Path to 9Dan, step by step.

[hl782]

I'd be glad to carry this discussion elsewhere, just not in this journal. I want this to be about my progress and keeping myself accountable - not about ethical debates regarding torrenting.

[Bill Spight]

I'd be glad to carry this discussion elsewhere, just not in this journal. I want this to be about my progress and keeping myself accountable - not about ethical debates regarding torrenting.

I think that all parties have said their say. But, to be clear, I was not talking about the ethics of torrenting.

Bonne chance!

[hl782]

Yesterday, I visited two Korean go clubs around my area. I had the opportunity to play 2 teaching games, one against a Tygem 9 Dan and the other against a Tygem 4 Dan.

The first game against the 9 Dan he let me play even - and tested me on various situations. He rightly destroyed me and taught me well. He said my biggest weaknesses were lacking familiarity with whole board situation in picking openings, being unwilling to sacrifice useless stones, not playing severely/tightly enough (thus leading to inefficiency), and occasionally missing big points. He was nice, occasionally blunt, and a good teacher. Only problem was that the actual 'club' was almost like a warehouse where people just come to gamble... and it wasn't a good environment at all. It was also $10 per game, so I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon.


The second game against the 4 Dan (the club's owner) was a 3 stone handicap game.The facilities here were MUCH cleaner and actually felt like a dojo (which I loved). I thought I played rather well against the 4 Dan, but in the end lost a capturing race that determined the game. He said that the fee is $15 for unlimited games, and that there would be plenty of people here to play against and improve. He estimated me to be around 1-2kyu and said I had plenty of room to improve. I think I'll try to go here on a weekly basis. It was actually a lot more fun playing against real humans rather than just repeated games online.

On a separate study note, I've recently finished re-browsing through GGPB Vol. 4 and now I'm going through 1001 L&D Problems and Get Strong at Tesuji. For GGPB Vol.4, I did alright except the final level 4 problems at the very end (I forgot how challenging some of those could be).

[jlt]

Yesterday, I visited two Korean go clubs around my area.

Just curious. What is a Korean go club? A go club run by Koreans? A go club where people are supposed to speak korean? A go club that doesn't accept non-Koreans?

[hl782]

Owned by a Korean, and the main language spoken was Korean. People of all race/ethnicity and all languages are welcome though. I'm gonna go again on Saturday with my friend Justin Teng tygem8D.

[hl782]

A few more games from here and there.

Something I'm realizing is that intuitively, my overall sense of direction and opening is actually not bad (confirmed from some higher dans).

The problem is 1) my sense of judgement is nonexistent, and 2) my reading skills have deteriorated quite a lot. Almost all of my losses since restarting have come having one of my groups dying due to a misread OR just losing a game where i was ahead by 20+.

And of course, still prone to playing many games tilted or with a glass or 2 of wine. I just gotta stop doing those lol.

[hl782]

Go club today was fun. Beat Justin with a 9 stone handi and then lost in a 6 stone handi. Had him but I misread a L&D Problem RIP.

Also, went 1-2 against a guy who was about a 1-Dan. I'm guessing thats Tygem 1D and so about 1-2kyu KGS. Seems about right.

[hl782]

2 more games - a win vs 2k and a loss vs 1k.


The win I made it unnecessarily difficult after a misread of the left hand side. But read through a sequence later in the game to seal the W.



The loss was close. I made got greedy and made a mistake on the right that cost me. I should have won this.

[hl782]

2 more games. Win vs 2k, Loss vs 1Dan. Nearly had the Dan too...





For problems, just doing a run-through of Get Strong at Tesuji, and Maeda Tsumego Vol. 1 before bed. The Maeda Tsumego is excellent for those who can get their hands on a copy. For theory, I've read about half of "The Direction of Play" and started to read through Lee Chang Ho's Endgame Techniques.

[Kirby]

Are you referring to this book? https://www.niggemann.com/en/life-and-death-12203.html

Or something else?

[hl782]

I am referring to these. The book you linked has selected problems from this series!

[SoDesuNe]

Some ideas on the opening and checking with Lizzie ; )

[hl782]

Thanks for the review. I've been trying out lizzie to review my games here and there - but I feel like some of the suggestions for plays it gives me are beyond my level of reading/understanding, so I'm still hesitant to use it frequently.


Anyways won 2, lost 3 on KGS - all on 2-1kyu games over the last 2 days. Still doing Maeda Tsumego and reading over "The Direction of Play" recently. I don't understand all of the book. It's a pretty entertaining read though.

[DeprivedWaste]

Thanks for the review. I've been trying out lizzie to review my games here and there - but I feel like some of the suggestions for plays it gives me are beyond my level of reading/understanding, so I'm still hesitant to use it frequently.

But, that is perfect then for learning isn't it? If they were not beyond your level of reading / understanding, there would not be really anything to gain for you? At least if you knew how to apply the knowledge you would then have.

So I would recommend you to use Lizzie, experiment around if you don't understand why it prefers a move, play moves you think would negate it, see what it thinks and learn from it. If you still have trouble understanding, you ask other people about it and so on.

I've seen this attitude between Go players a lot of time, and if I may be frank, I think it is one of the biggest obstacles for progress, it is quite close to giving up progress "It is beyond my understanding!" Man we would still sit in caves then. No it is not, everyone can learn to understand moves.

Sometimes it might take a bit more time and you need to play stuff out, or ask others, but you don't need to learn rocket science first, or unlock some mysterious asian secrets to understand why a move was played, sometimes it was simply one of multiple equal options, or to strengthen a group, gaining influence towards the centre, threaten a group, securing a base, taking a base away, preparing an attack or other follow up moves or a combination and so on.

So no, it is not beyond your abilities to understand, it is not beyond your abilities to learn, you simply choose to not make the effort for whatever reasons.

And I don't mean that to attack you, or be aggressive, you have so much potential inside of you, and you are already making the effort to unlock it and are obviously unlocking it, by posting a study journal here, by making the effort to continuously study Go, but don't hamper yourself, I can not recommend LZ enough for someone to study the game in its depths, even if it might not be perfect, or always reliable, it is still a great tool.

[Uberdude]

Something I would add to that is you don't need to take LZ's top line as the one to learn and adopt into your repertoire of what you'd do in similar situations in future. If your move is 1% worse than LZ's #1 then don't worry at all. But say it's 10% worse, but LZ's #1 is some really complicated sequence. Probably there is a #2 or #5 choice that's quite a bit better than yours and easier for you to understand and learn from.