Hello everyone. My name is Ben and I've been lurking on these forums for a bit now.
Go is a game that I should have fell in love with a long time ago, but never did. Now though, it looks like it has finally stuck.

Here is my history with Go:

Age 7: My first sighting of Go was in a game and toy shop in Victoria. I saw a game with white and black stones for sale. It was too expensive and didn't look very interesting. I bought a balsa wood dinosaur, it was pretty bitchin'.

Middle school: Tried playing Go on Yahoo games, neither me nor my opponent knew how to play... when we ran out of moves to play we continued to fill our groups until they could be captured again. I went back to Yahoo Pool like the rest of the computer class.

High school: Alright this time for reals. I've printed out the rules and I know how to play this game. I'm going to go online and play someone. I make an account and log onto CyberOro. Right away someone challenges me to a game. It's a Korean 5 dan. That was the first and last game played for many years.

Present day:
After messing around with some free go playing programs on my phone for a bit I decide to jump on KGS, and this time Go isn't quite so traumatic. I've been playing sporadically for the last three months or so.

So it took a good 12 years to climb the mountain that is 30 kyu. But I'm off and running now.



Goals:

The forever goal: Be marginally better then the week before.

The current goal: Single digits! Picking a specific rank I want to get to is a little hard. But sdk seems to be a normal early milestone. So it's as good as anything. I'm floating around 11-10k right now so if play a bunch I might even see 9k this weekend. Which would be a great way to kick off this journal.

The study plan! (wip)

Step 1: Play Go! I think I have a rather extreme case of OGA. Up until I am actually playing, there is nothing I want to do less then to play Go online. I have no trouble finding excuses not to play, and on more then one occasion I've Alt-F4'd after being surprised by a challenge on Tygem. Of course once I've played that first game of the day, then I'll play for hours more.

So the first prong of my plan is a simple one. Play at least one game a day every day, and try to be less of a binge player.

Step 2: Book n' stuff.
I bought a big ass pile of Go books off of Craigslist. And I want to put them to use.

So 30 minutes in the morning for Tesuji or Life and Death problems.
I'll pick one theory book at a time and read through it at my leisure.

I'm currently working through Graded Go Vol 3
And I think I'll take a stab at Fundamental Principles of Go or Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go as a first non problem book.

Here's the list of the English books I picked up.

Elementary Go Series, Vol. 3 Tesuji
Elementary Go Series, Vol. 4 Life and Death
Graded Go Problems Vol. 1-4
Yi Chang-ho Life and Death Vol. 1-6
All About Life and Death Vol. 1-2
Dictionary of Basic Joseki Vol. 1-3
Elementary Go Series, Vol. 5 Attack and Defense
Elementary Go Series, Vol. 7 Handicap Go
All About Thickness
Positional Judgement
Killer of Go
Fundamental Principles of Go
Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go
Opening Theory Made Easy
Get Strong at the Opening
Direction of Play
The 3-3 Point
The Great Joseki Debates
Basic Techniques of Go
Lectures on Go Techniques Vol. 1-2
Invincible

Step 3: Professional Games?
This is a big question mark for me. I don't know what to do, how to do, or how often to do it.
I'm curious to hear from other weak player about how often they review pro games, and what they get out of it.

That's about it for now. I'll use this thread to post games I've played or maybe ask questions about the pro games I'm trying to understand. That sort of thing.

Welcome, and good luck.

Welcome!

I'm still in much the same boat when it comes to developing a good play schedule and often find myself bingeing.

As for pro games - 1-2 a day if you can manage it is a good starting pace. I've asked that question here and that seems to be the general consensus. At first just playing though them is good, to see how one person played and how the opponent responded. Once you feel more comfortable with Go (still have not hit this spot yet) you can start to guess where you might want to play and start playing out your own variations before moving on with the game.

Hope this helps a little and I wish you luck!