Hey guys, long time no see!

I took a break from Go for the last 4 months or so (well, nearly completely, making occasional moves on OGS and playing a few occasional games in the German Bundesliga), but now I'm trying to get back on track. Still, I really need your help and I hope that somebody can give me some useful input on these issues.. (Nutshell below if you don't want to read the whole, tearsome story )

I stoped playing a few months ago because I was really frustrated with my game. For the last 1 1/2 years my studies took up most of my time and I had scarcely any time left for Go, I was practically only playing on tournaments. As a result, my games went horrible, in general they were ok, but I nearly always made one nasty mistake which turned a good game or even a clear win into a fatal loss. I always got really mad at myself, which I'm definitely not proud of as my friends and my boyfriend got all of my bad mood, and afterwards I mostly was (and am) very much ashamed of myself. The motivation to devote time to Go dwindled rapidly because of this and at the same speed my frustration sky-rocketed, although I really TRIED a lot, not to get it on me, to be patient, to relax, as it is "just a game" - but one, that means a lot to me. I know that losing is a part of the game and I'm always happy to lose a good game if my opponent played better than me, this is sometimes really instructional and I already learned a lot from these games! BUT, what I'm talking about is self-destruction on a regular basis. So, I decided to take a small brake to break this cycle and searched for another hobby as Go had somehow wickedly pushed aside all of my old hobbies and I must say, this process was not so easy - cause paradoxically I liked and still like the game a lot. ^^;

Of course, the rank-issue was for a long time the biggest issue for me, my ego somehow depended on this little worthless number and after years I had been really focussed on it and built my ego around it this situation hurt twice as much as it would do to a more mature person. This ist no good, of course, but I think I got over that one, finally and thankfully, degrading myself for the first time ever. However, what still follows me like a shadow are this dumb-arse-(for me)unobvious-time-bomb-moves which are just driving me insane. I can't enjoy the game anymore and instead of getting mad I'm just getting sad at the whole situation (at least some improvement as I can deal with that a bit better). But this, of course, is no source of motivation, either..

So, in a nutshell: I somehow lost all motivation to play, to devote time to Go. Was it once a rival I wanted to keep pace with (and lost, he had so much more time than I had I couldn't keep pace), my boyfriend I wanted to overtake (never got closer than 4 stones) or the European Go Congress in Germany I wanted to attend and to improve significantly by the time it begins (July next year), somehow I could always motivate myself although I must admit I was never that succesful in reaching my goals... XD
To be frank: I know why I'm not improving (the already named time issues and also my OGA..), but that is no longer the most important thing for me. I want to stop these horrible mistakes and I already tried the obvious: More and more careful reading, doing problems, taking my time in games (which I prefer to do anyway), but it is and was all to no use. I even stopped recording my games and bringing my fan to not distract me from the game, but it didn't work either.

So I'm asking you: Were you ever in a similar situation? What motivated you in these periods of time? Do you have some advice on how to "attack" this instractable problem? I definitely do NOT want to skip the game forever as - as I already said, I really like a lot. But somehow it feels that is not enough anymore to keep me playing for much longer - let alone enjoy the game. So.. please help!

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I don't really play anymore. But I still enjoy the game. Two things I enjoy the most: 1) recording/broadcasting top level games for the E-journal/KGS fans, 2) teaching/introducing the game to beginners (in-person, not so much online).

I'm quite satisfied with the level I've reached. Sure, I'd like to get even better, maybe even reach dan level, but I'm no longer in a hurry for that.

I experienced something similiar last year around this time and because of that I also stopped to play and study Go for around two months. Although I gradually became stronger, it was not as fast as other people around me did.
On top of that I started "Get Strong at the Opening" and didn't understand 90% of the problems - really brought me down : D

I still was regulary on KGS and that was what got me going again. I watched games from bloodarena at that time and his style, his fierce fighting with all those powerful moves reminded me of what actually brought me to study Go: To play beautiful, strong and efficient moves - of course to the end to splendidly outplay my opponent ; )
So, I started again with the easiest Tsumegos and Tesujis and it was nice to see how fast I could solve them compared to a couple of months ago.
I, too, had problems playing online without any specific reasons and I, too, was overly concernced with my rank but there is only one way out of this misery I think: To pull oneself together and hit the "New Game"-button. If you're beating yourself even before the game started in the first place, how are you supposed to beat your opponent?
Face the fear, make it a everyday matter. Keep your enemies closer than your friends, you know? ; )
It helped me. I started with playing only free games and now I play rated most of the time.

Go is just the most unforgiving game, I know! But when I lose a won game in the endgame again, I don't get mad anymore. I gently bow and thank my opponent for the game, knowing that on this board at this time I was the dominant player and next time we will see if the game is decided by bad luck again ^^
These days I focus more on the moves and sequences I'm proud of: of tactis that worked the way I read them, on strategic aims I could accomplish or of making life with a group of which I tenuki'd twice : D

Of course I have games which not only start bad but progress that way to the very end. But okay, a quick review mostly reveals the bad moves and when it does not, I still can show the games to a stronger player.
Anyway I feel there is progress and something to learn in every game, so that even when I play click-happily late in the evening, it doesn't go to waste.
One thing one has to watch out for is very known in Poker: Do not try to even out a losing streak the very day. If the game goes to pieces, do something else for the day and maybe the day after. A game of Go is best served cold ; )

In a nutshell: You search for motivation: All I can recommend is to reflect on what brought you to the game, if you still love Go you must have a reason. Find this reason, embrace it and don't let it ever go away from you again ; )

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

When I was very unhappy with my play I printed out half a dozen of professional games from players I admire and did nothing go related but replaying them for some time.

Huh? I knew that somewhere I have a doppelgänger. Interesting to know. Have we ever met? I am usually playing on tournaments in NRW (next one probably in Essen in January).

Well, the number is not completely worthless as it reflects your current playing strength (or should at least), though I know that a one-dimensional number cannot reflect your abilities in all fields of this endless-dimensional game. In order to avoid trouble with the rating/ranking issue I had decided to quietly use the EGF's rating for my rank. As I am not progressing quickly anyway, I am quite satisfied with this method.

When I started to play go, my goal was to make shodan before the EGC in Bonn. I have said goodbye to this goal long ago. Now I take any improvement with great pleasure and wonder how far I can get until next summer. Wouldn't this be an option for you as well?


Aaargh, you must be really my doppelgänger. OGA, lack of motivation, burnout etc. etc. (I have written about that in my SL-blog). You are not alone.



Forcing myself to ponder over moves at tournament games has obviously improved my general play. Maybe it is the practice of reading through the positions that still kept me improving although the only practice I had were those tournament games.


- My children. They urged me to go to the tournaments even though I felt reluctant to go.
- Playing tournaments. Once being there I enjoyed playing and completely forgetting the stress at work. Playing one weekend on a tournament feels like one week of holiday.
- My go books. They stared down to me looking so sad because of not being used, so that I could not resist to start reading again.
- Last but not least: The L19 community. Even though I took a break from go, I still remained connected, so the break did not feel too long.

I hope I could help you a bit. Maybe we can meet at the EGC next year.

Hello everytbody, thank you all so much for your replies! I already posted an answer this morning, but in the stress to get to the tournament site on time I must've hit another button than the post-button... Aaaarg.. I'll try to rewrite.. ^^;

@ xed_over: I think it's really cool what you do and I have a lot of respect for players like you who devote their time to teach and do other Go-related stuff which serve the community.

@ tapir: Hm, this is actually what I did for the first.. like.. 2 years of my Go "career". ^^ I stopped doing it some time ago because of my time issues, but maybe I hould start to do it again. As long as I did that my Go was at least kinda ok.. I'll try and look if I can do that, I still got a LOT of unreplayed games of my favourite pro lying around here.


@ SoDesuNe: Thank you so much for your interesting post! Especially, because last year around that time we still were of about equal "strength", so it is quite interesting to hear about your experience at this point and how you overcame this period of time. Four things stroke me the most:
Playing beautiful moves is also one of the things I like about Go best: the patterns, the strategy behind the moves, being proud to see something you maybe didn't see before.. All this was part of what I always took for granted or at least within reach. But now these occasional moves are just not strong enough to make up for these dumb mistakes that keep on happening, neither psychologically nor in a countable way as points on the board.

Beating oneself to hit the "New Game"-button is what I managed to do for some time and it actually got easier the more often I hit that button. So this has actually been helpful, but only if there is enough time to do that regularly. Else, you start with that again each and every time. But, well I have to try and see how I get along now, having overcome the rank-mania it should be easier.


"Go is just the most unforgiving game". Yup, that is exactly what I connect with Go the most at this moment, forget about beauty and all that chit-chat, all thanks to these mistakes. It always seems that when I want to get up and shake myself free from the bad thoughts, think positively, reality hits me harder each time, so getting up gets less and less attractive to me. You take it sportsmanlike, saying "we'll see we will see if the next game is decided by bad luck again", but I somehow cannot think like that. When I think about my last like 25 tournament games it was like 5 were close enough to count, 3 games were okayish and the rest I had to resign because I made horrid mistakes / my oponent exploited weaknesses I didn't notice although I thought I read it all out or, like in the last round in today's tournament I was psychologically so down by the former games, that I didn't see any possible, working moves any more (just the ones that don't work), didn't have any ideas what to do and generally die and resign early (even though I think 54 moves today were like a new record for me).

Progress: I'm not talking/thinking about / hoping for progress at the moment. In fact, I'm declining in strength and already after degrading for the last tournament I feel more like being turned into mincemeat during the games than ever before. The problem is: for most of my Go career progress was what was most important and dear to me and I really enjoyed it as I'm quite competitive. Now, that I cannot even hope for that I feel like in a bit of a hole, as the beauty of the game has - for me - also gone away. So, in fact my two main reasons for playing have just collapsed into nothing and I really don't know what drives me to go to the tournaments any more because the whole weekend feels later on just like a waste of time with me being in a bad mood. After having hit a barrier some time ago I feel like rebounding uncontrollably from the wall with no idea how to put my feet to stop or even go back and face that wall again. So, self-esteem is not so healthy either and positive thinking just doesn't help, too.

In short: I really think you gave me a lot of useful input and I thought about it and writing it down, finally, really is a relieve in some ways. But still - I have no clue why I keep on trying.. XD Whether it is my general stubbornness or something else I really can't say.


@ Karaklis: Hehe, yes, I know exactly what you mea, my doppelgänger! Last year, when SoDesuNe posted about hitting a wall at 6k, you posted as well and I remember that I always thought "Wow, that's exactly how I feel or how I'd put it!" when I read both of your postings. It helps to hear that and to hear that others are able to overcome these periods of time, to move forward and I still do have a little bit of hope inside me that I'm able to follow you guys on that path, although I'm still not able to figure out which drive brings me in the right direction.. (You have an SL-blog? I'll have to go and look out fr that! )

About rank: Well, I really don't give much thoughts on the number before the "k", because I KNOW that I can play 6k (I'm always being told that normally I still play like 6k, sometimes making even better moves), but these mistakes are dragging me down so much each game that I think I should rather play 8k or 9k in terms of having an equal game - albeit having played 6k for quite some time and having proven this rank to be true several times.
Funny enough, I, too, started to take the EGF rating as my rank - still this was.. no good as I was turned into mincemeat again, and even worse than ever.

I, too, had the goal to be Shodan by the start of the EGC next year and as well buried that hope already at the beginning of the year. My goal at that moment was just to get back on track by the start of the EGC, be confident that I left this period behind an can tackle that stubborn 5k again. But.. even that seems not so possible, altough there still is some time left. Maybe for once I can reach a goal? I'll try as best as I can. So, yes, maybe that is a way for me, if I'm succesful or not we'll see at the EGC where we will surely meet again.
But for now, after my horrible experience this weekend I decided to just skip all tournaments until the EGC as I don't see any point in it any more, more frustration is the least I need now and although I like to meet old (and new ) friends, this is just not good for me anymore. And I think my bad mood is something I don't want my friends to be bugged by. And as reading still didn't bring the "normal" results (better and therefor more successful play), I think this is a good decision as it isn't the solution to my problem.

Oh, and yes, I think we met (didn't talk I think), but I remember you from a tournament in NRW, although I don't remember which one.. ^^;


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Thanks again to all who posted and gave useful advice! I still have no clue how to finally solve the problems, but it was really good to read about your experiences, think about your advice and writing it all down here. So, I came to a decision - which doesn't mean at all that more experiences or advice is not more than welcome! Life is flexible - most of the time!

1. I'll skip all tournaments until the EGC. It is just no use to me at the moment and only a source of frustration that rather consumes the small rest of motivation I simply refuse to let got than helps me to get back on my feet. And I think, I can use my free weekends a lot better than that.. MAYBE if I feel I can do it I'll attend one if I think I have overcome all the issues I'm struggling with. But to be honest I think that even 8 months is not enough to successfully deal with all the problems I have, given that I have little time to spare.

2. Early next year however, I have a few weeks of free time, which I will use to start studying Go again. Maybe I have to force myself at the beginning but I just want to know if I can do it. I want to. (Oh, yes, I'm stubborn.. Did I mention that? ^^; ) Maybe I'll start a study journal here on 19x19. I think this might be a good idea seeing there are quite a few people who experienced a similar situation and that there are quite a few nice and helpful people here.

3. I'll try to find something Go-related that I really like to try to get a positive feeling about Go again. No real clue what it might be, just that I definitely don't want Hikaru no Go for it. Getting on a high horse, my naive mind being influenced by Hikaru started it all a few years ago and so I don't think this is the right thing for me.
Maybe painting and drawing Go-realted stuff is something for me as I started drawing again a few months ago (which I really like but somehow stopped after starting to play Go) when I stopped devoting time to Go. But if you have any other suggestions I would be really glad to hear them! ^^


Thanks again to everybody for your replies, suggestions and advice!

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i am another player with a similar issue. since i started university last year, i play go much less and my progress effectively stopped. not that i wouldn't have a free time, but compared to high school, university is much more intellectually challenging and gives me more interesting topics to spend my spare time with, so i am not so eager to think yet more when playing a board game.

so my one slow game a day dropped to some or no games a week and my constant above 60% winning ratio at tournaments dropped accordingly. actually, i had been improving so fast and attended just the right number of tournaments that i had been slightly sandbagged all the time before and i was very proud of my winning statistics. this all went down in the last year.

i also stopped recording my games, not from a hope i could concentrate better, but because i have no longer found my games worth being recorded. (and because i can remember enough to write a good part after the game).

still, i don't consider leaving go. i've got too many friends among go players, i became fan of national, continental and world top players, and i want the whole community and game to grow and prosper. and despite my current stagnation i still believe i can make at least shodan and hopefully get to play on the Czech Championship one day. and i want to establish a good and working go club in my city.

those were things that keep me going from long term perspective. in short term, a good song, AMV or episode of an gaming anime are good enough to make me want to kick some serious ass... or watching a video lecture (this one recently shown me how can go be fun), replaying a pro game, learning new joseki / fuseki - anything i find new and want to apply in my own game

and every good win is just great, like a syringe of endorphins injected straight into my brain. on my last tournament, first game was again terrible. i don't lose so much through blunders, rather my whole play and perception of the game oscillates between very good and very bad. so i lost my first game and felt so down i wished for someone to hug me. in second round i got a weaker opponent and again started bad. i was losing all faith in myself, but after a failure on one side of the board i created a complicated position on the other side and my opponent let me even the balance (if i remember correctly, he could have crushed me with some bold variation, but he backed down before that).

this little success was enough to return me in the game and i won easily. i also managed to win next two games, even though one was through luck in endgame, where my opponent (a good friend of me) overlooked some fatal shortage of liberties resulting in a game ending ko. when we counted how would has it ended otherwise, it was a close loss for me, but it is a game. in last round i faced a stronger opponent (one of my teachers from university) and i had to resign very early after a 2nd game-losing mistake of me, but it was way better than the first round. i blunder sometimes and i am used to it. it was an ok loss.

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

One quick note regarding : I don't see those moves very often in my own games, either. Sometimes I'm able to find a tiny blaze of ingenuity but this is, too, far too seldom to count.
For the main part I experience those moves as a spectator, mostly on KGS or in the rare case I look over a game of a master.
But when I do see such a move, it immediately tingles and urges me to become stronger to be able to see and play it myself! I just have to work harder ^^

Then I think, you are not really labouring with a motivational problem in the first place. It seems just to be a symptom of being unsatisfied with your play. (Of course there starts a vicious circle : D).
This could have many reasons: Too much workload elsewhere, which occopies part of your focus and concentration (see: Go is but an unforgiving game ; ) ), maybe a lack of stamina to cope with the long time settings in offline tournaments (tell me about it...) OR - and here comes my favourite, which I always apply on myself! - your subconsciousness currently might have too much trouble to systemize all those tiny parts of Go knowledge you gathered up at various places. It didn't connect the right dots just yet.
That means: You're on the way to become stronger but it takes time to internalize knowledge, especially when it comes in a lot of fragments, respectively when you didn't study one matter thoroughly but just got some fairly faint ideas.

I experienced something similiar as I started to play handicap games with a far stronger player. He always reviewed the games afterwards and told me tons of new information about various shapes, Josekis, on how to use influence, when it's better to take territory, that this group could have died that way and this group lived this way, that in this situation a reduction is enough to win, how to make a reduction in this shape, how much Aji is lingering in this position... and so on and so on.
At first I almost could feel how I became stronger, then I started to feel nothing in my games and with increased regularity I blankly searched the board for several minutes for the right play, just to play wrong of course.

What helped me was going back to the so called basics. I re-read "Opening Theory Made Easy", I solved the Graded Go Problems for Beginners series (among other easy Tsumego and Tesuji books) again - bottom to top - and I re-read "Attack and Defense".
Although this was a fairly easy repetition it helped me to find some missing links, which I either overlooked the first time I read a certain book or which were just buried in my mind under tons of other stuff and "only" needed to be remembered.

The blankly searching for moves stopped eventually and I could play my normal game again and climb up some ranks. (Now I think this whole circle starts over again ^^)

So, stubborness is good! Go needs this attitude ; ) Don't give up, just search for different paths (there could not be anymore Go wisdom in one sentence! : D). Maybe try mine here and see if it works for you.


Either way, stay stubborn! If you can make it here, you'll make it anywhere ; )

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

You guys are awesome, thank you for your replies!

@ Laman: Wow, I really do admire your attitude and energy! Your plans sound great and I wish you all the best that you realize them successfully in the near future!
It is quite interesting that you're talking about small things that motivate you, like a song or something similar. Only today I read a sentence which made me smile again and think positive, albeit the disastrous weekend I had had. It was in German and I'm not sure if I can translate it all right but it went like this: "You never move back, you're just having another go" (in German: "Man fällt nicht zurück sondern nimmt nur Anlauf" für alle Deutsch sprechenden die vielleicht eine bessere Übersetzung wissen )

Thanks also for the link you posted. I'll definitely have a look at it! >:-)

Also, your description of your win sounds so great! It is what I have been starving for quite some time, but my rare "wins" were only clear wins against significantly weaker oponents (in the tournament, I don't "bash" for fun!!), something which no one can and should be proud of and which don't give me the "kick" you described.


@ SoDesuNe: Thank you so much for your encouraging words! It is apreciated a lot and I already feel much better than when wrote the first post!

Replying to your answer considering : I don't have any high standards of "beautiful" moves any more.. XD Every not blundered (thanks, that was the word I was searching for all the time! XD ) move is somewhat of a beautiful move to me. Genius is not what I strive for now (I'd like to start with achievable goals, the (near) impossible goals I spare for better times ), it's "just" being able to play my normal game without having to regret a move I made (mistakes are normal, constant blundering - at least to my understanding - not) and maybe "kicking some ass" again like Laman said.

Of course I'm also unsatisfied with my game, how could I not be! ^^; And the vicious circle you describe is definitely part of my problem, although it feels more like a spiral (downwards). Some of the reasons also sound familiar, like quite a workload and so on. Subconscious issues are something some people who know me already suggested, but honestly, I don't want to think that I'm slowly turning into a psycho.. XD What may be possible, however, is that there have appeared gaps in my knowledge which really got me confused by now. I mean, I'm already quite insecure on the board because of the few games I play, but the whole situation makes it just a thousand times worse. I really don't believe I'm getting stronger right now, I mean, I hardly DO anything for it! It is just lack of practice.. and.. self-esteem.. and.. some other stuff maybe.

When the time is right (which means like february when I have enough free time to start again without any time-consuming stuff bugging me all the time), I'll definitely start with what you suggested: easy problems, basic stuff and playing a lot (more than now - depends on how well I can beat myself to push the button ).

Anyway, I'll keep on trying, just like all of you guys, too. And hope.. uhm.. eventually I'll too will be happy with my Go again. ^^

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A bit off topic but.. your English is very very good...

Thank you!

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An additional note: As you mentioned the "unobvious-time-bomb-moves which are just driving me insane" which are obviously your biggest gap of knowledge, I can give some advice that I had received by a German shodan. He used to post here with the nick "Jonas" (which is also his real name), a very nice person but I haven't seen him around in a while now. After a tournament game between a 9k and a 10k (at that time I was 10k myself), that he and I had kibitzed, he showed some weaknesses that both players had missed and that could have done severe harm. When I asked him, how it was possible that he can spot these weaknesses so easily, he adviced me to study tesuji. He explicitly mentioned "501 Tesuji Problems". Following his advice I started with that book, but got stuck after about 100 problems as they were mostly too hard for me at that time. Here is a short list of tesuji books that I own and/or that I have studied:

1) "501 Tesuji Problems"

Got stuck around problem 100 as it was too hard as 10k. Recently I took at random look at a few problems, and - surprisingly - got them right.

2) "Get Strong at Tesuji"

Great book, the easiest of these books. If you decide to study tesuji, this is the one that I would recommend to start with.

3) "Tesuji (elementary series)"

I worked through it once, quite quickly to absorb the presented knowledge, but when I started it the second time to study it deeplier, I got stuck at around one third of the book

4) "Graded Go Problems Vol. 3" (especially the problems related to middlegame fighting)

Also a great book with a good variation of problems. I'd recommend this right after "Get Strong at Tesuji"

5) "200 Endgame Problems"

Studying this book gave me some spectacular wins at tournaments, big kills and big reductions. At such events you remember why you have been studying all these problems.

6) "Magic of the First Line"

This book starts with easy problems, and get harder at the end. I worked through it in a few days

7) "Magic of Placement"

I've just had a look at some problems and it seems that its level is about that of "501 Tesuji Problems"

I also own the four volumes of the tesuji dictionary, they are even harder, and I will not start to study them before I have finished the books listed above.

Apart from playing at tournaments studying tesuji was practically the only go related activity that I had during my hiatus (February to October), and I hold it responsible for my recent improvement boost. At the moment I am considering to either restart "501 Tesuji Problems", "Magic of Placements" or to continue with "Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol. 4" (I was stuck there at around problem 150).

Remember, if you start studying tesuji to overcome your major weakness, you cannot expect quick improvment. It is rather a long-term time investment, but at the end it will pay off.

Hello!
I can really relate to the issues brought forth this thread and Embers (and others) description of the downvard spiral of one’s motivation – lack of time, frustration of not living up to the goals you have set upon yourself.. and in similar sense I feel that I might lack some crucial knowledge that is needed to make a more efficient transition towards lover kyu-levels/shodan. But at the same time I feel there's lots of positive energy in this thread as well!

Karaklis, nice info on different problem books!
Is there anyone who can comment on the range and variation of the problems included in the Smartgo Kifu app on ipad? How well does the library of problems in the app compare with above mentioned books? Maybe it's a good idea to complement with a problem book even though you use Smartgo Kifu?

/Fredrik

I do the same. I have a list of Takagawa-Kitani games only for this purpose.

A small point of solace you (and others who empathize with this point) may take:

Virtually all of the greatest and most memorable moves ever played in go history (Shusaku's B127, Shusai's W160, Jowa's ghost moves, etc), were made in the context of "a player has made a mistake and fallen behind, their brilliant play is what enables them to equalize and edge out a narrow victory."

Instead of getting down on yourself for making a blunder, think of it as providing yourself with the opportunity to find great moves (=

Hi Fredrik, I'm currently 7 kyu in KGS, and I can get by with SmartGo Kifu's problems at around 8k, where I get around 75% right on the first try

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net