Life In 19x19

I have $40. Im somewhere around dan-5 dan on KGS.

I have books already like collection of shusaku games, lee chang ho tesuji set, invincible, lessons in the fundamentals of go, all about thickness, elementary go series attack and defense, etc.

I have had go game guru's baduk tv english before and found that it was pretty good in terms of enjoyableness, and I learned a few things. But Im not sure EXACTLY how much it is worth for strength.

I have never had KGS+.


I am considering either getting:

3 months of kgs+, a teacher account on kgs, and 1 month baduk tv english for $35 total

or

1 year of kgs (I can probably get the full $50)

or

6 months of kgs for $30 and then some go book on the iphone (I already have So you want to play go? 1-4dan)


Any suggestions from you guys? I will probably buy tomorrow.

You could also try some audio Go lectures from Guo Juan.

Normally, I recommend books but if you are looking for something else, I think the audio lectures might be a way to balance cost effectiveness vs enjoyability

I think you have set a new world record for moving from 1 dan to 5 dan.

Or was it 2 dan?

NoSkill on KGS has NoRank.

dfunkt wrote:NoSkill on KGS has NoRank.

I'm assuming the 5d was a typo...though the "5" and "1" aren't exactly close.

I said 1D-5D. Besides that im taking another break from go to rethink some things, Im still playing but right now my go is lacking something.

Saying I'm between 1D-5D is like saying I'm between 15k and 1k.

NoSkill wrote:I said 1D-5D. Besides that im taking another break from go to rethink some things, Im still playing but right now my go is lacking something.

I hope everything is ok and works out for the best.

You can read plenty of discussions about not obsessing about rank (with some people going too far in the other direction, in my opinion). But, just a word of advice--when your rank is not really really solid, I would consider myself on the low-ish end of the range. I always want to get stronger (and the best way I know to judge that is by various ranks), but if I tell myself I'm stronger than I actually am, I set myself up for a lot of frustration. A sign of this frustration is making excuses for consecutive losses to players you feel are weaker. (Of course, you don't want to under-sell your rank either, as it may stunt growth). Anyhow, just a suggestion.

NoSkill wrote:I have books already like collection of shusaku games, lee chang ho tesuji set, invincible, lessons in the fundamentals of go, all about thickness, elementary go series attack and defense, etc.

Have you already got everything you can get out of all of these books? I can't imagine Attack and Defense suddenly being useless even if you're a low dan player. Also, have you exhausted all the free stuff online? All the millions of tsumego aimed at mid-dan players, for example?

If you insist on spending money to get stronger - not that I'm criticising you for it, because I do it too - Baduk TV is good. So are Guo Juan's lectures.

As a low dan player myself, if I had money to buy only one book I would choose a professional I liked and buy a volume of his/her selected games. No extensive commentary necessary, just a few notes on each game would do.

cdybeijing wrote:As a low dan player myself, if I had money to buy only one book I would choose a professional I liked and buy a volume of his/her selected games. No extensive commentary necessary, just a few notes on each game would do.

That's a good suggestion. My favourite book, one I return to over and over again, is "The Way of Creating a Thick and Strong game" by Hane Naoki, one of the Heart of Go series. Ostensibly its about thickness, but basically it's a 22 of his games, from early in his career, up to winning his first major title (the Tengen). I would say the level of commentary is aimed at strong kyu players or weak dans, but of course even strong players can learn much from professional games.