The Start Of A New Journey (Plan To Become Pro)

[oren]

Why watch high dans blitz? You can always watch pro games quickly if you want to learn good shape.

True, but it's really fun to watch high dan games. Not just for the game itself, but for the kibitz. It may not always be useful, but the kibitz can be very entertaining.

It might be harsh, but if you're serious about getting better, you need to watch the best games. Kibitz won't help you.

[SmoothOper]

KGS isn't a very respected server for rankings. I'd say go for IGS or a korean server.

[hailthorn011]

Why watch high dans blitz? You can always watch pro games quickly if you want to learn good shape.

True, but it's really fun to watch high dan games. Not just for the game itself, but for the kibitz. It may not always be useful, but the kibitz can be very entertaining.

It might be harsh, but if you're serious about getting better, you need to watch the best games. Kibitz won't help you.

I know that. I said I watch high dan games mostly for fuseki. And the kibitz is just entertaining. I try to find a balance between fun and learning. And those games offer it. Just my take on it.

[hailthorn011]

So, I spent a good amount of time reading the first 19 pages of Attack and Defense.

It seems like a very good book. I'm just having trouble concentrating (I have ADHD, literally.) But I get the overall gist of what it has said so far. I've even played a few of the diagrams on my go board just to get a feel for playing the moves it describes.

My question is: When reading a Go book with diagrams, what is the best way to read it so I can absorb the information better? I figured playing out the diagrams and studying them would be beneficial. Would playing games immediately afterward be better? Just curious.

Well, I'll have a small break for dinner, and then I'll proceed from there.

Also, my ultimate goal is to reach 1p, but I think my first step in my goal is to reach 1 Dan. Still pretty far off, but close enough to start thinking about.

[nyuubi]

When I was weaker and read Attack and Defense and other books mainly about opening, I always read one chapter, one concept, and then immediately played some games after that to solidify my knowledge and try out the things I learned in the book. This helps retention alot and I recommend it. Also, you should try to play on other go servers as others have suggested, and stop watching blitz matches, just go to www.gokifu.com and look at the professional games there instead. it's much better in terms of learning fuseki or learning anything really. Though, if you're there for the kibitz (which I so abhore), then I guess you should say so, but for serious study go with pro games ;D

Have you considered Guo Juan's lessons? I haven't really used them to go from weak to dan, but I am watching some of them now and they are really useful. So far, I have found the opening and endgame lectures most useful. If you want to study opening then I cannot recommend her lectures enough! She poses a bunch of opening problems and you pause the video and consider the best move, then you proceed and she explains the best move and why others aren't so good. There are 3 levels, so you can find lessons for your level easily. I've only done the C ones (for dan), but I assume that the others are equally nice, or perhaps even more so.

[Signifier]

I don't think 2 years is long enough. Perhaps it would be if you were already 5 dan.

I firmly believe that anyone can do anything, but a certain time frame is needed.

Even if you spent 8 hours a day studying go in a highly effective manner (very difficult), it would still take a minimum of 3 years to make it to the 10,000 hours consistent with "mastery" of an area. (http://thedanplan.com/)

[speedchase]

9dan KGS isn't even CLOSE to mastery of go. I think he can do it

[Eizero]

In my opinion hailthorns rank progression is too slow, so I don't think he can do it. If you spend a year going from 9 kyu to 7kyu I can't see how you can get from 7 kyu to 9 dan in two years.

Sorry hailthorn, I don't think you can do it but good luck anyways.

[illluck]

KGS ranks are actually generally considered quite solid (though of course, the high dans suffer from the issue of not enough players). KGS 9d is also quite respectable - I can't imagine how on Earth the statement that it's not close to mastery could be true unless it's in the same vein as "9p pro is NOWHERE close to mastery" -.-

[luvgiants916]

Go for it!

I like how you're setting benchmarks and short-term goals. And, good luck. I am a firm believer that the human mind at almost any age is such an organ that is so flexible as to become an expert at most everything.

But, there are other factors.

1. Motivation. There will be times when you wanna give up. This is going to be tough.
2. Time. As someone said, it takes literally 10,000 hours to become a world-class (read pro) at something. I read it in the book: Outliers. I think another book was written. It's a quick read and I highly suggest reading it as you'll get a flavor of the dedication necessary to become world-class. People profiled in the book were Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, and others. So at 10,000 hours at 8 hours a day is 1,250 days is 3 and a half years give or take going straight without breaks. But that leads me to something else.
3. Take breaks. There are times when yo'll need to take a week or a month off. I like to lift weights. And, almost every person big into fitness and weightlifting say that you need to give your body a rest. I imagine your mind is just the same. I say use the rule of 7, which I don't know where I read it. Take one day break in 7. One week break every 7 weeks. One month off every 7 months. This gives your brain time to relax, and the brain will continue to grind away even when not playing.
4. Don't listen to any naysayers. I am a big fan of people that think big, and as such, I wish you the best of luck. Stay positive. There's always someone out there that will cast stones. Move beyond them and good luck!

[RBerenguel]

Go for it!

I like how you're setting benchmarks and short-term goals. And, good luck. I am a firm believer that the human mind at almost any age is such an organ that is so flexible as to become an expert at most everything.

But, there are other factors.

1. Motivation. There will be times when you wanna give up. This is going to be tough.
2. Time. As someone said, it takes literally 10,000 hours to become a world-class (read pro) at something. I read it in the book: Outliers. I think another book was written. It's a quick read and I highly suggest reading it as you'll get a flavor of the dedication necessary to become world-class. People profiled in the book were Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, and others. So at 10,000 hours at 8 hours a day is 1,250 days is 3 and a half years give or take going straight without breaks. But that leads me to something else.
3. Take breaks. There are times when yo'll need to take a week or a month off. I like to lift weights. And, almost every person big into fitness and weightlifting say that you need to give your body a rest. I imagine your mind is just the same. I say use the rule of 7, which I don't know where I read it. Take one day break in 7. One week break every 7 weeks. One month off every 7 months. This gives your brain time to relax, and the brain will continue to grind away even when not playing.
4. Don't listen to any naysayers. I am a big fan of people that think big, and as such, I wish you the best of luck. Stay positive. There's always someone out there that will cast stones. Move beyond them and good luck!

I hope more people would root for hailthorn. It reminds me of SimCity3000 for PC. There was an overlay with silly quotes from the "Sims newspapers" (usually involving broccoli and llamas.) One of them was something like: "it is better to aim high and fail or to aim low and hit?" I've always thought it is better to aim high and fail, à la Lombardi (paraphrasing): if you strive for perfection you will hit excellence

[illluck]

Devoting this amount of time when the chance for success is pretty much non-existent is... entrepreneurial. It's up to the Hailthorn to decide whether the attempt and the journey itself are worth it. I doubt our individual opinions without actual understanding of his situation will be extremely helpful, but I don't think "rooting" is more useful than giving our assessment of chance for success and recommendations :p

[RBerenguel]

I mean rooting in the realistic sense. If he goes for it, root for him but remind him it's almost impossible.

[hailthorn011]

In my opinion hailthorns rank progression is too slow, so I don't think he can do it. If you spend a year going from 9 kyu to 7kyu I can't see how you can get from 7 kyu to 9 dan in two years.

Sorry hailthorn, I don't think you can do it but good luck anyways.

Yes, but I explained why, as well. Look at my archives and you'll see I spent a lot of months barely playing at all. For the longest time, I treated Go as a side hobby. I had school before, and a myriad of other hobbies to keep me bogged down.

Add in to that not studying, not playing very often, and you have a recipe for slow progression.

Also, I wasn't in the ASR either for a long time. Being in the ASR has helped dramatically.

And since I declared my ambition for 1p, I've reached 6 Kyu. That's not a lot, but it's a start. I'm not worried about rank though as much as I am about learning the fundamentals.

And I've had a lot of help from good players like oren, Mefanol, and Schnapps. I can't say I've retained EVERYTHING they've said so far, but it's definitely been helpful. I can honestly see myself reaching 5 Kyu before this month ends or maybe even in the first few days of June at this rate.

[hailthorn011]

Go for it!

I like how you're setting benchmarks and short-term goals. And, good luck. I am a firm believer that the human mind at almost any age is such an organ that is so flexible as to become an expert at most everything.

But, there are other factors.

1. Motivation. There will be times when you wanna give up. This is going to be tough.
2. Time. As someone said, it takes literally 10,000 hours to become a world-class (read pro) at something. I read it in the book: Outliers. I think another book was written. It's a quick read and I highly suggest reading it as you'll get a flavor of the dedication necessary to become world-class. People profiled in the book were Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, and others. So at 10,000 hours at 8 hours a day is 1,250 days is 3 and a half years give or take going straight without breaks. But that leads me to something else.
3. Take breaks. There are times when yo'll need to take a week or a month off. I like to lift weights. And, almost every person big into fitness and weightlifting say that you need to give your body a rest. I imagine your mind is just the same. I say use the rule of 7, which I don't know where I read it. Take one day break in 7. One week break every 7 weeks. One month off every 7 months. This gives your brain time to relax, and the brain will continue to grind away even when not playing.
4. Don't listen to any naysayers. I am a big fan of people that think big, and as such, I wish you the best of luck. Stay positive. There's always someone out there that will cast stones. Move beyond them and good luck!

I agree with everything you said except 4. To utterly ignore naysayers would be harmful. I don't think people naysay as a way of being bitter. They could be right, after all. But it does serve to add fuel to the fire.

And yes, after the past 4 days of doing almost entirely Go, yesterday and today I've been a bit drained, so my form of taking a break is solving tsumego, and observing games. But it might be a good idea to set aside a day to be entirely removed from the game.