Life In 19x19

Update

Tsumego Progress

Source: Many Faces of Go

• Level: 0
  Completed: 100%
  

• Level: 10
  Completed: 69%

Source: WBaduk

• Level: Beginner
  Completed: 61%

Sensei's Library

• Level: Beginner
  Completed: 7%

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Accuracy: 196/233 (84%)

Update

Tsumego Progress

Source: Many Faces of Go

• Level: 0
  Completed: 100%
  

• Level: 10
  Completed: 92%

Source: WBaduk

• Level: Beginner
  Completed: 71%

Sensei's Library

• Level: Beginner
  Completed: 9%

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Accuracy: 220/285 (77%)

(Game #4) The Comeback

I'm back from a very long haitus, hoping to do things right this time. Incidentally, I recently played a game where I made a comeback from a losing position.

Now that I've resumed playing go, I decided to layout how I will do things differently.

• No theory books (at least, not while I'm DDK). There might be some useful information in these books but it just doesn't seem efficient.
• No difficult tsumego. To spend an extended period of time on a problem would indicate that the solution would be so eye-opening that upon successful completion, I would inadvertently memorize the solution (thereby diminishing its replay value).
• Consistent practice. On weekends and non-busy days, 2 or more games + some tsumego (no more than 36 new problems). On busy days, some tsumego (no more than 18 new problems). I got the Level Up book series that I hope to finish by the end of next year.
• Review with ZBaduk. This is a website I discovered recently. Find the major mistakes and move on.
• Play on OGS. KGS doesn't have enough players near my rank. I don't think I'm strong enough for Fox or Tygem (some day).
• Occasionally, watch games of players 3-5 stones stronger.
• Learn the joseki I encounter in a game.

I'm on book 2 of 17 of the Level Up series and I'm liking it so far. I find the tsumego to be a lot more diverse and interesting than the ones I was doing before (corner white group reducing to one eye). Those enclosed pure life and death problems are helpful but it's refreshing to try something different. I initially thought I would coast through the first 5 or so books of the LevelUp series but I'm discovering new things from these capture races in the 28k book. There are also a few problems that have more depth than what the author is discussing (if you read out beyond the solution and/or remove the topic hint).

I also recently discovered the 101weiqi website. This might be my next series of problems after Level Up/Jump Level Up. It appears to have thousands of problems so I guess I don't have to worry about memorizing solutions or running out of tsumego. It's unbelievable that this website is free to access.

I find myself doing more tsumego than I thought I would have time for. The LevelUp series has 6 problems on most pages of the same theme, which makes it easy to divide my work sessions. I was originally restricting the amount of tsumego I do on work days because I need to save my "brain power" for my job, which can be, at times, cognitively intense. However, my job is slowly descending into chaos, so those conservation efforts might not make much of a difference anymore. So, I might as well go through this tsumego series as quickly as possible.

shigeki wrote:I also recently discovered the 101weiqi website. This might be my next series of problems after Level Up/Jump Level Up. It appears to have thousands of problems so I guess I don't have to worry about memorizing solutions or running out of tsumego. It's unbelievable that this website is free to access.

Since I can't read chinese I don't know any details as to why and how but the website let's you solve A LOT of problems of known (and arguably copyrighted) problem books like both the Yi Ch'ang-Ho tsumego and tesuji series.

I've continued to play a few games a week on OGS. After the rank update, my rank feels much more stable. I don't necessarily feel like I'm improving [vertically] but my move set is definitely expanding [horizontally]. My games are becoming more interesting and challenging to read. I'm not "joseki tenuki"-fancy but my repertoire is more open-minded than it used to be.

I'm on book 4 of 17 of the Level Up series. When I first picked up this series, I intended to apply some spaced-repetition eventually to the problem set. However, it looks like the authors have already beat me to it, and have implemented an SRS system of their own, ingrained in the problem ordering. So, I want to treat this series as a primer on tsumego, something to get me up-and-running on common scenarios but perhaps too repetitive to become part of my finalized study collection.

I think I've improved slightly over the past couple months. It's hard to tell because I haven't been playing as frequently as I was before. Some games feel sandbaggy and other feel more evenly matched. I'm bordering on SDK on both KGS and OGS. I also find it hard to gauge who is winning and sometimes resign prematurely from a "winning position" (according to the AI).

Although I have only played a couple games a week, I've continued to watch games of SDKs on the IGS app and continued my tsumego practice with LevelUp (currently on book 7/17). This has got me thinking about learning styles. I've come across concepts that I understood from observation rather than words. I wonder how much of go can be learnt like this. For instance, would a beginner be able to figure out the concept of a ko fight if no one explained it to them? How about sente/gote? This is part of my reasoning as to not using theory books. I want to see if I can understand these concepts intuitively; then, maybe after passing the rank range that the book was targeting, I can look at the book to see if I already know these concepts.

Why don't you watch games by high-dan players, or at least by dan players? You will see better moves. Maybe you are afraid not to understand everything but you don't need to understand everything. Just try to guess the next move, read the position, watch the direction of play. Even if you can't read complicated sequences, seeing good shapes should be beneficial.

jlt wrote:Why don't you watch games by high-dan players, or at least by dan players?

Ok. I'll try that.

You're right; I was concerned about not understanding anything in these games. Honestly, I don't understand everything in SDK games either. Two dans players might not play out an SDK sequence because they already know the result. Likewise, two pros might not play out a dan sequence. I tried watching SDKs because it seemed like the simpler way and I found immediate improvement with it (at one point, I had a 5-game win streak on OGS).

My thought process was: I don't need to start playing like a pro or a dan, just slightly better as a DDK. I wanted to expand my repertoire but felt that dan level games would expand it further than I can handle. As I've started to adopt some SDK techniques, I realize that I can't read like an SDK and would often blunder local positions but would still have enough points to win the game (if I don't resign prematurely). While watching dan games may [technically] teach me better moves, I worry that my opponents will inevitably call my bluff with complicated variations and I would fold.

So it's an argument out of practicality. Anyways, I'll give it a shot. Thanks for the feedback.