Life In 19x19

In one and a half months the summer semester is going start and I probably won't have much time to study Go from then on.
Thus I decided to use the left free time to start playing again and to improve a little. I guess a study journal that I’ll update once a week could help me in terms of discipline
I recently introduced myself here (http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11511) by the way.

My goal is to reach solid KGS 9k, improving by three stones respectively, by the end of March.


Study Plan for March:

- one hour theory and one hour tsumego per day (weekends half as much), I’m not sure yet if two hours of studying are appropriate, might be too much.
- at least three games on KGS per day (~5min + 3x30s byoyomi) (weekends only one game)
- review one game from "Invincible - The games of Shusaku" per week, even if it might not be necessary at my level, it surely will be fun
- watching the latest games by Hajin Lee 3p (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTji1kQNoWIH85dB_Vxka9g)
- at most 1 day without studying per week, preferably weekends


My first readings will be "Opening Theory Made Easy" (I already read half of it) and "EGS: Attack and Defence".

For Tsumego I'll start with "1001 L&D Problems" and if the problems in the last third become too difficult I might continue with "Graded Go Problems for Beginners 3&4".

Alternatives to the books mentioned above would be:
- EGS: Tesuji, Endgame
- Lessons in the Fundamentals
- Get Strong at: Tesuji, Opening


Here is a game I played today, March 1st. Considering that this is the first non-computer game I've played in about six months, I'm quite pleased with the result. It was a pretty fast game, Black and white both made many mistakes that are even obvious to me, not to mention those which aren't.

Hi Tomoe,

Good luck with your project.

Hi EdLee,

thanks for your helpful review
In one of today's games I already had the opportunity to apply one of your advices (answer to )

Today everything went according to plan. However, I lost one game by timing out due to lags. But I try not to worry too much about winning or loosing at the moment.

Tomoe wrote:(answer to )

Good!

Unfortunately I only managed to play one game today. I did read theory as well as some Tsumego though.

Here is a game I surprisingly won vs a 9kyu Bot. However, I made many mistakes again, like missing endgame moves and making bad shape in the opening...

Hi Tomoe,

Hi, it's been a while, and of course I didn't follow my study plan I played some offline games and studied occasionally though.

Here is a game I played on KGS yesterday:

I would appreciate some comments. I'm especially interested in whether I could've caught the white group on the right side (around move 60).

Some comments:


Also, the score isn't quite right at the end of the game. There are a couple black stones and a white stone that aren't marked dead.

Hi, thanks for the thorough commentary

I made a similar mistake at the local go club last night and a stronger player also advised me to play the pincer rather than the shoulder hit.

Tomoe wrote:Hi, thanks for the thorough commentary

I made a similar mistake at the local go club last night and a stronger player also advised me to play the pincer rather than the shoulder hit.

The shoulder hit is really a kind of reduction move, but you're not looking to reduce white, you're looking to attack. As another way to look at it, a shoulder hit invites the shoulder-hitee, so to speak, to extend against the stone. By tewari, this is a lot like attaching to the stone white extends with. As a general rule, you don't want to touch stones you are attacking, because it makes them stronger.