It's been one month since my last progress update, so here I am. I didn't have a lot of time to dedicate to Go for the past two weeks, so I didn't post any games, but I'll get back to it.
What went well:
-did a lot of tsumego, both easy and some more difficult ones
-played more 19x19 than I ever did. I got a bunch of daily games going for almost two weeks
-bought the first 5 LevelUP! books after I read several recommendations for them and I wasn't disappointed. Already finished 1+2
What didn't go so well:
-Graded Go Problems Vol2 is more difficult than expected at my level. I'm about 50 problems from finishing it, but it's taking some time
-My nervousness issue isn't going away, but it might be getting better. more on that below
-I'm having trouble working with non-problem books, also more on that below
When playing live 19x19 games I'm trying to rotate through the different servers. But I'm actually having some trouble finding games outside of KGS and IGS.
Correspondence on OGS and DGS works fine, but I haven't been able to find a game on Fox, Tygem or Wbaduk and getting a live game on OGS also takes much longer than on KGS/IGS, so I'm mostly sticking to those for now.
My rank is still low and fluctuating, but going up in general. According to the various servers I'm somewhere between 24k and 17k, which seems about right. If I was playing on just one server I'd probably be much more focused on that one rank.
On being nervous while playing:
I've basically forced myself to play one 19x19 game every day (until I got really busy) which was very interesting. I think I played 15 this month. I'm not 100% sure my anxiety is getting better with each game, but it might. Still, it's uncomfortable to play and if I don't find a way to solve the issue, that might become a problem. After all, it's a hobby and should be fun and enjoyable. But right now I can barely focus on playing a (relaxing, ha!) game of Go, because I have to pay attention to my breathing and overall tension.
I can't really explain it. I don't have the problem in correspondence games and I don't have it vs. the computer. Against AI, Leela for example, I play calmly and I'd love to be this calm vs. another human player.
I kind of know the issue from computer/video games. I've played competitive Street Fighter for a while and did endgame raiding and PvP in a couple of MMORPGs plus some other online/vs. games. There I also was hesitant to engage in activities with or vs. other players and experienced some nervousness when actually playing vs. strangers, which always seemed like a disproportional reaction.
But when playing Go, the effect is much, much stronger, which seems super strange because Go should be more relaxing
It doesn't matter if my opponent is way stronger, the same level or much weaker. Even if I'm winning by a huge, huge lead I'm sitting there, shaking.
For now I can continue to experiment with different methods to calm myself down, but if it persists, it's just too stressful to keep doing it.
Books:
While I do have a bunch of books on my shelf (way too many for my level), I mostly just do the tsumego ones for now. But I'd also like to get at least a bit more of a grasp on the overall concepts with easy beginner books like Opening Theory Made Easy or The Second Book of Go. But I'm not really able to work well through them. Just reading casually doesn't seem to do much. I understand the concepts (roughly) while reading, but when playing a game, I don't remember anything. The other extreme would probably be to really study every concept the books explain, go through the examples on a real goban and try out one new concept at a time in live games until it sticks. Unfortunately it seems I'm a slow learner and I'm still struggling with the early chapters of Opening Theory made easy...at this rate it'll take me many many months to get through just this one small book. So my rate of improvement seems a bit low.
The other problem is being able to judge if a book is appropriate for my level. There are a bunch of different lists for recommended levels online but they vary heavily and also often differ even from the book itself.
Or should I just re-read books like Opening Theory Made Easy again and again until it somehow sticks?
Right now I'm thinking I should just play more and do tsumego, which probably makes sense.
But this is also a general problem. I often get advice for situations in games, there are often helpful links or I find something myself, but it just seems too much to remember. It makes sense when reading an article about a topic but there's just so much of it, I really don't know if I'm supposed to remember everything instantly or work through it diligently. At this point it feels like I can barely remember the 3-3 invasion and that I shouldn't make an empty triangle.
Rate of Improvement:
I keep reading about most players just blasting through the early kyu levels, but I'm not really seeing that effect at about 4 months in. Considering some extremely tenacious players have managed to reach 1d in 12 months, I kind of feel like I'm at the opposite end.
I'm pretty sure the reason is the lack of games played, which brings me back to the issue of being too nervous to be able to just sit down and play a game every day. But I still do at least an hour of go-related studying every day, mostly go problems of varying difficulty.
Well, that's it for me for right now. I hope I'm not sounding like a broken record at this point.
Even if it might not sound like it, I really do enjoy Go a lot and I truly want to improve, because even at my level it's really great to be able to make more sense of the board and see things I couldn't a few weeks ago.