Well, I've been giving this some serious thought. And I may not be one of the first 2 pros, but I'd like to follow them. Since, as I'm currently aware, there is no age limit. The reason I've decided to try and accomplish this goal is because I'm in the ideal situation. Right now, I can study as much as I'd like for the most part.

So I was also thinking of devising a 2 year plan to reach KGS 9 Dan. It'll definitely be hard to attain that level in two years, but I don't think it's impossible. Well, some would say nothing is impossible. This is important because if I can hit that level and hold it on a consistent basis, I believe I'll be able to pass the US pro exam.

But the way I'm going to set it up is by giving myself landmarks throughout the following years. Example, attain level X by June 13. Or attain level Y by July 13.

I suppose it would be beneficial to have a teacher to guide me along through this endeavor, but I can't pay for one unfortunately.

I know my age is a huge detractor because I'm already 22, but I've decided not to let that prevent me from at least trying. Worst case scenario I try, and fail. But at least I can say that I tried. But as I've said, my age is my biggest concern here since I'm pretty sure they weren't trying to have 22 year olds become the first Pros.

So you may be wondering then why I have the ambition to become a professional player in the first place. Well I can say this, it's obviously not out of desire for a paycheck. The simple answer is this: I want to play a serious game with Lee Sedol and Iyama Yuta. Call me crazy. But I think it would be awesome to be able to play games with the some of the top professionals in the world (I guess you could say I have that Sai complex).

I'm not looking for approval, but I was wondering if the community at large would be willing to offer minimal assistance. I'm not trying to take anything for free or anything like that, but I was wondering if a stronger player could play teaching games with me every once in awhile on a semi-regular basis.

In addition to that, I'll be studying Go problems, reading the few books that I have, and I will play at least 10-20 serious games a day. But this is by no means a limiter. If I can play more, I probably will. I know some may think it a tad ridiculous for a 22 year old 7k to be talking about things like this, but I definitely feel I can achieve this goal if I put forth the effort. And I very much plan to.

The biggest thing I need to remind myself is: Rome wasn't built in a day. I'll suffer setbacks. I'll lose a lot of games. I'll make a lot of dumb mistakes. I'll misread. I might even lose on time sometimes. There might be days where I get very frustrated. So these are things I already know will be waiting for me. Two years might be too short a time. It might be more than enough time.

Regardless, this is definitely something I want to do. And this isn't an idea that struck me this morning when I woke up. This is something that's been on my mind ever since the first whispers were heard of a USA Pro scene.

But now I get to my biggest point. As I've said before, my biggest concern is my age. Regardless of whether I get a yes or no to this, I'm still going to try. But it is something that will undoubtedly be asked: Am I too old? That is literally my biggest fear. I'm not afraid to try and fail because I know the odds are already not in my favor. So yeah, age is my biggest concern.

So at least until I find a job or finally decide to go to college, I've got an infinite amount of time I can devote to this. And even once those things begin, I'll work Go around it. Maybe I'm just a little psycho to expect this to work, but oh well.

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Slava Ukraini!

I can't possibly talk about Go in particular, but there are certainly some other areas where to be a success requires, allegedly, that one begins learning as a child. However, this does not always hold true.



As you can see your age must not be your biggest concern but rather readiness to invest an enormous amount of effort aspiring to accomplish something you can never be sure of whether it is possible until after you've actually done it.

Incidentally, I began learning the language I'm especially interested in when I was 22. Will I ever achieve native-like competence in it - I can't answer it yet. Have I ever regretted putting all my energy into doing something I really like - definitely not.

Hope this helps somehow, although I'm fairly sceptical about it.

I wouldn't even consider the possibility of becoming a pro unless I was at least 8d kgs. And 8d kgs is probably a bit too weak to become pro.

And 10-20 serious games a day, really? If they really are serious games, you could probably keep your concentration for a maximum of 5 games and each of them would probably be around 1-2 hours at least.

You'll probably be like 1d-5d kgs in 2 years if all you do is an hour of go problems and play a few games everyday.

Even Go Seigen and Lee Changho needed like 3 years from starting go to become pros and they're considered some of the best go players ever.

I'll play with you (at least until you become to strong to play me). I think you can do it if you put your mind to it.

Well, that's why I said my primary goal for the 2 years was to reach 9 Dan on KGS and hold it consistently. Since pros often play on KGS, I imagine I'll have to play them to continually hold that rank for a decent amount of time. If I fail in this regard, so be it. I'll add two more years. I'm not afraid to fail, honestly. At the end of the day, I'll have fun trying to reach the goal, nonetheless.

Also, you're right, 10-20 games is probably too many. I got a little carried away in that regard. Originally I wanted to say 5-10, but I changed it for some weird reason.

I also think I may try getting into Guo Juan's school some time in the future to improve my studies.

As for the 2 year thing, I probably should have said that's a rough estimation. But believe me, I know people can play for years and never even reach 1 Dan. I'm not trying to say this is going to be a cakewalk. I understand this is going to be very, very difficult. Especially to reach 9 Dan on KGS in around 2 years.

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Slava Ukraini!

I agree with Eizero - there's really not much use in setting deadlines and not much point in planning until you are quite strong (I am a bit more optimistic, though, KGS 6d or so might be enough to start planning seriously). It took me 2 years to get to 1d from about 14k, and I'm maybe 2 stones stronger now than I was back then (about 3 years ago). There really is no way to tell what your rate of progress in the dans will be until you already made the progress.

I seriously don't think it's possible to reach KGS 9d in 2 years.

Well, I'll concede that Eizero could be right. I imagine this goal as a sort of New Year's resolution. I'm going to work to reach the goal as hard as I can. If I fall short, that is fine. There is always more time to devote in reaching the goal. Maybe 2 years isn't enough. But that is my goal. Whether I reach that goal remains to be seen. Will I be upset if I fail to reach it? No, not if setting this goal has helped me to improve considerably or if I have closed in on that goal at a decent enough rate.

The reason I set the bar there though is that it gives me something to set my eyes on. My first goal when I began playing was to reach SDK. It took some time (mainly because I treated Go as a secondary hobby for a very long time) but I achieved it. And this was a goal I set back at 22k.

The journey is more important than the end or the start.

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Slava Ukraini!

amen. If you listen to nay Sayers you would not even take the first step, and you would have failed before you started.

I wish you the best in your journey. At least by trying, you will know how far you can go and that carries its own great reward.

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Michael Dobbins; Dragon: mdobbins, KGS: mgd, AGA#: 4253,
My Website

I think there is space for naysayers in this thread.

I believe you should set lofty goals for yourself and aspire to be as strong as possible at go, or whatever else you like to do.

That said, you are 22 and by your own admission unemployed. You should not let your love of go distract you from other priorities in life. If you were currently 7d+ on KGS then maybe there is a chance that with 2 years of intensive training you could be a professional but this is not your situation.

It is important to reach milestones in things like education and career early in life, so that you can maximise their benefit over time. With go, the timeline for achieving your goals is not similarly weighted.

Become a relatively strong dan player as fast as possible. Maybe about 3-4d kgs. Then try to get into Guo Juan's school project and go to China and study there for the remaining time. Also, age shouldn't be the barrier holding you or anyone else back from anything. It's devotion, time, method and materials. You can become native speaker in a language like Japanese in less than 2 years for sure. You just need the right methods and the means of sticking to the plan.

Have you seen this blog? http://gooften.net/

Antti Törmänen spent about 6 months training as an insei in Japan and writing about it. I think it's fun to read just for the culture & stories, but if you're curious how aspiring pros train that's probably a good place to look.

Benjamin Teuber spent about 3 months training with insei and wrote about it on SL, maybe you've seen it already:

http://senseis.xmp.net/?BenjaminTeuber% ... comeStrong

Well, I'll be starting college in the fall, and I'm actively searching for a job right now. However, I did say my slate was entirely clean until these things happened.

Of course I'm not going to abandon responsibilities and things that I need to do to play Go. I never said that. But I do understand what you're saying nonetheless.

I guess now I'm starting to second guess myself. Maybe expecting results like what I'm aiming for is in fact ludicrous. I dunno. However, I'm going to keep trying until I either succeed, or it just isn't feasible anymore. And of course I'll still do the things that I need to do as well. For now, I'll work hard, but also get enjoyment out of playing and studying.

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Slava Ukraini!

Thanks, I'll be sure to give this a look.

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Slava Ukraini!

Greetings,
for what it's worth , you cannot become native speaker level in Japanese n two years. The US state department has rankings for the relative difficulty of acquiring languages because there is a need to set time frames for overseas
personel.
Japanese is right up the top of the list with other difficult and time consuming languages. One of the problems is that it takes more than two years to achieve competency in the kanji. It is not a question of finding the right memory systems either. I used the widely recognized kanji memory system by Heisig which saves years and it still took me three and a half years to learn 3500 kanji. One cannot argue that only the joyoukanji are necessary since the argument posited native speaker levels.
I am a novice at Igo but very familiar with these kinds of goal setting debates through other professions.There is a very interesting book called 'The Talent Code,' which presents a variety of case studies and data to make the case that mastering an advanced ,complex skill takes around 10 000 hours. Even cases of prodigies in the field of music , such as that of Mozart, when examined in more detail correlate very well with this hypothesis.
In the case of Igo then, that would be how many hours a day?
Furthermore, the flaw in the theory is that it presupposes a virtually error free and systematic learning process. In most fields of endeavor one almost invariably learns bad habits through bad or no tuition in the early stages. In some instances these are literally unnunlearnable. Even if they can be corrected this adds a huge amount of time and stress to the process. 100000 hours becomes a myth.
If one is banging out games of Igo with other low rank players hour after hour one is deeply consolidating horrible errors. I know this from experience, but think how bad it could get on ten hours a day. An equal , moderate balance of study ,games and the guidance of a good teacher are necessary for just about everyone. Furthermore the nature of learning is such that one needs to take time out for information to be observed and structured mentally. We just aren't designed to go non-stop without crashing. Hence cramming before exams and then never wanting to study again....
So when it comes to setting goals it is not so much a question of naysaying as saying 'think very carefully abut how the world works and adjust ones ambitions accordingly. 'It may well be a possible goal to become a pro although a look at the data on what age pros start might be important or might not.
But focusing on time as a goalas much as the Igo is what is referred to in Alexander Technique as 'end-gaining. 'One is so focused on a hypothetical situation that the present moment assumes second place. In such a state very little effective learning can take place.
Anyways, try to become a pro before I die so I can cheer you on.
Cheers,
Buri

Thank you for your insight. It has really been beneficial to post this and see what people have to say. I don't want to just devalue these things and brush them off because that would be silly.

Although it might be silly for me to assume 2 years is enough time to become pro level given that I will eventually have school and work to compete with it.

Maybe 6 years would be a better estimation. But I'm going to focus on what is going on right now and try to improve as much as I can. Once I'm better off financially, I plan on getting pro instruction, and more Go books to help with my studies.

Until then my regimen will focus mainly on playing games, getting a better grasp for shape, solving life and death, and losing over 1000 games in the process.

It may very well be an impossibility for me to do it at all. But if I were to say today, "it's impossible. I give up." One day when I'm 50+ I might really regret the decision to not even give it a try. I know nobody has really said give up, per se, but that's my opinion on it nonetheless.

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Slava Ukraini!

Best of luck with it hailthorn.

Greetings,
of course you should go for it. Just prioritize family's, love friendship and work at the same time. Life has never been easy.
Why plan on losing a thousand games? I bought into the myth that one should lose a lot of games at the beginning to learn. After the first 150 or so it became depressing. With good teaching and correct study one should not be on a long losing streak in the lower rankings. It is not healthy and certainly isn't t the path to becoming a pros.
Cheers,
Buri

When I said lose thousands of games, it was meant as tongue and cheek. But if I'm going to try and reach pro level, I'm invariably going to lose thousands of games. But I treat losses as learning tools. I use the Idiotbot as a way to blow off steam, too. I'd rather sandbag a computer than humans, after all. <<

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Slava Ukraini!

I suggest you consider my previous advice if you really want to become pro, but in addition to that, I know you only play on KGS. I think forcing yourself to play on tygem atleast 30% of your games will help you alot. Remember to always review your games, especially the ones you lost.

From tchan001's blog: http://www.igoindonesia.org/tutorial-go ... -hard.html

I can't vouch for its accuracy being as weak as I am but I found it quite interesting. Note the time he estimates to go from 2d to 8d.