I sneakily made another account to try playing some games higher than my current rank, just to see how it was... So here is a 2k taking white no komi against me.


I'm a bit depressed, 'cause I lost, and I think this is about as well as I can play... It's not even close without me managing to snap his overplay near the end, and that wouldn't even have worked properly if he'd been thinking... I can work on endgame order so I don't lose sente so meaninglessly, but the early/mid ...

If you can point at specific areas of my game / types of moves I need to work hard on, it'd be much appreciated...

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Revisiting Go - Study Journal
My Programming Blog - About the evolution of my go bot.

I'm pretty weak, but I feel just by glancing at the opening, that you play moves which seem to hurt your own groups more than it helps you win. The problem started at R6 and L3. This was further aggravated by that P3. It seems like it was supposed to be a probe, but turned into a bad invasion(being greedy, trying to live everywhere, rather than poking your opponents to see where it's more profitable to live for you). You seemed to have been going for a moyo in the beginning, but instead it turned into a territorial game to which you were already behind.

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I know nothing.

Still not stronger than you, just my perspective =)

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

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There are many professional games where pros played "the wrong direction" simply because they had a plan. But I think you need to take sente somewhere to play lower right corner. Maybe like this? But I'm really sure this is not the point where you lost the game.

P.S.: 5k is not as weak as you think, maybe we sometimes feel like this because humans tend to always look up in the sky and not to ground

Indeed, don't be so hard on yourself. 5k is still my next 'Someday...' goal. =)

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

No offense meant to anyone who takes pride in being the rank they are, but I think you should seriously consider a stronger goal. I mean if you are going to set a goal in the first place, might as well make it at least 6-7d no? Aim high!

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I know nothing.

"nothing is wrong with being a pessimist. a pessimist is either always right, or pleasantly surprised."

jokes aside, my personally philosophy on goals is to have the top goal obviously, but set many smaller ones on the road to keep you going.

i'd post something relative to the game, but it is well above my skill level to comment on :/

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"Only a warrior chooses pacifism; others are condemned to it."

Of course every go players has the dream to become a 6 or 7 dan someday. I'd like to be german 6 dan, too
But I think it is very important to be proud of what you've achieved up to now. Ofc you shouldnt rest but use this energy to aim even higher.

Have you every considered how you looked up to those dan players when you were 15k ? Well I saw them like some kind of small gods, understanding so much more then me about the game I love. Well today I'm Shodan and now I know how wrong I was back then, when getting stronger you realise how much you dont know rather then knowing more and more, but I love the thought that I'm now one of those players I admired so much about 2 years ago. I hope this gives me the energy to grow even further.

Yeah, I like having a number of small goals, like one every 3 ranks. That essentially means that I will make it to the next plateau. The advantage of having small goals is that it gives you the satisfaction of achieving something, making it easier and more fun to keep working. If your goal was to become 6 dan, you could never feel accomplished until you got there. So while eventually I'd like to be 3 dan or so, I try to set smaller goals, then just make a bigger goal when I achieve them.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].