Life In 19x19

I didn't remember I already made an account here back in 2010 and was in a group called 1dan in 2010 when I was around 6-5k (it says). And how many years has passed? I bet some of us there probably got to dan and some got lazy or some stuffs happened and forgot about go. Well, it's 2013, like 3 years after and I am also still not 1 dan. So I am making this journal just to remind me and well give me more motivation in pushing towards the dan ranks.



I am occasionally lazy and stuff so I wonder how this goes.

I've always been a fan of SoDesuNe, I mean his study plans. When I first saw them back then, it made me realize how much effort I needed in order to achieve my goal. And it's not really easy.

I've just gotten to 3k this year after getting stuck at 4k for a year or so (on off go). I guess I learned something that radically changed my play.


Study Plan: 3 Dan (KGS) in 2013
(yeah gotta dream bigger lol)


Tsumego

L&D

• any tsumego available (not too hard)
• Graded Go Problems for Beginners (all volumes)
• some korean tsumego books
• Yi Chang'ho Tsumego series

Tesuji

• any tesuji available (not too hard)
• Get Strong at Tesuji
• Yi Chang'ho Tesuji series

Theory

• Attack and Defense
• Opening books and problems
• Reducing Territorial Frameworks
• Lessons In The Fundamentals of Go
• Some sabaki books, haengma books, korean books etc.
• Direction of Play
• some joseki from time to time as they occur
• pro games

Games

• slow thinking games
• blitz games (to be flexible)
• game reviews and teaching games

*any available tsumego and tesuji would probably be android apps or problems I come accross

This list is exhaustive, but I won't be doing them all at once. I just list the ones that I will be using. I'm fine with just doing 10 tsumego a day I just want to build up my go strength gradually so I am trying to be more accurate with reading and lessen mistakes.

The only thing that will probably stop me would be occasional slumps here and there. And also my laziness hehehe...

It's been some time since I made this post but now I'm actually wondering where has my desire to be shodan gone to... Maybe this is the welcome to eternal 1k. lol Well I just want to continue improving my reading and I don't feel like doing something about rank... maybe it will just come naturally afterwards or something. I'm mostly gonna be doing tsumego and maybe a bit of other stuffs as I come accross them (I wonder how will the 3d goal be if it's like this... )
It's kinda hard to find time for go when I also have to practice drawing. It's even harder when you like to do both! I will still continue with go although I hope I can also start again with drawing! RAWR!

Ha ha ha, I know this too well (still not Shodan myself, though I might be scratching on the surface) : )

The one thing which - in my opinion - really makes you stronger is being consistent with your studies. Of course you need to find the right approach for you but I think, doing problems can't be wrong : ) It also helps to understand your weaknesses and focus on overcoming them. E.g. a player who is a keen fighter and maybe stronger when it comes to reading might lose fair and square to someone who has a superior positional judgement and just gives away unnecessary stones as long as he will be ahead in the end.

Regarding finding the time: I realized that one hour a day is enough to improve at a steady (albeit slower) pace. For me this is one game (10/5*20) and Tsumegos at goproblems.com. You can even mix things up and replay a professional game every second day instead of playing.

I started learning to play the guitar a week ago so I'm in similiar time constraints myself - good luck to us both ^^

for some reason when I forget go for a while and focus everything on my other passion (like drawing), I end up losing my reading skills... So I have solved tons of tsumegos and got better reading, then I forget go for a while and do something else, and when I come back I've forgotten lots of it like I haven't done tsumego in the first place! But I think it's still there I just need to refresh myself and everything will come back eventually.

I'm 1d on IGS and on tygem (though tygem 1d isn't that much but I started at 5k or so and now I don't play much) and I went back to 2k on KGS coz I slumped (when I slump I tend to play tons of ranked games idk why lol) it even reached 3k then back.

Until now I haven't really recovered my reading but I'm also trying to look at reviews of pro games to broaden my general knowledge. It suddenly is hard to find moves a lot of times when playing the dan people and I want to play the right move all the time (well at least close to the right move) so I'm looking at pro games and some go theory. But I really need to get back to doing tsumego asap or a simple misread would cost me the game (around 10 to 20+ pts unless slump which could probably be half the board lol). But I think I will do a few more pro game reviews and find the time to redo tsumegos.

And btw, I was able to go back to drawing and now I'm an artist again, yay! but I couldn't resist go so I decided to study again till I get stable dan level and delay my web manga for a bit. (let's see how this goes and if I don't get lazy in the end lol)

But I'm starting to think it would be better if I study go together with other people...

@sodesune: yeah I'm now trying to fix my weaker part which is theory but I also got weak at reading so idk now lol kinda messed up but eventually things will sort out I hope.