daal wrote:My go seems to be getting worse. I was never a genius at finding tesuji, but lately my play has gotten even cruder, uglier, and more uninspired. Too many of my games just feel dull - a feeling which often inspires me to make a ridiculous move because I can't find a good one.
I once thought that shodan could be defined as when you always have some idea where to play.
It sounds like you are running into the bounds of your knowledge. That's a good thing, but unless you can find the right text or a teacher, you are pretty well stuck with trial and error for a while.
It's not just that I can't read very well. I have the feeling that even if I could read better, I still would judge the results wrong, and even when the result does turn out favorable, I either cling to it desperately or squander it.
I've been playing plenty of slow games, reviewing them, doing lots of tsumego and working my way through all sorts of interesting go books, but somehow nothing seems to stick. Maybe I'm spreading myself too thin and not applying myself properly.
There are many skills in go. New learnings may require, as you say, proper application, which you may not have learned yet. It is not unusual for learning to yield bad results for a time.
In any case, my studies do not seem to be reflected in my results. Tsumego that I can solve when presented as a problem are suddenly too hard during a game.
Join the club.
The concepts from books just seem to backfire, and I watch in dismay as my invasions fail, my moyos get whittled away and throughout the middle game I plod along like an animal in a slaughterhouse.
See above.
I guess I am a bit stuck on rank, and part of what provokes this whining is that my main account is soon going to sink to 7k after being a solid 6k for a year. On the other hand, I have another account that is oddly enough a solid 5k, but most of my games lately are just plodding losses on my main account. When I play a teaching game with a stronger player, they often praise my game, but 6ks, 7ks and even some 9 and 10ks on ASR seem have my number.
Excellent! Weaker players can provide learning opportunities that stronger players never think of.
It bothers me that I'm not learning how to play better and that I can't get a handle on something as simple as "don't play bad moves." My confidence is draining away, and with it my enjoyment of the game. I think I need to repair my attitude, but I'm not sure how to go about doing it. Right now, to mis-paraphrase Kageyama, it feels like: insecurity causes weakness and weakness causes insecurity.
In Bridge for Tournament Players bridge great Terence Reese pointed out that you cannot guarantee a win, since that depends upon your opponent's play (and, in bridge, luck). What you can do is to play up to yourself. As Reese said, the player who plays up to himself is hard to beat.
You might consider getting a coach for a while. I say coach rather than teacher, because it sounds like you have been learning a lot, technically, but you have not consolidated that learning, or learned how to apply it. It might also be a good time to review, to reread books and redo problems.
Bonne chance!
