I tend to notice that when I learn a new topic, or on the verge of a new breakthrough, playstyle, et. al. I tend to lose a few stones in strength before effectively solidifying my play again. Anyone else do this? I know it's better for me in the long run, but it's still very frustrating to consistently lose games by 10 points or less...

Learning go has its ups and downs and, in fact, when we are learning something we tend to lose a few stones till we effectively use it.
"read a book, lose two stones" is a proverb over here (I don't think it was in asian tradition BTW).

You may want to check this post: http://www.alejostenuki.com/blog/835-how-do-go-players-think-of-themselves.html

You'll experience this bumps all over your go career...

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My blog about Go and Boardgames: Alejo's Tenuki

I really liked ths quote in your blog. For me it actually sums up what I love so much about Go: there are so many games within it. The only way to discover them is to improve, get stronger, understand my own thinking so I can realise the next layer of play/understanding. Then I start to see the shape of a new game.

It's amazing, and I guess for an amateur, it will keep happening forever.

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Confucius in the Analects says "even playing go is better than eating chips in front of tv all day." -- kivi

If:

• you play serious, reasonably timed, rated games, and
• all your opponents' ratings are fairly accurate (say, solid KGS 9k), and
• you consistently lose many more games to them than wins,

then, maybe your current rating (say 9k) is over-rated;
and you'll eventually drop to 10k or lower.
Until your win/loss ratio reaches ~50/50.

( And vice versa, of course. )

At the same time, yes, sometimes we do experience an apparent "dip" before we reach a higher level.

Only time can tell.

If you're only losing by around ten points most of the time, you're probably just unlucky.

I do experience that if I'm working hard to improve, my playing becomes unsure, experimental and initially very vulnerable to people without such weak feelings.

Just think of all the sweet revenge you will get when your improvement kicks in.

I know the frustration well - I was on a similar streak of close losses. I found that mentally it helped to go back over my games and see where/if I could have picked up the points. Studying endgame a bit more also helped. Counting during my games helps also (well it definitely does when I remember to do it ).

Re learning new things - I know I often am tempted to try something out as soon as I've learned it. In go though every rule or pattern comes with the caveat that context matters. The problem is that while you may have learned the new rule trick etc. you usually have no idea of the proper context to apply it. Sometimes this is an obvious thing - you try a play and find it doesn't work because of a random stone that wasn't in the memorized sequence. But other times it might be more subtle - you normally play solid but the cool new move is faster but leaves weaknesses that you don't know how to handle. For these more subtle cases, it can be difficult to recognize the reason why you are not doing better despite "improving" your game.

Finally, it's often easy to see a winning streak as a sign of improvement a loosing streak as a sign of getting weaker. The reality is though that learning one new factoid is only going to improve your winning chances by a few percent at best and that really you won't see the improvement in the next game or two but in the next 100 or so.

As the saying goes, It ain't what you don't know, it's what you know that ain't so.

Often advancement requires unlearning bad habits. Doing so can leave us at a loss, and lead to lost games, until we learn new and better habits.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.