What barriers to improving should I expect?

[Ember]

Stefany:

at your age and rank i suggest you to review professional games with comments.
i dont want you to learn wrong ideas from kyu level players.(sorry if i offended many)
just memorizing professional games will help you improve and will open your eyes in opening part of the game.

Its interesting, because a lot of people tell me I shouldn't review professional games until I am high dan. They say you won't have the reading to understand them if you review it early..

I don't think that Magicwand meant it in the way that Stefany should aim at fully understanding pro games - this would indeed be something only a high dan player could do (most of the time). What he meant might be to get a feeling for game flow, for good shape and how it affects a game and maybe understand a little part of each game (maybe only a sequence of 3 or 4 moves which might be "standard", but which she might not know yet) which in turn helps Stefany get new ideas for her games, e. g. in the opening (as Magicwand suggested).

I can remember something similar from my own experience. I'm a huge fan of Iyama Yuta and replay every game I can lay my (not-so-)bony hands on. In one game, I picked up a connection tesuji. I still don't know its name but I will NEVER EVER forget the shape and the moves in my whole life because:

- It was really simple but completely new for me and I could immediately integrate it in my games - since then, it won me quite a few games (extra bonus for remembering something)
- I understood it from a pro's game which somehow made me proud , especially as the move was played by my favourite pro. Although I cannot remember when the game was played and who was Iyama's opponent, I will never forget the tesuji, something a book could not have done for me even in so simple a case (I'm pretty sure about that)... ^^;

I must admit that this kind of thing doesn't happen very often, but when it happens be prepared to have something on your mind that has come to stay!

[CarlJung]

Stefany:

at your age and rank i suggest you to review professional games with comments.
i dont want you to learn wrong ideas from kyu level players.(sorry if i offended many)
just memorizing professional games will help you improve and will open your eyes in opening part of the game.

Its interesting, because a lot of people tell me I shouldn't review professional games until I am high dan. They say you won't have the reading to understand them if you review it early..

It's certainly true that you don't have the reading of a pro when you are just starting out. I think Magicwand is less concerned about actually reading everything out and more concerned about getting a feel for better play.

[Magicwand]

Stefany:

at your age and rank i suggest you to review professional games with comments.
i dont want you to learn wrong ideas from kyu level players.(sorry if i offended many)
just memorizing professional games will help you improve and will open your eyes in opening part of the game.

Its interesting, because a lot of people tell me I shouldn't review professional games until I am high dan. They say you won't have the reading to understand them if you review it early..

It's certainly true that you don't have the reading of a pro when you are just starting out. I think Magicwand is less concerned about actually reading everything out and more concerned about getting a feel for better play.

hum....when i was ddk many people gave me advice "memorize 100 professional games"
i love to review professional games. i didnt mean to memorize but after good review it was automatically remaind in my brain.
back then i really didnt feel any improvement but now i look back and can see that memorizing professional game really did help me improve faster.

[Mosdefgo]

Barriers? Let's see....

Stupidity, old age, lack of experience, greed, miscalculation, bad drugs, lack of sleep, and being hung over. That covers the majority, I think.

But, seriously...

Yeah that about covers it for me too.

Back to the question; I think one barrier that I had, was that I had a bad habit of trying bad sequences or moves that usually never turned out good for me. I never really tried anything new.

But taking a small break without thinking about Go (This is super hard for me to do BTW ) will usually help you to forget some of those bad habits.

As for improving, I'm starting to find more and more that playing many games and doing tsumego will help you A LOT! But this might just apply to me...

[xed_over]

Stefany:

at your age and rank i suggest you to review professional games with comments.
i dont want you to learn wrong ideas from kyu level players.(sorry if i offended many)
just memorizing professional games will help you improve and will open your eyes in opening part of the game.

Its interesting, because a lot of people tell me I shouldn't review professional games until I am high dan. They say you won't have the reading to understand them if you review it early..

It's certainly true that you don't have the reading of a pro when you are just starting out. I think Magicwand is less concerned about actually reading everything out and more concerned about getting a feel for better play.

hum....when i was ddk many people gave me advice "memorize 100 professional games"
i love to review professional games. i didnt mean to memorize but after good review it was automatically remaind in my brain.
back then i really didnt feel any improvement but now i look back and can see that memorizing professional game really did help me improve faster.

I totally agree... when I was actively playing out and/or memorizing pro games, I was improving almost 1-2 stones per month (was just crossing over from DDK to SDK).

replaying (on a board) and/or memorizing pro games is one of my favorite things to do, but I just haven't had much time for it lately.

but clearly, not everyone enjoys this, or learns well from it (although, I think you'll learn more than you realize, if you just give it a serious try)