A beginner's journey

[MysteryFTG]

Time for another update, with a game this time

Whenever I do my monthly post in this topic I'm surprised that a month has already passed and that I neglected to post any of my promised weekly progress games. Good job!

So, what happened this month? I decided to not play any live games this month, which is kind of the opposite of what I originally wanted to do.
Instead I finished the first five Level Up! books and am halfway through the (much more difficult?) Review 1 book. I also sat down and started actively working with the Opening Theory Made Easy and Second Book of Go books. I continued my 2x10 correspondence games and finished a couple as well, so it's not like I'm not playing at all, but since correspondence is slow, I just played about half a dozen games.

The LevelUp! books are really great, I guess I did about 1800+ tsumego within the past 4 weeks.

Now here's something interesting: I haven't really changed anything at all, but I played a live game yesterday and my anxiety was basically gone. I don't know if this was a fluke, if it'll return or what happened, but for this one game I could just focus on playing go and it was great! It might have been the break I took, combined with me reading the Opening Theory book? Don't get me wrong, I still lost horribly because I'm still ranked too high and made tons of mistakes, but I didn't feel as lost as I did in previous live games.
I will definitely try another live game and see how I'm doing. I still have no explanation for this change, but I'll keep an eye on it. If it's just gone, that would be wonderful.

Here's that game I was talking about. I already reviewed it myself, but getting some input from higher level players will surely give me more insight:

Notes:
-I'm happy that blacks invasion on the left side didn't work out.
-I wish I could've done something with my stones in the middle. Can't figure out if I abandoned them too early after they got disconnected before.


A couple of random questions:
1) Should I, at my level, use Go Review Partner with Leela to look at my games? Or is it unlikely that I can take anything valuable away from that?
2) I haven't won a single game on OGS yet, but my rank keeps going up from time to time, due to timeout "wins". Is there any way to make these games not count towards my rating?
3) Memorizing pro games at my level: Yay or nay?

Thanks everyone for helping me out and sorry for the lack of updates, but if my anxiety issues are in fact better now (will find out soon), I'll have more material to post for sure

[EdLee]

Hi FTG,

Should I... use... Leela to look at my games?

Bots are now at near-pro, pro-, and beyond top human levels.

Yes -- you gleam whatever valuable lessons from them;
for parts you don't understand, you can ask humans.
( If it's a move or sequence that's beyond top human level,
well, tough. )
If you find out you understand absolutely 0% of the bot's analysis, that's OK, too.

[EdLee]

[MysteryFTG]

Hello Ed, thank you very much for your detailed analysis, it's been very helpful.

is very interesting for me, I never expected to be able to cut but still take a bit of the corner.

is something I just play automatically. Your explanation has been really helpful in making me understand what that move actually is supposed to be used for.

It seems I underestimate the value of a 3-3 invasion. I checked with leela, also in other games, and it's coming up over and over.

You mentioned shape problems at and but I have trouble imagining the issued with these moves, especially seems like a good move to me, so I might have some wrong concepts in my head. Any reading material to fix that?

[EdLee]

Hi FTG,

Good question. "Historically," ( i.e. pre-2015, before AlphaGo ) joseki books and pro games were good sources. The quality of shapes lies in a continuum -- from one extreme (e.g. a game-winning sequence) to another (e.g. disastrous collapse, game over). My experience was a very "slow brew" with notes from good review sessions. But some people pick up the materials much faster.