Indeed, I appreciated this at the time, and went through the book because it was good for me, but I still wasn't happy about it. This time the artificiality somehow stood out less to me. Maybe I've just done a lot of other tsumego in the meantime.

Meanwhile I was just going through a Jump Level Up book for some easy practice, and I think that the themed nature of the book, which is rightfully generally seen as a feature, is actually a bit of a negative point for me. If I see that a chapter is all about belly attachments, say, it's too tempting to glance at every problem and see what the answer (or first move, at least) must be. I still try to check my reading, but there's a lot less incentive to be diligent in the way I was describing above. So I think that these books that are organized by pattern are not good for me right now. I know all the fundamental patterns up to a certain level; what I need to work on is applying them accurately, reading out when a tempting move fails by one liberty, etc.

Hey, dfan! It's nice to hear from you. I am glad you are enjoying reading more.

The quoted statement above made me curious: while it is perfectly cool not to focus on rank, what was significant about 2016 through 2019 that's different than now?

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be immersed

Oh, it's just that that was a period when for various reasons I made a big concerted push to make a quantitative improvement to AGA 1d or so. And I did improve a lot, although my AGA rating doesn't reflect it - my online ranks are a lot stronger, I beat 1ds occasionally in casual games, and I know my knowledge and judgment have gone way up. But my relationship with go by 2019 or so became mostly about trying to prove that I could be as strong as I should be (whether that was rank or playing a praiseworthy game on AYD), which meant I was too invested in my results, which made me tense and frustrated. So now I am making an explicit effort to just enjoy the game. Enjoying still means thinking hard and learning and studying, but I'm trying hard not to grade myself by my results.

Gotcha. That is difficult for me to do. I am glad you are finding a way. These days, I am having a difficult time deciding how much to focus on work vs. go. Doing well at work is important for having an income, but I find more happiness studying go.

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be immersed

I did a new pass through the Jump Level Up books as a refresher. I didn't keep track of how well I did when I first did the books, but this time my scores were 95.5%, 94.6%, 95.3%, 94.8%, and 91.9%. So only the last book had appreciably harder problems (or maybe I was paying a little less attention).

I like books like this in principle (a prescribed graded syllabus in which each topic is presented and then drilled before moving on to the next one) but they're the wrong kind of book for me, at least right now. I already know all these SDK-level techniques (at least in theory), although getting a refresher was nice. And because the problems are grouped by technique, you usually know what the correct key move is likely to be before even bothering to do things like count liberties, and although of course you should still read things out, I lose a lot of motivation to do so. I could feel my reading skills atrophying as I went through these ~3000 problems, and it was kind of a relief to return to a regular tsumego book where I really have to work at the variations.

Meanwhile I've been playing on Fox. I had dropped down to 1d during the last year of playing an occasional game but not thinking much about Go, so that's where I started, but I went 16-1 at that level and double promoted to 3d. That can't all be due to my immense skill; I think Fox ranks have gotten softer. But one thing that I did feel like I was doing better this time was reading, and having confidence in my reading. If I think I've read out a local situation correctly, I trust it. This can occasionally lead to disaster but you learn more from that and getting actual negative feedback than from overprotecting things.

I also have acquired a new strategy of physically putting my hands in my pockets until the 10-second byo-yomi countdown starts (these are 30-second games), no matter how obvious my next move is. There's always something to look at. I'm sure it's annoying to some opponents but I definitely am noticing some opportunities that I would typically miss.

Most importantly, I'm enjoying playing.

It's possible that Fox ranks softened a bit. I got promoted to 3d last month after being stuck at 2d for 21 months (and still stuck at 2k+ on IGS for 18 months).