Hi Ed,

Your focus was on the word "now" rather than the rest, but okay. I've known for years that my reading is comparable to most 2-3 k's. It has gotten better through playing but still lags the rest of my game. My teacher also knows my reading failures all too well.

She used to believe my reading would improve through play, and it has, just not enough. Over the last year, she has concluded that problems are the key for me and she also believes it's true for most amateurs. So much so that she made a video out of one of my Congress games, which would have been an easy win by resign if I could read worth a damn, but instead I gave it away. That was only one lesson from the video, but definitely the most important to me.

As if that video wasn't enough to encourage me to do more problems, she has agreed to make a charitable donation for every problem I solve in the month of October as part of Go Sober October.*

Someday Ed, you will see that video, if you are lucky.

* MacMillan is still accepting donations if anybody else wants to help families fighting cancer. Even small donations help.

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

That's interesting since it indicates that reading through games isn't sufficient.

Well, for me anyway. I wouldn't have the temerity to offer that conclusion for others.

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

On a recent game review thread of yours:


That doesn't seem a good way to train reading . Also one of the advantages of training reading by problems is you know there is an answer and you should keep reading until you reach the goal (kill, live, connect etc). And problem sets have been designed with varying levels of difficulty that enable you to progressively stretch yourself as you improve.

P.S. I don't do problems much and my reading is also comparatively weak.

You, too? Let's form a club. Weak Readers Anonymous.

My name is Bill, and I am a weak reader.

Hi, Bill.

Grant me the strength to read the positions that I can read,
The serenity to accept the positions that I cannot read (which is most of them),
And the courage to make a play, anyway.

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

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I am in this club too. I rather stagnate and don't improve than to even touch tsume go. Either it comes while playing or it can go to hell^^.

The 34th Honinbo Game Two (Rin vs. Kato) in 1979 has a striking example showing that professionals don't (always) re-read.

Kato gets caught napping early on by making a dodgy response in a surprisingly common corner shape. His response allows a sente move against his corner group, and the way Rin makes use of this 20 moves later is quite ingenious.

Kato could have rechecked his group's status if he'd sensed danger. Presumably Rin kept a very good poker face during the game.

Hi w&g, I knew the original focus:

• reading is the biggest weakness;
• solving problems is the solution.

I was also curious about the relative stresses of the rest.

I wonder if most posters to L19 would be members of this club, one or two stronger than our rating when it comes to theory, and one or two stones weaker when it comes to reading. Perhaps the good readers don't care about theory as much, so they play more go, while reading and posting less, and the poor readers like to talk about stuff.

(Note I said "most" not "all".)

One exception, who has sadly stopped posting, is Kirby. That dude may be a Jon Snow, but he can sure read well and fast.

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

Maybe. There could also be some false modesty. To give some details for me, when I was in Korea the teachers were rather amused and surprised at how bad at tsuemgo I was given my playing strength: I had fairly even game results against Richard and Thomas but they were doing far harder problems than me (Richard was working his way through the fiendish Kwon Kapyong tsumego series).