Life In 19x19

Posted: **Sun Aug 15, 2010 9:31 am**

Okay, got a bit lazy and need to find my pace again, it seems. But nonetheless, I played a couple of serious games and I must say, for the unwilling break I manage to play really fine (with occasional blunders ^^).
It seems all the stuff I did before the break now sank into my brain and had the chance to anchor in my conscious.

But enough of the self-praise, I need to go back to doing Tsumegos and finish "Making Good Shape" - at least I did start with it : ) And play, of course.

By the way, I added my rank graph in the first post. I think this is a good way to show improving over some period of time : )

Posted: **Wed Aug 18, 2010 10:29 am**

Never play Internet-Go without sound, you might miss a Ko-threat and think your opponent passed.

Posted: **Wed Oct 13, 2010 2:44 pm**

It's quite dusty around here... what's the stain there? Looks like spots of blood... *rubbing*

Sadly (or luckily?) I hadn't an encounter with a ghostly Go-Master-entity but nonetheless my pursuit for Go-strength returned. Mainly I have to thank bloodarena for this. After watching quite a few games of him, I got so obessed with being able to play as powerful and frightening as he does that I had to dig my nose right into "Get Strong at Tesuji".

Now, when you look at the very first post you will notice, that there's no "Get Strong at Tesuji" in it. Nor is it in the re-scheduled post three above this one.

Well, this is on the one hand due to the fact that I wanted to start with something "rewarding", I experienced how much this book helped my play before, so I have no doubt it will also help me gain strength this time. On the other hand, the problems are fairly easy, so I can dig into them every now and then without having to make free some extra time.

Momentarily this is the only thing I do, besides playing. I borrowed "Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 3" today because I noticed that my life-and-death (and sometimes reading in general) really sucks right now. "1001 Life-and-Death Problems" will be put on hold in the meantime, I find GGPfB much more entertaining.

What else is there to say? I will hopefully be able to get every worthy game reviewed by a Dan-player, because I severely lack a direction of play here and there. Thus I'm reading "Direction of Play" right now, but... well, I'm not a fan of textbooks ^^ We'll see how it goes.

Last sentences decribes best my approach right now, casual. This is why I will refrain from posting daily goals or some sort of fancy overview like in the first post =D
There's only one goal: Solid 3k in one month. Then I'm going to participate in a tournament : D

Actually I should be something around 3k already since a 5k (KGS) and other members in my local Go-club now force me to play him with two stones because of my win-ratio. Though I think it will significantly drop over the next meetings when playing against handicap : D

Thanks for reading - cheerio~!

Posted: **Thu Oct 14, 2010 1:55 pm**

I just have to post this game here to make clear why bloodarena's style is so motivating for me. Though he got badly crushed by roln111 after this game ^^

Posted: **Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:23 am**

Guess, I hit a severe plateau.
Despite doing almost as much as when I was preparing for the tournament in June, I lose 70% of my games right now and will soon be 5k again.
At first, I felt I lacked a direction of play due to which I often had an inferior position after the opening and thus had to fight/attack/invade to get along. There came the second factor in play: I not only lacked reading power but concentration, too.
It seemed that I was unable to read more than three to five moves ahead in one direction while not even considering other (important) directions. After the game, a lot of my moves feel aweful to me, and I can't even imagine what drove me to play like that.

Now I read "Direction of Play" and at least this part became much better, but I still play very uninspired, going for big moves instead of looking at the weak groups of my opponent to make them more of a burden for him.
It seems I'm overly concernced about my play, my shape than looking how I can make my opponent a hard time or punish his moves.
Then again, my reading sucks. Despite raiding through "Graded Go Problems For Beginners Vol. 3" and "Get Strong at Tesuji" with less than 10% of wrong solutions. Recently I even managed to kill two of my own groups, which were involved in a (at most) 10-kyu-Tsumego.

So, I really don't know what's wrong right now. Maybe it's all about the concentration, knowing I should learn more for my studies and stuff. Or it's just the dark, cloudy and rainy weather of autumn (today, the sun is shining). Who knows?

In the absence of a better alternative I will follow my course and going through "Graded Go Probemes for Beginners Vol. 4", "Attack and Defense" and "Enclosure Josekis" next.
Then I probably will buy Yi Chang'ho's Tesuji series.

Posted: **Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:11 am**

Hmmm, you sound like you're feeling a bit down because of the bit of stagnation. Sorry to hear that. Perhaps try something different, for a bit? Either try a Malkovich game, take a lesson, join the ASR, or otherwise do something a bit different than you're used to, to help make the game fresh and fun to you. That seems to help kick-start improvements for me?

Posted: **Sat Oct 30, 2010 4:29 am**

It's not the stagnation that really bothers me, it's losing a game because I admittedly played like a lummock. I make such devasting mistakes, I somehow never did while being 5- or 6-kyu, or even weaker.

In one last game against a 5-kyu, I blocked a running group of him without noticing that these stones blocking him, will be seperated from my main group the very next move. Later on I missed a Snapback, losing eight stones. I missed two huge endgame redcutions in my territory, losing again something around ten points.
This is what really devastate me =D

But then again, the next game I managed to beat a 3-kyu, but he played some very strange moves.

Well, to quote "Direction of Play": "Great talents mature late" =P

Posted: **Sat Nov 06, 2010 4:14 pm**

You might rest your brain for a bit and try something mindless and repetitive.

The brain isn't exactly like a muscle, but like a muscle, it needs a refractory period after you exercise it. Most of the time a good night's sleep is sufficient, but if you've been pushing really hard you might need to take a day or two or longer away from what you were studying to let your brain digest all you've learned.

I'm personally on sort of a go bender atm, and I routinely hit a wall where my brain just refuses to work. I still want to play, but if I do I play terribly. The key warning sign is a building feeling of frustration. I don't know what it is for other people.

Sleeping, watching TV, listening to music, or playing video games helps reduce this feeling. I'm still probably not resting enough...

Posted: **Mon Nov 08, 2010 2:24 am**

Yeah, I guess, it was something like this.
It got better, though now I have the problem of playing too slow, which ends in being in Byo-Yomi before late middlegame ^^

But eventually I will pass this aswell : D

Posted: **Mon Nov 08, 2010 3:52 am**

SoDesuNe wrote:Well, to quote "Direction of Play": "Great talents mature late" =P

Are you sure you're referencing the correct book?

Posted: **Mon Nov 08, 2010 11:27 am**

Yes, Chapter 5 - The Direction of Play and Josekis, p. 110, first sentence ; )

Posted: **Tue Nov 16, 2010 12:46 pm**

Still not so much improvement here.

Played a tournament on the last weekend as a 6-kyu and managed to get the same score as in my last tournament in May - 2 wins to 3 losses. I beat two 5-kyus, but they weren't really stronger than me, so just a matter of GoR-points. On the other hand I lost to two 6-kyus, who were both at least the same strength as me.
Against the one 6-kyu I had to face an unknown Joseki, which resulted in giving him at least 25 points of secure territory, influence and my weak group to target. Couldn't make this up during the game.
Against the second 6-kyu, I played several times in the wrong direction, losing my Moyo and a couple of stones.
The last defeat (against a 5-kyu) was actually a win, but my mood was very bad and I counted that I was behind after a reduction of him. So I played fast to get this over and missed a shortage of liberty in Yose. Even so, I probably had won with 1 or 0.5 points but I resigned beforehand.

As a matter of GoR-points I'm still more 7-kyu than 6.

At least I had one very thrilling game - my second. Well, until a Dan-player showed me how bad I played and that I should have lost right after starting midgame ^^

KGS is the same: win some, lose some. No progress. Most of my good games tend to break apart in late middlegame, because I play the totally wrong move at one point. I had this three times now in the last days (two times in the tournament, luckily I could recover from one mistake [with my opponent's help] and the last one today in the ASR League).

At the moment, I'm still reading "Attack and Defense", doing some problems from "Graded Go Problems For Beginners Vol. 4" and will most likely start reading "Positional Judgment" soon. After GGPfB Vol 4. I take a closer look at "Tesuji" again.

Posted: **Tue Nov 16, 2010 2:08 pm**

SoDesuNe wrote:KGS is the same: win some, lose some. No progress.

Even if you're 1 stone better than your rank, you'll only win maybe 60% of your games. If you're improving at a steady pace, your win rate might go from 52% to 54% in a few weeks, which is really imperceptible until you have a lot of games. So don't feel like you should be winning 100% of your games if you're really improving or anything like that.

Posted: **Tue Nov 16, 2010 2:38 pm**

Hm, maybe you're right. Maybe I am spoiled because I managed to move fast from 8-kyu to 4-kyu in spring but since then stopped to move at a noticeable rate. Though, since starting to seriously do something for Go again in Octobre my win-loss-rate is 47% : /

And when I see, that I can win a game playing like this, I really ask myself: What's the point? ^^

Posted: **Wed Nov 17, 2010 3:04 pm**

Failure is the path of least resistance :study:

Life In 19x19

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