nothing fancy

[Umsturz]

Hey guys this will be my study journal. Don't expect anything fancy. I will write about my goals and how I plan to accomplish them. The main purpose of this journal is to motivate myself and to track my progress. From time to time I might write about how I like certain books or videos.

About me: I am currently EGD 5k, the last tournament I played as a 4k with a 1:4 result.

Current goal: The next tournament is in 6 weeks and I want to play as a 4k with a positive end result (3:2, 4:1...)

Go resources I am currently using:

• Get Strong at Tesuji (p. 29)
• Jump Level Up 1-5! (Book 1 p.51)
• Baduk Tv English: Becoming 5kyu (3rd episode)

Plan: Recently I lose most games because I like to tenuki, although I should defend one of my groups. I still feel that tenuki is the right choice in most cases, but apparently I need some practice in making life ; ( Thats why I will focus on life and death problems, playing games online and a little bit of theory/patterns. Also I don't want to play a more calm game just because I am losing groups, in fact I want to play more aggressive ( I was told that I am playing way to calm).

I will post every week maybe more often than that. See ya

[Umsturz]

So time for a update. Maybe every week was to ambitious ; )

Go resources I am currently using:

• Get Strong at Tesuji (p. 29) --> No progress
• Jump Level Up 1-5! (Book 1 p.51) --> Book1 p.87
• Baduk Tv English: Becoming 5kyu (3rd episode) --> 8th episode

In the last two weeks I played a lot of games in my local go club (we meet twice a week). Mostly against 2-6kyus. I am still blunderings from time to time, but I have the feeling that I can hold my own against 2-4kyus.

The Baduk Tv Video lessions are really good. The first six videos answered many questions I had about very easy josekis and resulting corner positions. I will watch "Becoming 5kyu" up to ep 10 and then review everything I learned.

The tournament is in about three weeks and while I feel a bit more confident I still want to learn more. Maybe in the coming weeks I will focus more on theory and reading practice!

[Umsturz]

Wow it has been too long. In the tournament I was writing about I played 2:3. As far as I remember I lost two games where I was clearly ahead but slacked of because I thought there was no way that I would loose...

This weekend I played in another tournament and it was a total disaster. First game I played my favorite opening and got everything I wanted. My opponent did not attack at all and my territory was huge! We kept on playing and once again I slacked off and had to sacrifice a lot of stones. Lost by 14 points, pretty sure I was leading by 30 points during the middle game...
Second game I played some weird josekis I did not know as white and after the opening I was a little bit behind so I took some risks which ended in me loosing a huge group... and the rest of the games we don't even have to talk about : S

The road is still long and I have been slacking of. So it is time for dedicating training. Next tournament is in three weeks and I have a bet to win!

Go resources I am currently using:

• Get Strong at Tesuji p.29
• Jump Level Up 1-5! Book1 p.87 -> on hold
• Baduk Tv English: Becoming 5 Kyu 8th episode -> on hold
• Graded Go Problems for Beginners 3 Problem #115
• Baduk Tv English: Level Up to 3 Kyu 4th episode

Go resources I finished:

• Graded Go Problems for Beginners 1
• Graded Go Problems for Beginners 2

[Elom]

I used to have a similar problem, but reviewing pro games while being aware of invasion possibilities may help. They would often invade and live in places you never expect. Paying attention to that in pro games may help you stay attentive to possibilities for your opponent to catch up in real games .

[Calvin Clark]

About me: I am currently EGD 5k, the last tournament I played as a 4k with a 1:4 result.

Current goal: The next tournament is in 6 weeks and I want to play as a 4k with a positive end result (3:2, 4:1...)

So I guess where you are playing they let you do a 1-stone self-promotion? (Good luck, BTW!)

[Bill Spight]

Plan: Recently I lose most games because I like to tenuki, although I should defend one of my groups. I still feel that tenuki is the right choice in most cases, but apparently I need some practice in making life ;

Maybe you need practice in sacrificing stones.

[Umsturz]

After I selfpromoted to 4k in 2014 my rating points steadily declined. 4k was not realistic. From 2014 to 2017 I played in 9 tournaments and every week in my local Go club. But my Go did not improve.
Go is my main hobby and I never lost interest in the game, I just fooled around too much. I did not play my best in tournaments and I played mostly against weaker players at my Go club.

In 2018 I tried to change. I went to 10 tournaments in 2018. I gained some rating points at the beginning of the year but unfortunatly I played really bad in two tournaments and lost more than 120 points. At the end of 2018 I recovered and have once again a solid 6k rating.

My main goal for 2019 is obviously to get stronger and maybe to really become a 4k or better. I will achive this by going to a lot of tournaments and doing a lot Go problems on a weekly basis. Thanks to the Jump Level Up! books I kinda like doing Go problems.

Somethings I realized in the last years, that I did not understand before:

- The best strategy/opening is worth nothing without being backed up by a strong reading ability. If you can not read, your position collapses as soon as your stones meet the opponent stones.

- Steady effort wins in the long run.

- Mindset is important. Bringing your A-game in a tournament is a skill. A lot of times I loose the first game in my tournaments because I am not in a focused serious mindset.


Go resources I am currently using:

• Jump Level Up! 4
• Essential L&D 2
• Attack and Defense
• Baduk Tv English -> on hold
• Get Strong at Tesuji p.29 -> on hold

Go resources I finished:

• Graded Go Problems for Beginners 1
• Graded Go Problems for Beginners 2
• Graded Go Problems for Beginners 3
• Jump Level Up! 1
• Jump Level Up! 2
• Jump Level Up! 3
• Essential L&D 1

[Bill Spight]

- Steady effort wins in the long run.

Right.

- Mindset is important. Bringing your A-game in a tournament is a skill.

Quite so. Very important.

- The best strategy/opening is worth nothing without being backed up by a strong reading ability. If you can not read, your position collapses as soon as your stones meet the opponent stones.

A myth. At the SDK level it is easy to lose 40-50 pts. in the opening. Even more vs. the best strategy. If you lose 30 pts. in the opening and your opponent makes a reading blunder in the middle game that costs 25 pts., you still lose. Not to disparage reading, but reading is only part of a good game. Good go requires several skills.

[Umsturz]

Hello Bill,
thank you for the reply. You are right Go requires more than one skill, I should not neglect the other areas of the game.

In other news, I finished Get Strong at Tesuji, The Direction of Play and Jump Level Up! 4. I stumbled upon The Direction of Play by accident and finished reading it after two days. I think I got the most important points out of it:
- Do not play joseki blindly.
- Every move counts, your stones are part of yourself and your instruments of power
- Opening moves have certain directions they want to develop to, keep that in mind!
- Try to not give your opponent what he or she wants.
- What happens in the opening can dictate the rest of the game.

Even though I liked the tone of the book, I skipped through the last third of the book. It got a little bit repetitive and I did not see any new value in the diagrams.

In two weeks, I will play in my next tournament. Before that I will finish 1001 L&D Problem and look at some new joseki. I was told by a friend that there is a different way to handle double approaches now. Also, I want to look at some approach moves for the large knight's enclosure and refresh my 3-3 knowledge.


Go resources I am currently using:

• 501 Tesuji Problems
• Get Strong at L&D
• Essential L&D 2
• Attack and Defense
• Baduk Tv English -> on hold

Go resources I finished:

• Graded Go Problems for Beginners 1
• Graded Go Problems for Beginners 2
• Graded Go Problems for Beginners 3
• Jump Level Up! 1
• Jump Level Up! 2
• Jump Level Up! 3
• Jump Level Up! 4
• The Direction of Play
• Get Strong at Tesuji
• Essential L&D 1

[Umsturz]

I played 3:1 in the last tournament. Won against a 4k, 7k and 5k. Lost against a 4k. This 4k always plays super fast and last time we meet in a different tournament I used my time and beat him... this time I got caught up in his flow and he cut my moyo into pieces.

Overall I am satisfied with my games. In game 2 and 3 I was behind, but turned it around at the end. Beeing tenacious payed off big time. Interestingly the first three games were really close, 2-5 points difference. My reading ability seems to be fine compared to other players my strength (of course there are some blunders ), but my opening and middle game might not be as good as I thought. In this tournament I tried to be well rested for all my games. Last year I played some tournaments half asleep and lost a lot of rating points against weaker, better rested, players...

Right now I am finishing 1001 L&D Problems and I started to read 501 Tesuji Problems. 501 Tesuji Problems is really difficult for me so far. Some problems/shapes I already know and can solve, but very often I cant find the answer at all. So I decied to spend 1-2 minutes on the problem and if I dont have any idea whatsoever by that time I will just look at the solution . Hopefully I will get some new ideas and remember some of the tricks.

Next tournament will be in march, until then I will do more tsumego but also keep playing games online, maybe look at some commented pro games and work on my endgame skills.

Books I want to finish before the next tournament:
- 1001 L&D Problems
- 501 Tesuji Problems
- Get strong at the Endgame
- Essential L&D 2-3
- Graded Go Problems for Beginners 4
- Attack and Defense
- Fundamental Principles of Go
- Jump Level Up! 5

[Umsturz]

Here just a quick update. I was really busy solving tsumegos on tsumego-hero the last two month. In february alone I solved 2000 problems, and all in all I solved around 3000 problems. The improvment in reading ability is astonishing. Almost all my games whether they are online or in the local club are decided because of some enemy group dying. I feel definitly stronger than my current 5k egf ranking. But I still have a long way to go! The remaining problems on tsumego-hero are so hard that I find myself guessing more than reading. Before that becomes a bad habit I decided to stop for now.

Also for the first time ever I won handicap games (8/7stones) against the 2nd (3dan) and 3rd (2dan) strongest players in our local go club!

Together with some other players from my club I will attend three go tournaments this month. My goal is to obtain at least a solid 4k ranking in march!

Books I am working on:
- Get strong at the Endgame
- Essential L&D 2
- Graded Go Problems for Beginners 4

- 1001 L&D Problems (finished again)
- Get strong at Tesuji (finished again)
- 501 Tesuji Problems (dropped, too hard right now)
- Attack and Defense (on hold)
- Fundamental Principles of Go (on hold)
- Jump Level Up! 5 (on hold)

[Knotwilg]

Your goal to come out of that tournament as a 4K or better is a desired outcome. It’s a realistic “goal” but something is missing. You have little control over that outcome. What are you going to do to make it happen? Is there a course of events that would still satisfy you even if you don’t come out as a 4K?

You are reading books. How do these books relate to this short term goal? You have improved your reading ability. How are you going to make that weapon work for your goal? You say your opening may be your weak point today. How will you cover that weakness during the tournament ?

I’m interested to learn how you will connect your current state with your goal.