16 hours per day should be the aim, but 14 are acceptable.

Actually reports by fast improving players are pretty different. A very few have claimed almost not to have studied at all. A few say 7 or 9 hours. The majority seems to be in the eat, sleep or study camp. The 16 or (on lazy days) 14 hours are my experience.

Physical exercise and well being is also more important than many Go players give it credit for. 16 hours of study operating at low efficiency is always going to be a waste of time. It's better to take some time out of that to exercise, eat well, sleep and give your brain time to consolidate things.

with a few breaks to watch a game or two.

I'm trying to completely consume Graded Go Problems III until I can instantly see the solution to each problem. I've been doing this for six weeks and I think it will take me another six weeks.

Maybe you're doing this for fun, but I think most people will tell you that watching amateur players won't make you stronger.



I think this might be more effective if you were spending time with other tsumego sets in between each run-through of GGP3. There's always a question with tsumego as to whether your reading is becoming lightning-quick, or you're just memorizing the problem. Former good, latter bad; especially a problem with the GGPFB books because every problem has a verbal prompt.

a) The obvious one: Replaying and memorizing professional games takes a lot of time. When I would sit down and do this, I could easily do a bunch of Tsumegos, play a game and get it reviewed in the meantime instead.
So if you really want to follow this approach, be sure about two things: You have the necessary spare time and you will have to do it for a considerable amount of time, respective amount of professional games. Otherwise there will be almost no effect.

b) Understanding or just copying? Depending on your rank there will be a high chance that you will not understand every move of the game you're replaying. This strongly applies to most games with comments from internet sources, where it just says "A sharp move!" and offers maybe one variation every fifty moves. Printed books (e.g. Invincible or books by John Fairbairn) are a lot better in this regard.
The point here is: Copying moves does not enrich your play. The idea behind replaying professional games is not to be able to copy the moves but to understand why the players played the way they did, what a certain move should achieve, what they plan and so on. In the long shot you should get a broader view of the Go board to better assess the position and play according to a strategy: That is, shape, direction and flow.

c) If you have read Attack and Defense, you will have noticed that there are also quite a few professional games to illustrate certain principles. I really like this approach and that is at the same time a downside in replaying ("raw") professional games. Most of the time you don't have a focus on certain aspects, you just replay and memorize. So you can't tell - in general - what a game has taught or will teach you if you did not focus on it in the first place. To do so requires some thoughts before you even start looking at the game: What do you want to learn? And if you have a clear conscience, why don't you buy a book, which is specialized on this particular matter in the first place? (Like Attack and Defense.)

And for memorizing Tsumegos, I think it's a good way to internalize basic shapes. So everything up to Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol. 4 will often come up in your game, so why is it bad to know in an instant where to move?

Hey SDN, I'm sure you're more qualified to give advice than I am, but I think you misunderstood what I said.

First, I wasn't saying singular should play through pro games, I was saying he shouldn't watch amateur games (for improvement, that is... obviously it's a ton of fun, and I do it all the time).

Second, the inutility of copying moves was my point. If you redo a set of tsumego immediately after the you finish it, especially when each problem has a verbal cue, you are likely to remember the solution because you remember it, rather than because you have internalized the principles that make it the solution. If you are only remembering the solution, rather than how to find the solution, then you won't be able to handle a similar situation in a game.

If you actually disagree with me, I would love for you to explain why I'm wrong.

Hey SDN, I'm sure you're more qualified to give advice than I am, but I think you misunderstood what I said.

First, I wasn't saying singular should play through pro games, I was saying he shouldn't watch amateur games (for improvement, that is... obviously it's a ton of fun, and I do it all the time).

Second, the inutility of copying moves was my point. If you redo a set of tsumego immediately after the you finish it, especially when each problem has a verbal cue, you are likely to remember the solution because you remember it, rather than because you have internalized the principles that make it the solution. If you are only remembering the solution, rather than how to find the solution, then you won't be able to handle a similar situation in a game.

If you actually disagree with me, I would love for you to explain why I'm wrong.

I am not sure that replaying - or better: memorizing - professional games doesn't help improving your play. In another thread we had this discussion, and especially this posting by a 5d makes me sure that memorizing pro games is an efficient way of studying. Once I've found back my motivation, this will surely be part of my studies.