Hi everybody,
Please could you share your experiences with memorising, playing over and/or studying pro games?

I'm not asking what you think is the best way to study, but I would like to know what you have already done and what you thought the effects were.

I have made another poll, but if you have anything to add to the data, please feel free to

I would ask players of below 5-kyu to kindly refrain from voting on this occasion, as you are probably improving so rapidly that it is difficult to speculate on the exact reasons.

My thanks as ever!

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Learn the "tea-stealing" tesuji! Cho Chikun demonstrates here:

I attribute most of my improvements to this. Pre-5k included!

From 18k to 12k: 75% of my study was the memorization of pro games. The rest was reading books (especially the Elementary Go series).

From 12k to 8k: James Davies' Tesuji was the biggest influence.

From 8k to 5k: Appreciating Famous Games was the key for me.

From 5k to 1k: Tsumego.

I also received lessons from Tsurukame 6d once a week. I don't remember what my starting and ending ranks were, but defintely DDK to high SDK. (18k to 8k or 5k perhaps). These were a lot of help too, but I'd count this in the realm of game review.

I'm now turning back to pro games, memorization (Multigo 4 has a nice format for this) and study with good commentary (Heart of Go Discovery Series). I'm also studying Joseki (a weak point of mine) and lots of Tsumego. I like to mix it up and study whatever I'm most interested in at the time.

Playing games has never been an important part of my studies. I try to play a few games a week, but I like lots of thinking time and it can be difficult to commit (I have 3 kids: 6yo, 2yo, & 3wo).

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How or how much?

I memorised too few professional games. I feel when I do it, it makes my game less confused and sharper. (I started recently.)

I played over many professional games during the last years without much effect at all. Intensity matters.