First I have a confession: I've been aiming at 1D in a year for a month now, that's why the title

I was around 15k OGS when I started and I'm now 11k going strongly to 10k. But I know that it won't be smooth sailing now that SDK is so close so I decided to make my goal public to help motivate me when I eventually hit a wall. (Like the one I had at 15 kyu where I was stuck for 2 years, ouch.)

So I've got some kind of idea of what to study. GoStyle Web App recommended Elementary Go series and books on opening, life and death and tesuji. And although I'm a bit wary because it also ranked me around 2kyu in KGS, I think it's on the right track. I watched In Sentes 1 Dan video and it seemed like I'm going in the same direction. So that's good! Also I'm pretty sure you can't go wrong when studying the fundamentals

So besides reading books I'm also looking through pro games and youtube videos (especially by Dwyrin) but those are mostly just for fun. And I'm also playing and reviewing games. Lots and lots of games. It's almost an addiction at this point guys.

So there's a small intro. I'm still not sure how and when I'll update this journal but stay tuned! And of course any and all feedback is always appreciated!

This seems like the most important part to me.

Different people will have different recommendations for training regimes but I think it's important that you enjoy all of it or it will be tough to stick with.

Good luck.

So funny thing I realized today after a long long time of frustration. I was so confused about essentially being stuck at 15k for years and thought there was something weird about it. So I finally decided to take the time to take a long hard look at my game history.

The thing that kept bothering me was that in any other server I was around 12-10k but in OGS I was 15. And since I kept playing on mobile I stuck with OGS whenever I played. Now I looked at my rankings in past and I had been 12, 11 and even 10k in the past. Multiple times. But everytime I somehow found myself back around 15k.

So now I realize I'm an idiot. I've been around 12-11 kyu level all these years. How? Well. Short answer is: correspondence games.

Now I feel like an idiot for not realizing this sooner. Everytime I got my motivation back I would go back to play these 15k players and win. And that was fun! Easy victories! Then I would have one match against a tougher opponent, suffer a crushing defeat and lose all interest in the game for a while. Now. Since I was only playing correspondence games like an idiot that meant I would lose all my ongoing games by timeout. And rank back down to around 15k. And then go back and do the same thing again! For years!! I feel so stupid now. No wonder I haven't improved.

So yeah not sure if anyone is actually interested but this was a big revelation for me.

Tl;dr I thought my rank wrong for years because I'm an idiot. Would not recommend only playing correspondence games for anyone, ever.

Thank you! And having fun is the most important part I agree! Happy stones die easier and so on

So you guys ever have a game that tells you plainly what you need to study next? Because I did and it was as embarrassing as it was enlightening. Just click straight to the end to see what I'm talking about!



So I'll definitely go back to do some tsumego now

Hi Stemu,Quite often: the fundamentals.

occasional move... not sure the engines agree here. ^(*)

LR corner feels more urgent. ^(*)

misclick ? very strange. ^(*)

K7 seems bigger. ^(*)

K7 atari. ^(*)

iffy. R17 bigger. ^(*)

requires careful reading, vs. o9. ^(*)



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^(*) Please check with a super-human engine.

Thanks EdLee! I was so focused in my epic misreading I didn't pay enough attention in other areas in my review! Your comments def helped to see the game better

And I agree with you, my fundamentals are deffinitely shaky. That's why I'm currently going through Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go

Quick response.

Tsumego was not why you lost the fight on the right side. Study shape and tesuji.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:

At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?

— Winona Adkins

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.

Thanks Bill I will!

LeelaZero says you were still ahead, so you shouldn't have resigned so early.

Hi Stemu, you're welcome. Remember that if we could see all the things we missed, we wouldn't be playing at our current level, by definition -- we'd be playing at super-engine levels. My experience has been that a review shows a million other things I completely missed. Yes, often there's one or two key moments where things went wrong, but almost always there are still many other blind spots throughout.

This underscores the point that, to advance rapidly, you almost always need a coach or teacher, someone who can see where your game need the most help. Without such coach or teacher, my advice is to study everything.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:

At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?

— Winona Adkins

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.

https://senseis.xmp.net/?DieterVerhofst ... mesmanship

Recommended for fast improvement and overall attitude, to convert increased understanding into results.

So I tried to play a game without trying to kill everything and lost. Looking back most of the games I tend to win are ones with intense fighting :/ I guess I was too passive in this game?

I am not a strong player but here are a few moves that I found strange at first sight:

makes your stones heavy, I would have extended along the edge.

is bad shape, and doesn't seem to provide any benefit.

is dangerous because of the potential ko fight ( at P1), at M1 looks better.

Thanks jlt!Yeah now that you point those out I can see how stupid they look :/ I really need to start thinking a bit more before playing

So a bit of an update about how I'm doing.

Currently I'm 11k on OGS, maybe 2 games from ranking up to 10. We shall see how that goes. I'm on a 9 game winning streak so I'm a bit afraid I'm gonna crash and burn soon.

I've been skimming through a lot of go books but realized pretty quickly almost everything was a little too hard. Currently I'm reading Elementary go series vol 1 and Graded go problems for beginners vol 1. (It's a bit sad to realize how much trouble I've got with the basics but at least I figured it out and I'm fixing it now!)

These days I tend to play and review ~1 live game a day and I've got way too many corr games going on too

A few exercises for your posted game:

88 - Black can kill
87 - White can live
105 - do better and save the game

Too hard? For problems you should be getting only half of them right. Otherwise, they are too easy. (OC, when you review you should do better. )

_________________
The Adkins Principle:

At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?

— Winona Adkins

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.

Hi Bill,
I've heard you mention this "half right" idea more than once, but I forgot how much time this was applicable to. Do you mean getting half right by spending a couple of minutes on the problem? More?

I guess you should spend similar time to what you'd spend in a game?

_________________
it's be happy, not achieve happiness