Climbing the mountain

[OtakuViking]

Consistency is the key factor in getting better at anything. Keep doing it every day, keep challenging yourself every day and you WILL improve. It may be hard to see the progress, precisely because it is so gradual.

So with my recent return to the world of Go, I find myself wanting to organize a training program or something like that, in order to make sure I actually review my games and actually do problems every day.

I'd say I'm somewhere between 1d and 2d KGS strength. I mention this not because I want to track my progress by looking at my rank, but because it is the starting point for me.

The first quest I will embark upon will be completing Graded go problems for Dan players volume 1, volume 2, volume 4, volume 5. In total that should be about 600 tsumego and 600 tesuji problems. I'm already at 145 in vol.1 (Tsumego) and I will aim for 50-100 problems a day until I have completed this quest.

I will also strive to review atleast 3 of my games per week, posting them here in this thread.

As a goal to aim for, I will try to complete my first quest by Sept 24. This is because the preliminary rounds of the 2014 pandanet Sportaccord tournament starts at that date.

Onwards to the top!


-Edit Day 1 Complete. 55 Tsumego (1-3d level), a few games on KGS and littlelamb orthodox opening lecture watched.

[OtakuViking]

Day 2 complete. Played a few games on KGS (And reviewed one in-depth). Played through the first game in invincible. Did 32 tsumego problems from vol.1. The problems were mostly solve within 5 min = 3d, with some saying 10 min and some even giving 4d+ rating. So todays problems took quite a long time for me to get through and I still wish I'd done more. But progress is progress. All I have to do is to solve one problem at a time, put one foot infront of the other and eventually... I will climb the mountain.

[OtakuViking]

Day 3 complete! 8 quite hard tsumego (all 3d-4d+). I started on the first tesuji volume and did 40 of them so 48 problems all in all. I played 4 games on KGS and I can feel a marked improvement in my style and play. I play more solidly, taking sure territory and playing more sharply than previously. This is in part due to the problems I've been doing, but I've also started trying to take my time during the opening moves. Often the opponent plays quite fast in the opening, where alot of crucial decisions must be made. I still make some mistakes, but during reviews I make sure to look at them properly. It's going pretty well so far!

As a little treat I'll post 4 interesting tsumego. They are very relevant to actual games and I enjoyed them alot. I hope you do too ^_^ (They are quite hard!)

[Abyssinica]

For the top left

I saw C19 for black immediately and can't find a way for white to live. It seems too easy, but the trickiest defence I can think of for white is to play e18 or f18. In response to that, just play e17 or f17. It reminds me of Cho Chikun's intermediate problem #291.

[OtakuViking]

Day 4: I've been feeling a little bit under the weather mentally today, so I didn't do alot of problems. Still managed 20 tesuji and 8 tsumego. I also played and reviewed a game that you can see below.

[OtakuViking]

Day 5, still feeling bad. Did 16 3-4d tsumego, slowly but surely completing the book. The games I played today showed me that my opening is really bad so I will be working on that too.

[OtakuViking]

Day 6: Today I re-read Otake Hideo's Opening theory made easy (I read it when I was ddk or low sdk a long time ago). It was surprisingly useful despite it only covering basic fundamental things. It did refresh a couple points I'd forgotten or neglected. I also started on The fundamentals of go, by Toshiro Kageyama. As with Otake Hideo's book, I've read it before. I read the first chapter on ladders today. I also did 8 tsumego and 24 tesuji problems and played 4 games. I think I must cut down the amount I play and replace that time with 'study' time, so I will try to limit myself to 2 or 3 games per day.

[Knotwilg]

Nice nose tesuji to finish the game.

The door group with leg is easy, as is the weak long L group. The problems at the bottom less so. I can't find the bottom right one. It looks as if Black must be able to give atari on 3 stones and then use some shortage of liberties but I can't find the trick.

EDIT: found it, if the solution involves a heavy ko for White.

[OtakuViking]

Day 7. Did 32 tesuji problems and 8 tsumego, Read 4 chapters of direction of play by Kajiwara Takeo and chapter 2 of Kageyama's fundamentals. Played 3 games.

Thanks knotwilg! You may indeed have found the right solution to that problem ^^

[OtakuViking]

Day 8. 24 tesuji problems and read more of the Direction of play. I played some games, reviewed a few, tried to focus on direction of play in them. I realized an important thing today. Whenever I take white, I lose out quite often if I don't have komi, but I win easily enough if I give handicap stones. Why is this? I think it's because when I play white in a more or less 'even' game, I play it a little like black. I let black build up, if he wants, I take too much territory if he is going for influence, giving him even more influence. I feed whatever he wants to do, helping him along. I realized from reading Direction of play that this is what I was doing in those games where I had white and wasn't giving handicap stones. I was being too lenient on my opponent, I wasn't actively working against his plans. If black played chinese or kobayashi or sanrensei, I was totally down with giving him a huge framework. Usually I only lose by a little bit, but it's still a loss and my attitude in those games was still wrong. As white, I will try to work against what my opponent is doing. If he is threatening to take a large moyo, I will try to prevent it. My losses seem to come primarily from games where I let black get a good opening according to his plan, then I pull it close and lose by a few points. I must try and force black out of his comfort zone more often, and not let him get everything he wants.

[OtakuViking]

Day 9. I've skipped a few training days because I felt a break was in order, but now I'm back in action. Today I completed the last 32 tsumego in the first volume, along with 16 tesuji problems. I also played a few games but nothing much compared to the last few days where I wasn't really studying, just playing for fun. I think sometimes you just need to enjoy yourself and play for fun!

[Charles Matthews]

I also played and reviewed a game that you can see below.

I wonder if the problems start here. A wedge to break up the side seems consistent with Black's low stones on the right, at O3 and P17.

The result is supposed to be joseki; but in fact a Korean 5 dan told me ten years ago that it wasn't (i.e. not in Korea, I guess). White has a strong play at B13 in reserve already. The fact is that Black's shape is thin. So invading with is starting a fight in a difficult area.

Ouch. Both sides have been making bad shape in the centre. Now at G14 looks like an interesting probe.

F5 looks like the key point.

[OtakuViking]

Thanks for the comments charles. I just wanted to make a quick post here about ladders. Kageyama Toshiro said in the fundamentals of Go that it was amazing how many people don't read out ladders properly and use some sort of tracing method instead, skipping the hard, but proper way of doing things. Well I played two games against people who I think didn't read out the ladder normally, but instead traced it with their eyes or something. Maybe they just assumed it worked because they had stones on the other side of the board.

In both cases, I sat and watched in disbelief as they played out the ladder almost to the end before resigning. It was pretty weird. Do note that I'm not posting the games for review, as I was just messing around.

I hope the games amuse you a little ^_^





I still can't believe this happened, not once but twice in a row! lol

[Knotwilg]

Yeah, this "opponent" guy must be really daft to make the same mistake twice!

[Bill Spight]

For your amusement, there is another ladder lurking in game 2. See .