Life In 19x19

So, since taking go up a couple of months ago, I've tried to make a fair effort in improving how I play.
A continuation of that now is starting this journal, hoping that I'll be able to get feedback, advice, reviews etc. from stronger players, or at least cement some of my thoughts by writing them down.

EDIT- so I can remember later on where I started this journal, I was only just 9k.


At the moment my study consists of;

1. Solving problems. I think this is vitally important. Reading strength, recognizing shapes/patters/vital points, concentration etc. Also I find it's an enjoyable activity; I probably spend more time solving problems than playing. I find I enjoy fairly "easy" problems the most, i.e. problems that take me a minute or less to solve.
At the moment I'm solving problems from Graded Go Problems for Beginners- I've worked through vol. 2 a couple of times, right way up, upside down, trying to do the first 150 or so a quickly as possible. I get 95% or more right in that volume, so I've moved on to vol. 3. L&D, endgame, opening problems seem fairly easy to me, but after the first level the middle game problems are frustratingly hard.
I'm also starting to work through 1001 L&D Problems and love it, it's a greater variety of shapes than GGPB, and there's lots of nice easy problems for me to drill through.
The next plan is to get Get Strong at Tesuji, I feel this might help me with those pesky middle game problems- and no doubt improve my ability to see tesuji in games.

2. Reading books. I learnt the basics from the Janice Kim books, and Iwamoto's Go for Beginners. Soon after that I read Opening Theory Made easy, and found that extremely useful. Should probably re-read that. At 11k I read How Not to Play Go, and, although short, was great.
Now that I'm (just) into SDK I though it was time to read Tesuji and Attack and Defense. Tesuji I find hard going- so I just try and read a section or part of a section every other day, and do my best with the problems, most of which I find pretty tough. Interestingly enough, now that I've been through some sections multiple times I'm starting the see some tesuji in my games, so it must be working.
Attack and defense I've read most of- but my eyes glaze over a bit during the examples, and especially glaze over in the section about invasions into three space extensions. I think I like being given general principles rather than specific examples, or at least, not too many examples. Maybe I should take those sections a little like I do Tesuji- just repeat them over every couple of days and hope they sink in. Another note about A&D is that at times, the author talks about a particular move threatening something, say, an invasion, but I can't see it

3. Play games, of course. Usually 30mins or so + byo yomi. I always look over my games later, and if anyone stronger than me is kind enough to look over the game with me that is very helpful.


Well, that's enough of a wall of text but I think gives a good overview of where I'm at.

Thanks in advance to anyone who drops by!

Hey!

You are (in my humble opinion) doing everything right. I would have recommend you the same steps and the same books, so all what you have left me with is: Good game and have fun! =D

And keep us updated : )

Thanks for dropping in SoDesuNe,

I have had a look at your "guide" to getting strong- along with others, and yours is part of the reason I want to get a copy of "Get Strong at Tesuji". I might order that today, actually...

How did you (and others, if they are reading this) find Tesuji and Attack and Defense at around my level? Did you feel you "got" most of it, or am I not alone in feeling like some of it is beyond my level? Regardless, I still feel it's useful to be reading at this level and will re-read as I get stronger.

Just an update on how things are going;
I've finished the first 100 problems in 1001 L&D, and got most (90%+) right. I find I'm being much more thorough in my reading. Before, I was much more lazy. I think this is having a very positive impact on my games. I've skipped over the next 100 problems to do the first 100 of the "black to kill" problems.

I've played 7 games so far this month (including two against bots ) which isn't too bad considering how busy I've been. Early on I tried to play a game a day, now I try to play one GOOD game a week. So far I'm well on my way to 8k, winning 6 of those 7 games, the other one I lost on time- usually I play 30mins + byo-yomi, that game was 20mins and I was well ahead on points but didn't realize how much time I was using.

Actually, using time is something I wanted to mention to other beginners out there. Very often in the games I win, I use very close to all my time, but sometimes my opponent uses as little as 5 minutes! Now, I know they get my time to think as well, but I see this in other games I watch of people around my level. Today I watched a game between a 10k and 9k, and in the first 100 moves they each used an average of 6 seconds per move, with 30 minutes on the clock.
My advice, and I don't always follow this myself but should, is to take your time looking at your move; is there a bigger move, what is your opponents biggest move, what is the followup expected, what are you trying to achieve, is there a better way to achieve your goal?

I have heard people give ranks from 16k to 2k for the proper time to read Tesuji and Attack and Defense. I think I first read Tesuji around 10k and found it fascinating, although I understood it better when I reread it at 4k. A&D I read at 6k, benefitted a huge amount, need to reread now (at 2k). But anyway - you're definitely not alone if you can't get into them. If you prefer tsumego and games, solve tsumego and play games, and you'll learn a lot.

Tesuji and Attack and Defend is okay for your level, and I think your approach is the right one. Read them, don't frorce yourself to understand everything, try to apply things from the books and later on read them again and see what you missed.

Concerning games, in my opinion it does not really matter how much you play (as long as you play at all ^^), it's more important to take the games you play seriously and give your best.

Feeling a bit frustrated.
The last couple of games I've played I feel like I haven't played as well as I could, made simple mistakes and couldn't read well.
Feeling a bit the same trying to work through problems 100+ in 1001 L&D.

I think I'll have a break from playing any games for at least a couple of day... which is hard to resist because I've got quite a few days off work.
I'm also going to leave 1001 L&D problems for a couple of days and work back through GGPB vol.2 starting from the start- last night I did the first 150 problems in about half an hour, I got three of those wrong. I think it's very beneficial to my confidence, and I have heard it suggested to do lots of easy problems regularly. Then I'll come back to 1001L&D and start from the start again.

I'm expecting Get Strong at Tesuji to come in the mail early next week, too, so I'll have something a little different to work on. I'm hoping that the one star problems there are somewhere around GGPB vol. 2 level, and will help me work up to the middle game problems in vol. 3.

I was also hoping to get a copy of Fundamental Principles of Go as well, but they were out of stock. Probably a good thing, as I don't know if I really need any more 'strategy' books. I think solving problems is the way for me to get stronger and between GGPB, 1001 L&D and GS Tesuji I should have enough to help me improve for quite a while.

Just a random though about why my play might have deteriorated- I've just finished reading A&D, and perhaps I'm concentrating too much on looking for opportunities to use what I've read about. This means I'm forgetting about the basic stuff, or trying to use concepts in the wrong context, or not in the best way because they are new to me. Perhaps once I internalize the concepts a bit better I'll actually see a sudden jump in skill.

I think different people respond to different things, but I at one point heard that you should do maybe 90% tsumego that you can solve completely (reviewing all likely variations before looking at the answers) in a minute, and 10% brain-teaser tsumego that take 15 minutes or more. (In terms of time, not number of problems.) I found that that was quite productive for me. Here's a pack of easy tsumego (without solutions) if you're bored of GGP2: http://tsumego.tasuki.org/cho-1-elementary.pdf

Thanks for the reply jts,
and the link. I had a quick look at the first page, looks like they are fairly easy problems, around the level of the first 100 from 1001 L&D, or the first 3 sections of GGPB vol. 2.

I'm not sure about not having solutions. I know some people say, well, you have to be 100% sure of your answer. But sometimes I feel 100% sure of an answer to a problem and then find I made some simple mistake- like a shortage of liberties on one of my groups or something.

I sort of feel that problems without solutions will still strengthen my reading in some ways- being able to quickly visualize stones and variations, regardless of whether I get the problem right or wrong. But I feel like maybe if I get the problems wrong and don't know it, when I come up against a similar shape again I'll start reading in the wrong place- or worse, get it wrong in a game.

On a similar note, with tesuji problems, I feel like I still learn a lot from getting them wrong, or even trying to read out the problem and getting no solution at all, and then looking at the answer. I feel that these problems are more about the technique, or teaching you where to start reading. I feel like I need to hardwire the shapes in which the tesuji appear more than I need to be able to read deeper. I'd like others input on this and general comments on how they approach both L&D and tesuji problems.

That's interesting, I have the opposite feeling - I think I learn more from L&d when I'm forced to work for it, and less when I can just skip to the back and say "Oh yeah, I was thinking something like that." With tesuji problems I learn a lot even if I'm just skimming solution diagrams.

Anyway, check out the problems in the 700s. Maybe my memory is rusty, but I think that PDF is much harder than GGPv2, on average.

I think it's normal to jump a bit in strength after reading a major strategy book, for exact the same reasons you already identified ; )

For doing Tsumegos: I'm now quite fond of making a cycle of problem books (the less problems one book has the more books you need to not start memorizing the answers). Starting with easy ones and increasing the diffculty. I feel this really drills vital points due to constant repitition (I'd say at least three times or just two times if you can solve every problem on sight).

Regarding answers: I always look when I think I solved a problem and I always look when I don't know the answer after an "appropriate" thinking time (I will just pick my best guess then for reference). Of course if I was wrong I will check the problem again and try to understand the sequence and also check other lines of resistance for the opponent (if I can come up with any).
I think solving problems is a training tool and should be handled efficiently. For me, it's more efficient to be exposed to more problems (more vitals points, Tesujis etc.) and therefore to solve problems as fast as I can (while still being quite thorough).
In a real game you will have to do the real work anyways and if you know your shapes then, you will most likely have an easier time reading the correct line. (That being said, I have heard quite a few times now, that you can't solve a Tsumego in you real games if you can't solve in on sight in a Tsumego book - cycle ohey : D)

I also think that Tesuji problems teaches you a lot about where to start reading and that it is useful to remember the shapes different Tesujis appear in. But my approach is the same as with Tsumegos. Constantly solving them : )

SoDesuNe-
My approach to problems is similar to yours- spend what I feel to be a reasonable amount of time, then I look at the answer. I then read through all the possible responses to the answer to see why it is correct. If I ever get a problem wrong I do the same- read through the answer, and also try and work out why my answer was wrong.

Despite saying I wasn't going to play any games for a couple of days, I felt good after going through a few problems and played a game against a 10k, winning fairly comfortably. I made a few big mistakes towards the end but overall I felt I played much better than I have been. Then again, it could be that it was a peaceful game, and I always seem to win peaceful games, and lose and feel bad after a game with lots of fighting...

During the game I even managed to spot a tesuji, I think in Davies book it's called a loose ladder. Very happy about that.

Get Strong at Tesuji came.
I looked through a heap of the 1, and some 2, star problems, and could solve very few of them.
The ones I could solve were similar to shapes/problems that I had seen in either GGPB or 1001L&D.
I'm hoping that by constantly going through the (one star, for the moment) problems, looking at the answers and trying to understand why the answer is best will still help me improve.
I've been a bit slack at looking at the Davies Tesuji book in the last couple of weeks too, that needs to come back into my regular study routine.

Maybe if I write down a plan I'll actually stick with it;

Daily;
-Solve 8 problems from 1001 L&D problems.
-Solve 8 problems from GS at Tesuji, or spend up to a 2 minutes thinking about the position, possible answers, then look at the answer and try and understand it.
-Read a section of Tesuji, and try and solve the problems.

Weekly;
Play a serious game, 30 mins + byo yomi, and review it myself. If I can't understand what went wrong, get a review from a stronger player.

Sticking pretty well to my study plan, not always reading through Tesuji like I said I would, however, I'm finding I'm getting more of the problems from GS @ Tesuji right the more I do them. I think a large part of that is getting use to those types of problems. I've also added back in GGPB3, doing 1 or 2 pages a day, so 6-12 extra problems of various types.

Played a handful of games so far this month. I won a game early in the month which pushed me up to 8k. After that, I've had trouble being in the right mindset to play. I feel like reading out too many sequences is going to be so tiring, or I that I'm going to read them wrong or something. The clarity in seeing what I want to do just isn't quite there. Lost a game today purely through being lazy with my reading once I thought I had the game won.

I know that this condition is temporary and that I just need to work through it again. My passion for playing waxes and wanes. However I'm still really enjoying the problems. I like that I can go through my problems in about half an hour, get a sense of victory and accomplishment and the satisfaction of knowing that it improves my playing. So, I'll still try to get in about a game a week but I'm not stressing about that too much at the moment. After-all, it's a game, and it's meant to be fun.

Signed up for Tygem today, just to see what it is like. I usually run OSX but my wife has a laptop running windows so I though; why not?

I didn't really know what to put as my rank- from what I had heard, kyu level ranks there vary more than on KGS and, in general, are much stronger. As I wasn't really in the mood to play my best game, I put myself as 15k (currently a shaky 8k on KGS) just to test the waters. I won both games I played- but only by very small margins. The players I played against both had several thousands games too- does that mean that this is the general standard of playing? In which case Tygem seems much stronger than KGS.

General thoughts on the server-
Very easy/quick to get a game, much easier than KGS. I like the auto-match and how you can choose time limits after someone accepts. The layout, graphics, sounds are all ok. I like the winning animation, although the novelty will soon wear off I'm sure. Might alternate games between KGS/Tygem for a while and see which I enjoy playing more on (if either). Will be interesting to see whether all games at this rank are as difficult as the two that I played today. Feels a little sad to be back into mid-DDK ranks

Have played a couple more games on Tygem, both of which I lost. I enjoy the style of games played there, it's living up to it's reputation for having players that like to fight. For some reason now I don't feel so bad about the rank I have there, the main thing being that it's very easy to get a good, exciting game quickly. Also played a game on KGS last night, an even game against another 8k. I was behind right up until endgame, until my opponent made a mistake and I made a capture worth around 15 points in sente- actually a position that had appeared in a problem that I had (re)solved that day!

I did what I said I wouldn't do and bought another (non-problem) go book, Fundamental Principles of Go. I haven't had a chance to really look at it yet. Maybe now I need to make a commitment- no more theory books until I go up a rank. Being such a bibliophile that is pretty good motivation to improve.