Consider watching a few lectures on Guo Juan's website (you can watch them whenever you want). I found them particularly helpful around your level. Some free sample lectures are available here.

I've learned the hard way that being optimistic and telling yourself YOU CAN YOU CAN doesn't get you anything besides two cans of disappointment. That's why.

The choice isn't just extreme optimism or pessimism. Excluded middle etc, etc.

Obviously for a guy who posts such an introduction, he doesn't sound very optimistic about improving his game.


Sounds like learned helplessness.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

I think another source of inspiration for improvement is to read a few of the study journals on L19 and see the methods tried by our members to achieve their goals in the game.

_________________
http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

You're right, I'm not optimistic in the least. Optimism is that silly state of mind that only fools put themselves in.

Thank you, finally I know in which category to put myself



Greetings,

T m

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

I have been framed before for trying to tell what other people should do based on my own experiences, so I will simply put this idea out there.

I was stuck at 5k, 6k myself. What boosted me into the dans was this one book called Lessons in The Fundamentals of Go by Kageyama Toshiro. There is so much meaning in every page. I read it over like 10 times just for fun.

The only thing keeping you from going higher is most likely your fundamentals! you'll be surprised how much you don't know

My Background: I have went to play Go at a go club ~10 times in my whole life. I had private lessons from 22k to 5-6k. I surpassed my teacher who was 1k later. I played and watched Go online. That's it.

Reaching a barrier? Can't get stronger?
Go back to the fundamentals: Strategy, timing, and reading ability.

Correct your errors in strategy:
playing locally. Slow down and look at the whole board to find the best move.
going for a small immediate profit instead of going for the big points first.
Profit in gote. Live in gote. Consider what the opponent can do with sente.
Automatically going for territory instead of influence. Be patient.
To reach your goal have three ways to reach it. Then if your opponent takes one option away you still have two choices, two ways, to live, to connect, to escape, for example.

Read/study Breakthrough to Shodan.
Play urgent points before big points. Read it out. Visualize the opponents stone being there.
Don't let your opponent play BOTH points of miai.
Attaching the opponent's weak stone helps make it stronger. Playing back one space is an attack. Attaching is for your defense.
Make territory while attacking.
Consider playing at the other end of the group from where your opponent just played to get equal compensation.
Look at your groups. See who needs help. Then do double the work. Look at your opponent's groups. Who is vulnerable?
Consider the priority of moves, especially in yose: double sente, sente, reverse sente, gote and the point value and the value of the follow-up move.
Slow down to consider the balance of territory. Count. An imbalance of territory should guide your strategy: invasions, aggressively risky plays, safe plays.

Improve your reading ability. Slow down and read it out.

Study good shape (for eyes and for connections), tesuji, and life-and-death problems so you know some simple ones instantly, intuitively: eye-stealing placements, snap-back, etc.