SamT's Study Journal - A Beginner's Journey

[S2W]

I think it is more "cereal box-top" derived than to do with actual "rank". IGS was where I first hit 18 kyu, ... The fear that freezes me seems to come from the idea of losing that "first", as if I would somehow have that war medal stripped from me. I know it doesn't make sense; I explained that already.

Fear not! You can't fall below 18k on igs!

Confession:

I also get nervous around rank transitions - my usual pattern is
a) realize I'm about to cross some arbitrary transition from terrible to marginally less terrible
b) I loose then throw away the next few games because clearly everyone is a sandbagger and what does it matter anyway.
c) recover my senses, forget about rank and level up.
d) rinse and repeat

Theory:

I play out of a love of the game, a smug self satisfaction at being x kyu, and the thrill associated with the random risk of loosing and the reward of crushing my opponent. My smugness and desire for a win dominate and compete. I get a big thrill from winning, a lesser but palpable thrill from my rank. I only get the former by playing, but if I loose I risk the latter. For me the anxiety doesn't stem from poor performance but a fear I won't get a win "hit" and my rank "hit" will diminish.

[SamT]

i think you might need to stop playing the computer

I tried that. And I just stopped playing instead.

I'm currently operating on the priciple that any playing is better than no playing. If the principle is wrong, we shall see.

[SamT]

I'm 2 weeks out from the 6 month mark in Go. Not satisfied at all with my current progress.

Yesterday:

I'm still in Speed Baduk 6. I keep going back through the new stuff, like loose ladders, trying to let it sink in. And I keep realizing that my understanding of the concept is wrong. I've now been through loose ladders 3 times, and each time I thought I had it right, but only now am I sure (I was having Ja-chung issues on previous attempts).

At least I know for sure I am learning from the right Speed Baduk book; this is definitely a huge gap in my basics. I will go through at least one more time, maybe twice, to make sure I am comfortable with it before I move on.

I could not find time to play yesterday, as I had to go to a remote office for work, and lost 2.5 hours to commuting by car/train mix (but I got to work on Speed Baduk for a portion of that), and then I had to teach Kung Fu in the evening. However, I did get to replay some games right before bed (I cannot play before bed or I don't sleep for HOURS!).

I memorized 60 moves from one (Park Junghwan vs. Choi Cheolhan), and started re-memorizing a game that I had completed on but then forgotten (Kong Jie vs Mok Jinseok -- the "Shining Move" game), and replayed one other quickly (Lee Sedol vs ?). This is a lot more fun than learning joseki from a book.

For some reason, my shapes are better this morning. Perhaps subconscious learning really does help. I will continue with memorization today.

Also: 6 months on, I can read into and understand much better (though not anywhere near completely) that Shining Move game. I have a completely different perspective on it than I did before, and that is pretty exciting. It feels like valuable progress.

[SamT]

I just won an 18 kyu Tygem Game by 30 points, but the guy just played slow (maximum amount of timeout every move, moves that couldn't possibly work) for 2 hours until there wasn't anywhere to play on the board, and then passed and disagreed with the final score for another 30 minutes until my iPad crashed too many times and made me auto-lose (there seems to be a glitch in the pass/disagree feature that locks up your screen).

Very angry. Why the HE-double-hockey-sticks does anyone ever play on Tygem? It's a joke!

[mimano]

I cannot play before bed or I don't sleep for HOURS!

So you mean...I am not the only one??!! Even though for me it is "I cannot lose before bed or I don't sleep for HOURS! If I happen to lose I replay and analyze the game for hours in my bed instead of sleeping, and then I cannot play the following day because I am so tired

EDIT: I saw that you live in the US, now that I am not on my phone, so I removed the irrelevant part.

[SamT]

I cannot play before bed or I don't sleep for HOURS!

So you mean...I am not the only one??!! Even though for me it is "I cannot lose before bed or I don't sleep for HOURS! If I happen to lose I replay and analyze the game for hours in my bed instead of sleeping, and then I cannot play the following day because I am so tired

EDIT: I saw that you live in the US, now that I am not on my phone, so I removed the irrelevant part.

That's exactly what happens to me. But if I win, then I'm so happy I just want to dance around for a few hours. So, either way, no go before bed.

Except on Thursday nights because that's Dallas Go Club, and... annnd... I guess there's no really good excuse to destroy my sleep schedule, but I'm an addict. I can't miss Go Club!

[SamT]

I think it is more "cereal box-top" derived than to do with actual "rank". IGS was where I first hit 18 kyu, ... The fear that freezes me seems to come from the idea of losing that "first", as if I would somehow have that war medal stripped from me. I know it doesn't make sense; I explained that already.

Fear not! You can't fall below 18k on igs!

Confession:

I also get nervous around rank transitions - my usual pattern is
a) realize I'm about to cross some arbitrary transition from terrible to marginally less terrible
b) I loose then throw away the next few games because clearly everyone is a sandbagger and what does it matter anyway.
c) recover my senses, forget about rank and level up.
d) rinse and repeat

Theory:

I play out of a love of the game, a smug self satisfaction at being x kyu, and the thrill associated with the random risk of loosing and the reward of crushing my opponent. My smugness and desire for a win dominate and compete. I get a big thrill from winning, a lesser but palpable thrill from my rank. I only get the former by playing, but if I loose I risk the latter. For me the anxiety doesn't stem from poor performance but a fear I won't get a win "hit" and my rank "hit" will diminish.

S2W, I think your observations are right on the money. And if I can't be knocked back into the BC Class on IGS, that really does free me up to play there more.

[oca]

I cannot play before bed or I don't sleep for HOURS!

So you mean...I am not the only one??!! Even though for me it is "I cannot lose before bed or I don't sleep for HOURS! If I happen to lose I replay and analyze the game for hours in my bed instead of sleeping, and then I cannot play the following day because I am so tired

EDIT: I saw that you live in the US, now that I am not on my phone, so I removed the irrelevant part.

With children, I can ONLY play before bed AND I don't sleep for HOURS...(especially when losing, which means nearly 50% of the time)

[SamT]

With children, I can ONLY play before bed AND I don't sleep for HOURS...(especially when losing, which means nearly 50% of the time)

That sounds quite rough, OCA.

I am exhausted today. Go club kept me up wayyy past my bedtime, got home at 10:45pm and I couldn't wind down until about 1:30 AM. Got up at 7, been wiped all day.

Trying to go through the Mini Chinese 2 lecture on Guo Juan, but I am slow to learn an slow to think today and it's difficult for me.

I did 3 lectures Wednesday, another 3 on Thursday no problem, and reviewed all the problems, but I only did one very short lecture today, and it took ALL my effort to get it done. May not finish the mini chinese 2 lecture today.

I really wish there was a problem set for the Mini Chinese 2 lecture. I learn so much better when there are review quizzes.

I did manage to finish Speed Baduk 6 last night, and win a 5-stone handicap game against Chuck Bell (3/4 kyu?). But I wonder if that productivity is worth the lack of productivity today. It doesn't seem to be.

[SamT]

Playing

I've been playing a lot on OGS, 19x19 and 9x9 both, and getting my tail whooped thoroughly. I am really, really not good at what I am doing -- mostly blitz games. But you have to do something to get better, right?

I've fallen all the way to 17 kyu since I started blitzing. If I really am 9 kyu, which this makes me doubt, I obviously am only that good when I have time to think. My first instincts for shape and board position, which is what blitz seems to operate from, must still be terrible.

My hands shake quite a bit when I play (adrenalin), so I have 2-3 misclicks per game, and those definitely don't help, but even without those misplays, I would still be losing. It doesn't occur to me to stop a massive moyo until it's too late (this is a board position weakness). Also: I am terrible at securing the edges of my own moyo (I consider this to be caused by shape/liberty problems).

I have been trying to play slower, but even in a game where I have time, I find myself playing far too fast and not reading deeply enough. This seems to be the worst side effect of blitzing. In effect, I keep blitzing even when I don't have a fast time limit. I need to figure out how to play slower again.

Here's an irony: I'm currently better on a 9x9 than a 19x19, which is the exact opposite of how it used to be.

Hopefully I can get whatever used to make me 9 kyu back; it seems to have gone on vacation for Christmas.

---

A little off topic: I'm thinking about asking for Crazy Stone for Christmas. Anyone have it? Thoughts/feelings/reviews?

[SamT]

An example game, because examples are always better than generalizations. 11 min blitz game.

Lots of mistakes I could see immediately after I played them, but there is something more fundamentally wrong on this, in that I was more worried about local responses than about the global situation, and I feel like I was way too passive at the end, just reacting instead of counter-threatening. Also, he's better at fighting than me

I'm too close to the game, so I cannot see the opportunities I missed.



All of this is of course guesswork. All I know for sure is that I am really, REALLY, --REALLY-- bad at blitz.

1227623-297-nikwdhmos-Juanjo Pina.sgf

(2.42 KiB) Downloaded 1457 times

[Charles Matthews]

I'm too close to the game, so I cannot see the opportunities I missed.



All of this is of course guesswork. All I know for sure is that I am really, REALLY, --REALLY-- bad at blitz.

1227623-297-nikwdhmos-Juanjo Pina.sgf

Problems at the level of intuitions, though.

Play a low approach at the top if you want to limit Black's framework. That way you aim to settle a group quickly. This leads to trouble.

Play F4 on instinct. You seem to be missing this shape.

Jumping to N7 looks better to me. You develop thin shape this way, and Black's framework is untouched.

Why? A ladder-breaker plan?

One to the left, obviously ... A whole move wasted.

The central fight has become serious. H2 is going to be big, so you have to take care of the three stones as priority. I'm a fan of plays like H11, aiming at H9 for good shape. At the least they may baffle the opponent.

Just play E13. You gain every time this shape is made with stones that are not heavy.

The game seems to turn Black's way.

Yes, but you can't win the game with two big corners on the left.

Ouch.

Wrong feeling. Leave these guys, play something like P9 I think. wastes another play.

D2 kills.

Poor feeling, aji keshi.

Practically a wasted play again. Comments end.

[SamT]

Problems at the level of intuitions, though.

Thank you highly, Charles. I will go through and add your comments to my file right now and see if I can play out some common-sensical variations.

I wish I could say I had an instinct for the game, but this puts the lie to that. Almost 6 months in, and it seems my primary skill so far has been talking myself out of the bad moves I instinctively want to make.

[SamT]

Yunguseng and Guo Juan

So, I have joined Yunguseng Dojang for one season, and I have signed up for Guo Juan's site. I'm not sure I can afford any of this, ad I'm kind of afraid to get addicted to Yunguseng because it is so expensive, but it seems important to try them both at least once. It seems most important to do get some sort of formal instruction near the beginning of my training, if six months is really "near the beginning".

Guo Juan is very good so far. My major disappointment is that not every lecture has a corresponding problem set (Mini Chinese lectures 2 and 3 being key examples so far). I feel like for the lectures that don't, if I don't make the problems myself, keying them in by hand for later review, I am almost wasting my time.

The Yunguseng lectures are very thorough and very long. I have not quite completed registration for the problem sets, so I cannot say how thorough they are. But hopefully they will be a lot better than keying the problems into Drago by hand.

I have worked my way through 4 of the Yungseng lectures, but it is hard to find an hour for solid study, so the last 20-30 minutes of each lecture have been highly distracted, and I will need to rewatch them.

Book Training
I have been going through Jump Level Up #2 again. The ja-chung and double-ja-chung problems are very challenging for me. This indicates I have problems with ja-chung in general, which is probably one of the key reasons why my fighting is sub-par. I will focus on them again.

I am only 2 sections into Speed Baduk 7. The connection problems there are very challenging for me as well. Basically, everything is challenging right now.

Game Memorization
On the game memorization front, I have made some progress. I have the first 50-70 moves memorize from 3 separate games. I will try to continue this, and memorizing the first 50 moves of 100 games is my eventual goal.

Games
Overall, though, since I started focusing on improving my fighting, I have noticed a backslide in my ability to tenuki and to think globally rather than locally. Hopefully I will dig my way out of this hole soon.

For sacrifice on the altar this week, the last 19x19 game I feel like I played passably in. I lost on time, despite being 29 points in the lead.

[Charles Matthews]

Mistakes in style: capture, omit, one higher, is aji keshi, snapback.

etc. Should be trying to play on both sides like this, because it leaves weaknesses. Concentrate on pushing in the centre, which is big, and then play D2.

Black 139. If you played N18 the white group might die. No more comments.