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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

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be immersed

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

The more unusual the move, the better I remember it... I can't solve some very simple Tsumegos, which requiere a plain move that makes Miai for two eyes, but this one I almost solved instantly.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B White to play
$$ +--------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | X X X . . . . . . .
$$ | . O O X X . X . . .
$$ | . . . O . . . . . ,
$$ | . . O O X X . . . .
$$ | . . O . . . X . . .
$$ | . . X O O . . . . .
$$ | . . X X O X . . . .
$$ | . . . O X . . . . .
$$ | . . . X X . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

post scriptum:
This one is a nice example for reading and more importantly visualising stones accurately.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Black to play
$$ +--------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . X O . . O X . X .
$$ | . X O . . O X . . .
$$ | . X O O . O X . . ,
$$ | . . X O O . X . . .
$$ | . . X X X X . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . ,
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .
$$ | . . . . . . . . . .[/go]

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Cute little Tesuji. Black to devastate White's territory in the upper left.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Black to play
$$ +---------------------------------------+
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X X X O . . . . . O O X . . |
$$ | . . X X . X O . O . . . . . O X . . . |
$$ | . . X O . O . O . , . . O . O , X . . |
$$ | . . X O . . . . . . . O X . . X X . . |
$$ | . . O O . . . . . . . O . X . X O X X |
$$ | . . . . . . . . O O O . . . . . O O . |
$$ | . . . . . . O X O X . . . . . X . . . |
$$ | . . . . . X O O X . X O . . O O . O . |
$$ | . O . , O O X X X X . . . O . O O . . |
$$ | O X O O O X . . . X . O X . O X X O . |
$$ | . X X X X X . O . . X . . . X . X O . |
$$ | . X . O O O O . O O X X X X . . X X . |
$$ | . . . O . O X X X O O X O X . O . . . |
$$ | . X . X O O O X O O X X O . . . O . . |
$$ | . . X , X . O O X O O O O X . , X . . |
$$ | . . . X O O O X X X . O X X X X . . . |
$$ | . . . . X X X . . O O X . X O . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . . . . . |
$$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

First hint:


Second hint:

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Nine games to go and I replayed the first 50 of Go Seigen games (starting with his first encounter with Kitani Minoru in 1929 - the mirror-Go-game).
I actually started from the end the first time but after a while (~20+ games) and plenty of losses for Go Seigen, I remembered his accident. So now I start from the beginning and the last game will be from 1961. In total 695 games, but maybe I will change things up a bit and replay Shuei again (got a new technical thingy, so Kindle books are more fun now) or Doteki.

By the way, I'm really glad they abandoned the Oteai system. Go Seigen is 3d the whole time but he is winning and winning and winning (mostly against stronger opponents).

In roughly seven days I will finish GGfP vol 4. I must say after the tough start I am now kinda used to the diffculty and don't have as much problems as before. Maybe my reading is catching up again : ) I also started Tesuji from the Elementary series. I really love the problems, it's been a long time since I did them and they feel just about right =) These should take me around nine days.

Then I'm thinking either attacking Tesuji from Dictionary of Basic Tesuji or Get Strong at Tesuji. Most likely Get Strong at Tesuji to brush up my basics furthermore.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Solution:

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Played on KGS the other day. Even used automatch and was glad that I found a game without waiting for a couple of minutes.



Just when things got interesting :o

I went on Tygem then and lost a won game on time because on Tygem you have to confirm a pass.

Ah, well : D

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Reached 2-dan on Tygem yesterday. Finished the GGPfB series a couple of days ago. Now I focus on Tesuji by James Davies. Still replaying at least three Go Seigen games a day. In other news, I started the "100 push ups in six weeks"-challenge: http://www.hundredpushups.com/index.html.

I hope, I can post a 5-stone-teaching game today (me at the recieving end), because I'm normally way too lazy to review my games. Especially on Tygem where I was quite underranked as a 1-dan. But I didn't know any better, when I created the account : (

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

I will finish the second set of 50 Go Seigen games today and I am going to start replaying Shuei next. After reading John Fairbairn's Life of Shuei it really seems like a fun change of pace. There are 79 commented games, so I probably won't have the time to do three (or more) a day but rather two.

As far as problems are concerned: I still have some splendid days with Tesuji by Davies ahead of me. After that I will tackle Get Strong at Tesuji. Then it gets murky. I have an urge to buy Get Strong at Attacking and Get Strong at Invading, since I still believe fighting in general is a weak point of my game. (As is the endgame, so I'll buy Get Strong at the Endgame as well but won't start it right away.) But realisticly I have more than enough Go books already and should fare no worse with 501 Tesuji Problems, Yi Ch'ang-Ho Tesuji series and Basic Tesuji Dictionary. Then again reality is a dull place when everything is in order and makes total sense : )

On Tygem I'm on two wins as a 2-dan. One quite lucky though because my opponent didn't realise I could net EXTREMELY important cutting stones. Here is the other game with some comments from me.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Hey I just started the hundred pushups thingy aswell lol. Anyways, you said you did GGfB which is a bit of a low level series for a tygem 2-3d. Having just finished the Graded go problems for dan players vol 1 (300 tsumego), I can heartily recommend that! I think as you get stronger you need to mix in alot more reading problems. Some recommend doing 50/50, but in any case since you said you were a bit weak at fighting, solving vol 1 of the tsumego collection I just mentioned would definitely help. It gets kinda challenging towards the end but repays dilligent study a thousand fold. Fighting of course depends somewhat on knowledge of tesuji's, but even if you know all of the tesuji's you still need reading power to apply them correctly. I think it would be good for you to do some more tsumego for your reading power alongside the tesuji problems. I have found my fighting strength take a huge leap forward by grinding the tsumego problems in vol 1 of GGPfD. I don't think just doing a million tesuji problems is enough. Reading power is essential and it only comes from challenging yourself with some appropriately difficult yet very solvable tsumego. Vol 1 of the aforementioned book provides a great progression, great explanation diagrams, just a great book overall.

Thanks for the advice, it's certainly true!

But one of my (many) problems is that I still fail to "understand" basic shapes. See PeterN's study journal. And I feel that by building a house on this weak base, I end up as I always have, that is: patching up and patching up and patching up all the things I learnt half-hearted or just thought I understand. The truth is, I found GGPfB vol 4 challenging. Not so much in a 50/50 ratio but nevertheless I got a lot of L&D-problems wrong. The same goes for Davies' Tesuji. That's actually basic stuff but since I can't just go over it with ease, I feel I have no right to start more complicated stuff.

The interesting thing is: It's not the raw/deep reading what is troubleing me. It's seeing a sequence that is locally best or finding good candidate moves for starters. I think Tesuji problems will do me more good here than L&D problems. Of course it's also true that my visualisation or remembering liberties in a sequence is awful and here certainly L&D problems are of great benefit. But ultimatively I like to tackle one thing at a time and middlegame fighting (which I strongly link to Tesujis) is one of my weakest areas. The others are endgame and strategy in general but for the last I guess a teacher is the only viable option.

So, I guess, I keep at reviewing basic shapes for the moment and hope to finally understand them. Then I will conquer the heavens ; )

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Replayed the first volume of Games of Shuei and will finish Tesuji by Davies today. Get Strong at Tesuji, here I come : ) Sadly, no time for games right now.

I also brushed up the general advice in my "guide" a bit.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Will finish volume two of Shuei's games today and also couldn't resist...



I also noticed something interesting. Get Strong at Tesuji has quite some problem which are similar but not the same. E.g. in one problem your stones are facing the corner and in the other they are facing the outside. This - of course - hugely changes the possible outcomes even if the shape is exactly the same. Now I readily sacrfice stones to make shape, which is good when the sacrificed stones do not have any other means left. It is oh so bad, when I could save those stones to mount an attack. Funnily I only consider sacrifing at first... Need to work on my Kiai : D

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

I finished Yilun Yang's Workshop Lectures vol 1 today and it left me a bit baffled. Part one about when to Tenuki in the opening was great. Part two about how to attack was completely demoralising... That's what I needed, another hint that I totally suck when it comes to direction and assessment of strength (or lack thereof) : D And part 3, well personally I feel it was a waste of time. It tried to teach fighting fundamentals to not memorise complicated Josekis but showed some really advanced variations, bascially refuting it's own argument. It had some good pointers though but I feel the topic in itself was not dealt with.

Well, just judgeing from the first book, not too flashed right now. I knew it was probably heavily overpriced due to the very few pages but I thought the content would have more eye-openers. Maybe it does and I'm just too blind to see, who knows? =)

Though I wonder, what I'm really missing when it comes to fighting.
Since all the examples from the second part were taken from some sort of San-Ren-Sei-Fuseki with which I have close to no experience, I feel I couldn't do good anyway. But on the other hand, maybe I'm lacking some sort of fundamental judgement when it comes to fighting/strength/direction. Something that is generally applicable to various situations. I also don't know how to proceed in tackling this issue. I feel by going over the same material I will just end up memorising the moves, so no real overall benefit there. His questions, which should help you to evaluate the position didn't help me the first time (exactly because I couldn't judge where the weak groups and the area of profit were), so I guess that's a dead end as well.

What's left is playing more games and probably getting reviews from someone quite a bit stronger. Looking forward to NGA summer camp : )

On another note, I grew really accustomed to replaying pro games. I feel like the day is missing something when I don't have the time to go over a couple of games. It makes me physically happy playing over game records! Can't be bad, can it?

Last but not least, the "100 push ups in six weeks"-challange is kicking my butt right now (4th week). Up to the third week everyhting was peachy, then it got bad despite performing some good 30 push ups in the second exhaustion test. (I actually started the first time in week 3, because I managed to perform over 25 push ups in the initial test but got my ass handed to me as well and so started from the beginning.) Dunno why, but I changed columns now and this way I can at least keep up. Don't see me anywhere near a hundred in two weeks though ; )

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

I also have a problem with "attacking" problems. I have a couple of books with problems on attacking in the middle game. One is an English book ("Get strong at Attacking", I think), and I have a few Korean books, too. I very rarely get the questions correct, unless I can remember the position and the proper way to attack from another book or lesson.

It's very rare for me to get the question correct if it's my first time seeing the position.

I think it's because there are several parts for me to get wrong:

* Wrong direction of attack.
* Wrong idea behind what I should profit from the attack - should I build up influence? Should I make territory while attacking? Should I keep the attack going? Should I just take profit now and let him free from attack?
* Wrong technical execution of the attack.
* Missed responses by the opponent.
* Wrong follow-up after the first (couple) moves.

With life and death problems or capturing race problems, at least you can prove to yourself, "Yes, this definitely captures the stones".

But with these type of attack problems, I'm always left wondering, "Well, I coerced the opponent in this direction.... Is it good enough? Let's check the answer diagram."

And most of the time, I'm at least partially wrong.

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be immersed

Not so easy to attack properly ^^

I remember a series of lessons on baduk TV that was quite insightful ; it's called "attacking vitamins"

Here's the link to the first video : https://gogameguru.com/baduk-tv-videos/ ... -lesson-1/

You can check this one for free if you create an account.

Thanks, I'm sure to check it out : )

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

Finished Games of Shuei vol 3. Quite a bit later than planned due to some exams. I'm also behind on Get Strong at Tesuji. And I dropped to 2-kyu on KGS yesterday after losing (if I recall correctly) 3 out of 4 games against Aya-bot on 2-kyu. Didn't give the games much thought, though. Didn't do it before and could beat the bot easily, though. Then again it's burning hot here, concentration might not be at its best.

Somehow I would like to study the opening next. But I'm unsure how to begin. Maybe I'm giving "Way for play in the 21st Century" another go and try to incorporate the things I study into my games. Ah, and yes, I plan to play quite a few more games in the next few days.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go