Filthy casual training

oren · **#21**

tentano wrote:

I'd heard before that western kyus are notorious for "not even being able to read a ladder", but I rarely get to see it in action.

Also eastern kyus.

Abyssinica · **#22**

Kyus are just terrible, full stop. :ugeek:

tentano · **#23**

Added a list of problem collection titles to the top post.

Trying to be ORGANIZED. Or at least less disorganized.

Having made that edit, I realize that it will take months to dig through all that in a meaningful way.

At least I don't have a lack of quality tsumego collections. I just hope that half a year from now, I'll actually be substantially sick of tsuI MEAN improved in reading.

I guess for december my goal is to retire the easiest set and pick a slightly harder one to add on top of the remaining four. It's time to retire a set when it can be completed by me in under an hour with absolute certainty about each answer (including not just where the first move goes, but also why there and not elsewhere, and how it plays out). That's the criteria I used for the ones already in retirement.

Abyssinica · **#24**

Have you tried the Gokyo Shumyo to make your day agonising?

tentano · **#25**

Gokyo Shumyo is still too hard to use for my present goal.

It should eventually not be, but for now it's way beyond my scope.

They take me at least 5 minutes each to solve. Far too slow.

tentano · **#26**

Haven't spent that much time on tsumego the past two days, but the 300-400 range of Cho's E seems much tougher than the earlier ones.

Much to my chagrin, I've already had three problems (out of the first 40) where I could only find the solution by doing a tree search. This is roughly the same thing as having to look up the answer, except it takes longer. I simply take every remotely possible first move and for each one, I try to refute it. At least one of them should not be refutable, or the tsumego is bad.

I couldn't see the vital point, I couldn't see how it would play out and the only reason I will know in future is because I kept rehearsing the failed problems over and over in my mind because I was angry I couldn't see the solution at all.

Now that I'm not ambivalent about whether I can solve a problem, my attitude is very different from when I was just entertaining myself. Each one MUST be solved. Each one MUST be understood. By changing the goal, I've fundamentally changed the activity. I'd say it's less entertaining, but also more fulfilling. It feels like I'm winning something, in a way I wasn't before.

tentano · **#27**

Added a sidequest: Attack and Defense by Ishida/Davies. I don't know what I might get out of this, but it breaks the monotony of only tsumego.

I seem to have developed tsumegitis. I've been trying to kill EVERYTHING in today's games. This is fantastic practice, but also leads to a 40% win ratio. Also highly entertaining.

I checked out the gostyle webapp at http://gostyle.j2m.cz/webapp.html and it accuses me of being very novel and very fighting (8+ on both). It also accused me of being 4k, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I also checked http://style.baduk.org/style/index.php? and it told me I was flexible. Again, warm fuzzies.

Feeling positive about my development, despite there being no actual rank improvement on KGS.

PeterN · **#28**

My heart always tells me there's absolutely nothing wrong with trying to kill everything in sight on the board, even if my head tells me otherwise.

Sadly my heart often wins the argument.

You're not alone

Also never heard of that website before, got to check it out now....

Somehow my KGS equivalent strength is 2k ± 2.63.... But my rank on KGS is 4K :scratch:

PeterN

Kirby · **#29**

PeterN wrote:

Somehow my KGS equivalent strength is 2k ± 2.63.... But my rank on KGS is 4K :scratch:

Somehow, the webapp ranks my account at 5d ± 2.63. Is 2.63 a magic number?

When analyzing a KGS user, wouldn't it make sense to set your "KGS equivalent strength" to, say, your KGS rank? :-)

tentano · **#30**

Well, that's what the confidence interval is for, I guess. They've got fancy maths at work to guess the strength of the player, rather than just read whatever KGS says your rank is. It's bound to be a bit fuzzy. I'm already impressed they can keep it within a range of five-ish stones just by automated analysis.

Unless they're just way off sometimes. If 200-300 people could just take that test and report back to me, I'd have a reasonable statistical sample to estimate how accurate it is. I'm sure the authors would like that data too... and then they'd modify their software so the data from that survey becomes obsolete and it will need to be redone.

Science is so much FUN.

PeterN · **#31**

Yup, my drunk account is 5k ± 2.63.

We have discovered the new 42!

PeterN

PeterN · **#32**

tentano wrote:

Unless they're just way off sometimes. If 200-300 people could just take that test and report back to me, I'd have a reasonable statistical sample to estimate how accurate it is. I'm sure the authors would like that data too... and then they'd modify their software so the data from that survey becomes obsolete and it will need to be redone.

If you want to do this you could just enter 200-300 random KGS usernames and compare what it says their rank is compared to what KGS says their rank is.

PeterN

tentano · **#33**

I like this simple, yet brilliant suggestion.

Abyssinica · **#34**

Notice the confidence interval is always the same. Seems to be broken.

RBerenguel · **#35**

tentano wrote:

EDIT 08-dec-2014:

Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 1
Level Up Review 1
Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 2
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Level Up Review 2
Essential Life and Death 1
Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 3
1001 Life and Death Problems
Cho's Elementary
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Cho's Intermediate
Cho's Advanced

The following titles I have (access to) and expect to be harder than what's in the list already.
I haven't examined them enough recently so I don't know for sure how to relatively sort them.
These titles are prime candidates for populating the list above.
Considering the vast amount of problems to dig through, it will be a while before I have these all sorted.

Gokyo Shumyo
Gokyo Seimyo
Xuanxuan Qijing
Igo Hatsuyoron
Maeda 1
Maeda 2
Maeda 3
Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 4
Essential Life and Death 2
Essential Life and Death 3
Essential Life and Death 4
501 Opening Problems
501 Tesuji Problems
Making Good Shape (only half of this is really a problem book)
Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Volume 1
Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Volume 2
Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Volume 3
Get Strong at Joseki 1
Get Strong at Joseki 2
Get Strong at Joseki 3
Get Strong at the Opening
150 Life and Death Problems for Shodan
150 Joseki Problems for Shodan
150 Tesuji Problems for Shodan
150 Life and Death Problems for 3rd dan
150 Joseki Problems for 3rd dan
150 Tesuji Problems for 3rd dan
150 Life and Death Problems for 6th dan
150 Tesuji Problems for 6th dan
150 Joeski Problems for 6th dan
150 Life and Death Problems for 7th dan
150 Tesuji Problems for 7th dan
150 Joeski Problems for 7th dan

GGPB3 and 1001 LD are likely harder than Cho Elementary, or at least, equivalent. I'd switch them around if I was you. Also, GGPFD tsumego 1 dan (I have the Japanese volume, which is 150 problems for 1 dan instead of 300 for 1-3d) is quite easy, probably around the level of GGPFB3, maybe slightly harder, but not much. 501 opening problems can be done any time, it's not "hard" and will improve play quite a bit. Maeda's are quite hard... And seems like you can't have access to Segoe-Seigen tesuji books. A pity, I love them, even if the easiest are still crazy tricky. As for Cho Intermediate, they are definitely a notch or two harder than GGPFB3 or 1001LD, as for Advanced, I don't even dare to check for now.

The GSAJ volumes are on the hard side, somehow I can manage better the problems on the GGPFD Joseki volume 1.

Damn, I have so many books

tentano · **#36**

Well, that's a little disappointing.

I tried a bunch of valid KGS ids with 40+ games in their recent history, and it's clear this app is still a work in progress.

Despite its protestations of a confidence interval, experimental evidence suggests it's +/- 5 ranks. The advertised confidence interval is a case of hubris.

I was, however, greatly amused when it offered an admonishment to a 6d (estimated as 5d), that it might be unwise to capture so many stones. A 5d (estimated as 3d) was told they should really strongly consider to play less gote.

I'd have to do a lot more to get meaningful stats on specific ranking ranges, though. I don't notice an obvious bias so it's probably not that big of a difference.

It's only a little disappointing, though. This is a machine doing mathsy things, and it's still within 5 ranks of being reliably accurate. The majority (over 80%) is within 3 ranks, so you can use it for a not-that-accurate guess if you've been out of action for a very long time and you want to know what strength you could potentially claim.

tentano · **#37**

I took a look at Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Volume 1 and it does seem more-or-less to fit into the current level of difficulty. I was convinced the word "dan" meant it would be too hard by far, but it's really near Cho's Elementary.

Cho's Elementary has slowed down considerably past 300, and even more past 400. I guess I'll be stuck on it for some time to come. I'll just have to keep trudging through it to the bitter end, but I'll mix it up a bit by digging through the other titles, too.

Then, when I've finished it, it's going to get repeated until it's very easy. I'm kinda scared this means ten to twenty times. I hope this is an overestimation.

RBerenguel · **#38**

tentano wrote:

I took a look at Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Volume 1 and it does seem more-or-less to fit into the current level of difficulty. I was convinced the word "dan" meant it would be too hard by far, but it's really near Cho's Elementary.

Cho's Elementary has slowed down considerably past 300, and even more past 400. I guess I'll be stuck on it for some time to come. I'll just have to keep trudging through it to the bitter end, but I'll mix it up a bit by digging through the other titles, too.

Then, when I've finished it, it's going to get repeated until it's very easy. I'm kinda scared this means ten to twenty times. I hope this is an overestimation.

I'm om my 5th run through elementary and some (10-12 out of 900) still give me some minor trouble

tentano · **#39**

Code:

+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
| Pass  | Prob# |  Title                                          |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   2   |    1  |  Level Up Review 2                              |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   2   |    1  |  Essential Life and Death 1                     |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   1   |    1  |  Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 3      |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   1   |   50  |  1001 Life and Death Problems                   |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   1   |    2  |  Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Volume 1    |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   1   |  490  |  Cho's Elementary                               |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
Next up for inclusion:
501 Opening Problems (after dropping Level Up Review 2)
Essential Life and Death 2 (after dropping 1)
Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 4 (after dropping 3)
Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Volume 2 (after dropping 1)
Cho's Intermediate (after dropping Elementary)
501 Tesuji Problems (after dropping 1001 L&D)

[StongBad]Woaho! Systematic![/StrongBad]

tentano · **#40**

Code:

+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
| Pass  | Prob# |  Title                                          |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   2   |    1  |  Level Up Review 2                              |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   2   |    1  |  Essential Life and Death 1                     |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   1   |   32  |  Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 3      |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   1   |   50  |  1001 Life and Death Problems                   |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   1   |    2  |  Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Volume 1    |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   1   |  490  |  Cho's Elementary                               |
+-------+-------+-------------------------------------------------+
Next up for inclusion:
501 Opening Problems (after dropping Level Up Review 2)
Essential Life and Death 2 (after dropping 1)
Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 4 (after dropping 3)
Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Volume 2 (after dropping 1)
Cho's Intermediate (after dropping Elementary)
501 Tesuji Problems (after dropping 1001 L&D)

Distracting myself with Igojin. It has a few tsumego in each issue, this counts as practice, surely? Study? Surely not entertainment?
I am bad at fooling myself, but good at forgiving myself. It balances out.

Filthy casual training

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