Some thoughts after replaying the first four games in volume four of Shuei's games (right, that's a nice sentence!).
I do count every thirty moves and I experience some benefits from it. Since I never really counted systematically before, I found out that it is extremely time-consuming and exhausting to start anew every time. So now I try to give each group it's own count (and of course remember it), so that I only have to count positions that are changing. Takes some training but seems like a good idea for now.
Of course just giving a group a count is troublesome enough. Do I visualize every endgame against that group and thus have a lower count? Or do I take everything what's now "controlled" and count that? Counting influence seems somewhat impossible so I just "feel" it.
How to count unsettled groups? The proverb says one weak group is minus 20 points. I just give every weak group five points for now, because that is what experience tells me and then after I counted the whole board I make a mental note like "White has potential here but Black can profit by attacking this weak group". It doesn't say anything about the final score but at least I don't forget about it ^^
I should borrow Positional Judgment again and read it this time.
Then I already included Ten's guide to studying professional games. I think it helps me to proccess games because I have a mental framework and can ask some general questions depending on which stage the game is in. It narrows the complexity a tiny bit.
As far as Tsumegos are concernced:
Yi Ch'ang-Ho's Tsumego vol. 4 still offers me 23 problems of excruciating pain, meaning: There are really hard by now. I solve like five to seven a day, maybe. More is too exhausting. That also leads to a lot of wrong problems, but here and there I still get one right and that's just great ^^
But I wonder, ... it's just volume four and there are still two more in the series. Sucks to be weak =D
On goproblems.com I still do my daily fix of 20 problems ranging from 5k to 4d (on a related note: All the later problems in vol. 4 are harder than those 4d-problems on goproblems.com ^^). After the christmas break I dropped to a 6d-rank, now I'm solidly back at 7d and on the verge to 8d. Of course those are just any numbers, but hey I'm just a humble human =D
Since the uni is closed for a month now I have some more free-time at hand and looking - go figure! - for some Go-related stuff I could add to my study regime. Obviously I have enough Tsumego-challenges for now, so I thought more in the direction of a textbook.
As of now there are three books to choose from:
Although I'm very interested in the opening, I don't like to just read a book about it without real focus what I want to achieve. Especially the Dictionary of Modern Fuseki offers so much diagrammes to each opening pattern that I will have forgotten everything from the beginning when I am at the end.
Go Seigen's book is a little bit different because he mainly covers one style (one idea) of play and then focusses on whether or not this is good and what White/Black can do. But still it covers a wide range of Fuseki patterns.
For me, right now, it's more important to have a fundamental knowledge of the opening stage and not to reproduce some fancy patterns professional players tend to play a lot. But the question is, when I read through those opening books especially the Dictionary, won't I get this knowledge just due to the way the moves in the diagrammes are chosen? A quick browse through showed that all the diagrammes aim at either "This is bad!" or "This is good/even!".
Milton Bradley's book just seems interesting and I think fighting is one of my main weaknesses. Of course he is an amateur and not even a particulary strong one but what harm could there be? Since I never had pro tuition, I already have a lot of bad habits. If some more come to join, it won't matter ^^
Then there is the completely odd idea of starting to study Josekis. But again, some difficulties around the "How to" emerge.
First of all, do I start at A and go all the way to Z?
Do I start with the ones I deem "important" for my level, respectively the ones I like to know?
Should I make the effort to really memorize them or is it enough to lay them down, read and try to understand the explanations?
Actually I had a funny idea that after I looked at one Joseki, I will search three modern games in GoGoD where it was played to get a feeling in which situations it is appropriate.
I guess, in the end, there is only the hard way. But I'm always glad when you have some hints for me : )
White will live. But what about 
?
at marked 
wins the capturing race. My problem was that I at first envisioned 
as the vital point, so all my reading reagrding a White response focussed at first on this move. But this move is so bad! Black gets 
and wins the capturing race outright - with less Ko-threats for White!
at 
and 
).
is the vital point. Black only has to play 
Thanks.