Good question. My best guess would be around three stones. (Zen is 6D on KGS which is roughly 5D EGF and he beats pros on 4H).

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

SoDesuNe, 3H is a nice goal. Good luck!

Which pro?

Good question. How about the current top 300.

Realistic?

6D or stronger kgs

Goal?

9p

I'd like to improve some.

I've taken a fairly slow path in Go (I started playing regularly in 2005), and despite my activity on the boards, I haven't done a lot of studying since 2008. I hope I'm not done getting better (edit: I'd like to get back to studying more. Maybe that is already a goal).

I'd also like to create tools that help people study and collaborate on Go.

_________________
Occupy Babel!

To understand the game.
To become consumed in the sheer complexity, simplicity, and beauty of the game.
To challenge myself.
To strengthen my intellectual and cognitive capacity.

I'm here to have fun and play. My "studying" is typically more play. I tried to be more serious at one point, but it just makes the game less fun for me.

It'd be nice to improve beyond where I stand right now, but I'm pretty comfy at the level of skill I've currently obtained. Eventually my experience will bump my skill level up, ever so slowly ...

People underestimate the strength of professional players:

http://www.361points.com/blog/2010/03/2 ... l-players/

Winning once isn't "beats pros on xy". The amateur players in the blogpost by Sorin are among European strongest with handicaps ranging from 2 (for 7 dan) to 4 (for 5 dan) all but one lose their games.

The more I read books and articles by professionals, the more I get the sense that they're baffled - completely baffled! - by the way we amateurs mistreat our groups and seem to willingly disregard 'obvious' key plays.

They're in a world of their own, and I think for the most par, in order to be that generalized, it has to be a difference not only in attitude, but instruction as well. This sharpness and understanding among pros has to come out of somewhere else than repeated tsumego.

Beat myself with a 9 stone handicap.

_________________
Slava Ukraini!

I think Zen is 2:1 on 19*19, but I could be mistaken. Then again - replying to your link - winning once isn't "beats amateuers on xy", is it? =P
Anyway, that's why I said "best guess" and "around three stones". We can make it four if you want. But beating a pro with 3 or 4 handicap stones isn't my goal in the first place, it's becoming 6D KGS, 5D EGF.

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

My goal is being able to consistently and correctly know which is the next "normal" move.

I feel that will be the moment when I'll start really enjoying the "better than normal" moves.

(Also, winning a tygem 9d with 9H.)

I have a sense of the amount of stuff I'd like to know (corner shapes, Joseki, reading strength, tesuji, etc) but I don't have a good way of articulating what strength I think that might be. I guess I'd like to learn that stuff, and get to just short of whatever strength it stops being interesting for me.

My goals in the game don't have a lot to do explicitly with becoming a stronger player. I primarily want to have more understanding of the game. I play mostly for social interaction with friends now. Some time ago there was a quote on SL from Kikuchi Yasuro, a famous Japanese amateur, to the effect that paying attention to moves that surprise you is a good way to grow as a player. That's what I enjoy, being surprised by a move and then figuring out what is going on.

I agree with Tapir's statement about pros' strength being underestimated by amateurs. When pros play teaching games giving handicaps they usually aren't playing the best they can and they even deliberately make mistakes to "test" the other player. Also, playing in an official setting or tournament is a different thing than informal games at a Congress or workshop.

Do you imagine that pros know this? I have my doubts. Better than normal to me is a fantasy, and even "avoiding abnormal" is unlikely to ever be reached.

Maybe we're not talking about the same "normal".

Having read hundreds of reviews by 5d+ (up to pro reviews), I've found very often the expression "the following moves are natural/normal" and then playing several consecutive moves with no explanation.

My objective is not to understand what a pro plays when both him and his opponent know the "natural" sequence; it's to know that sequence.

The "natural"/"normal" I'm speaking about is what I think separates 1d from 5d.

Have you asked your reviewer(s) for explanation of the normal moves and why they are normal?

As Robert has pointed out, which I agree with, the idea of "normal" is basically a fantasy. "Normal" to me means "Hand of God". Instead, I think you're referring to joseki sequences, in all the phases of the game.

My goal in go is to play a move like the famous m127 of the ear-reddening game against a pro and win. Maybe it's an unrealistic goal, but I'm a dreamer:)