I rather think it makes sense to err on the side of playing a ton and not reviewing, than playing less and less because you're reviewing religiously.

I second that ; )

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Oh I'm definitely not playing less so that I can review them a lot, but this week the risk of having to leave a game with no notice is too great, and it wouldn't be fair on my opponents.

PeterN

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Continuing with Graded Go Problems for Beginners III
Games Reviewed: 7 lost games
Elementary Go Series: None

I took the opportunity from not being able to play to do some extra reviewing of games from the previous week, each week feels like I spot different themes wrong with my play (some day I'll check back these weekly updates and see if that's true or not), this time catastrophic failures in defence (leaving an enemy group in semi-atari and then letting my own cutting group get into atari) and choosing to push enemy groups straight at my own weak groups.

On a note not related to study I have managed to get at least one person at work interested enough to try playing a few more games and a second possibly interested, so I'm counting this as a good week.

PeterN

Played a game on ASR League recently that I've tried to review, thought I'd post it here along with my notes. Any comments would be appreciated



- I wanted to deny the lone B stone any hope of making a base, but would a corner enclosure have been better? F17 or G17 to keep some pressure on?
- Looking at this I want to defend the corner with C16 perhaps, not sure if that's a good instinct or not.
- Never sure on invasions, but I believe this is the right idea.
- Press down at H4 instead of responding to B?
- Again would H4 be better? Or jump up to around L8 area to threaten coming into B's moyo and the cut of the stone at I11?
- Too soon to tenuki?
- Helping B surround my group.
- C8 instead?
- I can only assume this was hope, should not have played it and should just have connected to the left. G10 is my first thought, but H10 looks safer.
- As per the previous comment, I think H10 would be the move to play.
- Definite mistake on my part, I14 must be defended, taking H14 is best I think as the J14 cut doesn't lead to anything as far as I can read.
- Perhaps desperate, but B has too much territory for anything other than an invasion. Are there any better points?
:w131: - I see no way to escape or live.

Invasions are a bit of a mystery to me still, I pretty much flail around blindly and live (or more likely die) based more on luck than skill.

PeterN

Difficult, indeed. You need to understand so much: basics, timing, assessment of the situation, vital points, etc.

Thanks for the comments Ed.

18 - It seems I need to learn the difference between low and high stones.

19 - Good point, I think I still mix up solid and heavy.

40 - I think this sort of slow play where it feels like I'm building up my own territory is one of my weaknesses.

78 - Even with this pointed out as a shape problem I'm not seeing what the good response is, except maybe don't even start the cross-cut.

84 - Oops, didn't notice this.

92 - Definitely agree, I wasn't happy when that was the outcome.

PeterN

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners III (92.2% correct) again.
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games (both on the ASR League)
Elementary Go Series: Started reading In The Beginning again.

Unfortunately all attempts at keeping track of how long the tsumego book took me kind of fell to the side, so not sure how long it took me compared to the first time round. However this time round it didn't feel like I was running face first into a brick wall at various points like it did the first time, so that's good.

Both reviewed games I was considerably outmatched on but did surprisingly well considering the rank difference (as I didn't get utterly wiped off the board ), it showed up a number of times where I simply went after small points when larger ones were available. It seems I need to repeat "Corner, Sides, Centre" still....

Will be no progress report next weekend as I'm away.

PeterN

18. August to 1. September: ~14 days.



I assume you started Graded Go Problems for Beginners III shortly after that.







8. September to 29. September: ~21 days, but - as you said - you slacked off somewhere in the middle. And you got a around 6% higher score.

Keep it up! =)

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Thanks SoDesuNe, I intend to

The slacking off was the problem with measuring it, could have lost anywhere up to a full week on it really. I definitely lost half the first week, and there was some slacking off in the next two that I didn't list down as it wasn't as much each week.

PeterN

Progress Report: -

New rank: 6 kyu!
Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners II (97.6% correct)
Games Reviewed: 1 lost game
Elementary Go Series: Continued reading In The Beginning

I did slightly worse for getting the right answers on tsumego this time round (1 more wrong answer) but it was completed much faster, taking just three days. Approximate time for this is around 120-150 minutes, compared to the previous attempt at 180-225 minutes.

Been somewhat slack on the reviews and elementary go series this week, though a number of my recent lost games might as well have been self-ataris even if they were more literally removing a critical liberty and setting myself up for death on a big scale.

Seeing the number next to my name change has made me think a bit and realise that I still don't have much of a clue about significant portions of the game. It feels like I rely solely on reasonable fuseki and then fighting. When I was still DDK it felt like SDKs knew what was going on, that and they seemed to have mystical stone killing powers!

PeterN

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through about three quarters of Graded Go Problems for Beginners III
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games
Elementary Go Series: A little progress in continuing In The Beginning

I feel like I'm making good progress with the tsumego and focusing most of my efforts on that as it seems to be pretty effective. I might be getting outplayed in terms of big moves, but if I win the majority of fights it works out. Also beginning to get more of a liking for influence and using it to attack groups, even if I still have a "kill!" instead of a harrass for profit mindset. I'm thinking Attack and Defense should be my next book to go back to.

At the club this week I played two even games (one as black, the next as white) against someone who gave me five stones when I first started going, felt good to be able to measure my progress that way.

PeterN

Progress Report

Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners III (93.1% correct).
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games, 1 won game
Elementary Go Series: No progress

The last quarter of the tsumego book is still a hard slog for me, taking the same amount of time as the first three quarters and accounting for about 80% of my wrong answers I'd say.

I'm feeling it's time for a bit of a break from tsumego to concentrate on the Elementary Go series. I still feel the same as in the last update; in fights I'm doing well, but outside of this I'm making small moves with little idea of what to do. I intend to finish In The Beginning and then move onto Attack and Defense.

I also still need to get rid of the "Kill!" attitude, got pointed out to me by two opponents at the club this week that I could have done a lot better if I hadn't tried to kill everything and subsequently died myself

PeterN

Progress Report

Tsumego: On hold
Games Reviewed: 2 won games
Elementary Go Series: Finished In The Beginning, Started Reading Attack and Defence

For the 10 problems at the back of In The Beginning I scored 70 out of 100, though I haven't got a clue just how good or bad that's meant to be.

I have started my concerted effort to start trying to harrass for profit instead of attacking to kill. Results so far are... not so good. It seems to gain me about the same as when I try to kill (i.e. not a lot of profit if any) but has a much lower chance of actually killing the enemy. I am hoping going through Attack and Defence will point me in the right direction of how to do this as I think I'm still doing some weird half way mess.

Overall it's felt a bad week for go, trying to switch to a new attitude leaves me floundering around and doing nothing well.

PeterN

Regarding killing or profitting.
My rule of thumb is: When I'm sure he can die, I play inside, i.e. the vital point. If I'm unsure, I play from the outside, surrounding him and look if I find weaknesses then - or maybe he defends and then I have influence to use. When I'm unsure about killing but also cannot surround with one move, I mostly play Tenuki and look for chances to exploit the Aji later.

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

If I'm sure I can kill, I play the best move I can see:
if it happens to be inside, so be it; if it happens to be outside, so be it.
If either way kills, then I prefer the outside (tends to be more useful than on the inside, except for the exceptions, of course ).

All true! But that's not a rule of thumb anymore, is it?

_________________
My "guide" to become stronger in Go

My rule of thumb so far has been more: If there's any hope of killing it (false or not), try to kill it!

I was also preferring to play on the edge side of a group where possible, because territory is always better than influence, right? This one I'm now more or less out of the habit of, or at least much reduced, which has actually made the killing task a lot easier.

I'm suspecting my tendancy to play slow/small moves is contributing to me not making much out of harrassing so far, or maybe I'm harrassing them straight into my territory, hard to say from memory. I need to find a good example of where it's gone wrong without me having switched to kill crazy mode.

PeterN

Progress Report

Tsumego: On hold
Games Reviewed: 1 lost game
Elementary Go Series: No progress

Yeah... I kind of got sidetracked this week, played some games but forgot to do any studying.

Black mark against me this week

PeterN

Ok, found a couple of games to put up, first game is a loss and demonstrates my current attacking pretty well, I'm intending to review it sometime this week, but haven't had the chance yet.



Second game I'm putting up because it was a really strange style my opponent was playing, I won so I'm not so sure if I'll review it or not yet, but I'm keeping it in mind in case I come across this sort of thing again.



PeterN