Path to 9Dan, step by step.

zac · **#61**

hl782 wrote:

hmm interesting - just basing off the book title though, is it very different from Kageyama's fundamental principles?

On another note - Two more victories and officially a SDK now!

Congratulations on your quick rise to SDK. Your reading must be quite strong for your level, based on having finished 1001 l&d problems. I'm working through that at the moment, after having given up on graded go problems vol. 3 once I hit the life and death problems at the end. My feeling being that mostly 1001 is a bit easier than those problems.

Kgeyamas book on fundamentals and the Yilun Yang one share little in common other than titles. Yangs book gives a lot more in specific advice, variations etc., includes a lot more diagrams and examples of play, and has problems at the end of each section. Quite a lot of the book is about the opening moves, pincers, and the early middle game. Also a nice section on types of invasions and reductions as well as the section I posted a part of. In my mind Kageyamas book offers more on the mentality or thinking that goes into moves, without giving as many specific examples, and helps with how to study and a brief overview or introduction of important topics.

Really the two books aren't directly comparable. Both would make it on to a top 5 theory books list for me at this stage, along with Attack and Defense and Opening Theory Made Easy.

hl782 · **#62**

Thank you Sodesune and zac!

And zac haha idk about my reading - i feel like I have a better knack at solving tsumego problems since the scope of the problems are much smaller - but the real board is 19x19 and many times it leaves me more confused than not.

In the meantime, are there any 8-7 kyus on kgs who would like to play some even games with me? I think one of the biggest factors in improvement is playing against tougher players (even though it gets me that stupid ~ on kgs), and I'd appreciate it if anyone could!

hl782 · **#63**

Replayed a pro game today - Lee Sedol vs Kong Jie in the 2010 BC Card Tournament. This game was crazy - Lee Sedol fell about 80 points behind after his major group died but he managed to come back and ended up using his dead stones to kill Kong Jie's main group and ended up winning the match. It was unbelievable as I played it out. Of course, I still don't have a feel for the flow of pro moves, but I try to understand why it was played or how critical it was to the outcome of the game.

For games today, I played 2 free games - 1 was a half point win, and another I was up by 20-30 points or so (I managed to kill a group in the center of the board), but I resigned midway through due to an emergency.

Besides that, I reread the 9 principles of the opening from In the Beginning, and read about 40-50 pages of Reducing Territorial Frameworks by Fujisawa Shuko. RTF by Shuko has alot of information - Although it's a bit dry, I can tell it will really be the 'bible' to help me master basic reduction of pesky moyos.

As for Tsumego, grinded out 100 problems of GGPB Vol. 4 - After I finish this book, I'll be starting my recycling phase of the problem sets I've completed.

Kirby · **#64**

I remember that game. The result was quite unexpected.

Uberdude · **#65**

That would have been just after Lee's 2009-10 hiatus. He went on to win the 2nd BC Card Cup, guess he just took a little time to warm up to full strength

.

hl782 · **#66**

Yes - it's a shame he seems to be on a slight decline these days - maybe the 10 game death match against Gu Li took a bit of a toll on him. Although Gu Li seems to be doing fine with his recent win haha

In the meantime - I am going to embark on a treacherous journey to read through a korean Modern Fuseki Dictionary and Modern Joseki Dictionary. I hope to finish these by my 21st birthday, which would be the end of june of next year. I decided to do this as

1) knowledge on joseki/fuseki is invaluable
2) its good to be thorough.

Its a bit daunting but if i keep at it over time - it will only be beneficial. If anyone has advice on how to study these books, i'd appreciate it.

hl782 · **#67**

Played two games today - against 8kyus and won both - One was a very clean win, and the other - ehh he resigned right in the middle of the game so it's a bit hard to say how it would have gone.

This game the biggest i regret is losing the ko fight in the upper right - letting white live in the corner. I feel like i am terrible at judging what are good ko threats and what arent. I also misread the right area letting white completely neutralize my thickness - that was a poor.

This is the game where my opponent resigned. I made a mistake in the upper left corner - didn't protect it so it turned into a ko that he could have taken advantage of later. But I made good use of the net tesuji and captured 3 of his critical stones in the center - which was ridiculously satisfying. But I still think white had an advantage though so idk why he resigned.

oren · **#68**

hl782 wrote:

Yes - it's a shame he seems to be on a slight decline these days - maybe the 10 game death match against Gu Li took a bit of a toll on him. Although Gu Li seems to be doing fine with his recent win haha

According to the big international ratings site here.
http://sports.geocities.jp/mamumamu0413/total.html

Lee Sedol is 5th best in the world and Gu Li at 13. I just became curious when you said that.

hl782 · **#69**

oren wrote:

hl782 wrote:

Yes - it's a shame he seems to be on a slight decline these days - maybe the 10 game death match against Gu Li took a bit of a toll on him. Although Gu Li seems to be doing fine with his recent win haha

According to the big international ratings site here.
http://sports.geocities.jp/mamumamu0413/total.html

Lee Sedol is 5th best in the world and Gu Li at 13. I just became curious when you said that.

haha yes - elo rating wise thats where they stand but Lee Sedol's been in a bit of a slump - eliminated from LG Cup, and other tourneys in korea as well rather easily. Gu li on the other hand just won the Chunlan Cup a few days ago.

I figure Ke Jie and Park Junghwan will dominate the top of the rankings for quite some time. Although I am hoping Kim Jisuk continues his development to reach #1 in the world soon!

oren · **#70**

Lee Sedol recently won the Asia TV cup. Either way, it doesn't matter too much.

hl782 · **#71**

Felt like playing ranked games today - so played 4 - 2 against a 9kyu and I lost both - 2 against 8 kyus with no handi, full komi - and won both. But something good is that I am getting more confident in playing against 8 kyus.. they dont feel impossible - more rather sorta like how 9kyus were when i was going up against them at 10kyu.

However, the game against the 9 kyu was a mess -_- I was so greedy this game it cost me an entire corner and overall the game. Probably one of my worst games since i started this journal.

Something I realize is that I am terrible at playing lightly, and sacrificing stones. Absolutely terrible. i have this urge to always want to kill everything, save everything, and it's severely hindering my progress. Any good ways to get out of this habbit?

Splatted · **#72**

I think we're probably about the same level, but move 33 could have jumped towards the centre and cut off the P15 stones. If you weren't willing to take the fight I think you have to capture with :b31:

. Also there's the ko at :w40:

. I've no idea if it was worth the risk for white but with his threats against the R14 stones you run the risk of having to break in to the centre anyway except with white much stronger.

At :b57:

white already seems well placed to negate centre influence so I would look to try and take the bottom side instead.

Xom · **#73**

I made some comments.

hl782 · **#74**

Thanks for the reviews Xom and Splatted! I gotta say work is a bit tiring, and I've had less time to play and study go as I would have liked but I am still aiming for the 8-7kyu goal by the end of the summer.

Today, I finished reading All About Thickness - by Ishida Yoshio. The book was very very easy to read. Anyone could finish the book in about 1-2 days because of how little text is in the book. It contains much useful fuseki concepts explained in a pretty concise manner. The material wasnt anything i hadnt seen before but it was a good refresher.

In the meantime I am now starting my recycling of problem sets - I decided to go with Lee Chang Ho's L&D vol 1 first because it has the fewest problems so i figure it will keep me more motivated.

hl782 · **#75**

1 victory against an 8 kyu today - Yesterday my power ran out at night so I couldnt finish one of my games.

I went through LCH L&D Vol. 1 and scored 86% - hopefully in my 3rd run i can score above that 90% and graduate from the book. Next to recycle is Graded Go Problems Vol.3 and Get Strong at Tesuji.

In the meantime, I am trying to develop a habit of reading more moves ahead as much as possible. Typically I read up to 4-6 moves per move, but now I am trying to extend that to 7-10 per move. I am also trying to read many variations as possible when i play. I normally read up to 2-3 variations, but i am trying to increase up to 4-5 variations per move. This seems very elementary but it is very difficult to do, especially under a time restriction in games.

I was mind blown today when my dad said he read out the outcome of a game we played today from approximately the 100th move. He said in his hayday, if it was just 1 straightforward variation, he didn't have much trouble reading 60+ moves ahead, and he was capable of reading 10+ variations each consisting of 10-15 moves. That's the kind of reading I hope to aspire to one day.

People at LI19x19, on average, how deep is your reading?

SoDesuNe · **#76**

Regarding reading: The important part for me is chosing the right lines to read. Every beginner can read out ladders with a couple of douzen moves - without much practice. The reason is that there is always just one candidate move, which is the best move and the result, when you capture the stones, is always good.

In normal game situations the evaluation is far more complex, so is finding the right candidate moves. I guess, I can read up to 15 moves if I so choose, albeit what I read would be mostly complete nonsense. So I don't read 15 moves in normal situations. Mostly I read up to 5 moves because up to that I have decent confidence that I'm not completely wrong (though I still am sometimes).

hl782 · **#77**

This might be in the top 5 games I've ever played all time. I was down about 50-60 points and I managed to come back and win the game against a 7kyu (it was a 2 handi, full 6.5 komi game). Games like this is why I strive to become stronger and better at baduk.

On a note I had my best game against my dad ever last night - Lost by only 9 points with a 15 stone handi x)

hl782 · **#78**

Oops in that reviewed game i posted above,i realize where i said 'this is gote' the stones are actually in a snapback. Seems like i had a chance to kill that entire white group but i missed it

Ignoring this blip... my reading really has improved believe it or not - I just scored 95% on 2nd runthrough of GGPB Vol. 3 (the problems i had missed before). I was solving them so instantaneously too. I never really thought that i had improved all too significantly but i have. that's a good feeling

hl782 · **#79**

Recycling problem sets are quite boring...

So i am keeping myself entertained by doing GGPB Vol. 4 and Lee Changho Tesuji/L&D Vol 1 and 2 respectively of each before bedtime, and doing the recycling during the day.

I recycled Get Strong at Tesuji today - I still missed quite alot of the 4 star problems, and some 3 star problems as well but finished with 83% accuracy overall.

On a side note, I picked up a copy of 501 Tesuji Problems, Get Strong at the Endgame, and Vital Points for Skillful Sabaki at a yard sale today for 1 dollar each. What a steal. Will work on these when I get a bit stronger.

SoDesuNe · **#80**

Maybe you review them too soon? How many books/problems did you solve in between?

I'm going through Get Strong at Tesuji as well at the moment and I still learn a lot from the problems. Though the last time I did them was a couple of years back, I guess.

E.g. these two 3-star-problems:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$Bc Black to play $$ +---------------------------------------+ $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . O X X O X . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . O X O O O . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . O . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . X X X X O . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . X O O X O X . X . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . X O , . O X X . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . X O X O O O X . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . O . . X O O . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

In the top right I was quite lost. I only knew what the bad moves would be but I didn't the see the correct one, probably due to "shape reasons".

In the bottom left I figured that there could only be one sensible candidate move but I didn't see White's strongest response (move 4 in the main sequence).

Seeing the right move in the top right and figuring out why there could be only one sensible move in the bottom left was already worthwhile. For me these "tiny things" are very important. Since these are quite easy problems, they show me that I lack certain basics and I feel without those basics everything more advanced would be - at best - standing on very shaky ground.

501 Tesuji Problems is also on my list : )

Path to 9Dan, step by step.

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