Life In 19x19

...I solve all ~3000 on tsumego pro completely... okay, not "all"... but I'm going to try

I was curious on the impact tsumego had on the rate of improvement in terms of rank. According to my KGS graph, I seem to improve 1 stone rank every 3-4 months on average. My current rank is low enough to assume that I should continue to improve at around this rate. I plan to "attempt" to finish all problems in 3-6 months (I probably won't make it, but I'm shooting for the moon) in lieu of playing any games.

I'm doing this in a public forum so that it will motivate me to stay on top of it. I'm not sure if anyone is aware of the big 5 personality model, but there is a metric that measures "conscientiousness" - which basically measures how much of a hard worker you are. Well below is my score:
Conscientiousness - 6th percentile
Industriousness - 14th percentile
Orderliness - 5th percentile

I'm basically a lazy slob, and I think doing this keeps me motivate and on track.

**Perhaps I will play an evaluation game around the 3 month mark to compare my improvement (if any) against my usually improvements.

Rules:

1. Attempt to solve all problems in my head, without using analytic tools or real board
2. Do not attempt at a solution until I have read all reasonable variations and I am 99% certain
3. Do not spend more than 15 minutes on a single problem
4. After 15 minutes, take the problem to the board and attempt at a solution
5. If unable to solve the problem, look up solution
6. Go on occasional "insane mode" where I bang out 300 easy problems in a short time span - mark any problems I couldn't solve right away, and come back to them at a later date

**I know some people favor never looking at the solution... like ever, but I like to keep the train moving and hate to be stuck on the same problem forever. It's just not how I prefer to learn. Once I've given an honest attempt at a problem, I believe I learn more from looking at the solution rather than continuing to struggle with it for an indefinite period of time. Once I look up a solution, I try to come up with key takeaways so that I can apply it on future problems.

**I also realize this may not be the most efficient method of improvement, but I consider it an experiment. You are only a beginner once, so I just wanted to isolate the effect of tsumego from actually gameplay on the rate of improvement, to see what comes of it.

**I also suffer from some level of anxiety when playing ranked online games (mostly when getting started - I feel okay once I'm in the game). It comes and goes. While I should be playing as many games as possible to cure myself of this handicap, I thought tsumego may be a nice alternative to improve without the equivalent level of pressure. So I'm kicking the can down the road for another time on the anxiety issue.

**I still enjoy watching go content on stream or on youtube, so I do not plan to refrain myself from other forms of go content. I don't think these help too much in terms of improvement anyways. They are just for fun.

Basically, I'm doing it because I think it will be interesting! Please let me know if you have any advise!

---

11/25/2019 - 2k KGS

negapesuo wrote:2. Do not attempt at a solution until I have read all possible variations and I am 99% certain

It is sufficient to read all of your opponent's replies at each turn. All you have to do is find one play that works at each turn, but it has to work against all comers.

Good luck!

Bill Spight wrote:

negapesuo wrote:2. Do not attempt at a solution until I have read all possible variations and I am 99% certain

It is sufficient to read all of your opponent's replies at each turn. All you have to do is find one play that works at each turn, but it has to work against all comers.

Good luck!

Thank you! Made the correction.