Life In 19x19

Well, a new year is upon us, and my resolve is to make use of my new go set and actually study more or rather, study better. This means that instead of just reading a book, I want to take the time to play the diagrams out on a board, with the hope that this will make it easier to follow and retain the sequences.

In particular, I plan on focusing on studying pro games, with the help of Ten's guide to studying professional games. This is a great essay, and I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in getting more out of replaying games.

Aside from this, I also plan on playing fewer games myself, in particular, reducing the number of quick games that serve as time-fillers, and spending the time studying something from my pile of go books instead.

And you?

I just want to have another fun year with Go and those who play it : )

My plan for this year is to abstain from playing tournament games.

karaklis wrote:My plan for this year is to abstain from playing tournament games.

Care to explain why?

I'd say I want to get stronger, but it's something I just do naturally, if very slowly.

Two things for me:

I want to get stronger without worrying about rank. I just don't care anymore. I've seen very bad high-dan games. I want to be inherently strong on a consistent basis.

I want to learn to think like a pro. Understand how they think during a game, how they think about Go, and how they play so consistently. The right attitude is what I'm seeking here.

This will be both easier and harder than aiming for rank.



Transcribed from the 2012 resolutions thread. I was way too tired to notice...

I discovered Go late December 2011. I created my KGS account on January 7th of 2012 with the goal of reaching 1d in a year. I haven't fulfilled that goal sitting at 5k right now. But I don't feel like 1d would be a good resolution for this year.(It's to close to where I'm at )
So in my favorite pattern of goal setting(i.e. setting ridiculous stretch goals on the assumption that seriously trying to do them will leave me close to them, and farther along then if I set a realistic goal), I hereby resolve to work towards KGS 6d.

I want better control of my emotions so I can have a better control of my game.

Twitchy Go wrote:I discovered Go late December 2011. I created my KGS account on January 7th of 2012 with the goal of reaching 1d in a year. I haven't fulfilled that goal sitting at 5k right now. But I don't feel like 1d would be a good resolution for this year.(It's to close to where I'm at )
So in my favorite pattern of goal setting(i.e. setting ridiculous stretch goals on the assumption that seriously trying to do them will leave me close to them, and farther along then if I set a realistic goal), I hereby resolve to work towards KGS 6d.

Just a suggestion. I have resolved to hit 1d in three months, and then to refine my goal in three months' time when I realise I didn't hit it / I hit it easily(!) / I made it, and my next sensible goal should be 2d/3d/6d/50d. Ever since 8k or so I've not quite realised how steep the climb is, at least the way I study (which is definitely substandard), so I'm not prepared to give a dan-level rank for where I want to be for a year, because I genuinely don't know the difference between 2d and 4d and 6d.

I support your preference for ridiculous goal setting, by the way. I do this myself - it works, psychologically.

After 2 years and 8 months, I've decided that instead of focusing on getting better, I want to have fun. I've made some bold claims in the past that I just haven't been able to back up. Before I made my claim to become Pro, I said I wanted to hit 1D by the end of 2012. Obviously that didn't happen. I can't say I've been as active as I'd like to have been either (my internet can sort of be blamed here). But it's not just that. By focusing so intensely on improving, I just wasn't having fun. I was playing games for rank and to win. And the result of that was loss after loss. I didn't study WHY I lost. And I got more and more frustrated after each loss until I essentially lost heart.

I can't remember who I lost to, but there was one game in particular that epitomized my failures. So I stepped away. I gave up. And ever since then I've mostly been a lurker.

So my big goal for 2013 is to rediscover what led me to playing Go to begin with. What is making me walk away for long periods of time? And what keeps dragging me back each and every single time? Do I want to be a casual player or something more?

The good thing is I got a tablet (Android) recently, and the internet on that is far more reliable than it is on my computer. So I've been playing again (mostly just bots). And my goal is to eventually move on to playing humans again.

So I'm not even going to worry about improving. I'm not going to even promise to study. My resolution is to find out how I can best enjoy the game.

- keep playing Go
- play more games than I did in 2012
- study l&d (until May)
- study tesuji (May onwards)
- Watch more (Baduk) Tv

To convince my girlfriend to play this game.

1. To try again to teach my (adult) children how to play. To this end, I have ordered a small (9x9 and 13x13) go board from GoGameGuru. (Don't know how well it will work with my existing stones.)

2. To improve from 4kyu to 2kyu, EGF. That entails playing more games, getting started with Internet Go and publishing a Study Plan here on Lifein19x19.

Dusk Eagle wrote:

karaklis wrote:My plan for this year is to abstain from playing tournament games.

Care to explain why?

I have lost my fighting spirit since EGC, and when playing in that state I would insult my opponents and myself.
Apart from that it's with my other skills/sports etc.: I like the training but not the competition.

I want to reach 5k.

Mmm... my resolution will be, become stronger and play more.

Before April:
- Climbing to an upper league in Yunguseng Dojang (last season, I ended always 1 below the climbing position).
- Find time to study seriously (specially joseki where I suck).
- Becoming japanese 1d (EGF 3-4k) or as near as possible, so I can get easily games once I had moved.


From April to December (in Japan):
- Join my new university go club, don't be shy, make friends and play a lot (cuple of games per day at least) from the very begining.
- Find a cheap Go salon in Tokyo near my place for weekends
- Get one or several, face by face, Strong amateurs / Pro lectures regularly.
- Becoming as near to a japanese 6d (EGF 3d+) as posible (in 2014, once I became 26 years old, becoming Insei change from being an impossible dream to just being an impossible thing so I've decided to give my best shoot this last year to minimize my future regrets)



As everyone can see, I always take impossible goals in my planning, so even I didn't manage to reach them, if get near halfway is still a good thing