How to Become a Dan

[Bonobo]

THE END

Thank you! I still have to work through all this and my time’s too short, but what little I’ve been able to look through really was very enlightening.

[Marcus]

I greatly appreciate these, lovelove. Thanks very much!

[burrkitty]

Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!!! Thank you so much for this!
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

[lovelove]

[edit]

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=132826

[/edit]

[Mage]

Cool ! Great series ! Going to look through your first 3-5 lectures this weekend and see if I'll be able to understand them enough to get to SDK

[Mike Novack]

Great series!

However I am having difficulty with the lesson of Lecture 5. In variation A, what happens if for move 11 white doesn't make the play shown but instead S7?

[Uberdude]

Great series!

However I am having difficulty with the lesson of Lecture 5. In variation A, what happens if for move 11 white doesn't make the play shown but instead S7?

Then black captures to make a ponnuki and you get a miserable connection on the 1st line in bad shape.

[Krama]

We need more topics like this one. Being around 10 kyu on KGS I constantly do these kind of mistakes and I never realize them. Are there any more topics like this?

[Pippen]

If one is 10k or better: Memorize 500 (random) pro games from move 1-100 (so that you can play all 100 moves from your memory without any! mistake) - one at a time of course - and you will be 1d! You can e.g. use MasterGo, gokifu.com,.... Of course besides that you should play games at some servers or Go clubs to train and to learn also about end game and all the suff that is not covered by memorizing pro games. I guarantee your success!

[Krama]

If one is 10k or better: Memorize 500 (random) pro games from move 1-100 (so that you can play all 100 moves from your memory without any! mistake) - one at a time of course - and you will be 1d! You can e.g. use MasterGo, gokifu.com,.... Of course besides that you should play games at some servers or Go clubs to train and to learn also about end game and all the suff that is not covered by memorizing pro games. I guarantee your success!

I think spending time memorising games could be used to solve tsumego in order to improve your reading.

What is the point of trying to memorize pro games if your opponent will not play the same moves? This seems pretty pointless.

[Splatted]

You don't have to be in the exact same situation to make use of what you've memorised. Memorising a bunch of games should give you a good feel for how pros deal with all sorts of situations e.g. what shapes do they make, how do they deal with their opponets' thickness, how do they make use of their own etc. Not to mention the fact that a lot of local situations will repeat exactly.

[Ryuukun]

Truly great stuff. Thank you kindly good sir.

[kupus]

Re memorizing games, there were discussions about that method on rec.games.go,
and I was personally given that advice too.
I believe that was method used mostly by Japanese amateur players.

On rec.games.go, besides Roy L who wrote about it, I've found Motoyasu's ideas interesting - see below:


---- Motoyasu Miyata 3/4/94


The object of memorizing first 20/30 moves of 100 games played
by professionals is not to follow their pattern exactly in your
game. It is to aquire a sense of what good balance of stones
is in the opening stage. The same is true to learning Joseki.
After you memorize 500 Joseki, you naturally know what good
shapes are. It does not matter if you forget the exact sequence
after a while.
In fact, I would strongly recommend memorizing professional games
to Kyu players who want to become 1-dan. Memory of a game does
not have to last long: a few hours will be enough. All players,
I know, who memorized first 100 moves of 100 games reached 1-dan
level when they finished the last game, inclding myself. So I
believe that this method is the best of all.
It has some advantages over others. You can do it by yourself
whenever you like. Unlike other Go text books, there is no
bad material: any game is as good as another. Above all, this
simple method works for everybody regardless of his level.
If you are weak it takes you much more time to memorize the
same 100 moves than it would take a stronger player. That's all.
A warning to those who are tempted to do the above:
You must have a strong will to become 1-dan this way. Although
the method itself is easy, it is not easy to carry it over. I
know many who started but gave up before they reached 10th game.
Moto

----- Motoyasu Miyata 3/8/94

Reply to Bernd Ebach (#2048)

My definition of memorizing 100 games is given below.
First you lay out a sequence of first 100 moves of a recorded professinal
game on your board. Then you start replaying the game from the beginning
again. You repeat the procedure until you finally can reproduce the
sequence without looking at the record. That completes memorization
of one game. You do the same for 100 games.
If you are 21k, you may need hours to complete one game. If you cannot do
it within a day, you had better reduce the number to first 50 moves, or
even 30. The first 10 games will be most difficult for you to memorize.
After 50 games it will be much easier. You will be able to finish the
100th game within half an hour.

The books I used had comments, but I did not pay much attention to them.
They were too high-leveled for me to understand and therefore I found
them not very useful.

The above Practice No. 1 was recommended to me by a top amateur player.
But that was the only first half of what he told me. FYI, here is
Practice No. 2 he recommended.
"If you can spare 15 minutes a day, do the following. Buy a book of
death/life problems. The easiar the problems are, the better. Try
solving 30 a day. If you cannnot solve one within 30 seconds, just look
at the answer. You repeat the same 30 problems next day. Eventually
you will be able to solve every one of them within 30 seconds. Then start
another set of 30 problems. Practicing No.1 alone may make you Shodan,
but how far you can go beyond that will be limited by how many problems
you have solved."
I started. After 3 days I gave up Practice No 2. It was so boring and made me
sleepy. How right he was! Because I never did this practice systematically,
I remain at 3-Dan for ten years and can't go further, while all of those who
solved 1,500 or so problems went up to 5-dan or higher. I still fail in solving
half of 1-3 Kyu problems. But thanks to Practice No. 1 which I did for a total
of a few hundred games, my opening design up to 20/30 moves became as good as
5 Dan's, and covers up my poor reading ability to a certain extent.

I must admit there is one drawback in this method. There is not nuch fun in it.
That is why I said I would recommend it to *those who want to become Shodan*.
To those who would rather seek fun in playing Go as Kyu player, I would not
recommend it. It is certainly more enjoyable to play 1,000 games of your own
than replaying somebody else's 100.
Moto

--------- Motoyasu Miyata

Now it will take me only 15 minutes or so to memorize the first 100
moves of a pro game. (I cannot keep the memory more than a couple of
hours, though.) Am I more talented than you in memorizing? I guess not.
I would find much difficulty in memorizing, for instance, a game
between two 9k players.

[Bill Spight]

Re memorizing games, there were discussions about that method on rec.games.go,
and I was personally given that advice too.
I believe that was method used mostly by Japanese amateur players.

On rec.games.go, besides Roy L who wrote about it, I've found Motoyasu's ideas interesting - see below:


---- Motoyasu Miyata 3/4/94


The object of memorizing first 20/30 moves of 100 games played
by professionals is not to follow their pattern exactly in your
game. It is to aquire a sense of what good balance of stones
is in the opening stage. The same is true to learning Joseki.
After you memorize 500 Joseki, you naturally know what good
shapes are. It does not matter if you forget the exact sequence
after a while.
In fact, I would strongly recommend memorizing professional games
to Kyu players who want to become 1-dan. Memory of a game does
not have to last long: a few hours will be enough. All players,
I know, who memorized first 100 moves of 100 games reached 1-dan
level when they finished the last game, inclding myself. So I
believe that this method is the best of all.
It has some advantages over others. You can do it by yourself
whenever you like. Unlike other Go text books, there is no
bad material: any game is as good as another. Above all, this
simple method works for everybody regardless of his level.
If you are weak it takes you much more time to memorize the
same 100 moves than it would take a stronger player. That's all.
A warning to those who are tempted to do the above:
You must have a strong will to become 1-dan this way. Although
the method itself is easy, it is not easy to carry it over. I
know many who started but gave up before they reached 10th game.
Moto

----- Motoyasu Miyata 3/8/94

When I was learning go I avoided memorization, believing it better to be able to work things out without relying upon memory. However, memorization has a long history as a means of learning around the world. I have studied memorization techniques, both ancient and modern, and I now think that it is worth a try.

The above Practice No. 1 was recommended to me {Motoyasu} by a top amateur player.
But that was the only first half of what he told me. FYI, here is
Practice No. 2 he recommended.
"If you can spare 15 minutes a day, do the following. Buy a book of
death/life problems. The easiar the problems are, the better. Try
solving 30 a day. If you cannnot solve one within 30 seconds, just look
at the answer. You repeat the same 30 problems next day. Eventually
you will be able to solve every one of them within 30 seconds. Then start
another set of 30 problems. Practicing No.1 alone may make you Shodan,
but how far you can go beyond that will be limited by how many problems
you have solved."

Practice #2 involves overlearning, and overlearning is good. But this method is, as indicated, boring. You do not have to overlearn to the point of overkill. There are better ways of doing it.

[pwaldron]

There was a point where I did memorize a number of pro games, and I didn't feel like I got much out of it for the time that I put in. Later on, however, I started studying pro games again and found that memorizing the game before studying helped a lot. Often times, moves that appeared initially baffling were much clearer when I knew that it would be important 25 moves in the future.