the best way to study

[karaklis]

I am not sure that replaying - or better: memorizing - professional games doesn't help improving your play. In another thread we had this discussion, and especially this posting by a 5d makes me sure that memorizing pro games is an efficient way of studying. Once I've found back my motivation, this will surely be part of my studies.

As for doing tsumego I have started GGPB vol. 4 last week. My goal is to memorize all the tsumegos. But it's not only that: In case I failed at solving a tsumego (such where reading is supposed to be involved), I find out why I failed. It means that I don't know some more basic shapes. Then I create new problems from the book's one, usually two or three variations with the more basic shapes. This includes variations where I am dissatisfied with the book's solution. After I have memorized them, the book's problem seems easy to solve. Seems a good way to learn L&D and tesuji.

[singular]

And for memorizing Tsumegos, I think it's a good way to internalize basic shapes. So everything up to Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol. 4 will often come up in your game, so why is it bad to know in an instant where to move?

Hey SDN, I'm sure you're more qualified to give advice than I am, but I think you misunderstood what I said.

First, I wasn't saying singular should play through pro games, I was saying he shouldn't watch amateur games (for improvement, that is... obviously it's a ton of fun, and I do it all the time).

Second, the inutility of copying moves was my point. If you redo a set of tsumego immediately after the you finish it, especially when each problem has a verbal cue, you are likely to remember the solution because you remember it, rather than because you have internalized the principles that make it the solution. If you are only remembering the solution, rather than how to find the solution, then you won't be able to handle a similar situation in a game.

If you actually disagree with me, I would love for you to explain why I'm wrong.

I agree, watching high-dan amateur games is a ton of fun. I prefer that more often than, say, watching TV. The idea is that between sets of tsumego I take a break by watching high-dan games.

But I also think that something stirs in the mind basement when watching them, something that may in the long-run contribute to improvement. When I see the moves these players make I see possibilities I have no way to educe on my own. It's a bit like going to another country and seeing another culture, being a tourist, which teaches you things about the world. In this case I'm being taught things about Go. I suppose the effect is inchoate but it helps with an 'awakening' of some kind.

It's the same thing with the shapes these players use, which can be 'internalised' I suppose in a similar way to going over and over and over a set of 421 tsumego such as is found in GGPfBIII. When playing my own games I've had a few sparks of ideas taken from watching high-dan games, and these will contribute in some vague way to improvement in the long run. Improvement is often hard to measure anyway, because it involves playing 250 or so moves each with a tiny, tiny, tiny, degree more efficiency, which is why it's often baffling when rank goes up.

[SoDesuNe]

And for memorizing Tsumegos, I think it's a good way to internalize basic shapes. So everything up to Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol. 4 will often come up in your game, so why is it bad to know in an instant where to move?

Hey SDN, I'm sure you're more qualified to give advice than I am, but I think you misunderstood what I said.

First, I wasn't saying singular should play through pro games, I was saying he shouldn't watch amateur games (for improvement, that is... obviously it's a ton of fun, and I do it all the time).

Second, the inutility of copying moves was my point. If you redo a set of tsumego immediately after the you finish it, especially when each problem has a verbal cue, you are likely to remember the solution because you remember it, rather than because you have internalized the principles that make it the solution. If you are only remembering the solution, rather than how to find the solution, then you won't be able to handle a similar situation in a game.

If you actually disagree with me, I would love for you to explain why I'm wrong.

I highly doubt that I'm more qualified than you or anyone else. I just wanted to point out that I don't understand all the advice, which is giving here and there. At least personal experience showed me that some of these advice does not work for me, so maybe it will not work for others as well.

And yeah, I jumped the gun with implying your underlying statement was replaying pro-games is better than watching amateur games, I'm sorry ^^

In my opinion with memorizing Tsumegos, it's not about remembering the solution in the first place, but about remembering the problem, respectively the shape of it. You have to know certain shapes in Go to improve, of course while learning those, you'll learn their weaknesses and thus learn the solution to the problem but at first you must recognize the shape.

For instance:

$$Wc Situation a) Can White kill?
$$ ------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . O X X . . . . |
$$ . O O O X X X . |
$$ . . , O O O O . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . O . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Situation a) Can White kill?
$$ ------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . O X X . . . . |
$$ . O O O X X X . |
$$ . . , O O O O . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . O . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |[/go]

$$Wc Situation b) Can White kill?
$$ ------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . O X X . . . . |
$$ . O O O X X X . |
$$ . . , O O O O X |
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . O . |
$$ . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Wc Situation b) Can White kill?
$$ ------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . O X X . . . . |
$$ . O O O X X X . |
$$ . . , O O O O X |
$$ . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . O . |
$$ . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . |[/go]

If you just learn the solution, e.g. in problem 220 on page xxx the right move is ... then you won't learn much, I agree.

I am not sure that replaying - or better: memorizing - professional games doesn't help improving your play. In another thread we had this discussion, and especially this posting by a 5d makes me sure that memorizing pro games is an efficient way of studying. Once I've found back my motivation, this will surely be part of my studies.

My point was not to say, replaying professional games doesn't help you to improve, it was just a consideration on e.g. how much time is needed to make this beneficial (see your linked post). I think the time can better be spend on games, reviews and Tsumegos or reading books about strategy, which illustrate certain principles by using professional games as an example.
Personally I think, if someone really puts his mind into doing hundred Tsumegos and Tesujis every day for one year, he will improve at the same pace.

In the end, of course, if you have fun replaying and memorizing professional games, do it! It won't be bad, but I don't think it's the holy grail. Friends of mine replay a game a day for a couple of years and they aren't considerable stronger than I am, although I only tried replaying and memorizing once and it bored me to death after the third game.

[kivi]

Memorizing the problems is the wrong way to do tsumego. Sure you will learn the moves that kills, and it will help if that shape occurs in an actual game. So I am not saying it is useless. But it will not make you better at reading. L&D problems, when done properly, develops reading, which is useful not only for tsumego-like situations but for the whole game (not only for killing enclosed groups).

Recently posted on this forum, Cho Chikun on tsumego: http://tchan001.wordpress.com/2011/06/0 ... lculation/
Some general study advice from ex-inseis: http://senseis.xmp.net/?BenjaminTeuber% ... comeStrong
http://www.361points.com/study/

[karaklis]

Memorizing tsumego helps you with reading by reducing the search tree significantly. Of course it is useless to memorize tens of thousands of tsumego. But there are surely more than a thousand of basic shapes that you should know in order to allow an efficient reading. When writing about this I had an article about how to study life and death in mind where it is recommended to hardwire life and death problems. To me this sounds very sensible.

[SoDesuNe]

Some general study advice from ex-inseis: http://senseis.xmp.net/?BenjaminTeuber% ... comeStrong
http://www.361points.com/study/

I know those advice, they were among the first things I read while beginning to play Go ^^ And I can say, for me they are just wrong. They don't work. I'm different ; )

I won't read a dead corner shape, I will just play the vital point. See the two problems above.

This has nothing to do with reading in first place, it's time-managing. That's why memorizing shapes is only useful with beginner problems like the ones in the Graded Go Problems For Beginner series. There is no point in memorizing "1001 Life-and-Death Problems", because most of the problems are too artificial.
There is also no point in memorizing problems for Dan-players, because in the end they will break down to familiar (beginner) shapes, they are just harder to work out. If you can reduce the eye-sapce to a bulky-five, you don't have to read further because you know a bulky-five shape is dead.

[karaklis]

Totally agree with you. Benjamin Teuber's advices are obviously for those who are already quite strong, maybe 2-3 dan, and their aim is just to practice reading. The prerequisite however is that you already know all the basic shapes. That's where DrStraw's advice to memorize L&D problems comes in. It refers mainly to encyclopedic problems (such as James Davies' "L&D" or" Tesuji") to learn these basic shapes.

[SpongeBob]

A thread about the best way to study and nobody mentions the Go Teaching Ladder ?

[Alakazam]

My personal experience:

I was able to get to 1d in about a year because:

1: very passionate and dedicated.
2: took a few lessons from an ama 6d (kgs) teacher (took lessons in person though)
3: There were a few Go clubs and tons of people around me helping me improve, I was lucky.

2-3d: Playing in tournaments and having 'epiphanies' was the biggest factor in most of my improvement up to here. 2008 Canadian open I was solid kgs 1k, but when I got back, I became solid 2d/flimsy 3d kgs immediately. Random epiphany.

After this, I had to work on my reading and fighting big time, as I had neglected it and was only good at opening/joseki for my level.
4d happened from playing games with players 1-2 stones stronger, reading books, and random epiphany (=D)

By this time I had been playing for around 2.5 years or something

Becoming weak 5d (canadian) happened because I was learning in Korea for 5 months.
Becoming strong 5d, 5d on KGS and 7d on Tygem happened from lots and lots of games, tsumego, and deep contemplation about my Go, how it reflects on myself, and basically finding my style. During the last year or so before this post, I tried every kind of style I could think of and even random mvoes in the centre, expanding my thinking. By the end of it, I ended up settling on plopping down two 4-4's all the time very calmly (ended up at nirensei naturally =D). Then after playing like that for a few months, I finally switched back to my territorial ways, but not too territorial, and with a lot of new perspective and knowledge (prepelling me to tygem 7d/almost to 8d and making it easy for me to get kgs 5d any time i want, whereas before i had trouble).

Right now I feel like I am finally starting to improve again, and it is definitely because of three things:

1: I'm doing tsumego. I'm actually doing them. It really really makes u stronger, you'd be surprised how much it improves your general 'sense'!
2: Learnings from having experimented with over 9000 styles ^^ Now my game is calm, collected, and confident - usually. I have come to terms with not having a common "fighting" style (this term is ambiguous and misinterpreted imo), but instead, mroe of a lee changho style by nature.
3: Picking up on little details in my game to pick up extra bits of points that I almost unknowingly discarded before.
I'll elaborate:
A: I need to defend my territory, option A looks cleanest, but B gives me 2-3 more points. Now I will choose B!!! Depends though. I don't mean make bad shape. I'm talking about, for example, a territory that you would fix with one more fourth line stone, but one of them vaguely looks like the opponent could cross cut it later in their despair but is a shape that gives u more points.
B: Even during central fighting. The moves you play have differing points later, even in close quarterz fighting. We are usually so focused on surviving the situation, but because of that, we time and tiem again lose 1 point here, 1 point there. That's already Komi right there!

Anyway, I believe as long as u fit these criteria, u should improve:

Very passionate

Dedicated and willing to practice "no pain, no gain". For some people that means Tsumego, forcing yourself to focus.
Playing a lot, reviewing (if even by yourself), and constantly contemplating not only your moves, but your thinking and your style as a whole. What is your strategy, and what are your beliefs/philosophies about Go? You can think back to the elementary things we teach beginners and find things like "I am fundamentally opposed to deliberate moyo-making. corners are more efficient and should be chosen when both options are good.", "I like scattered, divided games, not moyo vs. moyo", "I don't like to have moyo, so I will avoid it unless it becomes too natural", "I dont like to allow 3-4 to be clsoed, so i will approach on move 3!", "I don't like letting black do min chinese, so i will approach on move 3, maybe with two-space high", "I will fight only when it is at least 0.5 points better an option than the peaceful route" etc. etc.

Play a lot

Have a mindset about yourself like "i should study as though im a pro" or "I will be kgs 8d one day", don't limit yourself! This psychology actually affects us!

One last thing:

You can NEVER do too many Tsumego. The more you do, the more powerful you can get! Even if u lack knowledge, you can always try to out-power your opponent through reading ahead. Although knowledge makes reading ahead easier, reading power fro mtsumego gives you depth, clarity and possibly speed. It's one of the most important parts of a go player and without it, u will one day hit a wall and never progress.

Do Lots of Tsumego! Make it a hobby separate from Go. Separate! I just started doing that. For each game you play, do at least 20 minutes of Tsumego, but hopefully more like 1+ hours.

Personally, I don't replay pro games a lot, but I do research shapes from my own games.

[EdLee]

I was able to get to 1d in about a year because:

May I ask what was your age at the beginning of that 1-year period?

[Alakazam]

Almost 17 years old when I started playing.

Age is a factor, but personal limits is a bigger one I think. Psychology is huge. I should study it ^^

Everyone has their own pace, so going fast is not necessary as long as u still make the goal u aim for.

My goal was to become a pro, but now, althoguh I sitll cling to that tiny chance prospect, my goal is more like KGS 8d. One day.

1d in 1 yr not even so rare these days, ive known ppl who did it in half a year... But sometimes even if we improve very fast, we can become suddenly very slow at 1d or 3d or whenever. We could have some kind of knack or affinity for part of the game, but when it gets complex we can hit a wall. I think learning Go up until about 2-Dan is very simple and straight forward. People may have difficulty with it, sure, but the knowledge and thinking u need is not so complicated. It's only after that that it really gets tough and extremely ambiguous, you have to bend your mind. Worst of all for me has been getting from 5d to 6d, still not there yet in terms of KGS and CGA. Really hard... 2-3 and 3-4 were surprisingly fast for me, but again, I think I just lucked out with random epiphanies and a decent supply of stronger players around me (university of Toronto Go club is very strong! No 7d's, but several 6d, 5d and other Dan-levels!)

4d to 5d was from studying at KBC in S. Korea. I gained a lot of serious game experience, did many Tsumego, greatly improved my study habits and focus, doubled or tripled my opening and joseki knowledge (which was already a bit high for my level, because I always preferred studying those over Tsumego ;p) and realized a thing or two about thickness. I was there for 5 months, and bam, 5d. Mind you, I was not a strong 5d, and still 4d on KGS. A lot of time has passed and a great deal of deep contemplation about my Go. Now I guess I am strong 5d (cga) close to 6d, and weak/mid 5d on kgs (at least, I have no trouble at all getting any new account to 5d and holding it, but I am a far cry from 6d for sure V___V)

KGS is strong!!!

Tygem ranks are silly. I should not be 6d anywhere i nthe world I think. Nevermind 7d. Or 8d. Wbaduk is the same way, easy to get 7d+ there. But hey, great for the ego ;p

[Alakazam]

Best thing of all for anyone is to attend go clubs with strong players there and just watch them talk about Go and Tsumego and things, that's what worked for me.

2d-->3d I had to stop thinking only of cash-territory.
3d and 4d<--what's the difference? I don't even remember the difference between the two (canadian) ratings.

[gogameguru]

Tygem ranks are silly. I should not be 6d anywhere i nthe world I think. Nevermind 7d. Or 8d. Wbaduk is the same way, easy to get 7d+ there. But hey, great for the ego ;p

Tygem actually used to be quite strong. A couple of years 7d there was a top amateur and 8d was almost pro or even weak pro. A lot of the 9d there still are pros (e.g. idontca is thought to be Lee Sedol).

I didn't play online much for awhile while we were setting up Go Game Guru, but I started a new account there a few weeks ago so that I could switch to the new English client. It let me set my initial rank at 5d (I thought it used to be 3d?) and, not surprisingly a lot of the other "5d" are just people trying to play stronger players. I think this combined with the way the ranking system works has screwed things a bit .

[Numsgil]

As far as how many hours to spend if you want to be maximally efficient...

I think computer programming and Go are very similar in terms of the mental resources it takes. There are a lot of computer programmers who program professionally. They are hired by people who have the sole interest of making money. The general modern belief is that maximum sustainable productivity comes from no more than 40 hours per week. You can work longer hours, but you end up producing less finished product.

I'd imagine a similar thing holds for go. It's not just about having a life outside of go. It's that if you study too much for too long your brain gets fatigued and you end up learning less even though you "worked more".

This doesn't apply to cramming, of course. You can do a "mental sprint" and cram an amazing amount of information in your brain in a short period of time. But it's not sustainable over more than a few weeks. You'll just burn out. And you can't cram your way to high dan.

So if you were willing to devote yourself entirely to go studying over a period of longer than a few months, I'd still say that no more than 6 to 8 hour days and taking time off for a "weekend" are going to produce the "fastest" results.

[EdLee]

Almost 17 years old when I started playing.
Age is a factor, but personal limits is a bigger one I think.

Congrats. Wait till you're in your 30's or 40's,
then start to learn a completely foreign new skill (like, some African language, if you have zero experience with it before;
or, the piano, if you also have no experience with music before)... then, maybe you'll have a different perspective.