My Shodan Challenge - Zero to Hero in One Year

[Simba]

*Huggles* . My depression is a bit better now, and I've been playing go a bit more (mostly on OGS and DGS).

Have played a few KGS games, mainly slapping around people my level (5-6k) which is a bit surprising, but can't complain! Out of curiosity I challenged a 3k bot last night to a few games. First game I took black with no komi, and I made it resign. Second game I took black with komi 7.5, and lost by 0.5 points >_< . Third game I took black again with 7.5 komi, and made the bot resign .

Have been playing some against topazg (7-stone handicap games) and seem somehow to be winning! The past few days I've noticed I've become a /lot/ stronger at attacking - not entirely sure how, but it seems like I can attack way better than I used to now.

I suspect I'm maybe a 4k at the moment. KGS ranks me as 5k/6k borderline, but my games this month have been:

1) Loss vs 4k (2 stones for me).
2) Win vs 7k (2 stones for him).
3) Win vs 6k (even).
4) Win vs 5k (even).
5) Win vs 3k (black, no komi).
6) Loss vs 3k (even).
7) Win vs 3k (even).
8) Win vs 6k (white, no komi).
9) Win vs 6k (2 stones for him).

Many thanks must go out to topazg as he's given me confidence back in my game (he said our last 7-stone handicap game I played like a 1d ^_^ , that was a pretty massive compliment.)

Will be interesting to see where my rating on KGS stabilises this time!

Time for some tesuji problems ...

[Marcus]

Dude, you'll be smacking me around soon!

Feel free to look me up on DGS for a few games (Marcus316 is my handle).

[Simba]

Hey everyone .

Just a quick update - I've finished my challenge now ^_^ . I began to (albeit slightly nervously) claim 1d from 14th February 2012 - a few hours before my 1-year anniversary.

I've not officially got 1d on KGS yet; I have a lot of rating inertia now annoyingly but I've won 24 of my last 25 games at a ~2-3k level, which has got to be pretty much impossible if you're not 1d.

So yeah. I guess there we go . Thanks to everyone who has believed in me, supported me, taught me, learnt from me, got to know me, and even just played with me over the past year! Credit especially to John and Andrew as my first teachers, Graham for knowing absolutely everything, Chew for being awesome to talk to and just being like "arrrrrrrgh those crazy dan players and their magic!" with me, Billy for giving me someone to explain thoughts and ideas to and questioning my explanations to make me refine them not only for him but in my own mind, Leo for being the first person I could view as a rival to play each week, Paul for being my latest teacher and helping that final push to 1d... So many awesome people. I know I'm missing just so many, there are just so many amazing people in go.

It's been a long and sometimes tough journey, but this post should go to show that with enough work (estimated 400 games, 10,000 tsumego), you can become 1d, even if you're just starting out playing today.

February 14th 2013... Tempted to aim for 5d, but hmm, might be too difficult. Either way, I want to be strong enough to put in a decent challenge for the British title next May .

That's all for now *Runs off for that real life crap known as work...*

~~Simba

[topazg]

Hey everyone .

Just a quick update - I've finished my challenge now ^_^ . I began to (albeit slightly nervously) claim 1d from 14th February 2012 - a few hours before my 1-year anniversary.

I've not officially got 1d on KGS yet; I have a lot of rating inertia now annoyingly but I've won 24 of my last 25 games at a ~2-3k level, which has got to be pretty much impossible if you're not 1d.

So yeah. I guess there we go . Thanks to everyone who has believed in me, supported me, taught me, learnt from me, got to know me, and even just played with me over the past year! Credit especially to John and Andrew as my first teachers, Graham for knowing absolutely everything, Chew for being awesome to talk to and just being like "arrrrrrrgh those crazy dan players and their magic!" with me, Billy for giving me someone to explain thoughts and ideas to and questioning my explanations to make me refine them not only for him but in my own mind, Leo for being the first person I could view as a rival to play each week, Paul for being my latest teacher and helping that final push to 1d... So many awesome people. I know I'm missing just so many, there are just so many amazing people in go.

It's been a long and sometimes tough journey, but this post should go to show that with enough work (estimated 400 games, 10,000 tsumego), you can become 1d, even if you're just starting out playing today.

February 14th 2013... Tempted to aim for 5d, but hmm, might be too difficult. Either way, I want to be strong enough to put in a decent challenge for the British title next May .

That's all for now *Runs off for that real life crap known as work...*

~~Simba

Who is this Graham of which you speak, that apparently knows everything - You must send him my way!

In seriousness, really big congrats Simba, looking forward to seeing you at the Candidates this year hopefully

[karaklis]

estimated 400 games, 10,000 tsumego

Congratulations. Good job. One game and 25-30 tsumego a day doesn't seem unreachable (though 10000 tsumego is really a huge amount)

Could you please describe a bit more in detail

- how did you play, more fast or slow games?
- how many of your games did you review?
- which tsumego did you do at what strength?
- which method did you use to study tsumego?

[Simba]

Who is this Graham of which you speak, that apparently knows everything - You must send him my way!

In seriousness, really big congrats Simba, looking forward to seeing you at the Candidates this year hopefully

Hahaha thanks a lot. Candidates sadly looks unlikely because of the selection criteria - 10 games played since resetting is not possible for me now since I couldn't get to Oxford . Would have to get a special invite and that's probably fairly unlikely...

estimated 400 games, 10,000 tsumego

Congratulations. Good job. One game and 25-30 tsumego a day doesn't seem unreachable (though 10000 tsumego is really a huge amount)

Could you please describe a bit more in detail

- how did you play, more fast or slow games?
- how many of your games did you review?
- which tsumego did you do at what strength?
- which method did you use to study tsumego?

1) I've played 3 blitz games ever, none of which were at all serious.
2) 50 in detail at a guess, along with a bunch of other games friends have played.
3) Whatever I could get my paws on really . The Tasuki collections are really good. GoChild was fairly good. I've also studied various tesuji-type stuff: Davies, LCH's, and a fair bit of endgame tesuji material too.
4) I didn't care so much whether I got the answer or not (or whether what I arrived at was correct) - I simply viewed them as 'reading training'. It's kind of like a game, where you gain points just by playing. After a certain number of points, oh look, you can outread a 10k. Then a 7k, 5k, etc... I do a mixture of hard and easy problems, so my vital point knowledge is usually reasonable, but also I can read 30-40 moves deep if I'm really required too (and am given enough time). Have done that on OGS/DGS a few times .