rouyakun's road to dan

[rouyakun]

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...

[rouyakun]

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... )

Here's a game against a 2d taking 2 stones, well just so I have a game post here lol but it's really nothing much.

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!

[SoDesuNe]

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 ^^

[rouyakun]

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.