0/1)
20150104 - OGS - live 9x9 tournament (3/2)

[RBerenguel]

20150105 - KGS - slow (1/0)
20150106
20150107 - KGS - blitz (0/1)
20150108 - KGS - blitz (3/0)
20150109 - KGS - blitz (0/2)
20150110 - KGS - blitz (2/0)
20150111 - KGS - slow (0/1)

2 slow (1/1), 8 blitz (5/3)