PeterN's Study Journal

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sun Jul 06, 2014 9:05 am

Tsumego: Finished reading Graded Go Problems for Beginners IV (63.8% correct)
Games Reviewed: 5 lost games
Other: Played through 1 game from Invincible

Ok, back into the swing of things more this week it feels like.

Finally managed to finish the tsumego book, but that last section is definitely beyond my level at the moment. How this book is meant to be aimed at 10-15k I really don't know, unless my tsumego is far far worse compared to my rank than I'm believing. Back to volume 3 next week.

Reviewed 5 of my lost games this week, one of them reviewed by a 4d who was watching one of my games on KGS (not a clue why, but hey ho), so that's probably the most valuable of them. I make a lot of moves which he was saying *must* be played, just about 20-50 moves further into the game than they really needed to be played. Also made a couple of moves which give me more profit than the normal responses but which should just outright die, although I got away with it in every case in the game as none of them were easy to kill (for 5k's anyway

). I suspect examples of these are scattered through every kyu player's games.

Played through another game from the Invincible book, as always, no idea if it actually helps or not, but it makes a nice change.

Despite still not reading more of The Endgame (I know I need to, but it's one of those topics that I have to almost force myself to read) I have at least been trying to maximise the number of endgame points I get, primarily by not playing them quasi-randomly and at least attempting to play them in the order of the most valuable, though I still fail to defend well against the monkey jump :oops:

.

Overall this has felt a good week and I feel like I can see the boundary of 4k on the rank graph slowly appearing in front of me now! :rambo:

Sometimes I wonder if that rank graph being so visible is a major source of problems....

PeterN

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sun Jul 13, 2014 3:33 pm

Tsumego: Started reading Graded Go Problems for Beginners III again
Games Reviewed: 1 won game
Other: None

Another slack week on studying with watching World Cup matches, though I got through 188 tsumego problems with 6 wrong, this was only 7 of the normal 10 train journeys used.

Had a second game reviewed by the same 4d as before, generally played better than the previous game he reviewed due to my opponent making mistakes that I was able to exploit, even if not to the extent possible, and an invasion that I killed outright, but a number of mistakes still pointed out. Invasion techniques are still poor from me, and I let my opponent form a dangerous moyo which is a not so rare occurrence for me.

PeterN

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sun Jul 20, 2014 12:46 pm

Tsumego: Fnished reading Graded Go Problems for Beginners III (95.7% correct)
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games
Other: None

Ok, better tsumego completion rate this week, and feeling quite good about getting so few wrong, even if the fear of having half memorised the specific problems is back again.

Both my reviewed games this week were on the ASR League, one of which I thought I was doing incredibly well to only be losing by about 20 points as my opponent was a 2D (until I made a stupid suicidal move and resigned) and the other, well, I've heard the saying that you might live with a group but wish you hadn't... now I really know what that means.

1st game: -

Oh move 210... why did I play you.... :cry:

Main parts of this game were creating a weak group near the top right with :w32:

and not playing D7 when I could have.

2nd game: -

This was just embarrassing....

PeterN

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 9:37 am

Been ill most of this week so no real progress, just played some games on the days I felt good.

PeterN

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sun Aug 03, 2014 1:00 pm

Tsumego: Started reading One Thousand And One Life and Death Problems again
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games
Other: None

Got through a surprising amount of tsumego this week, 445 problems with 33 wrong, with almost every single one of those wrong answers on the life problems, really need to work out a way of reading those out as well as the death problems.

Only reviewed two lost games this week, one was on ASR and both of us were close to even so nothing major spotted, just some reading errors on both sides. The second was lost through fear....

Another week with a major losing streak in a single day, I lose a couple of times due to stupid mistakes and then just go on tilt to borrow the poker term, feeling unable to let go of playing another game and beginning to use less and less reading as the set of games goes on. My second lost game I reviewed was in the middle of this and at one point I feared losing a group, pulled back to defend it, and then lost the group above in a splitting attack when I believe I could have maybe outright killed the attacking stones if I had decided to read. Move 122 at K4 instead of what I played, although I am most likely wrong in my reading I could at least have fought it.

Although it was move 76 which started my whole thing in the first place.

PeterN

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sat Aug 09, 2014 11:49 am

+++GOAL ACHIEVED+++

:rambo:

New Rank: 4 kyu!

This study journal has been running almost exactly one year today and it is now finally over as I have reached the goal I set out when I first started. It's been a long and hard slog of a journey to raise the rank, and had many pitfalls and, sadly, a number of stupid emotional outbursts of anger and frustration when hitting those long losing streaks.

Feels strange now that the goal is achieved, I've been posting regularly on this topic for so long now (and yes, I know I'm one day out compared to normal today) and at times it has felt so so far away. Reachng 4 kyu might not sound much, it is a strange target afterall, but I'm still happy to have got there.

Don't think I could have done it without you guys who've been posting on this thread, so thank you all! :salute:

Rank Progression Chart: -

07/08/2013 - 8 kyu
25/08/2013 - 7 kyu
13/10/2013 - 6 kyu
09/03/2014 - 5 kyu
09/08/2014 - 4 kyu

PeterN

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Sat Aug 09, 2014 11:16 pm

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sun Aug 10, 2014 4:08 am

It said 4k after my name when I made my post, then it later dropped to 5k before I played any more games.... :scratch:

PeterN

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Sun Aug 10, 2014 4:24 am

Exactly: your rank is borderline.

Your level is related.

PeterN wrote:before I played any more games....

But your opponents and their opponents have.

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sun Aug 10, 2014 4:34 am

I dread to think just how borderline that 4k was for my opponent's losing some games knocked it back under. Though KGS always gives me the feeling that it tries to bounce you away from the rank boundary, both when going up and going down.

PeterN

Abyssinica · Post by **Abyssinica** » Sun Aug 10, 2014 4:52 am

I once saw someone turn 2k and then back to 3k and then pack to 2k and then finally back to 3k within the span of 10 minutes and he didn't play any games.

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sun Aug 10, 2014 5:13 am

Ok... I haven't had anything as bad as that :shock:

PeterN

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sun Aug 10, 2014 11:19 am

After six wins and three loses it's now back to telling me 4k, hopefully it will stay there this time. The final game being one I'm pretty certain I should have lost several times over... so many blunders from both of us!

So many games seem to be decided on who makes the most blunders.... That or who launches 1st line endgame before the other :lol:

PeterN

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 5:14 am

I think it may be time for this to become ressurected, I've had a break where I've done literally nothing to try to improve beyond simply playing games, and at most they've got me to a more "solid" 4 kyu rank as opposed to borderline. I hesitate to call it solid because I do not feel my play is at all stable, even if it does average out to be a mid 4 kyu.

I have also begun to feel that my play is beginning to switch from a near pure territorial style (plus try to live in the centre somehow) to a more balanced approach, even on occassion scratching my head wondering when I formed a moyo.

Oddly I've also found myself reading far far less than I used to, yet not falling in rank, I assume I'm now substituting shape for reading in many situations.

It has reached the point where for some reason sitting at 4K no longer feels OK.

Let's start with a list of what I feel are my main strengths and weaknesses, all relative to being 4 kyu of course, even if this is probably an inaccurate list it's a start at least: -

Strengths: -

Willingness to fight ko's (I am amazed at how many times opponents immediately back down from ko's)
Surviving scrappy fights (I have a lot of practise at this....)

Weaknesses: -

Slow moves
Fighting to kill (Hence the scrappy fights)
Reading something is safe, then not re-reading when the board changes (The more it changes the more likely re-reading is to happen at least)

Ok, and writing out this list makes me realise I feel I have no real strengths -_-

Using the GoStyle link I found recently (http://gostyle.j2m.cz/webapp.html) it feels my games reflect the following style: -

Territory: 7.4/10 (as opposed to Moyo)
Novelty: 2.8/10 (as opposed to Classic)
Calmness: 3.6/10 (as opposed to Fighting)
Shinogi: 5.2/10 (as opposed to Safe)

Seems fairly much what I'd expect, although not really sure what the safe/shinogi one is really meaning.

And after running it a few times to see how much the list might vary get the following Professionals who have similar style as you:

Yi Ch'ang-ho
Hane Naoki
Honinbo Shusaku
Kobayashi Koichi
Ishida Yoshio

Which I have absolutely no clue as to how accurate that is.

Bad things you play

You should concrentrate on the concept of sente and gote. Do you ask after every enemy move, Do I need to respond to this? and If so, Do I have a possibility to respond on some unexpected place so that the threat is neutralized, but the opponent in turn has to respond?
You seem to push from behind a lot. You should realize, that this allows the opponent to hane at the head of your stones...

Again not exactly unexpected, although maybe the specific example is a little more surprising.

Next task: Deciding a new goal :lol:

PeterN

PeterN · Post by **PeterN** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 7:27 am

Well, given my current rank there's really only one goal I can go for....

New Goal: Shodan in 6 months!

"Certainty of death, *small* chance of success... What are we waiting for?"

And now for some definitions as the previous goal of 4 kyu raised some comments on being vague

Shodan is on KGS and I will count reaching 1 dan and staying there after one game at that rank.

As the run up to Christmas is always hectic and a terrible time to start things properly I'm going to count the six months starting from January 1st.

PeterN

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