Life In 19x19

The story so far: I learned to play go over the summer and have reached 15kyu on KGS.

The goal: 9kyu or better on KGS by midnight December 31st starting. This monday.

How? Well 2 simple sub goals:

Playing: 100 games with 15 minutes or longer on the clock by the deadline .

Puzzles: Work through "Graded Go Problems for Beginners" Vol 3-4 till I can get 80% of the answers in under 10sec also to be completed before the deadline.

A graph:

Good luck! You've made swift progress to 15k, and I hope it continues! Also, if you can solve Graded Go Problems for Beginners v3&4 in <10 seconds, you'll be ahead of me. =D

More seriously, I'd love to help you reach your goal. If you see me online, feel free to ask for a teaching game. Alternatively, if you post games here I'll try to review them for you.

SinK wrote:Puzzles: Work through "Graded Go Problems for Beginners" Vol 3-4 till I can get 80% of the answers in under 10sec also to be completed before the deadline.

I think you are setting your sights needlessly high here. By the time you can do 80% of just volume 3 of GGPB, at under 60 seconds per problem you should already be significantly better than 9k.

I am also usually willing to teach on KGS, if you see me online. Just ask.

Good luck to you! I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun in the process, too!

Have fun.

Regarding games...don't kill yourself. Consider taking a break from playing for at least a day or two ocassionally. For me, at least, things tend to soak in.

Everyone is different--it is just an option to consider.

dfan wrote:By the time you can do 80% of just volume 3 of GGPB, at under 60 seconds per problem you should already be significantly better than 9k.

True. I have done GGPB vol. 3 in August with a score of 85%, and I am 6-7k right now.

ha. I'm 4k currently (and still climbing, I hope) and i only did the two first parts of vol3. And I find them hard

Post your games in the 'game analysis' forum.

Thanks for all the generous offers of teaching games and reviews I will be taking you guys up on that.

I guess I misunderstood what the book meant by the ranks on the covers. I'll see how I get along with Vol 3 and re-adjust my sights accordingly. For the moment I am going to try and finish the 321Go puzzles before I crack the books open (I think I have about 600 to go).

SinK wrote:I guess I misunderstood what the book meant by the ranks on the covers.

Oh yeah, the GGPB books are infamous for their terrible rank suggestions. Here's my latest guess for appropriate ranks, although you can probably find me contradicting myself elsewhere on this site

In this table, the first rank is what you should be when you start the book, the second rank is what you should be when you've mastered it.

I: 30k-15k
II: 15k-10k
III: 10k-6k
IV: 6k-2k

It is easy and perhaps natural to set goals for ourselves. But perhaps we set ones that do as much harm as good, meaning that when we reach for a goal and then begin slipping, we tend to give up easier.

Reaching SDK by new years is a worthy endeavor. But perhaps that is your desire and the goal should be 15-30 minutes of tsumego daily plus two games played and quick reviews of all your lost games.

I think your SDK desire will be only a matter of time with such goals set and reached daily and weekly.

Good luck!

Here's a game: I had a free afternoon so I played 3 games but I'm only counting 2 since the second I wan't really thinking. This game was my best game in a while and has a nice mix of strategy and tactics.

[sgf-full]http://files.gokgs.com/games/2010/10/8/Vindiman-S1NK.sgf[/sgf-full]

350 puzzles to go on 321Go
2/100 games played

You'd better post a game where you lost and don't know why. Then the review will have much more value.

Losses do tend to have better review value, but I'll look through for a few things to point out:

7: A bit passive. There might be situations where you would get more from this move (like if the middle was very critical or if there were weak groups nearby or something), but in this case, it's better to hane aggressively at F3.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$ Position at move 7
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O , X . 3 . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . 2 O 1 . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

Something like this is standard, and works well with your other stones.

9: Good choice. This blocks your opponent's top corner's primary direction of play, and also extends well from your corner stone.
11: This is also quite good. This is bigger than your opponent's last play. Not only is the area you're playing in wider, the stones on both side are high (on the fourth line) so this region has more potential than the left side. This could also be on the fourth line if you wanted.
15: Since you can reasonably push into the bottom-left corner, I would be tempted to. However, that could become a heavy group, so perhaps it would be better to jump to D6/E7, threatening to reduce in the left also. That said, the move you played is also big. Since you're approaching a fairly strong corner, a two-space extension is stronger and safer.
21:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Moves 21 to 30
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . X . O . X . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . O . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . X . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . W a . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . O . 1 . . . , X . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . 0 . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O , X X . . . , . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . O . O . . O . X . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]

The move you made is an elephant jump. It presents the weak spot shown above. Elephant jumps can potentially be great moves in specific situations (jumping to a critical point, spoiling eyespace, and so on), however, it's better not to make one unless you have a specific plan. You're making tons of points up top (especially once you block the top right 3-3 invasion), so taking the knight's move at 'a' instead would do a lot to help you wall the left side off. Notably, white gets around to taking this point at 64.

All in all, good game. You had a strong opening and got a lot of kills. Your opponent played a lot of passive moves, so it's harder to point out mistakes of yours. For the moment, keep an eye on that monkey jump, remember the 3-4 hane at 7, and try to repeat the things I complimented in similar situations. I look forwards to seeing your next game!

Okay, I think this means that I'm going to have to improve with you to actually give you a challenge in the Malkovitch game.

I'm going to have to write one of these as well.