According to KGS Analytics, I'm going to finish the year (assuming I don't play any more games today, which is likely), with 417 wins for 419 losses (ranked games only; 488-506 if I count free games, which I play, at times, to try new stuff out). I don't know what that says, other than that, while my rank increased about a stone and a half, I guess I was evenly ranked by KGS during the entire period.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

with my main account :
ranked : 241 wins, 162 losses
all: 384 wins, 291 losses

with my drunk/ill/bah account :
ranked: 130 wins, 96 losses
all: 159 wins, 119 losses

so a total of 543 wins and 410 losses, making 953 games. I won't try to estimate the time elapsed, that would be too scary.

I had exactly one loss against you.


Now, what does all that mean ? Probably not much.

Nearly 1000 games, given that I often play fast-ish games, probably comes to around 20-30 minutes a game. So that's between 300 and 500 hours... A lot of time for a hobby.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

http://kgs.gosquares.net/index.rhtml.en?id=perception
My record starting from when I registered my account on kgs in December 2009 is 60 wins to 47 losses. So that's 107 games total and I've gone from around 21k to around 1k in that time.

Is it? About 8 hours per week, on average...

I always wonder about time spent (invested? wasted?) on Go-related activities. Is it a worthwhile use of time? I guess it depends on what you get out of it (pleasure, excitement, improvement, camaraderie, intellectual stimulation, etc.) and what you may be giving up -- the opportunity cost of that time, if you will. What might you do with those hours... A different hobby? Family/relationships? Work/earning money? Books/education? The list is virtually endless. So those hours of Go, I think, are only a lot of time if you are losing something of greater value.

My numbers (hours of Go) are much, much lower... which (I hope accurately) reflects that other activities are of greater value for me these days.

To be fair, I have an advantage that many others don't; I work at home, as a freelancer, and I have enough free time during the day to play a couple of games every day (on average). So I'm not limited to evenings; in fact, I hardly ever play in the evening. I often use go as a way to take a break from work, so I'm not really losing anything by playing go.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

One interesting thing I learned from KGS analytics: I've won 63% of my games vs. weaker players, but only 43% vs. stronger players, even with handicap & komi adjustment (mostly no komi games, I rarely play handicap on KGS). This seems to suggest maybe the rank gaps are a bit larger than they should be: some of the people who gave me no-komi should probably have given me two stones, and some of the people I gave no komi should have taken two stones. I wonder if others have this pattern?

http://kgs.gosquares.net/index.rhtml.en?id=greendemon&r=1

I'm 55% vs weaker players, and only 42% against stronger players. I don't exactly know what that means, but I very rarely play and handicap games, so that's generally within one stone.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

Main account:
306-133 ~70%

Would get stats for my alt account, but can't look them up on KGS because of the ridiculous request quota for game records.

Also fun to note, went from 12k to 1k this year

Main account: (10 min games): 99 - 68 (59%)

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For me in 2010: W 59 / L 23 / P 72%

this is a common phenomen, since usual handicap system is actually half stone smaller than it should be for even chances - check senseis for more

my statistics are 51% with handicap and 72% against handicap. but more interesting is that i have only over 900 games in total (since 2008-04), and in comparison with kirkmc's statistics it indicates i should train harder

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

I only play on DGS and mostly only with friends in non-serious games. Last year I had 80 wins and 43 losses for about a 65% record.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

All
312 - 91 (77%)

Black
144 - 36 (80%)

White
168 - 55 (75%)

Against H.
10 - 11 (48%)

DGS: 35/85 wins. Winning percentage 49% as black, 35% as white. Rank plummeted two stones.

While I didn't play on KGS for most of this year, recent data indicates I'm in the 4 kyu range, for a gain of two stones since last winter.

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So you've got an eye?
That don't impress me much

On KGS, I had 416 wins to 381 losses in ranked games(52%), going up one rank(1k to 1d).

Amazing. What did you do (other than playing) to achieve this in such a short time? Or have you played mainly on other servers or IRL?

I do not think this is particularly short. I went from beginner to shodan in a little over two years and it was considered to be a little slow. And that was in the days of only playing once a week in the local club. These days, with 24x7 internet go, I would say that it is very eady to reach shodan in one year.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Hooey. Most players don't reach KGS 1k in a year. Perhaps most don't even reach KGS 1k. So it's not easy.

Perhaps you think it's easy for someone with talent, or someone who tries hard, or someone who studies the right way. But those really aren't what easy means by itself.

I think amazing isn't quite right, but easy is just as far off.

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Occupy Babel!

I think I could have probably made it to shodan by now but I took a bit of a break during the summer and only played a handful of games during that time (I stopped going to the local club and studying on my own as well). I also should have played more games. Even including the games that I played in real life at the club my total is still less than 175 or 200.

All I really did other than playing a few games is play through pro games; only Shusaku's games as the only game collection I had until recently was Invincible. For tsumego I had the 6 volume Lee Changho life and death series which I've been through the first 4 volumes of 5 - 6 times each and the 5th volume 3 times. I just finished the 6th volume for the first time today and on Wednesday this week I got the Lee Changho tesuji series (I'm up to volume 5 out of 6).

I also have Modern Joseki and Fuseki volumes 1 and 2 and The Middle Game of Go by Sakata Eio and I've read all three of those 2 - 3 times each.

The only other books I had until recently were Tesuji by James Davies and Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go by Toshiro Kageyama. I've read each of those 3 or 4 times.

I got The Go Consultants and Kamakura as gifts for Christmas and I got some Japanese tsumego books on my trip to New York a few weeks ago although many of the problems are too difficult for me. I think that covers all the books I own and pretty much everything I've done to improve up to this point.

So I think if I had played more games I would have probably made more progress but I don't like playing online. I get very anxious when I'm playing someone that I can't see or haven't met before.