I don't know if I agree with the title of this video but Michael Redmond did a video review of my game with him. If you think I played a bit poorly, just know that this is not as poor as I can play. Though Redmond did ask me to move up to 4 stones instead of 5 after this game (before I knew about the video). I still like 6 stones though...
This is not just show a tell but I'd appreciate any comments you guys have and any study tips. So far my studies consists of:
Watching Japanese pro games.
Stacking up copies of 月刊碁ワールド (monthly Go World)
Reading the history essays in Fairbairn's books.
Playing 9x9 on GO Quest while water boils
Playing with Redmond once a month
Working though GENKI, an integrated course in elementary Japanese
I think spectating and the history lessons have helped the most so far. I wish I was kidding and had more time for Go.
You seem to enjoy what you are doing so why change it? On the other hand if you really want to improve faster you need to identify which skills are lacking and work on them. The video showed a few, there are probably others that we can't see since the video didn't go past early middlegame.
CDavis7M wrote:This is not just show a tell but I'd appreciate any comments you guys have and any study tips.
Maybe you could find more time to play with players around your own level? I didn't find this activity in your list. Setting aside 2 hours to play with someone close in playing skill every now and then does wonders in my experience. Besides being good practice it is also a good boost in confidence.
Well, I did hide the fact that I am playing 19x19 on Fox. I haven't played in the last week or two but I have over 40 games in the past 2 months. I'm playing the fast timing and I really should take my 20 seconds but I often just want to get through the game quickly. Definitely a far cry from an in person game over a board.
Of course, playing with Redmond is different because I know he is going to play a move I don't want him to play and I can guess whether I will be able to handle it or not, and I back down. Like in the lower left corner of this video. I knew I should connect but then I figured he'd play on the bottom side and I just didn't feel confident enough about that to go for it. Whereas with someone my own level I can just click-click-click and play another game in 5 minutes.
I think KGS server still has handicap games but OGS rarely does. I remember when I first started playing in 2010 (guessing) that I played a ton of handicap games both ways on KGS. After a few years I took a long break and started again a few years ago.
I've also started playing a bit of 13x13 on Go Quest because once you get high enough in 9x9 it devolves into black center openings and I don't care to study that.
Playing 40 online games in two months is very good, not what I expected when reading the original.
I think there are many 2-3 stone games on Pandanet, maybe 15% of the games during busy hours, but anything higher than that and you need to message other players and challenge them directly. The chance of being automatically paired with high handicap is probably very small. I imagine it is similar in other servers that there aren't that many high handicap games. I don't have anything to say about KGS or Fox, it is just what I observe and I don't observe what happens there. Btw if you challenge reduced handicap then the rating impact will be reduced up to -3.5 ranks when it is a free game. I don't play handicap online but I do get challenges on Pandanet for handicap games (from both stronger and weaker players) if I leave challenges open (and I have been declining as a habit, not sure why actually) but most challenges are not for handicap games but for silly fast time controls.
