A few years ago I got hooked on Go and couldn't learn enough about it. I read books, I solved problems, got a board, bought an app so I could solve more problems and review games, and replayed pro games for fun. If you read all that you are probably thinking, "wait he didn't play any games?". The truth is no I didn't. In the few months that I was passionate I never played a game of Go against another person. I would occasionally play against computers on a 9x9 but something about the 19x19 board scared me. It was different from anything I had ever experienced, and it made me stay away from playing. Eventually this fear of playing made me stop playing.

I always thought I could just study games and continue learning from books and videos and then somehow I would feel more comfortable, but that never came. So I quit Go. I didn't touch it for years, until three weeks ago. I was cleaning up my room and I found one of the books I would read constantly. And I decided I wanted to get back into it. I found video lectures on YouTube, I got my board out and re-downloaded the app on my phone. I studied daily reviewing games, trying to learn more but still never played. I hadn't yet realized I was continuing the path I had gone down years ago.

Three days ago I was looking online for some Go material and I stumbled upon this site. Now I had been here many times before just to read posts and see how everyone else was doing, and continued to just try and learn. But this was the first time I had seen this study plan board. And after reading some peoples goals I realized I wanted to do that. I had tried to do that with Golf, but Go was different. I wasn't afraid to go play Golf because I wasn't playing against anyone but the course, I didn't have that luxury with Go. I had to play an opponent, and so I told myself maybe I just shouldn't worry about a study plan.

That was yesterday. Today I read more and more study plans and stories and realized I want to do that too. So I took the first step. I played a game on a 19x19 with another human being. While I was playing I was still afraid of what would happen when I didn't know what to do and I just pushed past it. I took the first step in my newly formed plan. The first step on my journey to no longer be scared to play but to join everyone that is enjoying this wonderful game.

So I haven't exactly come up with a full plan yet but I have a few goals.

GOALS:
1) Play enough games to become ranked on Go servers - right now I have only played on KGS but I know there are many others out there I hope to explore
2) Play 100 games - this may be the biggest challenge, I know i love the game and learning but I have always had an issue playing, but I'm jumping in
3) Attend a Go club meeting - The biggest issue I have with this is I currently live in Warsaw Indiana and the closest active go club I can find is 2 hours away in Kalamazoo Michigan
4) Reach Dan level - I know this may be a long shot but I've started my path and I'm not going to stop

So these are the goals I hope to achieve and hopefully once I complete the first two I can make some changes and get more goals up there.

In order to achieve these goals I needed to create a study plan but wasn't really sure where to start.
Eventually I decided on doing this

Study Plan
1) Play at least one game everyday - if I can manage to do this everything else will be super easy
2) Review played game - alone or with others doesn't matter right now just so long as I can think about the game
3) Post game on here - this is so I can get feedback from others and feel like I have someone holding me accountable
4) Review at least one pro game per day - I generally have more than enough time during the day to review pro games and love to do it so I will continue to do this
5) Memorize one pro game per week - now some people might say this is unnecessary but I think its a challenge and hopefully it will help me more to understand why the moves are played
6) Go Problems = honestly I don't have any books with go problems to work through only ones on my phone so I think i will need to get those books so if anyone is reading this and can recommend some books I would very much appreciate it. Otherwise I will just have to search online for books and just go from there.

So there is it my study plan all written down. There is no going back from here and I love it.

This is the very first game against another player I have played and would love to have some critiquing of it. I haven't gone through it yet myself but I am planning on doing that tomorrow sometime.


If you've read this far I hope you comment and I'll post my next game tomorrow hopefully!!

For a first game against human this was really amazing!
As for pro games,even on amateur dan level we dont really know whats going on ^^
Your study plan looks very nice,keep going I am sure you will reach SDK very soon,good luck

Hi Lanrose,

Welcome (back). Good luck.

I agree with EdLee here. Going a bit further: forget about the pro games, do online tsumego instead at gogameguru or hitachi's quality collections. Play and review: definitely. Give yourself some purposes and review how well you did on those. That'll help you focus amidst all the good advice coming from us reviewers. Use the pro games as a source of motivation or replay for fun but don't expect to get a lot of ideas out of it. Use a good book instead, like Attack & Defence.

Enjoy!

Day 2 - Thanks everyone for the responses. I did want to clarify something about my first post.

I think I misspoke when I said everything else would be super easy.


I do agree that this is the easiest thing on my list, for most people. But getting over that fear of playing is still hard for me to do. I think of it as basically trying to give a speech in front of a crowd of people, which I also hate to do. With more games it will hopefully become easier to do each day, but as of right now playing one game a day is about all that I can do without feeling very paranoid for some reason.

When I said everything else would be super easy I didn't mean achieving my goals. I meant that each thing I would do daily to improve would be easy. This is mainly because with reviewing games mine or pros I can analyze the thought process behind each move and I enjoy doing this very much.

Now that I've clarified that I have another game I played today.

I made a few reading errors and one big one around move 89 that got into my head. It took me many moves to recover but I was able to pull out a win. After the game the other player and I reviewed for about a half hour but would love to get some feedback from other people as well.



After I finish posting this I am going to go work on some Go problems, but if you have any recommendations about books I would love help.

Thanks for reading again! Hope to see you again tomorrow

Hi Lanrose,

F4.

W missed the vital point. W should first atari F15.

Good; shared vital point. W let you take both local shared vital points, E17 and F15. This result is good for B.

See also this same shape, posts 31-35.

Strange. Do you see a big B center moyo to build ? No. Just block S10, take cash.

Good. Fighting spirit.

Strange, inconsistent. Block at S15 -- force W to live in the corner. THEN, you deal with W's outside group.

Just connect directly at Q13, in sente.

Impatient; this doesn't work yet. Just hane directly at P17, in sente.
P17 threatens the cut at S17 next, not your atari at S15.

If you atari S17, then extend to S18, who wins the capture race here ?

Good; cut.

You fell into W's trap: this gives W two huge sente moves and . You yourself should take the vital point L14.

Look at your two L15 stones:
" hane at the head of your two stones"
" hane at the tail of your two stones"

Before this, first turn once at J18.

Missing the big picture. Just ponnuki F10.
The left side is almost entirely your cash.
( Ignoring your shape defect at F14, which you could've fixed any number of moves ago. )

Not good. Just ponnuki F10.

Big mistake. E12.





This shows you're not aware of your shape defect at F14.

From through the disaster at ,
it's from your basic shape problems and not looking at the whole board.
See toothpaste.

A honest, refreshing and interesting thread. Thanks for sharing.

One thought in addition to EdLee's great comments above:

At just seal white's group in with F14, and white will have to struggle to live with his topside group, while making black much stronger. If white loses the group, it's basically game over.

The fact that it fixes a shape problem for black is just gravy.

Day 3:

So today I switched thing up a little bit. It wasn't really intentional but I ended up playing a 13x13 game rather than a 19x19 (by unintentional I mean that i wasn't logging into KGS to play a 13x13 it just kinda happened). I was playing against a 3kyu player and thought I did decently. I did have a lot of mistakes and didn't read thing very well, probably due to lack of sleep, but we talked about the game for quite sometime and I am really determined to improve and have a rematch against him. He recommended that I stick to 13x13 for a while and that once I start improving to switch to 19x19, but not many people seem to like to play those so I don't know if i can do that.

I really enjoyed playing against him and he said once I improve to challenge him to a rematch. So I am adding that to my list of goals. I've also included the game below if anyone wants to take a look and give some pointers.

GOALS:
1) Play enough games to become ranked on Go servers - right now I have only played on KGS but I know there are many others out there I hope to explore
2) Play 100 games - this may be the biggest challenge, I know i love the game and learning but I have always had an issue playing, but I'm jumping in
3) Rematch against Rabitz - hopefully I can win this time
4) Attend a Go club meeting - The biggest issue I have with this is I currently live in Warsaw Indiana and the closest active go club I can find is 2 hours away in Kalamazoo Michigan
5) Reach Dan level - I know this may be a long shot but I've started my path and I'm not going to stop

I want to thank EdLee for his comments on my game and I hope that people continue to read because I am not going to stop playing anytime soon. I am more determined than ever to play, improve, complete my goals, and just to have fun.

With tomorrow being Saturday and not having to work, I'm going to try and play a few games and review them, and also review each of the games I played this week. Hopefully I will see something I didn't before and with the comments I can understand more of my mistakes.

I also have some Go problems that I want to go through so I have a few goals for tomorrow that I'm going to list

Goals For Saturday August 8th:
1) Play at least 3 games - I know its only a few more games but setting this goal I believe will push me to play more in the long run
2) Review each game played - This will be both the games from tomorrow and the games form the past couple of days
3) Work through the Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol 4 - My goal is to work through the first 78 and I will post my results in my next journal

If I can achieve these goals tomorrow I will be super happy and know i am well on my way.
I appreciate all the comments on my games and love reading them.

Hope to see you tomorrow! I'll be playing Go, will you?

Hey everyone! Welcome to day 4

So yesterday I made a few goals for myself and I tried my best to work through each one.


I completed the first goal a lot easier than I thought I would. I ended up playing a 9x9 game with a 9k player. We ended up reviewing for quite a long time. Even though it was a 9x9 game I learned quite a few principles that I hope to be able to use in my 19x19 games.

After the 9x9 I played a 13x13 game. It wasn't actually against another person, just a bot game, but it was still very fun. I went back through it by myself after and realized there were alot of mistakes that I made and I played very passively.

The last game I played, which is also the one posted below, was a teaching game with a 1k player. We spent time going back over the game and he helped me with most of the questions I had. After this game I feel a bit more confident about the openings, which I was always so afraid of, and feel like I understand more about the opening placements. If you would like to comment or have some recommendations I would love to hear them.



I didn't actually get to review the games that I played over the past few days, so I guess my goal 2 is not complete. I did review each of the games I played today, but I still want to review my other games. I am going to set that as a goal to accomplish tomorrow as well.

I also started working through the beginner Go Problems vol 4, and I realized that it took me quite a long time to answer them. I only answered about 20 problems after 1.5 hours, so I switched to working on Vol 3 problems. These were easier for me to do but still proved challenging. I think I will continue to work through these problems, but I will probably start working through Vol 2 as well and making my way up to Vol 3 and 4.

Vol 4 13/24 (54%) - I actually did better than I thought but it still took too long to go through the problems, I didn't actually check them till I was writing this.

Vol 3 19/21 (90%) = So after going through these I realized I can go through most of them in about a minute and get most correct. I think ill still work through these hoping they get a bit harder and I can get faster at reading.

Overall today was a very productive day and I am happy with the progress I am making. I met some very nice and helpful people that I will continue to play with. I'm going to set some more goals for tomorrow. I haven't been doing very well going through pro games, which is something I used to love doing, so I think tomorrow I might focus a little more on that

Goals Sunday August 9th:
1) Review games played from the past week - This will only be the games from Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday since I reviewed the other games I played today for such a long time.
2) Work through at least 100 Go problems - While this is more than yesterdays goal I think I can achieve this if I continue with Vol. 3 and only a few from Vol. 4
3) Review 2 pro games - This is mostly just a goal for me because I really enjoy working through these games even if i don't understand everything. I also haven't really been reviewing pro games everyday as I wanted to.

I have really enjoyed writing these and I hope people continue reading them. Even if no one does I will continue to write them because I like setting the goals for myself and pushing myself to achieve them.

Thanks for reading this if you have. Good Luck on all your games!

Back for Day 5

So yesterday I made a few goals for myself.



I actually didn't spend much time studying or playing today, i decided to take a break and do some other things. I didn't end up reviewing my own games, unfortunately I haven't been very good about that and I think i really need to improve on that. Even though i didn't complete my first goal I ended up working on go problems.

I completed 48 problems from Vol 3 and finished the other 52 problems from Goproblems.com.

Results:
Vol 3. 35/48 (73%) - I think I could've done a little better on these but I'm still proud of the number I did correctly
GoProblems 52/52 (100%) - These problems were mainly between 25k and 17k and I thought were alot easier than the Vol 3 problems.

Overall I will probably stick with the Vol 3 problems for now and work up to Vol 4 soon.

I did end up reviewing multiple pro games today, not to a great depth but to some level of understanding. Other than that it was a pretty lax day and tomorrow I will pick up playing more games again.

Until then have fun with your games! Hope to see you tomorrow!

Welcome back everyone! For those of you reading daily sorry that I missed posting yesterday, I got home from work and fell asleep then didn't really have time to play and post unfortunately. But I'm back today to report some news.

I played another teaching game today. It didn't go very well, but mostly because I think i was rushing my game and wasn't really thinking about the situations. It was against a 3k player and after we stepped through the game and we talked about the mistakes that I made. I realized that my opening is still the scariest part for me and it showed during this game, but I got some good advice on how to better play the opening I tried. And the next game I played it worked, well sorta. I played a regular game after and ended up using a very similar opening but after about 15 moves my opponent resigned. If nothing else it solidified my learning of the opening a little bit so I am happy about that.


After playing I talked with some people I know on KGS and we ended up going through a pro game. We took a look at Honinbo Shusaku vs Hayashi Yubi. We ended up stepping through each move saying what we think would be good to play and why. It was a really great learning experience. I ended up being able to select some of the moves that both players made, maybe not for the same reasons, but it helped to show that I can think about each move I play and really understand. For some reason though I can't do this in my own games, go figure.

Anyway other than that I didn't do any go problems from Vol 3. but I went through a few on my phone pretty quickly. I think I got most right on the first try only one or two missed.

If you have any comments about my game please feel free to share I would love some help on improving.

If not I hope to see you tomorrow!

Welcome back! I'm not really sure what day it is but I think it's like Day 7, i don't know whether to count the day i didn't post or not.

Anyway I'm super excited. My copy of 501 Tesuji problems came in today! I have been waiting for this since I got a recommendation from someone to purchase it. I haven't really taken a good look at it but from now on I will be going through the problems daily. From the looks of it they seem rather difficult so I won't set how many I will do a day but I'll wait til tomorrow to continue with that.

Other than that today was another slow day. I ended up trying something different today and not sure exactly if i like how it turned out but it was worth a shot. I decided i wanted to play some blitz games against higher level computers. This was mostly just because I wanted to start playing more by feeling while I get a flow of the game. For some reason I still can't do very well when it comes to playing my own openings. I still get very confused as to where to go so i figured blitz might help a little.

I also took a look at recent games but only played out the first 25 moves purely just to get a feel for the flow. I liked doing this alot and I hope it will help when I play later on.

Nothing else really happened today but I am looking forward to tomorrow where I am going to play more blitz games and play more pro openings, along with doing go problems.

I know it was super short but thanks for reading and I hope to see you tomorrow!

I really like this Go Journal, mostly because it is similar to myself. When I first started playing back in January of 2014 I didn't actually play any games I mostly studied for the first month or 2 and then I started on playing because I was really nervous. Even now I don't play as many games as I should, I really just enjoy reviewing my games and pro games. Though I had the opposite problem from you, I studied the opening very thoroughly and I didn't do as many Go problems and work on my middlegame.

Your reading ability is, in my opinion, more important than understanding the opening so I feel you are on the right track. When it comes to the opening there is one very simple thing you can do to get better and that is to choose an opening as black to ALWAYS play and choose an opening as white to ALWAYS play. I probably played 100 games with just the Orthodox Fuseki as black and two 4-4 points as white before I moved on to anything else, but now when I play that particular opening pattern I can match strength with players who are a few ranks stronger than me until we get into something complicated.

I believe you are playing quite well so far, just need to play some more games and I feel you will do well. If you want help in the opening you can always send me a message on here and I can help out. It feels like I have said quite a bit so I wanted to end with one thing: "501 Tesuji" should be too hard for you, it is much better to start off with "Get Strong At Tesuji" which will help teach and provide plenty of easy examples (compared to 501 tesuji which could be the next book to try).

Good luck with everything!

_________________
My Go Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/TritonBaduk

Hey Everyone!

Sorry about missing yesterday's post. I haven't been feeling very well lately and I haven't really been able to concentrate, which makes it hard to play. I came back today though didn't play any games but went through about 20 pro game openings ( up to move 30ish) and I feel like I understand a little more about it. I also have been watching Nick Sibicky's Go lectures and the some of them in the first few are solely devoted to opening.

Other than that I have looked at some more Go problems, I still haven't done many in the 501 Tesuji though. I agree they might be too hard so I am going to just continue working through GoProblems.com and the problems I have on my phone. Also I think I will get back into working on the Graded Go Problems Vol 3.

Sorry about the short post I wish I had more news to share.

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow and I'll be able to concentrate and play more. I'm going to try and play at least 3 games tomorrow and hopefully get ranked on KGS.

Good luck on your games! Thanks for reading!

Guys I have some great news!

I finally got ranked today on KGS. I ended up playing a game against a 9k giving him 2 stones and made a huge mistake at the very end. It didn't really cost me the game, I had been losing by about 15 points prior to it, but it did make the loss a lot worse. The game is shown down below if you would like to comment and help me progress towards my other goals.





1 down only 4 left to go.

I also ended up playing another game which I won by .5 points. This game was really close and the only reason I won was because I was able to invade and make life. I was really happy that I was able to figure it out. I actually didn't know how close the game really was, but I knew i was behind and had to try to do something.

I still haven't been feeling very well but I'm glad I was able to play the last game to get me ranked. From now on I will be able to play with some of the people that I have met on a regular basis and once I get over feeling sick study more problems.

Today was a good day but I'm looking forward to the future and towards progress down the ranks of Kyus

Progress:
8 Kyu - 8/16/2015

I hope that I will be able to solidify my rank and make it to 6 kyu by the end of August.

Thanks for reading everyone! Hope to see you tomorrow!

Hi Lanrose,

Get a sense this is bad shape for White.

Proverb: Hane at the head of two (enemy) stones:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Hane head of two stones
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . 1 O O . . . .
$$ . . . X X . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .[/go]

In general -- yes, there are infinite exceptions --
this local shape is good for B, and not good for W.
Thus, the proverb (general guideline): Hane at the head of two stones.Let's count liberties.
The string has 4 libs (1 shared); has 3 (1 shared) --
Black has a total of 6 libs.
White has 3.

The following shape is even better for B, and worse for W:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Hane head & tail of two stones: tenuki
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . 1 O O 3 . . .
$$ . . . X X . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Liberties -- B: 8. W: 2.

The tiger's mouth is a good shape (barring the infinite exceptions ):

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B Tiger's mouth
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . 1 . . . . .
$$ . . X . X . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .[/go]

Therefore, locally (ignoring the rest of the board),
the following - exchange is good for B, and bad for W:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Bad for W
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . 2 1 O . . .
$$ . . X . X X . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .
$$ . . . . . . . . .[/go]

In general, you don't want to do this exchange as White.
(Yes, there are exceptions.)

The situation in your game is not an exception:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Real game: Bad for W
$$ ----------------- |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . 8 7 O . . |
$$ . . . X . X X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . O . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

To avoid the above bad shape for W, you first hane the other side;
if B blocks, you connect:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Variation A
$$ ----------------- |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . O 3 . |
$$ . . . X . X X 1 . |
$$ . . . . . . 4 2 . |
$$ . . . . . . O . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

Next, the following exchange is still bad for White:
(which is the result in your real game)

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Variation B: Bad for White
$$ ----------------- |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . 2 1 O O . |
$$ . . . X . X X O . |
$$ . . . . . . X X . |
$$ . . . . . . O . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

So, don't do it! Do something else. For example: jump to :

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$W Variation C
$$ ----------------- |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . 1 . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . O O . |
$$ . . . X . X X O . |
$$ . . . . . . X X . |
$$ . . . . . . O . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

Hi Lanrose,

Bad habit. Either Q18 solid connect or Q19 tiger's mouth is better.
Your P19 descend is a bad habit. (Yes, there are exceptions, but this is not one.)

Confused. Small; very slow, like a snail. Not quite a pass, but almost.

Also confused. Don't throw good money after bad.
That's exactly what you're doing with .

Bad, like .

Attack the heavy W string; good.

- Bad habit, bad exchange for Black.

Strange. If you plan to connect, at least atari at R11 first.
If B blocks at S11, then you ponnuki at Q10.
If B connects at Q10, then you connect; you have a chance with S11 later.

Solid, but slow. Locally, you can jump ahead to N8.

Difficult to call this Go. The timestamp says you spent 2 seconds on this move. Find a better local move (there's more than one candidate,
depending on global considerations.)

Due to , end of notes.

Hey everyone!

So if you haven't noticed the past couple days have been pretty slow in terms of posts. I haven't posted much when I do and I am only writing every other day. This is mostly due to being ill and work, but I hope that I will be able to start posting more and putting more effort into my posts really explaining what I am doing.

Thanks for the comments EdLee, I have spent a lot of time reviewing everything you said and hopefully I won't make the same mistakes.

Other than that today's post isn't going to be too long. I have decided that tomorrow I am going to get back on track and continue posting games that I have played and tell more about problems I am working through.

I have decided that I want to finish going through Graded Problems Vol 3. before I move on to working through 501 Tesuji, which I finally took a look at. I ended up getting the first 10 correct but each one took me a while to work through so I'm going to go back a little and work my way back up. So tomorrow I hope to report back on how many problems I have worked through and how I have been doing.

I've also started learning a new language, which I feel like is a bad thing to do while concentrating on playing GO but I like languages and have always wanted to learn Italian. Maybe ill learn korean next so I can understand when I watch Baduk Tv.

Anyway have a great day everyone. I hope that tomorrow I will be able to post something better than what I did today.

So I'm back today. I said I would try to post again today and it just so happens I am doing that.

Today i played a few games but I think the game where I learned the most was a teaching game I played. I ended up asking for a teaching game so I could practice reading the openings and learn where the big places to play were and I learned so much more. I ended learning about attacking and splitting groups, both of which I had done just not very well. We ended up stepping through a few variations to show me more about how to successfully cut and what to look for while cutting. I was also told a few more points about the openings, like taking big points and making opponent's groups weak, which i hope to be able to use in my future games.



After that game we also took a look at a game between a pro and an amateur. This was just to look at the openings and show how the different ideas would be put into practice in a higher level game. I was really excited about doing this because I was able to reinforce what I learned and also better understand what was happening in the game. I think I really learned a lot about the game today.

I also took a look at some Go Problems from graded go problems vol 3.

I decided to start over, because i haven't looked at it much recently, and was able to solve the first 20 rather quickly all correct. Only about 20 seconds were spent per problem. After I finish this post my plan is to work on a few more problems before heading to bed. I'll report on those either tomorrow morning or with my next post tomorrow night.


Until tomorrow have a great rest of your day and hope to see you tomorrow!