Life In 19x19

What does it take to achieve shodan when you at a low SDK playing strength such as 7 kyu. It looks like a long race to the finish line. I wonder what are some good ways to bust through some sdk ranks. I review at least one game of my favorite pro every night and probably do 5 tsumego a week, but is that to little should I try harder at the risk of overdoing it ad burning out? My teacher is 3 kyu and he says it will be a long time before he gets to shodan. Any tips or suggestions to improve would be appreciated.

balmung wrote:What does it take to achieve shodan when you at a low SDK playing strength such as 7 kyu. It looks like a long race to the finish line. I wonder what are some good ways to bust through some sdk ranks. I review at least one game of my favorite pro every night and probably do 5 tsumego a week, but is that to little should I try harder at the risk of overdoing it ad burning out? My teacher is 3 kyu and he says it will be a long time before he gets to shodan. Any tips or suggestions to improve would be appreciated.

I went from 4k to 1d in 4 months (10k to 1d in 6 months), and I credit 1/2 of it to weekly lessons with Mr. Yang and 1/2 of it to this book: http://www.slateandshell.com/SSGR005.html

I was studying other stuff too, but the problems in this book are perfect for SDK level, and it's nicely pocket-sized, so I carried it with me everywhere. Waiting in line for a bagel? Do a life&death problem. Going to the bathroom? 2 or 3 life&death puzzles.

here are a couple of the standard suggestions for getting stronger.
but it's very personal as to what combination and amount works best.

Better do 5 tsumego a day and that is still not a lot
Also (try to) play at least one serious game every day and review it yourself by picking out 2-3 mistakes and trying to find a better variation.
get 1-2 of your games reviewed by a stronger player each week.
If you improve 1-2 ranks you should also start looking for a stronger teacher.
Helping/teaching/reviewing games for weaker players also helps a lot. (at least it did for me)
Ask your teacher what he thinks your weak points are and pick up a book about that subject.
I never review any pro games, but that is just because I personally don't like it.

I don't know how old you are, but with enough effort put in, you should be able to get to shodan within a year from now without much trouble.


But remember that this is a game played for fun. Improving is only part of that.
a lot of people never reach 1 dan and are still very happy Go players.

OP mentions pro game analysis and tsumego solving, but doesn't mention the most important thing of all: actually getting games in and reviewing those.

balmung wrote:What does it take to achieve shodan when you at a low SDK playing strength such as 7 kyu. It looks like a long race to the finish line. I wonder what are some good ways to bust through some sdk ranks. I review at least one game of my favorite pro every night and probably do 5 tsumego a week, but is that to little should I try harder at the risk of overdoing it ad burning out? My teacher is 3 kyu and he says it will be a long time before he gets to shodan. Any tips or suggestions to improve would be appreciated.

I do around 100 tsumego a day and I don't think I'm burning out.

cramnhoj wrote:I do around 100 tsumego a day and I don't think I'm burning out.

I keep my fingers crossed for you that this won't happen. Since when have you been doing this amount of tsumego per day?

karaklis wrote:

cramnhoj wrote:I do around 100 tsumego a day and I don't think I'm burning out.

I keep my fingers crossed for you that this won't happen. Since when have you been doing this amount of
tsumego per day?

And how do you aquire them at anything close to the rate at which you consume them?

Started with 200 a week more than a month ago, around 40 a day. Took a month to finish a 900 problem book, then started redoing it last week. Except for the easy ones at the start of the book I find that I still have to read to solve the problems (as in haven't memorized the solutions yet) so figured I'd still improve by redoing it and found out could do 100 a day (I take a break from it on weekends though).

What I'm doing is somewhat similar to this, (though only saw that article today by browsing SL)
http://www.radford.edu/~sfawthrop2/Ekle ... Y_L&D.HTML

cramnhoj wrote:Started with 200 a week more than a month ago, around 40 a day. Took a month to finish a 900 problem book, then started redoing it last week. Except for the easy ones at the start of the book I find that I still have to read to solve the problems (as in haven't memorized the solutions yet) so figured I'd still improve by redoing it and found out could do 100 a day (I take a break from it on weekends though).

What I'm doing is somewhat similar to this, (though only saw that article today by browsing SL)
http://www.radford.edu/~sfawthrop2/Ekle ... Y_L&D.HTML

I really like the ideas in that article, but I disagree greatly with the idea of forcing life and death problems from study to appear in a game. With a well devised kyu level book, the shapes should present themselves. With a high dan level book ... good luck ever making most of those appear.

I feel that you get stronger also by doing tesuji, shape, and endgame problems, not just life and death.

Opening problems... iffy.

How easy are the problems if you're able to do 100 problems EACH day o_O ?

With avarage 2 min per problem you're spending more then 3 hours a day to solve tsumego?

balmung wrote:What does it take to achieve shodan when you at a low SDK playing strength such as 7 kyu. It looks like a long race to the finish line. I wonder what are some good ways to bust through some sdk ranks. I review at least one game of my favorite pro every night and probably do 5 tsumego a week, but is that to little should I try harder at the risk of overdoing it ad burning out? My teacher is 3 kyu and he says it will be a long time before he gets to shodan. Any tips or suggestions to improve would be appreciated.

Did you perhaps mean that your teacher is 3 dan? Because I don't see 1) how a 3 K teacher is of much help to you as a 7 K, and 2) how he knows whether or not you'll make shodan...

kirkmc wrote:

balmung wrote:My teacher is 3 kyu and he says it will be a long time before he gets to shodan. Any tips or suggestions to improve would be appreciated.

2) how he knows whether or not you'll make shodan...

(snips and emphasis mine) I don't think we read the OP's sentence the same way... Anyway, I learn a lot from the people who give me four stones...

Re: topic: It's easy to be shodan, that's why everyone is doing it!

cramnhoj wrote:Started with 200 a week more than a month ago, around 40 a day. Took a month to finish a 900 problem book, then started redoing it last week. Except for the easy ones at the start of the book I find that I still have to read to solve the problems (as in haven't memorized the solutions yet) so figured I'd still improve by redoing it and found out could do 100 a day (I take a break from it on weekends though).

Well, I did around 50 tsumego per day, learning 15 problems on every day (so an average repetition of three times per tsumego). After having learned 1400 tsumego in three months I had a massive burnout that I've never recovered from until now (and it's one year ago now).

Of course YMMV, but don't tell later you haven't been warned before.

daniel_the_smith wrote:Re: topic: It's easy to be shodan, that's why everyone is doing it!

It's a psychological barrier. Just like when SL celebrated its 10,000th page. Otherwise, what's so magical about the number 10,000, or 1 dan for that matter. (Actually, SL just passed its 20,000th page.)