SoDesuNe paves his road to Shodan

[SoDesuNe]

Two more educational games from Games of Shuei vol. 3:



In this one I really like how Black played calm and steady (most of the times). White did a good job of complicating matters but overall Black was keen of responding simple (yet strong) and tried to win with his two-stone-advantage. I love this style : )



The second game is in my opinion a wonderful example of how to attack. If you think you are up for a challenge, then go to move 100 and try to come up with White's next two moves : )

I'm solving YCH Tesuji vol. 5 right now but I forgot to take my times ^^ I'm again surprised, though, how many "simple" Tesujis I get wrong. More overlearning!

[SoDesuNe]

Funny, YCH Tesuji vol. 5 has quite a lot of Life-and-Death tesujis, it feels like a Tsumego book at the moment ^^ 32 problems still to go!

[SoDesuNe]

I planned to do this earlier but I was away one week - and was only partly able to replay games (see photo) - sooo, finally, tomorrow I will finish the third and final run of Games of Shuei vol. 3 which concludes my take on Shuei's games for the moment - I plan to (re-)replay all the games in all volumes in the future, probably after finishing Final Summit and Kamakura (thrice).
Next week I will start with Final Summit. I'm pretty excited to see how the then best player of the time will play compared to Shuei, which he admired. Really thrilled : )

Phote of my awesome (at home rediscovered) Go travel set:

Regarding my cycle:
I will finish my cycle for the third time in the next week, I assume. One book (YCH Tesuji vol. 4) already dropped out, because I scored over 95% twice and others will drop out after this run (YCH Tesuji vol. 2 and L&D vol. 1). Some books won't drop out because I still make too many mistakes but since I start - unconciously - memorizing the answers, I need to replace them temporarily and then solve them "fresh". To do this, I will start a new cycle after this third run, with new books (except YCH Tesuji vol. 5). Most likely it will look like this:

• 1. Go/Segeo Tesuji Dict. 1
  2. YCH L&D vol. 5
  3. Go/Segeo Tesuji Dict. 2
  4. YCH L&D vol. 6
  5. Go/Segeo Tesuji Dict. 3
  6. 1000 Weiqi Problems
  7. YCH Tesuji vol. 5
  8. Xuanxuan Qi Jing / Gengen Gokyo
  9. YCH Tesuji vol. 6
  10. Weiqi Life-and-Death Drills vol. 1

I expect to fail miserably at the YCH Life-and-Death books but it will be good training ^^
After I completed this cycle once, I will go back to the old cycle and do all the books, which I couldn't score 95% or higher. And then this cycle. And so forth until books drop out again. I plan to do all the YCH books again, when all of them dropped out, just to check, but I guess this will be in the far future so nothing to bother with right now ^^

[logan]

Hi,

Can you post which simple tesuji problems keep giving you trouble?

How's your path to 1-dan going?

Thanks,
logan

P.S. Your list seems out of order of increasing difficulty of the problem sets. Also, Gokyo Shumyo is easier than XXQJ, you may want to consider doing it before. It's good that your changing up your books instead of hammering your head against the same succeeded & failed problems.

[SoDesuNe]

Here are three examples:

$$Bc Black to play
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O X X . X . . .
$$ | . . . O . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . O . O . . . .
$$ | . . X O . . . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . . . . .
$$ | . X . . O . . . . .
$$ | . O O . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . .

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Black to play
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . . O X X . X . . .
$$ | . . . O . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . O . O . . . .
$$ | . . X O . . . . . .
$$ | . . X X O . . . . .
$$ | . X . . O . . . . .
$$ | . O O . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . .[/go]

$$Bc Black to play
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . X . X O . . . . .
$$ | . . X O . O . . . .
$$ | . . X O . . . . . ,
$$ | . . O . O . . . . .
$$ | . . . X O . . . . .
$$ | . . . X O . . . . .
$$ | . . X O O . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X , . . . . . .

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Black to play
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . X . X O . . . . .
$$ | . . X O . O . . . .
$$ | . . X O . . . . . ,
$$ | . . O . O . . . . .
$$ | . . . X O . . . . .
$$ | . . . X O . . . . .
$$ | . . X O O . . . . .
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X , . . . . . .[/go]

$$Bc Black to play
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X O . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . O . X . . X
$$ | . O X , . . . X . ,
$$ | . O X . O . . . . .
$$ | . O O O . O . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . .

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$Bc Black to play
$$ ------------------
$$ | . . X . . . . . . .
$$ | . . X O . . . . . .
$$ | . . X . O . X . . X
$$ | . O X , . . . X . ,
$$ | . O X . O . . . . .
$$ | . O O O . O . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . , . . . . . .[/go]

I feel the problems should be really elementary for my level (especially the first one) but in the first two I missed White's strongest counter and in the last one I played the wrong order of moves (didn't count the liberties accurately).

1-dan, hmm, still not sure. I will start playing on KGS again next week, so I guess we will see. But I'm able to play good games on 3H against a EGF 3-dan, so I'm hoping for the best : D

Yes, you are right, the difficulty is a bit out of order. My problem is that I don't want to start with YCH Tesuji vol. 5 because I just solved it, so the memory might still be too fresh. Maybe I will change the order of Weiqi Life-and-Death Drills vol. 1 and the classic problems collection.
I always thought the Gengen Gokyo was the easiest of the classical problem collections ^^ I will of course take the Gokyo Shumyo then.

[SoDesuNe]

Damn!
I replayed my first Go Seigen game yesterday (Final Summit) and what do I read? Go Seigen admired Ogawa Doteki, regarded from him and many others as the greatest Go podigy ever. At age 13 he was considered 6-dan in strength and took black (no handicap) from Honinbo Dosaku. He was the heir to the Honinbo title but died at the age of 21.
GoGoD has 14 games from him. I guess, I need to replay them, too. Can't resist the urge to follow Master Wu's admiration :O

Hopefully Doteki makes several appearances in Collected Games of Dosaku from Yutopian since that book is next on my list after I replayed Go Seigen (Final Summit, Kamakura) =D

[SoDesuNe]

Here is a game I played lately. It got really close in the end and it had a common theme of mistakes (patience/judgement), so it was more fun to review : ) I focussed mainly on my play since Black could obviously play better but then I wouldn't give him four handicap =D

[cdybeijing]

I can't seem to download the sgf to comment it.

[SoDesuNe]

Yeah, seems broken right now, I can't download it either. But you could quote the post and copy the text between the sgf-tags in a file and name it something.sgf. That should work, too.

Looking forward to your comments : D

[daal]

Just wanted to chip in that I found two things in your self-review instructive, namely that you considered two moves that you didn't make in the game (variation on moves 19 and 75) to be big. I wouldn't have noticed these points, nor considered them big if you hadn't pointed them out. Thanks for sharing!

[SoDesuNe]

I also needed the voice of reason from a 3-dan player, who helped me with the review, to "fully" understand it.

On move 19 defending does not only surround territory of a nice amount it also puts deflects in Black's shape on the outside. Regarding the territory, the game showed how little points White made at the top, despite all of his stones, because Black managed to jump down. Furthermore if Black answers the move, then White has made nice shape in Sente and can split the right side as before. If Black ignores the move then the center will never be considerably big since White can always breakthrough at the top. Not to mention the exchange of making White stronger but leaving own weaknesses behind is good for White.

On move 75... well, the Atari is outright painful to allow ^^ It is also quite a big move for the following endgame I think. It is almost the same as with move 19, White should calmly defend because Black ought to invest a move on the outside, too, otherwise White can cut pretty worry-free.

I still need to learn the benefits of strong groups ^^

[SoDesuNe]

Code: Select all

Book               1. Run (correctly solved [%])      2. Run                     3. Run                     4. Run
YCH Tesuji 1     //     116 / 123 [94%]      |      98 / 123 [80%]      |     115 / 123 [93%]      |     111 / 123 [90%]      
YCH Tesuji 2     //     119 / 123 [97%]      |     107 / 123 [87%]      |     118 / 123 [96%]      |     - dropped out -
YCH Tesuji 3     //      97 / 123 [79%]      |      97 / 123 [79%]      |     107 / 123 [87%]      |
YCH Tesuji 4     //     119 / 123 [97%]      |     120 / 123 [98%]      |     - dropped out -      |     - dropped out -
YCH Tesuji 5     //      75 / 123 [61%]      |

YCH Tsumego 1    //     121 / 123 [98%]      |     115 / 123 [93%]      |     120 / 123 [98%]      |     - dropped out -
YCH Tsumego 2    //     110 / 123 [89%]      |     113 / 123 [92%]      |     115 / 123 [93%]      |
YCH Tsumego 3    //     101 / 123 [82%]      |     105 / 123 [85%]      |     114 / 123 [93%]      |
YCH Tsumego 4    //      69 / 123 [56%]      |      74 / 123 [60%]      |      92 / 123 [75%]      |

GS Opening       //        n/a               |     131 / 175 [75%]      |     144 / 175 [82%]      |
501 Opening      //        n/a               |     340 / 501 [68%]      |     372 / 501 [74%]      |

I finished my third run of the first cycle. Overall three out of ten books dropped out after three runs, that's a start but I feel I could have done better with YCH Tesuji 1 and Tsumego 2.
Now I begin the parallel cycle to have some fresh new material. It looks like this:

• 1. Go/Segeo Tesuji Dict. 1
  2. YCH L&D vol. 5
  3. Go/Segeo Tesuji Dict. 2
  4. YCH L&D vol. 6
  5. Go/Segeo Tesuji Dict. 3
  6. 1000 Weiqi Problems
  7. YCH Tesuji vol. 5
  8. Weiqi Life-and-Death Drills vol. 1
  9. YCH Tesuji vol. 6
  10. Gokyo Shumyo

Needless to say this one is way harder than the other but well, my plan is still to switch between both cycles so it should be okay.

[cdybeijing]

A few ideas, nothing clever.

[SoDesuNe]

Thank you very much!
I like your variation for move 21, looks very interesting. I'm sure to try it out next time =)

[SoDesuNe]

It's funny.
I had to step back from Go a couple of months due to my studies and a couple of other things and now - coming back - my reading got expectedly worse. But I can still hold to 1-kyu, sometimes 1-dan (played six games the other day, albeit mainly against bots because my account got questionmarked). In my Go club I could even raise the handicap I need to play against.

I'm wondering whether so called pattern and shape studies (e.g. Tesuji problems and replaying professional games) are more beneficial for long term improvement?
Although my reading is quite bad (I literally didn't read anything worthwhile in those six games) and I lost a couple of groups unnecessarily, I still seem to play on a fairly okay-ish level. There has to be something unconscious, which let's me play good-enough moves overall.

When I remember correctly, Bill Spight mentioned somewhere a fine distinction between reading and seeing. Some things you don't have to read out because you can instantly see the moves - you just know them! I feel, right now I play mostly by "seeing". I don't read, I don't verify, I just play the move which seems right to me (although sometimes it turns out bad just a second later, go figure).

I started solving 20+ problems (6-kyu to 1-dan) on goproblems.com again (it's embarassing, I can tell you that) because I'm naturally not satisfied with the status quo. But right now I don't have the time to carry on the cycle I mentioned some posts earlier or resume replaying Go Seigen games from Final Summit. I will try to play some games on KGS, though, in the end this was the one part of my studies which was severely lacking.

Let's see where this will lead me =)


post scriptum: Just a reference for myself: 2809 problem attempts on goproblems.com before the reset.