DJLLAP's study journal

[DJLLAP]

I am glad to announce that I have reached 5k as of yesterday. I won a game late in the night and moved up, but when I logged on in the morning I was back to 6k

I managed to win the next game also and regained my new rank. It was a bit of an odd game actually. I was in the middle of a dangerous fight (with a bot). My opponent makes a move, and while I am trying to read out my options it just resigned. I will post this game in the review section if anyone is interested.

I am very pleased with my progress thus far. I have finished the Graded go Problems series, and worked most of my way through Get Strong at Tesuji. Once I am done with that, I have 501 Tesuji Problems to work on. Until I lost my job last week, I was also doing a 200-400 problems a day on gochild (mostly the easy ones).

I don't feel like my game has changed very much except for my increased ability to see useful tesuji. I no longer have access to dan level players IRL except on rare occasion, so most of my improvement must be made through study. If I can keep my level of improvement steady, I should be able to reach my goal of shodan by late January.

[DJLLAP]

I have been suffering from a distinct lack of motivation recently. I have not been doing problems at a regular basis, and have not been playing very regularly either. To change up my pace a bit, I have started to memorize some Shusaku games, and have been working through "The Endgame" which gives me major headaches. I haven't made any rank progress since I started slumping.

Funny thing: even though my KGS rank has gone up 2 stones since I started this program my Tygem rank is steady at 9k and shows no signs of going up.

[DJLLAP]

It has been a long time since I have written in this journal. The goal I set for reaching dan by my birthday passed by months ago and the time I spend actually studying has diminished to almost nothing. At least I have not been wholly wasting my life while neglecting my go studies. In the last year I have successfully started up my own wedding music business here in Denver http://www.flutevibes.com, and now I have just started a part time job at Home Depot to help pay off some debt while the wedding music becomes established. I have also spent a lot of time playing SWTOR lately.

Oddly enough, I have still made steady, but slow progress towards my goal with out studying or even playing very often. I usually have a few games from DGS or OGS running, but I never play seriously on those servers for some reason, so I don't think that they help me improve much. I am currently participating in 3 malkovitch games, which I do treat very seriously most of the time, whcih may be why I continue to improve.

In any case, I reached KGS 3K a couple of days ago. I expected that I would fall back down to 4k once or twice before really accepting that I am 3k, but I have now played 2 even games at my new rank and won both solidly by resignation, so maybe the rank will stick.

When I first started playing go, a friend of mine from the Go club mentioned that throughout the years he had been playing, the way he approached the game had undergone several severe changes as he had to adjust his concept of the game in order to improve. I have not found this to be the case for me. If it weren't for that little number next to my name or a couple stably ranked opponents with whom I reduce my handicap against, I have not noticed any change in how I actually play the game. I still kind of feel like I am a 7k, and am a bit intimidated by playing others of the 3k rank, even more so giving 4 stones to real 7ks. Neither do I feel that my reading skills have gotten significantly better. So I am a bit curious how skill in go works, and what exactly I am improving at.

I will post two games here, one from when I was 7k, and one from this week. If anyone would like to throw in their 2 cents, you are welcome to compare and contrast my play in the two games.

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2012/5/20/djllap-zelda03.sgf

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2013/6/27/djllap-njdavid.sgf

Actually, when I look at them side by side like this, it appears that my reading has improved dramatically. I made some huge reading errors in the zelda game. I think I have also developed a pretty good sense of whole board thinking, at least for a kyu. At lease I am usually instantly aware when I have over-extended myself and am about to pay the price.

[DJLLAP]

OK. Well, it has been a very long time (again) since I have posted here. Heck, it has been a very long time since I have studied go. Or even played go, if you don't count the stream of correspondence OGS games that seem to start themselves whether I will it or no. I recently watched through the Anime of Hikaru No Go again, and then read the manga where it leaves off, and it inspired me to play go again after nearly a year away. So here I am. Since I have started playing again, my reading seems worse, I have forgotten some memorized things like joseki and other common sequences, but at least on KGS my rank seems to be steady at 3k still. Perhaps, I have also forgotten some bad habits. I have felt like the superior strategic player in most of my recent games, but with lots of mistakes in tactics. It seems every one is out reading me, even when I am a few stones stronger.

I joined ASR this month and was surprised to see how much smaller it is now. Only 1 Gamma class... I played my first game in the league yesterday, and today I realized that I had neglected to type #asr league the beginning. I was in the middle of drafting a message to an admin when I remembered that I had also not checked to see if my opponent was actually in the league. And sure enough he was not. Oops. Anyway, here is my second (first) game in the league - played just this morning. I made a large number of reading mistakes, finishing with failing to kill an L+1 corner group which lost me the game.

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2015/3/20/Kita-djllap.sgf

Mine own comments: is too small and lets me get sealed in, luckily my opponent did not.
wrong side. This caused a lot of problems.
is just plain stupid. CUT!

[DJLLAP]

I started reading Attack and Defense again yesterday. It has been a good reminder of really basic things that I should never have forgotten. Today I played a game trying to keep in mind everything I had (re)learned from the first few chapters. My opponent gave me the easy way out many times, but I thought I would post the game with my comments. If anyone has input about better attacks, places I may have overplayed, etc. I would be glad to hear them.

https://online-go.com/api/v1/reviews/57178/sgf

[DJLLAP]

Shortly after my last post I lost a few games in a row and ended up dropping to 4k on KGS. I thought if I won a few games it would pop right back up, but it was surprisingly hard to regain my status. It took more than 30 games with a 75% win rate in order to reclaim 3k. Actually I reclaimed 3k 3 times, without losing a single game between. I would play my daily rated game, get promoted to 3k only to log back in the next day to be 4k again, and this happened twice.

On the bright side, my win today (where I started at 3k) puts me at 5 wins in a row and 9 wins out of the past 11 games. I feel I am playing really well in general. I make at least one major error in most of my games, but I usually win by a fairly large margin anyway. I hope this is a sign that I am ready to shoot straight up to 2k. I really want to make Shodan this year.

I have been working through 501 tesuji problems. This book is much more challenging than any other problem book I have used, and often frustrates me, and makes me just want to turn the page for the answer, but I am doing my best to attempt each question seriously. The problems all seem to be shapes from actual games, and many have less specific and very practical goals ("Black to settle both of his groups").

In addition to problems, I am playing at least one serious game every day, and reviewing every game I play (even my rare blitz game), if only for a few minutes.

Here is today's game with a few comments by myself.

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=5890

[skydyr]

The first thing that comes to mind in this game is running with the high double-approach stone. Black is happy to leave it be for a while, because the 3-3 point is still open due to it's aji. I wouldn't exploit it right away, because there are other bigger moves on the board, but black can expect to take it or take a free sente at least if white fixes it later in the middlegame. There's no devastating punishment where all white's groups collapse.

[DJLLAP]

The first thing that comes to mind in this game is running with the high double-approach stone. Black is happy to leave it be for a while, because the 3-3 point is still open due to it's aji. I wouldn't exploit it right away, because there are other bigger moves on the board, but black can expect to take it or take a free sente at least if white fixes it later in the middlegame. There's no devastating punishment where all white's groups collapse.

I did consider playing elsewhere, it just looked so big if B captured that stone. I have only recently started using the high double-pincer in response to a low pincer, and am not really all that familiar with all of the followups. I think this is the first time someone has not cut after . After playing around with some variations though it does look less of a big deal.

[DJLLAP]

http://files.gokgs.com/games/2015/4/30/djllap-oldsheep.sgf

The prize idiot award of today goes to me! Jump to the invasion at 219 and you will see how I single-handedly resurrected an enemy group - choosing one of the few sequences that would lose me the game among hundreds of possible lines of play in which I lose nothing. Also there were many ways B could have lived in the corner and W was still happily winning.

[DJLLAP]

Last night, I played my first game with my new go mentor Kirby (Thanks Kirby!) viewtopic.php?f=10&t=11531

I felt like I was playing pretty well throughout the whole game, but I constantly was giving up the important parts of the board and ended up resigning when I was bout 25 points behind in the endgame. We decided that I fight well, but often made greedy overplays that created multiple weak groups or invading too deeply into my opponent's territory, so I may be a little to keen on fighting. I also needed to be more aware of the important areas on the board to develop the places with more potential - the "interesting side" as I hear in pro commentaries.

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/download/file.php?id=5931

I have also started to attempt to memorize the Lee Sedol-Gu Li Jubango. I am not really sure if memorizing pro games really helps you improve, but if nothing else it will help me with being able to remember my own games clearly.

[DJLLAP]

I have been doing a mediocre job at continuing to study go regularly. My plan to memorize the Gu Li - Lee Sedol jubango ceased after the second game. I can still remember pretty much all of the first game after not reviewing for weeks, so at least that one is semi-permanent. On the flip side, I have been successful in replaying at least one pro game a day on my new shiny goban. I haven't been good about doing go problems, but I am playing many 9x9 games every day on Go Quest.

[xed_over]

I am not really sure if memorizing pro games really helps you improve, but if nothing else it will help me with being able to remember my own games clearly.

I found this to be the biggest bonus for me.

[DJLLAP]

My last post was almost 2 years ago. Wow.

It has been difficult for me to keep studying for any extended period of time. I study for a month or two, gain a stone or so, and then stop. Sometimes I even stop playing go altogether for a spell. And I generally revert back to my previous strength. So it is that I have been stuck around the 3k mark for a few years now. The lack of easy progress has been frustrating to me, and I have been wanting to get a teacher. Someone far above me who would take the time to get to know my individual strengths and weaknesses and give me a plan for making forward progress again.

Last month I finally had my first lesson with Kaz Senesei. Most teachers play a game with you and then review that game to point out your mistakes, but Kaz Sensei does not teach like that. I sent him 10 of my most recent games for him to go through and look for patterns. He then sent me a few 'go tests' to further assess my current knowledge. These tests gave me a go position and asked me what I thought was the best line of play. After he analysed my answers, he decided on a topic of my first lesson. He sent me a review of one of my games focusing on two specific errors that I make frequently. He also sent his answers for the go tests, and about 40 original go problems specifically relating to my mistakes.

The mistakes addressed in this first lesson were my tendency to leave weaknesses in my shapes while fighting in order to play something 'more severe'. The problem being that you can't do anything severe when you can be cut apart. The other mistake was that I tend to play vulgar forcing moves that force my opponent to protect his own weaknesses. Both of these mistakes highlight ways in which my thinking about go was wrong, and by correcting those wrong thoughts, I am able to make progress without increasing my reading ability at all.

A month after my first lesson, I have risen to 1k on KGS. I occasionally drop back down to 2k for a game or two, but so far I have always popped right back up. When I distill the lessons learned from my first lesson it comes down to these two thoughts:

1: Protect your weaknesses as soon as possible.
2: Give your opponent every opportunity to make a mistake.


I just bought an 11 lesson "online go camp" from Kaz Sensei, and I wanted to track my progress, so here I am, back in my forgotten study journal. I'll keep you updated as we see how far I can go.

[nasdaq]

I think i have the same tendency as you to not protect my shape first and try play faster elsewhere, which usually results in a messy game.
Making unnecessary forcing moves is bad too, focus on where is important positional play.

I've read Jowas advice here recently which i think is gold:
forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7508

Which I interpret for myself as play more of a thick solid honest game and be patient and confident with my stones that they will win in the end, don't be greedy.

I find when I did this in the past my game felt more powerfull, and my opponents stones started to to look weak. Guess my overall strength improved.

I've wondered about taking lessons from a strong amateur or pro but have not done it so far. It will be interesting seeing your updates, and look forward to it.

[DJLLAP]

I've read Jowas advice here recently which i think is gold:
forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7508

Which I interpret for myself as play more of a thick solid honest game and be patient and confident with my stones that they will win in the end, don't be greedy.

I think I know what you mean. Many of the games I have won since my first lesson I have played trying my best to keep the 'protect first' mentality the whole game. This often seems to make me feel behind until some point in the middle game where the weaknesses in my opponent's shape comes into play and I am usually able to cut something off or kill something. Sometimes I think I might make a move that is too slow by defending a weakness in stones that are actually light and could be sacrificed, but I guess it is all part of the learning process.