I started playing about a month and a half ago, and I am only a lowly 23k, but I am thoroughly enjoying the game, and that's what is important . Hopefully this study journal will encourage me to stick with Go.

As a short term goal I aim to reach 5k (I've heard people say this is where you have achieved a good understanding of the fundamentals of the game) by the end of June, although I would be happy to just reach SDK... I guess it depends on how much I put into the game.

Study plan:

- 50 Tsumego problems/day. I really like goproblems.com as it automatically finds suitably strong problems.

- At least 7 KGS games per week. I'm going to start playing my games in the ASR league when possible.

- 2 correspondence Games on OGS at all times.

- 10 9x9 games per day

- Reading "The Second Book of Go" [37/153] although I find it very hard to read technical books, so the majority of my study will be from the tsumego and also online lectures such as Nick Sibicky's.


My main problem at the moment is knowing what to do when the objective is not clear: I'm ok when trying to kill or live, or secure probable territory, but balancing those out is difficult. I also make small moves, and have difficulty containing opponents


I have a game yesterday which shows this. I think I tried too hard to kill (I had been doing a lot of oiotoshi tsumego recently), and I made a few large blunders, but I really struggled to contain white. Any feedback would be appreciated:



Thanks!

I have not looked at the whole game, but only at the fight at the bottom.

I think your most pressing problem is lack of defense and shape. In order to attack your opponent your own groups have to be strong, otherwise the attack will backfire.

For example at move 22 you leave several cutting points at R4, Q5, O5 and N4 which all are direct ataris.
Fixing these cutting points would be really big moves. For example at Move38 you ask if there is a better move - there is, connecting at O5. This would secure your position and capture the white stones on the right.
Note that after O5 white can't cut your L2-group off. After white N4 you can play M5 to capture the cutting stone in a "net" (jap. geta). A basic tesuji, that as far as i remember is also part of the second book of go.

I know 19x19 games are more fun than 9x9 games, but i would really encourage you to at least include some 9x9 games into your schedule. This would be probably the best and fastest way for you to learn basic shapes and spot weak spots in your positions. The tsumego will help a lot, but most important is a lot of playing.

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Magics way up the hill (personal study journal)

Thanks for the advice! I have lost a few games recently due to what I thought were oversights, but it seems that was due to a lack of good shape knowledge. I will definitely add some 9x9 games in.

Hi Alex, welcome to Go. At your stage, it is hugely beneficial that you just play, play, and play.
Direct experience is very important for you, right now. You don't see basic ataris.
For example, after connects, your local shape is a disaster.
One of your first projects is to see basic ataris, double ataris. This is easier said than done -- as you'll find out soon enough !

I have been focusing on good shape much more recently thanks to your feedback, and playing a lot of 9x9 games. I don't have enough time to play 9x9 games as well as do tsumego, so I'm leaning more towards playing games (9x9 and 19x19) at the moment. I think my reading is much stronger than my position judgement and general strategy at the moment, and so I need to work on that.

I'm currently at 16k (although I'm not quite sure how, as I jumped from 21k to 17k after a single game with a 23k? player).

Here is a game I just played and lost (as black), and although we both made mistakes I made two huge blunders (I was playing in auto mode, even though I had seen the dangers) which I think lost me the game. I realise that I left a similar shape weakness to the first game I posted around move 11, but I think my shape is better in general. I live for moments like move 214 (although I'm sure it was obvious for everyone else). Even if I lose the game it was worth it for the satisfaction it gave me :

Big problems in this game:

• Basic shape problems.
• Very small and slow moves.
• Bad habits.

Thank you for all of the comments EdLee! They are very helpful. I know that my moves are very slow, but I'm finding it hard to make larger moves without sacrificing good shape. Is this something which comes with experience / something I can actively work on? I feel that playing many 9x9 games may have hurt me in this respect.