I disagree. Playing lots of games is the most important thing, but there's nothing wrong with reading and thinking about tesuji problems. Thats a great book, I'm going through it now tooCnP wrote:at your level you should just play loads of games for a while.Right. I'm going to have a mince pie and cream, and go to bed with Tesuji and Anti-Suji of Go, and see how much of it I can get through before my eyes glaze over in bafflement.
That's what I tell all beginners, but I recently encountered a remarkable fellow who played less than 30 games to reach sdk (and that includes 9x9 games), over a period of about 3 or 4 months. He's read a few books on theory, and does a lot of tsumego problems. Actually, I'v seen him do tsumego problems, and he's probably closer to 5k at tsumego, and can even sometimes solve dan level problems.CnP wrote:at your level you should just play loads of games for a while.
Reminds me of myselfquantumf wrote:That's what I tell all beginners, but I recently encountered a remarkable fellow who played less than 30 games to reach sdk (and that includes 9x9 games), over a period of about 3 or 4 months. He's read a few books on theory, and does a lot of tsumego problems. Actually, I'v seen him do tsumego problems, and he's probably closer to 5k at tsumego, and can even sometimes solve dan level problems.CnP wrote:at your level you should just play loads of games for a while.
He's a very strong chess player, which presumably has helped him, particularly in the reading department.
I'm a fairly decent chess player. I didn't find it easy, and still don't find it easy, to read go positions.He's a very strong chess player, which presumably has helped him, particularly in the reading department.
For go books and equipment in the UK, maybe check out the followingJujube wrote:
I do love go books almost as much as playing. It's the fact that they're (in the UK at least) hard to find...
That's what he claims. But I find that dubious given how swift his improvement has been. The shapes are very different true, perhaps its just having the discipline to force yourself to read ahead that is key. When I contrast him to some other beginners (or even myself back then), they're much more interested in go strategy and really can't be bothered with this "reading" business.Jujube wrote:I'm a fairly decent chess player. I didn't find it easy, and still don't find it easy, to read go positions.He's a very strong chess player, which presumably has helped him, particularly in the reading department.
Go is all about visualising shapes, and chess is more... well, I think they're quite different - I definitely didn't find the skill transferable.
Strategy maybe is something to ponder on over time, and reading out a position involves well, I don't know, more effort? It certainly makes my brain hurt more!That's what he claims. But I find that dubious given how swift his improvement has been. The shapes are very different true, perhaps its just having the discipline to force yourself to read ahead that is key. When I contrast him to some other beginners (or even myself back then), they're much more interested in go strategy and really can't be bothered with this "reading" business.
Can you imagine many beginners finding a 22 move capturing sequence that's not a ladder? Even if he studied it regularly during those three weeks, could many beginners find it given arbitrary amounts of time?Then one day at the cafe in Berlin where the Chessplayers used to gather in the afternoon my friend Max Lange and I saw a Japanese reading a Japanese paper, on the back of which we noticed a Go diagram. We thought 'Well, that's remarkable'; we knew, of course, about chess columns, but Go columns? We didn't know what to think, so we waited until the fellow was gone and took the paper down from the newspaper rack. We put ourselves to deciphering the diagram. The problem lay in decoding the Japanese numerals the diagram used, but although we hadn't actually played more than a game or two of Go, we worked things out without too much trouble. So we went through the game, but after 120 or 150 moves things came to a stop, and there was some notation.
We waited until a few days later we saw another Japanese customer at the cafe, whom we approached to ask whether he would mind telling us what that notation meant. Oh, first it seemed obvious to us that it must say 'White resigns', since Black had an enormous army and there didn't seem to be any reasonable continuation for White, or else something like 'Game adjourned'. Well, the gentleman said, 'Certainly, "Black resigns!" When we heard that we decided that we would really have to give a good look at the game, and we took the newspaper. About 3 weeks later Max Lange called to say that he had found a sacrificial continuation for White ending in the capture of the Black army 22 moves later. Then we really started to play Go in earnest.
I think two wins and two losses can suffice, but given your circumstances, you might be suffering from too broad a range of opponents.The question mark appears after your rank when not enough information has been collected to estimate your rank correctly. Also possible: you didn't play enough rated ('ranked') games in the last time. It will usually disappear after a few wins and losses in rated games. To reduce the time, do the following.
•Play opponents with solid ranks (i.e., without a question mark as well)
•Play opponents close to your estimated rank. If the range of opponents varies too widely, it will take longer to calculate the rank
•Play rated games
In general, I would just stress that you'd need a bit thicker skin.Jujube wrote: (...)
I ... read some of Janice Kim's books, and downloaded Moyo Go Studio to play GNU Go ... bought Kageyama, and read most of that, and bought The Second Book of Go by Bozulich. I've found that book to be VERY instructive. I've also read a little of the Elementary series
(...)
my learning style is as a theorist
(...)
I hardly played any games, and none against a real person on the internet.
I did, however, plough through the books, on the train, in bed, at work, with and without the board. Over and over again.
(...)
Did I do wrong?
)
and play more - perhaps face-to-face over-the-board ?) I read that too and remember that the beginners argumentation will have been either tactically OR strategically wrong ORhyperpape wrote:An anecdote from Edward Lasker, who eventually made IM in Chess, seems apposite:
Can you imagine many beginners finding a 22 move capturing sequence that's not a ladder? Even if he studied it regularly during those three weeks, could many beginners find it given arbitrary amounts of time?(...) About 3 weeks later Max Lange called to say that he had found a sacrificial continuation for White ending in the capture of the Black army 22 moves later. Then we really started to play Go in earnest.
That's from Milton Bradley's "How Go Came to America".