Having recently decided to take up playing again after about a 10 year absence I thought I'd try and apply myself a bit more studiously this time around.

So...here's my initial thoughts for an improvement plan.

Reading
I've just finished a first read through of Cho Chikun; Go: A complete introduction to the game

Currently reading The Second Book of Go - Richard Bozulich
Learn to Play Go: Volume 2 - Janice Kim, Jeong Soo-hyun (had this from before along with Volumes 3 and 4)

I've started skimming the first parts of Opening Theory Made Easy and have Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go on order.

Problems
Graded Go Problems for Beginners, volume 1
Many Faces of Go v.11 Problem solving - difficulty level 'easy'

Playing
Have registered on both KGS and OGS servers and hope to play at least 5 games per week (probably small boards to start with) in addition to 9x9 and 13x13 games against the Many Faces of Go v11 software I've got from last time I played. I'll try and avoid playing too much against the computer however as I feel (rightly/wrongly?) that this may lead to bad habits.

I've rejoined the British Go Association and have just joined their 6 week Online Study Group so will hopefully have some further opportunities for games and reviews. I'm also going to try and get to a meeting of the local Go Club (though work commitments can make week night outings difficult).

Aims
I'm hoping to get back to around a 20kyu playing strength by the end of the first 6 weeks or so.

Sound like a reasonable plan? What else should/shouldn't I consider?

Good. Just play.

Seems to be a very good plan!
I would recommend to focus on Graded Go Problems For Beginners vol. 1 or problems in general in the beginning before taking too much time reading The Second Book of Go (which is quite good nevertheless) other theory books. The Learn to Play Go series is very good, too, and if you want to read in a specific order, I would recommend reading this book before The Second Book of Go.

20-kyu is definitely reasonable. Keep us posted and if you want, you can also post some lost games here for a review.

Good luck! =)

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Thanks both I'm trying to make sure I focus mainly on playing and problem solving, though I enjoy reading about the game too.

I've no doubt I'll have plenty of lost games to reflect on in no time at all...I'm taking some time after each game I play to look through and try and identify mistakes - some of which are obvious even to my untrained eye so hopefully I can start ironing those out.

Welcome back to the club!

Allow me to add my tuppence. In the long term, in conjunction with regular practice through solving Go puzzles and playing actual games, replaying pro games will be very helpful. If possible, acquire a collection of Shūsaku's games. Two books you may consider purchasing are 本因坊秀策全集 (Complete Collection of Hon'inbō Shūsaku) and John Power's Invincible.

本因坊秀策全集 is not easy to find in European bookstores, I believe. Even so, by all means ask around as someone near you may have the book or another Shūsaku game collection. In the event that it is not available near you, here is one outlet that sells it.

http://en.jd.com/product/Chinese-books/11141249.html

Invincible can be purchased from Kiseido and other Go book outlets.

The former is in Chinese, but contains a larger collection of games. Fortunately, only the introduction has any significant amount of Chinese text. The game records contain only some Chinese text. Here is a short glossary to help you decipher that text.

第X谱: Xth record (of a game)
黒: black
白: white
粘: connect
提劫: takes kō
中盘胜: win by resignation
黒/白胜X目: black/white wins by X points

The latter has only 143 games, but it is entirely in English and has a large number of commented games.

At your present level, it will not be possible to understand what is going on during a pro game, but these games demonstrate good playing habits that the beginner should emulate. Of course this does not guarantee that you will win every time, but good playing habits can be learned from replaying pro games and these will help you to improve steadily. Of course the more of them you replay, the better, but just 1 or 2 game records a day is helpful.

Although in practice you can replay game by the pro player of your choice, I recommended Shūsaku because, as Segoe Kensaku 9-dan once said, Shusaku simplified the complexity of go, concealing his great strength and profound analysis beneath the smooth surface of his game . . . It is not an exaggeration to say that all the principles and all the techniques of go are embodied in concentrated form in Shusaku's go.

A word about doing Go puzzles (also known as problems). If you are at first not able to find the solution to a puzzle, there is no need to worry. Puzzles are designed to stimulate development of analytical ability needed to properly analyze a position of stones on the board. Once you are able to find the solution to a puzzle in 60 seconds or less, move on to slightly more difficult ones. Doing lots of easy puzzles is key to improving analytical ability. By "easy", I mean anything that can be solved in 60 seconds or less.
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Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered. Those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win.
Zhuge Liang

Your plan looks fine to me and I'd bet you reach your goal with it.

In my opinion playing against computer is not bad as long as you play against different bots. On the other hand if you play too much against the same bot you will mainly learn how to trick this special bot. But the moves that works against this bot may be actually bad. It's only that the bot never learns to refute them.

Probably not that important when you're just starting, but sooner or later I'd recomment reading a boock about the endgame, too, because with some quite simple techniques you can easyly gain 10 points or more there. What is about one rank stronger.

P.S.: Right now, once you are familiar with liberties and capture, find yourself some basic tesuji and life & death puzzles to solve. This will help you get to 20k quickly.

If you prefer to do puzzles online, you can go to Goproblems.com . WeiqiOK.com has printable puzzle sets, but to access the full range of material one must pay a yearly membership. For printable puzzle sets at no cost, http://tsumego.tasuki.org is the place to go.

Tesuji puzzle books can be purchased from different outlets. http://www.goshop-keima.com/ is based in the Netherlands and has some tesuji-themed books for sale.

If you do not mind Chinese Go puzzle books, you may want to consider the tesuji drill books by Liaoning Science & Technology Press. The volume for 20k-10k can be found here.
http://en.jd.com/product/chinese-books/10020780.html

You can also try http://gochild2009.appspot.com/ for problems.

You will do fine, and as everybody as said, you will be able to surprise yourself with that motivation, just make sure you don't lose motivation, or you will have the 18kyu syndrome (be bored about the game and leave it for a year, then take it again and realize that you shouldn't have left it for a year)

Honestly like Ed said at your level playing is the most important thing to do. Just play lots of games and you will see your rank steadily go up until you hit the single digit kyus. That is when you should start reading and doing tsumego imo.

Welcome back to Go

Reaching 20k should be more than reasonable and you can probably reach that level just by playing and no studying at all, especially as you have played before, even if it was some time ago.

I feel the Learn To Play Go series is great, I first read it when I was 11k and I credit it largely for taking me up to 9k, I knew most of the things in there in passing by that time, but there were a few things that I had entirely missed! Not sure if I'd bother with Opening Theory Made Easy yet, but can't hurt to skim through it, and Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go should set you up in a good frame of mind.

Graded Go Problems for Beginners... the rank on the front cover is a lie.... I have books 2 and 3 and cannot imagine doing them at 25-20k and 20-15k respectively. Well, that or I really suck at tsumego.

PeterN

Not necessarily.
I'd say volume 1 is xx-20-kyu und volume 2 20-15kyu. I feel volume 3 is on average SDK-level, the first levels in the book are okay but it gets more difficult quite fast. Volume 4 is towards the end, if I remember correctly, around 1-3-kyu.
It all depends of course on the amount of problems you already solved and how many shapes are familiar.

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Well it's been a few weeks and the recent British Go Association 'study group' has just recently concluded on 10 January. I didn't manage to achieve my aim of reaching 20kyu but I'm still pleased with my progress over all, not least as my interest is growing rather than waning.

Most days I managed to study tsumego or do some reading for at least half an hour and I've played a few games on OGS. I've not managed to find opponents anywhere near my lowly playing strength on KGS though so am still ?ranked there, having only played against a few bots.

Too many of my games have been correspondence-based, which in some ways I prefer as I play much worse then. I've posted a game I lost today on OGS and would welcome any comments folks have. I played badly in this game and lost concentration at times. Getting hit on the head of stones twice on the top side hurt, 44 at either K15 or L16 would have been better and avoided that and the subsequent empty triangle. The situation at the bottom of the board from around move 125 was very poor also I think

Broadly speaking I just need to play many more games as per Ed's earlier reply and also learn to take enough time to play and not get rushed into making bad moves...

Hi Benm, yes, continue to play. Learn to see ataris (including double ataris, etc.). Notice some basic shapes:

Thank you Ed, I will digest!

Been a while since I've had any completed games worth posting. I've been reading a fair amount, along with doing tsumego most days, and playing mostly correspondence games (slowly it seems) on OGS.

I'd welcome any comments folks have on this game. I think in general I played on the wrong side of white's stones in the middle and didn't use any thickness in the top left very well...



I think I should have played M16 at Q10 or R10 instead of allowing my opponent to take that and leaving me compressed. Then G11 at G8 etc...

Hi Ben, still, your basics.

Some ideas

My thanks to both Ed and Tim. Very helpful both. I think I get tied up in trying to think of bigger picture that I make these basic and local shape errors. Hopefully that is not too unusual for a beginner...And I'll try to avoid doing the same in future games