Thank you, Toge, for this insightful review.
I had a couple of unforgivable mistakes in this game.
I just can hope that I learned something from them.

Thank you once again.

Cheers.

I am so frustrated. I lose games I should win. I play moves without any firm plan. I don't see the whole picture. I rush in. I don't take time to read but play solely based on my instinct. I neglect basic principles in opening. I don't secure cuts. I play "pass" moves. I leave open skirts for counter attacks. I foolishly try to save dead groups. I don't take all chances to kill. I let my healthy groups be killed.
I know I shouldn't do all the staff mentioned, but I still do them.
There's a long road in front of me. Sometimes, after the game, I don't know if I feel more frustrated or ashamed for missing the obvious.

At least, I'm glad I started this thread, for 2 reasons:
1. I have a place to whine, like now.
2. It motivates me to proceed when everything about my go looks wrong.

I hope I'll give you some better reading material in my next post.

Cheers

This is fantastic! You have motivation and you know what you want to improve. The times when I have improved the most are similar to this. I've played an opponent and gotten trounced, but I know they are making mistakes and that I should punish them or ignore them instead of playing the moves I do. It sounds like all you need to do is play solidly in the beginning and then apply fundamentals.

Oddly enough, one of the keys that got me stronger in the past was simply not playing moves if I could see they didn't work. You'd think this would be obvious, but...

There is no "should". Either you won or you lost. Every game you did lose, you could have won with better play; and conversely, every game you won, you could have lost with worse play. But don't feel entitled to win some game and not others.
Planning is hard. If you're thinking about how you would respond to each of your opponent's most obvious replies, you're already moving in the right direction.
The whole picture has something like 10^60 branches. I don't see the whole picture either.
These are all excellent signs. I have made very little progress in Go other than by making the same painful mistake five or six times in an actual game.

I don't know, experimenting to see what happens is important too (unless you watch a lot of other people playing). Though I do agree with the advice of not trying to kill a group from the inside if you haven't read it out. A failed kill is rarely a good result, at best you remove some ko threats that you had, at worst you end up giving them points.

You misunderstand me. I would read a sequence, see that it doesn't work with proper play, and then play it anyways. Not to see what happens, but just out of ... I don't know. Fatigue or uncertainty about what to do instead or something.

Ah, yes, I know that problem very well. Normally it's either time constraints or not being able to see another move. Or when I was weaker a hope that my opponent would mess up.

@Boidhre, @skydry thanx, people
@jts this is probably one of three most motivational posts I read in this topic. Thank you very much.
@Togu It seems my PMs to you stay in my outbox and are never sent. I don't know what's wrong. However, I finished there our conversation from KGS today.

In the end, he overplayed in top right. I pushed further and gained a seki, but I really need to learn to count in order to play calm and secure when I'm ahead.

Still, a huge frustration. I lose my big, fat, healthy groups like they grow on trees.
Sometimes, I'm just pure stupid.

I want to edit my previous post. I'm not sometimes stupid. I'm always stupid

However, good or bad play, I enjoy every single stone put on goban (either virtual or real). This game give me so much joy.

I don't have so much time for studying it, but, I'm giving my best

Somehow, I'm not even so much frustrated as earlier when I make a mistake. I took it as a part of a learning process.

I took the liberty to review your latest game. One of the problems is (mental) attachment to existing stones. Your post above shows positive attitude towards the game.

I really, really, really have to learn to let go stones if it's better for me in a given situation.
Thank you, Toge.

Well, I tried to play games during my work. As it can be imagined, full game lasts around an hour and for me it's impossible to dedicate so much time at once, without being severly disturbed around ten times. That resulted in numerous stupid mistakes and loses.

So, I decided not to play for the sake of playing, but, when I play, I have to be sure to give my best, without distractions.
From now on, it's gonna be one or two games in the evening and as much tsumego as I can during the day plus some reading.

Started again from the beginning, Graded Go Problems for Beginners I, and finished it in an hour and a half.
Moving to GGPFB II.
Easy tsumego is fun and good for self confidence, at least in my case.

Cheers.

Right now, I'm halfway to 8k.

www.gokgs.com/graphPage.jsp?user=vladimir

It's much harder to advance then I imagined. But, despite all stupid mistakes I regulary make, I feel a little bit stronger then 3 weeks ago, when I started this thread. I guess tsumego has something to do with it.

Another notice: 2 times happened to me to be crushed by 8k's and to play with them again couple of weeks after that and to win. Very good feeling. Something like a revenge

Btw, I'm trying to resist the urge to play when I'm not sure if I'll have enough time for the game. But, very often, this need to play is overwhelming and I play stupid and lose due to constraints. I'll have to work on resisting the need to play. Just don't know how

Cheers

I suggest you channel those times into blitz games, or 9x9 games, or more tsumego.

It is difficult to play with distractions. I second the idea of tsumego, since you enjoy it.

I used to study tsumego on the subway.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Tsumego mix well with the short periods of free time you get with young children. If you have a smartphone or tablet you can find AIs that can play dan level 9x9 go for quick 10 minute games. Quite handy for a quick fix. AIs on smartphones/tablets are pretty feeble at 19x19 though in comparison. Maybe mid-strong sdk level at best.

@jts @bill @boidhre Thank you for those advices.

I took mobile versions of Cho's Enciklopedias from http://tsumego.tasuki.org/ and I use them on my smartphone when I have short gaps of free time.

I browse through goproblems.com regulary and Graded Go Problems for Beginners on my desktop, too.

Regarding playing with bots, I've got Champion Go installed (Crazy Stones is iOS name of the program) but I never used it much since I'm not aware which kind of habits I'm gonna develop if I play with bots (even strong ones as Crazy Stones algorithm is). I would like if anybody can write a few words on low sdk player playing with bots and habits developed from that.

@jts I never seriously considered blitz or 9x9 games. After your post, I definitely will. Thank you.

I've not found any good tsumego app for Android. I rely on books/the iPad if I'm away from home. Books are cheaper than an iPad so consider something like 1001 Life & Death for easy-medium tsumego for you right now, Graded Go Problems 3 or 4 (4 might be a bit too hard depending on your reading), Get Strong at Life and Death (most of the problems should be fairly easy but easy problems are important too and a section of the problems will be nicely challenging). Essential Life and Death 3 is interesting for tougher problems around our level, volume 2 for easier problems. For at home on the desktop, I like GoChild a lot more than GoProblems.com. You have to pay a small fee for the year with GoChild though to access the non-beginner problems and the UI/sound may annoy you. There are other books and websites, these are just what I'm using at the moment.

On bad habits, while I'm fairly sure it's possible or probably to pick up bad habits from strong bots, I'm at a loss as to why one wouldn't pick up bad habits from other 8/9k players.