How to get better

[infectedbrain]

Hi, I've been stuck at 15k for years now. I have been studying and playing almost everyday and i am getting nowhere. My brother, on the other hand, plays once a month never studies and is already 18k. He learned how to play 4 months ago and I 4 years ago. I wanted to know if there was a way I could get past that 15k barrier. I have read most of the books out there and still no dice.

Please give me a hand if you can.

[Violence]

I powered through the double digits on tsumego alone. I would recommend doing beginner level tesuji problems until you reach the single digits.

[xed_over]

you might try taking lessons (with either professionals or strong amatuers) -- that helped me over a hump once before.

and if one teacher still doesn't do it for you, try a different teacher.

over-the-board in-person lessons are the best. but depending on where you are, you may have to just take what you can get.

different people learn differently. and some people just "get it". others never do.
relax and enjoy the game, you'll get it eventually.

ps- if taking lessons doesn't help quickly enough, try teaching beginners. I've learned a lot just from trying to explain what I thought I knew to others.

I also like replaying professional games (from paper printouts) on a board. This has helped me a lot too.

[jts]

I have been studying and playing almost everyday and i am getting nowhere.

What do you study?

[daniel_the_smith]

Post a game and we can give you more specific advice than "do tsumego".

But there is a good chance that that's what we'll tell you anyway.

[infectedbrain]

Here is a game of mine. Im black.

[infectedbrain]

I have been studying and playing almost everyday and i am getting nowhere.

What do you study?

I have been studying fuseki and some common in game situations.

[jts]

I have been studying and playing almost everyday and i am getting nowhere.

What do you study?

I have been studying fuseki and some common in game situations.

Everyone should study whatever it is that they enjoy. But if you're finding yourself frustrated and want to advance faster, you should probably focus on life and death problems. A, these will build your reading endurance fastest; B, the difference between a live group and a dead group is probably quite important at your level. If you get bored, find a book on tesuji.

Also, have you seen this page? Many of the links are useful.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?BeginnerStudySection

If you ever see me on KGS I'd be happy to play a game with you and offer some pointers.

[jts]

[sgf-full]http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=877[/sgf-full]

Comments:

16: Taking a corner is almost never bad, but consider N5 here. After N5, W is almost completely sealed into his corner.
28: Cutting at M6 is really big here. What are you afraid of?
34: It's really good that you know to extend after a cross-cut, but the whole point of extending out of a cross cut is to set up a ladder. Do you see a ladder you could play here?
36: Again, do you see the ladder that your opponent has set up? (You may have read out that this ladder is broken, but it lets W get all the liberties he needs to capture your corner.)
52: Did you know that this move was futile? If you did, you should save it for later, as a ko threat.
56: D7 is urgent. It makes the difference between a lot of influence on the left side, and very little. (A move around R11 is not bad, though - it's a fine extension from both your upper right corner and your wall below. The problem is that even if W makes a move around R11 first, you still have an advantage here, whereas if W plays D7 first, he has punched through your position with a tank column.)

Up to 110: Ohh, things got ugly in that corner, didn't they? I would make three general recommendations. (i) Try to figure out your strategic goals and only play really important moves. A17 was not a strategically important move; first-line moves rarely are. (ii) Read ahead. Before you play your stone, ask yourself where your opponent will want to respond, and where you'll respond to that move, and then where he'll respond to you... do you like the result? Or do you want to play somewhere else? (iii) Until you're confident in your reading ability, play solidly. Solid play means leaving few cutting points, so that your groups are all connected.

116: Conventionally, you respond to this invasion by playing P17, keeping W firmly contained in his corner, like a misbehaving child.

[EdLee]

I suggest you find a good teacher.
A few ideas:
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[Mivo]

I have been studying fuseki and some common in game situations.

I tend to study what I enjoy, too, but frequently that isn't really what yields the most efficient results. You may be in the same boat. For example, at 15k you can cover all your fuseki needs by reading "Opening Theory Made Easy" or "In the Beginning" (the former goes down easier). This will be sufficient to get you well into the SDKs. Other than that, just do two things: solving tsumego (lots of it) and playing games (look at them after). If you feel you lose most fights or generally get disconnected/killed too easily, focus a little on 9x9.

Reading is probably a problem (it's something I often struggle with too). Whenever you play, mentally imagine your next move, your opponent's response to it and your answer to that. That's very do-able at your level, too. Try and do this before you put down a stone, even if it's a very obvious move. As you get stronger, consider different options and read a little further, for the worthwhile ones. What's worthwhile and what isn't, that comes with experience.

Tsumego is the key, though. Personally, I also looked at pro games and memorized the first ~50 moves, but this probably isn't very efficient. I do feel it helped me get into the SDK range, though. I enjoy doing that, and I like that I can tell how my memory improved, but yes, needs to be something you enjoy doing.

Overdoing it with bookas is an easy trap to fall into (works for some, but not for most -- and if it did work for you, you wouldn't have this problem). Go is a bit like body building in this regard: You can read as many books on how to train, and look at many videos of people weighting lifts and flexing their impressive muscles, but unless you actually get yourself on the treadmill and go through the monotonous grind/routine of lifting the weights, you'll continue looking like a wet towel. It's about doing it, not just reading about it: tsumego and games, weights and treadmills.

[odnihs]

After looking at a few moves in your game, here's a few general suggestions that should easily get you to sdk and beyond.

1. Don't make empty triangles. No matter whether or not it's a good empty triangle, don't do them for now, because more then likely 90% of them will be bad.

2. Keep your groups connected. Don't focus so hard on trying to kill your opponent. Simple focus on making lots of territory instead.

3. Watch your(and your opponent's!) cutting points. Similar to 2, if you get cut, it is likely that complications will occur. So if you can't judge that you'll still be okay after being cut, then just connect. As you do more life and death tsumego(tsumego in general in fact), you'll be able to judge the situations better.

4. As blunt as this might sound, USE YOUR BRAIN. Most people who don't improve because they don't learn from their mistakes, and then proceed to make them over and over again. There is no point in studying all the books in the world or getting thousands of games reviewed if you don't effectively apply the concepts you learn from them into your games. If you are getting frustrated at not improving, you should take a step back and look at the games you play, and ask yourself whether or not you were really focused while playing, and whether or not you were getting distracted a lot and playing many non-thinking moves. Again, no offense intended.


However, despite all this, remember that you should be having an enjoyable time when you are playing Go. If you are getting stressed over not improving, that is not good either. Instead, channel that energy into motivation for improving the quality of your games, and look forward to each game expecting to have a fun experience. Good luck!

[tapir]

Hi, I've been stuck at 15k for years now. I have been studying and playing almost everyday and i am getting nowhere. My brother, on the other hand, plays once a month never studies and is already 18k. He learned how to play 4 months ago and I 4 years ago. I wanted to know if there was a way I could get past that 15k barrier. I have read most of the books out there and still no dice.

Please give me a hand if you can.

Play to win (and don't resign too early).

Review the games you lost (only those).

Play slow games (too). Force yourself to think about each and every move.

Do tsumego.

Don't read any books for a while, you probably know too much already (but know it in the wrong way). Focus on the basic stuff, that is what you read and didn't take serious because it was too easy.

[Sverre]

Study "Tesuji" from the Elementary Go Series, by James Davies. It will be quite tough to go through at your level, but it will teach you how to read and how to think tactically in Go.

It's also important to study life and death but I think you should first focus on not getting pushed around in more open fighting, so you don't have to worry about living in the first place.

[LordYunzi]

I agree, Sverre. Get strong at Tesuji is my favorite book, followed by the "Graded Go Problems".

..and when I don't feel like reading books, I study problems on the net. Mostly gobase, sometimes wbaduk lately. And - I feel that I am improving by doing so, which is the best motivation! Now, about 5% of my moves have a meaning