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.

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

PeterN

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



PeterN

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

PeterN

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

And to kick it off I will post what is probably my best game I have played so far, even if I did lose it.

Even game against a 1 kyu on the ASR League.



This is almost certainly the game which I was thinking the hardest over, somehow managing to replicate the joseki in the lower right corner from knowing of it and having seen it coupled with a lot of thinking, panic, and luck.

Major mistake has to be the entire spiraled out of control sequence starting in the lower left, afterwards I believe that pincering was the mistake and I should just have tried to take the corner simply instead of getting into that monstrosity of a fight and giving away so much influence. Also H5 was... silly.

That and afterwards pretty sure the lower left B group can actually be killed as soon as I descended to the first line by playing D1.

Emergency invasion in the top right succeeded far more by luck than judgement but really shouldn't have been needed in the first place.

And the final resignation causing move I'm putting down to a combination of byo-yomi and running out of mental endurance, I am not used to putting this much effort into my games or them lasting this long.

One thing I would like to know is after at L17, what do other people think the best place to approach is? I was in two minds as to whether to approach the top because it already has an extension, or to approach the bottom because it was a 3-4 stone with no backup.

PeterN

And the plan now begins in earnest!

I have gone through Graded Go Problems for Beginners III and got that one at 95.5% correct, was feeling quite good at that as my reading hadn't dropped too badly, I then started Volume IV as well. I have not got too far into it yet but even at the beginning of the book I am running at only about 70% correct, it appears that my reading has definitely fallen by the wayside in my several months of not doing any tsumego (what a surprise there....).

The intention is to play each game as seriously as I can, focusing first and foremost on playing large or sente moves, and secondly not on starting fights for no reason other than wanting to fight. Unfortunately I find myself getting caught up in playing and forgetting to ask myself these questions as I play (perhaps time to put a sticky note on my monitor perhaps....).

First an example where I managed to keep this in mind: -



- C10 is the single move I am most unsure of in this whole game, I've had this used against me, but with the wall to the bottom I'm not sure this is actually safe if W had hane'd on top instead of below.

- B3, reverse sente I think, but this may have been premature, should have just solidified my right side.

- G14, this should be both gote and small I think, if W had pressed on my right side I almost have to respond.

And now for an example where I failed utterly at that whole not fighting thing: -



- Wrong direction? Could have been easier if I'd played from the other side and put something else nearer the group about to be cut apart.

- Uh... I think I had a plan when I played it....

- And perhaps I could play something to connect my stones instead, like E17....

- I thought this was necessary for my next move to work, but after reviewing it seems I was wrong.

- I'm classing this one as necessary fighting

- Better to attack the other W group at the top with something like K15 I think.

- And create a weak group for myself.

- Make that two weak groups, killing W looks a little optimistic.

- And drive W straight at said weak groups instead of defending them.

:b113: - A chance to rescue the group!

:b137: - Well this was stupid, B at B6, then B11 after whatever W defends his stone with live I think.

:b165: - And just ignore the fact that a non living group is perilously close to being cut off.

PeterN

And the plan stalls already, a week of doing very little in the way of studying as other things in life got in the way.



PeterN

Just pick up where you left off when spare time appears.

There's always something to disrupt you, unless you go seclude yourself in the barren wastelands.

Don't blame yourself if it doesn't always work out. So long as you can sincerely say you're TRYING to find the time, it really isn't your fault if everyone else is trying to find your time, too.

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Continued reading Graded Go Problems for Beginners IV
Games Reviewed: 3 lost games
Other: Played through games 20-34 of Invincible, Started reading Percieving the Direction of Play

Ok, after a slow week last time I went back at things with a vengence!

Going through this tsumego book is going both slower and less successful than before, reading skills have definitely atrophied, need to get back to where I was previously, even though I've been reading less in my games.

Two of my lost games were from the ASR League, was attempting to play big moves and not get outpaced, but failed none the less, concentrating on big moves too miss can lead to not looking for sente moves (not that I would likely have spotted many of the ones pointed out anyway....). The third was one where I just went on tilt facing an exceptionally aggressive opponent, no excuses for many of the mistakes made there. Barring my on tilt game I have this week avoided making any unreasonable attempts to kill groups (I'm not sure if I actually killed anything larger than 4 stones), so one plus point at least.

I still don't know how much help playing through the games from Invincible will actually do, but it's still nice to play through them sometimes, and I'm finding my hand wanting to play out taisha once I see it coming... only to look at the book and notice they've played a different variation than is now sitting on my board

Perceiving the Direction of Play I'm reading in little more than an osmosis mode, just reading and making no true effort to study it.

PeterN

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Continued reading Graded Go Problems for Beginners IV
Games Reviewed: 1 lost game
Other: Played through games 35-44 of Invincible

Another busy week at work and my normal time for doing tsumego (on the train to and from work) suffered greatly as I was feeling too exhausted to do anything like that, and would probably have got even more of them horrendously wrong if I tried. Need to reach the end of this book next week through pretty much anything short of it killing me

Also need to not play go when tired.

PeterN

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Finished reading Graded Go Problems for Beginners IV (71.8% correct)
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games, 1 won game
Other: Played through games 45-54 of Invincible

Finally... that tsumego book is finished with again! While all this time I've been struggling and thinking my tsumego is getting worse I looked back at my previous progress report (in July! ) and noticed that the last time round I got only 63.8% of the problems correct. It wasn't that long ago that the rose tinted glasses should be taking effect, right?

Two lost games and one won game reviewed this week, all on the ASR League again, taking on dan level players in even games feels like getting run over by a truck at times, an invisible truck (the win wasn't against a dan level player unsurprisingly). Also have one game from outside it that I won which I really don't think I should have and need to review this game next week, starting with why oh why did I not try to read out the ladder at the start?



Still no idea if reading Invincible is any help, but going to stick to it.

PeterN

Did you think about peeping at c10 before approaching with 55?

Hmm... no, that hadn't occurred to me, I think I just saw an unenclosed corner and approached without further consideration.

PeterN

Interesting game.

I went over it twice, once for black, then once for white. I felt pretty sure white COULD have won this, in several ways, so I wanted to get that out of my system.

Just catching the stone would have saved white a lot of trouble.
Why not stand up at P10 first? Seems like white really wants those three stones to live. If white cuts at R10, you've got the capture to save you.
This seems badly incongruous. Pincer black, then black sticks on the inside and let's have a two-point jump!
How does C2 look to you? Or the less adventurous C4?
C2 seems even better, now. At least one eye in the corner, and access to the center.
That peep does seems sensible.
Seems helpful for white. What did you gain, there?
That does seem rather adventurous. I think it's necessary to be adventurous at this point, though. Black does seem to have fallen behind quite a bit.
H6 would have helped white more, here. There's at least three ways for the group to escape from there, and it would cover most of the outward influence of black.
K10 seems a much better place to shut off. Up is just about the worst direction for black to flee to.
Why not push up at K13 first? I know the three stones at Q12 might die, but they really seem overvalued. They're keeping two live groups apart. If black agrees they're overvalued, a response like L14 seems likely, in which case white can still save them.
+100
K7 seems much more effective to me.
closing off at J3 seems better. There aren't two eyes in there.
takes away one of many eye potentials while leaving black free to connect out ??? Why not B6? Something ought to have been finished off, here.
Q18 seems sente.
+200
Not necessary while the liberty at R12 is still open.
There's not much reason for white to defend against a threat of one point, there. A straight gote like E4 seems better.
Fighting that ko was a terrible decision. If white closes it as-is, the Q18 group is killed. Turns out that cost enough points to swing the game.
Very expensive 4-point gote.

Hope some of this is useful to you!

Put Invincible aside for now and study your ladders. At 19 just capture the two stones, White and Black misread the ladder here.

_________________
Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

I agree with most of what you say here tentano, though in a few spots I strongly disagree. I'm curious what a stronger player would say.
w24 I don't think the ladder works to capture cleanly.
b79 is the wrong kind of adventure. Black just creates a target for white. When w captures with 80 he becomes pretty thick. I think 79 should be at 80, and that 80 for w is much better than h6.
B95 should just capture the cutting stone, with o11. White can squeeze after that, but it still looks better than the game to me. likewise 96 for w looks right to me.

A few comments.



Main focus: Play more solidly.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Looking at it again ... uh, you're right, I made a mistake there.



Well, I can't think of a better way to really mess about in that central territory, and if black saves those two stones white gets sente. Giving white the initiative at this point seems really bad. I don't think black's H11 is a good idea, but it seems to be too late for good ideas.



The threat to capture is still there after H6 is played, and if black decides to save them, I'd be pretty happy with the extra move as white. If there's a surprise which makes me worried about the life of that group, and the cutting stones have been saved, there should still be two escape routes.

I guess I regard as a mistake.



The main reason I want K13 for white is to reduce the potential for saving black's adventure at H12. Maybe that's more hindsight than intuition, though, since I already know what happened afterwards.

Thanks for the comments everyone, I will read through them properly tomorrow when I have time. Suffice to say this was not one of my better games.

Just on Bill's comment on though: I have heard this is a newer way of playing Orthodox fuseki because the re-approach after the pincer is annoying to deal with (admittedly told to me by someone who used said re-approach against me) so I've been trying this out recently. Doesn't seem to have any problems with it that I can see... as long as I actually read out the ladder!

PeterN