Another beginner program...

[blindgod]

I was inspired by another thread I saw on here and decided that it might be very helpful for me to do the same. I need any extra motivation I can get so I hope that this will provide some.

I'm currently around 18 kyu on KGS, and though I haven't played in a tournament, club games against people with solid AGA ranks lead me to believe I'm about 18 kyu there as well. I started learning, studying, and playing go in July of 2011, but stopped from September until March 2012.

My program will be as follows (and if anyone has suggestions, they're always welcome):

5-10 problems per day from Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol 2
5-10 problems per day from 1001 Life and Death Problems.
4-5 19x19 games per week (I personally find 30min, 5x30 boy-yomi is the fastest time I'm comfortable). This includes games on KGS and the club, which I attend every other week.
Watch youtube lectures when there's time.

My plan for GGP vol 2 is to keep going through it until I can hit 85-90% correct. Currently, I can hit that with the first 75 or so problems, but it goes downhill sharply after 100. My plan with 1001 L&D is to repeat the 1-move problems (both living and killing) until I can hit 75-85% correct.

I know the number of games played is low, but that's due to a general lack of time.

My own personal goal is to make it to SDK by the end of the year.

[Twitchy Go]

Good Luck!

A few comments in regards to your go problem regimen.
5-10 seems like it is a small amount. What I find works for me is setting a rough time range I'll spend on problems. Not necessarily continuous, but get in 30 minutes to an hour somewhere over the day.
You should also be careful that you don't end up memorizing the solutions to the problem sets your working through.

Hope SDK comes quickly.

[blindgod]

You're right, I should have mentioned that 5-10 problems is a minimum that I try to do. Usually I'll end up doing about 20-25 at a time. A difficulty I'm having is that often the only time I can really dedicate 30 minutes or more to problems is right before bed, when I'm far from at my intellectual best.

I'm not too concerned about memorizing the problems because the outline above covers around 750 problems all told. And in going through GGP Vol 2 a second time (the first time was last August), the problems I remember were ones that I could solve within about 5-10 seconds (mostly opening or direction of play questions, ie ones that didn't involve reading).

Thanks for the feedback.

[Xaos]

Curious: what was the thread that inspired you?

[blindgod]

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=5645

And when I say inspired, I don't mean anything earth-shattering. I took a look at it and said to myself, "I think doing something like this could help me stay motivated and improving." That's been one of my biggest problems, staying motivated. This way (and I know it sounds a little silly), since I wrote it down, it will be that much more incentive.

[blindgod]

Yesterday, I went through the first 20 problems of both GGP vol 2 (18 correct) and the first 20 problems of 1001 L&D (15 correct).

I then played two games on KGS today, one even and a 5-stone game with me as white. Played horribly in both and resigned. It seems as though games I play online seem to take the same path in that I end up in a fighting game where my poor reading becomes a big liability. Play one bad move, get frustrated, play more bad moves. Etc. It's a mental problem that doesn't really happen when I play club games.

This is one of them:

http://lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1765

A few thoughts:

Move 7. Really bad. I went to Eidogo because I didn't recognize white's response to my approach and the move 7 is described as "an amateurish mistake".

Move 29. Should have been to defend the cut point at C8. There were a number of viable responses if white 30 was at C12 or E13 or something like that. Of course, there's probably a more severe move white could play that I'm probably not seeing.

Move 83. Blocking on the wrong side.

I should not have left S15 open. Obviously, it didn't end up mattering. But had the game gone longer, it might very well have become an issue. Move 95 I think should have been at S15.

[Boidhre]

What I did/read when I was around 18k:

Opening Theory Made Easy: This helped me a lot but I'm still digesting it now and will still be doing it 10 stones from now I think.

Graded Go Problems Volume 1: This was easy at this level but I still drilled the problems quite regularly. Doing easy problems is a good idea from what I've seen professionals recommending.

Double Digit Kyu Games (available on SmartGo Books on the iPad): This opened my eyes to a lot of problems in my games. It didn't eradicate them all though or anything dramatic like that.

How Not to Play Go by Yuan Zhou: Same as the above, somewhat more advanced though.

321go.org: More problems.

goproblems.come: Same again.


Things I wish I'd done:

Done more life and death problems properly: I didn't do enough of these and my reading was weaker for it. I used to be happy just to see the vital point, I didn't read things out fully. This was a serious error on my part.

Gotten a real board and stones sooner: I didn't play much on a real board and never discovered my love for the tactile pleasure of playing with real stones. I was missing out.

Played fewer beginners and more sdk/dan players: I'm convinced I picked up bad habits by not doing this. Ask on here, you will get people to play against.


Anyway, good luck with it, I hope the above is interesting.

Edit: Obviously take all the above with a grain of salt given my weak rank.

[blindgod]

Boidhre,

Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve actually been reading your thread in part because you seem to describe something that I experience (and please correct me if I’m wrong): a reluctance to play due to not wanting to play badly. In my case, this ends up being a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but that’s a point for another time.

I read Opening Theory Made Easy when I first started playing and, at the time, much of it went over my head. You & other people have made some good points about it, so I think I’ll take another look at it. I just finished Appreciating Famous Games, so I have an open spot in my book queue (I was going to read something about Dogen, but that can wait).

I’m reluctant to spend time on GGP vol 1 again (I’ve been through it twice). I have heard and read about the advantages of solving many easy problems either as a warm-up or as drilling simple things until they become completely ingrained, like doing finger exercises while learning a musical instrument. However, I’m a bit skeptical of how much improvement in reading and tesuji (two of my larger deficiencies) I might get through doing this.

-

I’m thinking about getting Lee Chang Ho’s Life and Death & Get Strong at Tesuji. I’ve read very good things about both, they might provide some variety, and my library doesn’t have them (as opposed to many of the other books I’ve mentioned). I hate books with bad paper quality, which I’ve read is the case with the Chinese editions of LCH’s books, but I don’t know if there are better editions available for what I’m able to spend.

Went through problems 21-40 in GGP vol 2 (18 correct) and problems 21-40 in 1001 L&D (13 correct).

Going to play at the club tonight. I’m the only DDK with almost everyone else being between 5 kyu – 1 dan AGA. Lot of handicap games.

Played decently last week, despite losing a 9-stone game against a 4-5 kyu. Focus last week was on defending corners as well as protecting weak groups, two things I had neglected in the past. Ended up with 2 corners (one large and one small) and no dead groups. According to my opponent, I played too passively through much of the game. I pointed out that when I did fight in the first quarter of the game, I invariably ended up being cut to pieces. Maybe the wrong tact to take.

[Boidhre]

Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve actually been reading your thread in part because you seem to describe something that I experience (and please correct me if I’m wrong): a reluctance to play due to not wanting to play badly. In my case, this ends up being a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, but that’s a point for another time.

It's a complicated thing. I try to find people who I don't mind playing badly against and work from there. Playing strangers when you're not feeling good can be very tough.

[blindgod]

It's a complicated thing. I try to find people who I don't mind playing badly against and work from there. Playing strangers when you're not feeling good can be very tough.

I absolutely agree. This is one of the reasons I think I play better in the club because I know and am friendly with the people there, rather than playing online against people I don't know. I don't get as nervous, and if I play a bad game, I'll ask for some pointers and that's the end of it. That game record doesn't then exist on the internet. If I stop to think about it, it seems silly. But it happens to me all the same.

On a side note, before playing Go, I did martial arts for years. And I found the one thing that made me improve the fastest was to find someone else around my level that I got along with, and to develop a friendly rivalry with that person. One week I'd get the better of him, then the next week he'd do the same to me. At the end of every session, we'd talk for a few minutes about what was working and what needed fine-tuning. By making the other guy better, we'd be forced to get better too. It was a great thing. And since we'd be friends, if one of us tried something that REALLY didn't work, we'd both laugh about it and move on.

Oops, gotta go.

[blindgod]

Well, Club tonight was good. There were two new faces and I ended up playing both of them (and losing to both).

The first was a new player who is the friend (and kind of student) of one of the club regulars. Since he was so new, I gave him four stones on a 13x13. I could see his teacher's influence, as he allowed me to take one of his corners and opted to make strong enclosures instead. As such, he was able to build a good amount of territory early. This made me desperate, so I overplayed a few times and ended up with one small group dying and I sacrificed another to build influence. The game was partly competitive and partly teaching, as I was able to give him some hints in a few situations and introduced him to the concept of aji, peeping, how stones can be connected when they aren't actually touching (something that confused me when I was first learning terms), and some very basic endgame strategy. I ended up losing by about 20 points, as I couldn't deal with his enclosures. We each got two corners, his being bigger, with almost no points in the middle. I love teaching in general, so even though I lost, I felt good.

The second was a guy who plays online, and said that he was between 7-8 kyu on KGS. He gave me 8 stones, and if I hadn't made one mistake, I would have won by about 13-16 points. However, I played away when I should have blocked, he monkey-jumped, and I ended up losing by 6 points. It was a good game for me in that he ended up crawling along the 2nd or third line and I was able to build essentially a fourth line wall around the entire board, along with almost the entire bottom up to the fourth or fifth line and a large area on the left (which was the one that ended up being severely reduced) as territory. He built a bit of territory in the middle, which I gave him because I felt that I had enough in compensation. I think he was disheartened by the game being so close, but I told him that he played a pleasant and non-combative game, which is not taking advantage of my weakness in fighting.

Did problems 41-50 in 1001 L&D and got 7 correct. Will now go to bed, and work on GGP vol. 2.

[Boidhre]

I’m thinking about getting Lee Chang Ho’s Life and Death & Get Strong at Tesuji. I’ve read very good things about both, they might provide some variety, and my library doesn’t have them (as opposed to many of the other books I’ve mentioned). I hate books with bad paper quality, which I’ve read is the case with the Chinese editions of LCH’s books, but I don’t know if there are better editions available for what I’m able to spend.

Actually, I forgot to say, I want both of these sets but finding them in Europe may be tough. I might have to import them from the US I think. Let me know how you get on with them, I'm curious about the level of volumes 1 & 2.

[SoDesuNe]

I’m thinking about getting Lee Chang Ho’s Life and Death & Get Strong at Tesuji. I’ve read very good things about both, they might provide some variety, and my library doesn’t have them (as opposed to many of the other books I’ve mentioned). I hate books with bad paper quality, which I’ve read is the case with the Chinese editions of LCH’s books, but I don’t know if there are better editions available for what I’m able to spend.

Actually, I forgot to say, I want both of these sets but finding them in Europe may be tough. I might have to import them from the US I think. Let me know how you get on with them, I'm curious about the level of volumes 1 & 2.

You could order them from mohsart.se. It's the only european Go store I know of which has these books.
http://mohsart.se/en/49__lee-chang-ho-s ... o-problems
http://mohsart.se/en/48__lee-chang-ho-s ... o-problems

Regarding the level: Volume two and four of the Tesuji series is fairly simple for 6k-3k KGS. Volume one might be a good fit. Volume three is much more difficult and five even more (2k-1k KGS). I did not solve the sixth volume, yet.
The life-and-death-series is more straightforward. Volume one is a good (sometimes challenging) fit for 6-3k KGS. And from there it goes on.

[blindgod]

Hmm... so you're saying that LCH L&D might be too difficult for me at the moment? Fair enough, I can keep going at 1001 L&D for the time being, though I want to buy my own copy. At least it's not as bad as the library copy of GGP vol.2, which has answers to some of the problems marked. The tricky thing is that the marked answers are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. I do still want to buy Getting Strong at Tesuji, though. And for reference, I live in the US (not that anyone asked).

Speaking of which, I did problems 41-60 in GGP vol. 2 with 17 correct. As usual, the ones I got wrong had to do with seki. One thing I noticed is that it asks how to deal with your opponent's orthodox fuseki, but it doesn't even mention the knight's approach to the 4-4 stone. Maybe that's too modern, but it's what I see more often than 10-3.

I wonder if Korean go terms will ever be used in western countries more than Japanese since the Koreans are so much more dominant and learning to read Korean is super easy? Probably not, but it's just a thought rattling around in my head. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch Masakazu Imanari videos on youtube. Ciao.

[SoDesuNe]

I'd buy "Get Strong at Tesuji" when you finished 1001 L&D Problems and GGPfB vol. 2 since the problems are a little bit harder too grasp and require some deeper reading and positional judgment, which might be new to you.

If you're interested, I wrote some sort of guide at Sensei's Library (http://senseis.xmp.net/?SoDesuNe) describing which books I think fit at a certain level.