Probably a few month, not earlier than april next year.


I have both mlesniak.com and mlesniak.de (and a few others which are more or less empty but do not sound go-like enough) and had a wordpress blog with sgf support on it. I'd simply like to have something separate from this with a nice name. But before someone else will do this job (and invest his time) I'll do it on my own. Given the current prices for webhosting with php support maybe another domain would be a viable option.

But I thank you for your generous offer! It's nice to get the warm fuzzy feeling that others would be willing to support me!

Cheers,
Michael

_________________
Go is easy: don't play bad moves.

Hey Michael,

Just a random thought, but how about becoming a writer at Go Game Guru? I could make an account for you and then all the infrastructure is already in place, so you could focus more on studying (one month will go very quickly, so I'd recommend you try not to get bogged down making websites work properly).

We have a large existing audience, a fast site and we can handle a lot of readers. And, of course, we're already setup to publish sgf files and things. The other good option is to post everything here on L19 for the same reasons.

I know you said Go Game Guru was the wrong place to ask about getting better at Go, but we've just published a slightly epic post about that exact topic, so I hope you've at least had a quick look at what we think. I tend to lean more towards deliberate practice in my thinking too, so you should see that coming through in the article.

I wouldn't have time to play teaching games with you myself, but if you wanted to go ahead with this I'd be happy to help mentor/coach you throughout your experiment . I don't mean Go stuff so much, though I can help with that too (if you're getting a Go teacher it might get confusing if we give too much conflicting advice in just one month though).

I'm talking about the mental and physical side of things beyond Go (like the stuff that the guy was talking about in the 99% video you mentioned). That's something I'm very interested in too, so I've read a fair bit about it. I could help you come up with a daily routine if you wanted. I could also find time to review two or three games per week by email.

Anyway, if you want to talk more about this, I'll reply to you here or you can get our email address at http://gogameguru.com/contact/

Regarding the other issues that have come up in this thread, here's my 2 cents...

I don't think going overseas will be a significant benefit at your current level. You can do what you need to do at home, and in many ways that will be much better given your timeframe. Being in a familiar and supportive environment can help too.

I agree that a strong dan player who can spend more time with you (given your budget) is a better option as a teacher right now. You still want them to be strong enough that you can benefit from the 'learning by osmosis' factor of playing a much stronger player. However, make sure they know how to teach, that's critical.

EDIT: On second thoughts, I had lessons with Yilun Yang for awhile before I started studying with Younggil. Mr Yang's lessons are very affordable and he is an excellent teacher. He explains things more effectively and clearly than most teachers with his general principle approach. I think he might be a good option for you if he has time. An Younggil is also an excellent teacher (I prefer him to Mr Yang) but he's not actively looking for students now because he has enough already. We could see if he's interested in teaching you though (as part of everything else) if you're interested.

For measuring your progress, speed tests with standard problem books sound like an interesting and (kind of) fun idea. To point out the obvious, if you're going to be playing most of your practise games on KGS, how about using the rank graph as one measure? That's about the only thing it could be even partially useful for... It's an automated measure, so you can spend more time on other stuff.

If you do that though, you do need to learn not to care what your rank is throughout this one month.

David

P.S. I learned some Haskell at uni, thought I've no doubt forgotten most of it by now. Cool language .

_________________
David

Go Game Guru: Learn Go | How to Get Better at Go | Go Game Shop | Go Boards | Baduk TV

That sounds like a good idea. I'll consider this as another option. although I'm not sure my english is sufficient for a quite professional looking blog. But isn't gogameguru (besides the quite great and uninteresting article on improvement) mainly a side about Go news?).


That was definitely an interesting article!


This would be great, thanks for the generous offer! Could you write about your ideas for a daily routine as a reply to my initial



That sounds right. Going overseas as a n-dan seems to have a better price/learning ratio.


Yes, I'm very sensitive to the didactic part, both in self-learning (where it correlates with deliberate practice (I think)) and regarding a good teacher. Although I've mentioned it above, Graham (topazg) was great in this respect.


I've searched for Yang's homepage to see prices, etc... but did not found anything. Do you know where I can find something (and maybe other testimonials besides http://www.terrischurter.com/Site/Yilun_Yang.html ?


The problem I have with the rank graph is that it measures my whole game performance. This gives for example bad/no feedback on how my knowledge about important strategic points has improved. I could have gained a lot of this knowledge but since my endgame play is bad I could still loose a lot of games (bad example, but you should get the point).


Besides the fact that I'll probably loose a few stones when I'm filling my brain with a lot of go knowledge in this amount of time, why do you think that?


Yes, it's a great language. It's a pity that many features will probably never be used in a mainstream language because they are too difficult to comprehend for John Doe

Thanks for your elaborate and informative post!

I'll be on vacation for the next two weeks so don't expect any answers to my post in the next weeks. I'll be happy to discuss your (and any other posts of course) after my vacation.

Cheers,
Michael

_________________
Go is easy: don't play bad moves.

Wordpress with the Eidogo plugin?

Great, good idea. Thanks!

- Michael

_________________
Go is easy: don't play bad moves.

What an attractive idea.

If I were doing it, I think I'd do something like this:

Monday - Friday
6 am -- walk / run the dog.
7 am -- meditate and practice aikido.
8 am -- eat breakfast.
9 am -- do tsumego and joseki study in alternating bursts. Use whatever psychological leverage you can -- finish with some easy stuff, perhaps?
10 am -- play through a pro game, ignoring the commentary.
12 noon -- walk / run the dog.
1 pm -- eat lunch.
Mon: 2 pm -- play a serious game online.
Tue: 2 pm -- take four high-level games with similar opening, and play through the first 50 moves, over and over.
Wed: 2 pm -- play a serious game online.
Thu: 2 pm -- take a close high-level game, and play through the last 50 moves, to study endgame.
Fri: 2 pm -- play a serious game online.
4 pm -- do laundry, clean the house, or whatever daily chores need to be done.
5 pm -- eat dinner, start the dishwasher.
6 pm -- chat with supportive girlfriend.
7 pm -- play through a pro game, ignoring the commentary.
9 pm -- walk / run the dog.
10 pm -- go to sleep.

Saturday
6 am -- walk / run the dog.
7 am -- meditate and practice aikido.
8 am -- eat breakfast.
9 am -- play a serious game online.
11 am -- picnic lunch with dog and supportive girlfriend.
1 pm -- play a serious face-to-face game at the go club, complete with review.
5 pm -- dinner, load the dishwasher.
6 pm -- chat with supportive girlfriend.
7 pm -- 1/2 hour of tsumego and joseki tutor.
7:30 pm -- Do a review for GTL. Perhaps take a game that was reviewed by someone 4 or 5 stones stronger than you are, then do your own review, and compare your review to that of the stronger player.
9 pm -- walk / run the dog.
10 pm -- go to sleep.

Sunday
6 am -- walk / run the dog.
7 am -- meditate and practice aikido.
8 am -- eat breakfast.
9 am -- finish the GTL review you started last night, or look through it and see if it still makes sense now that you've had some sleep.
10 am -- review the games you played online over the past week, looking for moves you made that show your growing understanding.
12 noon -- picnic lunch with dog and supportive girlfriend.
2 pm -- 1/2 hour of tsumego and joseki tutor.
2:30 pm -- play a blitz game online. (Stay calm under time pressure is part of the game, so recite to yourself from Yagyu Munenori's Household Transmission on Swordfighting, and use a biofeedback device or something to learn to keep your pulse down.)
3 pm -- meditate, and compose yourself for your pro lesson.
4 pm -- meet the pro online, maybe with a video recorder on, so you can review later.
5 pm -- eat dinner, and load the dishwasher.
6 pm -- stroll with dog and supportive girlfriend.
7 pm -- review the pro lesson. Briefly make notes on how the week has gone. Answer email.
8 pm -- turn off the computer. Soak in the bath.
9 pm -- walk / run the dog.
10 pm -- go to sleep.

Looks like about 7 hours of study most days. (Hmmm... maybe I could do something like this, too. I think I'd want to start right after the monthly tournament in Seattle, and then see how I do in the tournament the following month.) Anyway, best of luck to you!

_________________
AGA membership customer service rep -- database@usgo.org
AGA Members Area: https://usgo.org/members

@hilltopgo
I doubt that studying Go 7 days a week for a whole month will be that productive. I would at least take 1 day per week off. Breaks are important and i think with 1 day off per week, you will have much more energy on the other 6.

Even if going to the baduk center in budapest is not an option, i would take a look at their schedule:
Baduk Center Schedule
Notice, that there is also one day completly off (sunday) and one day a lot more casual (saturday) per week.
Also i believe, that as professionals they know a lot on how a good schedule for intense studying over a longer timeframe should look. After all, that isn't much different from what inseis do, isn't it?

I think you could use the schedule from the baduk center as a guideline when creating your own.

_________________
Magics way up the hill (personal study journal)

Your English seems more than good enough to me. Anyway, that's why I'm the editor. You can just publish your articles and if there are any significant errors I'll fix them for you.

It certainly looks like that because news articles are short and news is fast moving. It tends to bury the other stuff .

However, it was never the intention that it would only be about news. For example, have a look at commented games and get better at go for starters.

Of course, if anyone else out there wants to jump on board, you just have to contact us with your ideas.

Sure .
It would have to be tailored to your circumstances and goals, so I'd have to discuss things with you further, but here's the gist of what I had in mind:

It's a two day alternating schedule with one rest day of your choice each week.

Day 1

• Breakfast (we can talk about diet later)
• Quick walk with dog (or alone)
• Practice visualization techniques ~15mins (elite athletes spend a lot more time doing this, but you still need to spend more time on Go technique)
• Go problems - A mix of fast tesuji/tsumego and slightly more challenging tsumego - absolute max 2hrs
• Take a break, stretch, eat some fruit ~10mins
• Play a serious game - you have plenty of time, try to make it a slow one.
• Take a break, stretch, eat some fruit ~10mins
• Review your game - this includes looking up joseki if you think that would help(optionally review it in an editor and send your review with comments to a stronger player)
• If there's time before lunch, play and review another game as above (serious games and reviews could take about to 2hrs total)
• Lunchtime
• Take the dog for a long walk30mins-1hr
• Play and review another game
• Take a break, stretch, eat some fruit, surf the net, do household chores 30mins-1hr
• Free study - read a Go book you're interested in (I recommend you focus on middle game and tesuji for the month), do some more problems if you feel your brain can still take it. 1-2hours
• You're done for the day, chill out and give your brain a rest

Day 2

• Breakfast
• Quick walk with dog (or alone)
• Practice visualization techniques ~15mins
• Play a serious game
• Take a break, stretch, eat some fruit ~10mins
• Review your game
• Take a break, stretch, eat some fruit ~10mins
• Go problems absolute max 2hrs
• Take a break, stretch, eat some fruit ~10mins
• If there's time before exercise, play and review another game as above
• Exercise 30mins-1hr
• Shower
• Lunchtime
• Write blog
• Check/send emails etc <30mins
• Take a break from the computer clean up the house and stuff
• Free study
• You're done for the day, spend some time with your girlfriend

Well you could ask some people who've read his books or seen his KGS plus lectures. I'm happy to give you a positive testimonial too.

Because obsessing with rank is one of the things that makes people fear losing (and then even playing) and fear will make you weaker and negatively affect your study too.



Have a great vacation .


It would have to be self hosted Wordpress because wordpress.com doesn't let you install plugins. I just think it's not worth getting into that for a short term project, because it always takes longer than you think it should...

_________________
David

Go Game Guru: Learn Go | How to Get Better at Go | Go Game Shop | Go Boards | Baduk TV

Torture.

On a serious note, I'd probably use some of the money for Guo Juan's Audio Lessons. They're just €1 a piece and resemble a "real" lesson for a fraction of what you'd pay for a one-on-one session.

I've been thinking about a serious training plan too, but whenever I tackle it, I end up burning myself out. I always tend to drift away from my attempts of study plans, e.g. suddenly find great interest in playing 9x9 instead of doing tsumego or playing full-sized games.

Thanks for the mention of "Talent is Overrated". I've picked up a copy of that book.