Life In 19x19

Blind0ne wrote:Hey I started playing go two month ago and i am 9 kyu. I also studied a lot like you played as many games as possible, read beginner books solve a lot problems at go problem.com. I think your problem is that you spend to many time on playing and thinking about go. Make a break of two days or more and you will increase your strength. You will get a better feeling of the flow of the game. Thats the same like to train muscles you also need sometimes a break for regeneration. Well thats my experience when i study to hard i lose against weak oppents but when i take a short break i sometimes lose by less moku against higher rank players or win !!!

Sorry for my bad English !

Okay guys, now I am going to tell you about my experience. I started to play Go 2 days ago, and with a lot of studying I reached 1d. It is easy - just eat a lot of salad.

P.S. Blind0ne, do you really think we are so
stupid to believe this?

Stefany93 wrote:Okay guys, now I am going to tell you about my experience. I started to play Go 2 days ago, and with a lot of studying I reached 1d. It is easy - just eat a lot of salad.

P.S. Blind0ne, do you really think we are so
stupid to believe this?

Stefany, I don't think it is altogether impossible to reach 10k in a couple of months. People will improve at go with different rates. I'd imagine an active chess player who takes an interest in go would be able to improve relatively quickly since his mind is already trained to explore and retain move sequences, i.e. read (although reading in chess is of a different character than reading in go).

In any case, I don't think it is very helpful to put statements like BlindOne's in a thread where someone is frustrated at their inability to improve. It is liable to make one feel inferior and be hurtful rather than helpful to their progress.

9k in two months is quite possible, and indeed, not too special. It is a little bit above average, but I've seen people improve even faster due to combination of either finding the right teacher, having dedication and time. Different people improve at different rates, so there is no need to doubt that claim or feel bad that it might be true.

I was reading through this thread and thinking "Why hasn't anyone suggested getting a good teacher?" and then I saw Bill's post. IMO when you are really stuck, getting a teacher is one of the best ways to break the blockage. People get stuck because there are some basic things they are doing badly or there are basic concepts or techniques they don't understand. If there is some basic misunderstanding it might not be resolved by doing more problems if the problems don't address the issue, and playing more games could just result in frustration if the OP doesn't get help in identifying the relevant issues. Getting games reviewed is a helpful thing, too. Is Go Teaching Ladder still in operation?

mw42 wrote:

Stefany93 wrote:Okay guys, now I am going to tell you about my experience. I started to play Go 2 days ago, and with a lot of studying I reached 1d. It is easy - just eat a lot of salad.

P.S. Blind0ne, do you really think we are so
stupid to believe this?

Stefany, I don't think it is altogether impossible to reach 10k in a couple of months. People will improve at go with different rates. I'd imagine an active chess player who takes an interest in go would be able to improve relatively quickly since his mind is already trained to explore and retain move sequences, i.e. read (although reading in chess is of a different character than reading in go).

In any case, I don't think it is very helpful to put statements like BlindOne's in a thread where someone is frustrated at their inability to improve. It is liable to make one feel inferior and be hurtful rather than helpful to their progress.

Just mid last year, I taught a friend how to play Go. We played frequent teaching games, and he played on his own frequently as well. He reached something like 8k in just around 2 months. So it's definitely possible. Although I think he was helped a lot playing with me frequently, and also probably had moderate experience with other games (like chess), so that he was already used to reading and visualizing ahead.

On the flip side, I've met people of all different ranks, including beginners haven't improved much at all. But many of which are just happy to play where they are, and just enjoy the game as a recreational diversion. As long as you find you enjoy the game, that's enough.

If you are intent on improving, probably the single best thing you can do is find a teacher, and importantly, one who's teaching style works for you. Having a good teacher able to regularly give feedback and figure out what you're consistently doing wrong is invaluable, especially if it's someone that you enjoy playing and interacting with.

hey Stefany93,

you can look at KGS for the nick Blind0ne

hey mw42,

sorry for that telling my imporvement i thought my argument would be better if i tell also my progress

dfan wrote:

entropi wrote:I heard of a lot of people being stuck around 12-11k, 5-4k and 1k-1d.

I think that if these blocks truly existed, the graph of number of players by rank (like this one) would have bumps in it, as players would bunch up at those points before moving on.

So my assumption is that a lot of the sense of common roadblocks at particular levels is due to confirmation bias.

I would agree. You're more likely to notice a plateau, I think, the closer you are to a "milestone" rank. In the 12-10k zone, for instance, you're desperately close to reaching SDK. The 1k-1d tango is similar: the player is likely to be bothered by this situation because the prospect of asserting oneself firmly as a shodan is so close. 5-4k seems a little odd, perhaps at this level players see themselves as nearing striking distance to dan-level ranks, or perhaps it's just an outlier.

on that graph, i see a slight build-up around 6k. It might just be noise, though.

Shaddy wrote:on that graph, i see a slight build-up around 6k. It might just be noise, though.

Yeah, about half of those 6k accounts are mine.

Well, different things work for different people... For myself, I started a little less than two years ago, and made it to 1d. When I was about 2-3k, I was constantly watching higher level games, and tried to guess the next move. When I played, I tried to play like them. That's what mainly made me improve to 2-3k. Recently, I've been focusing on my own creativity, and improved my reading, which made the punch through shodan. If played games doesn't cut it to improve, maybe you could also try to watch higher level games (kgs 4d+ games), and try to play like they do. Just my two cents, hope it helps some.

I'm going to go ahead and contradict most people's advice so far with my own... because that's just the sort of guy I am.

What you are doing is great and will no doubt completely show, but I suggest doing something completely different for now. Anything! Play like you've never played before.

Do you tend to play the 3-4 a lot? Switch entirely to the 4-4 and even 5-4, even if you currently don't know ANY joseki or fuseki regarding them.
Do you focus on territory? Try to play for influence and fighting.
Don't play blitz? Do it.
Don't play white often? Do it.
Don't play many handicap games? DO IT!

Consider the whole thing a thought experiment so you can truly see what parts of your game were working before and possibly pick up an entirely new element, as well. Once again, I'll let this serve as an entirely contrasting argument to what most people would condone. Take yourself out of your comfort zone, wreck your attachment to your rank (caring about that number really holds most people back most of the time), and force yourself into a position where you have to learn new things to stay where you're at. Afterwards, resume your normal study and see the effect your experiment had. At very least, it might give you a refreshing appreciation for your conventional method! You can always return to how you played (unless you get better), so there's no sense in not venturing out.

That's my take!

OP:

Last visited: Fri Sep 17, 2010 12:32 am

Just saying.