How fast can I rise?

[AaronBC]

I’ve recently been working towards a stable rank on OGS. Now, it’s pretty well established at 3 kyu. I use the same name there as I do here: AaronBC.

Starting today, I want to try hard to improve quickly. I’d like to know what you all think would be an ambitious goal to aim for in a year. Personally, I’m thinking at least two dan.

Here’s my plan:

I intend to play games a lot and review them with ai-sensei.

Also, I intend to do much tsumego. I’m thinking blacktoplay.com. Recommendations for other sites and books are welcome.

I think I’ll review some pro games on go4go.net. Maybe, I’ll also look at ai games on katagotraining.org.

I think I’ll also watch lectures, maybe starting with awesomebaduk.com.

Let me know your thoughts and suggestions.

[gennan]

I consider it realistic when several players have done it before (albeit a small number of players).

I think 3k to 1d in a year is ambitious but realistic.
Similarly, improving 1 rank per year in the low dans is ambitious but realistic.

I know of only one player (Catalin Taranu) who reached 4d in 2 years (reaching 1d in 1 year).
In 8 years he reached 1p and in 12 years he reached 5p.
That high initial rate of progress is so rare that I would not consider it realistic for a 3k to reach 4d in 1 year, although perhaps it's not completely impossible.

How long did it take you to reach 3k from when you were a novice?

I see in your post history that you were already playing 2 years ago.
From that I'd say that reaching 1d in 1 year is probably too ambitious and not realistic.

Perhaps you should set your goal lower and nearer, like reaching 2k in 3 months, and go from there if you succeed.

[AaronBC]

I think I got to kgs 1d in maybe two or three years, if I recall correctly. Then I stopped playing for some time and lost a considerable amount of strength.

I haven't had much progress since coming back, but I've mostly just been playing. We'll see how it goes with a lot of study.

[gennan]

OK, if you already reached 1d in the past then reaching it again in 1 year seems a lot more realistic.
But I think setting your goal much higher is setting yourself up for disappointment.
And what would be the point even to set such a goal?

[AaronBC]

I probably shouldn't have included 4 dan+, but I'm hoping for 2 or 3 dan.

Having an ambitious goal could motivate me to work harder.

[AaronBC]

By the way, it has been several years since I was 1 dan.

[gennan]

I'm hoping for 2 or 3 dan.

I'm hoping for 7 dan, but I know that I won't actually spend the effort required, because I have a job, a family and I'm running a youth go club in my spare time.
So realistically, for me that 7 dan is more a dream than an ambition.

A bit more realistic would be to try to get back to 4d (which I was 20-15 years ago), but even that is very unlikely unless I start to spend a lot of time and effort to study go again.

But you may be in a much better position than me, with more time on your hands.

[AaronBC]

I work from home and don't have a wife or kids, so, I do have a lot of time to study.

[jlt]

If you want to improve fast, you may want to take go lessons, in which you play league games and get your games reviewed by a pro or high dan player, assuming you can afford them. AI is useful but a human can explain things in a more understandable way. In addition, having the goal to beat rivals can be a source of motivation.

As for how fast you can improve, that's impossible to predict. Looking at rank graphs of random people, I've seen people rise fast up to 3k and climb up until 1d much more slowly. On the other hand, Pavol Lisy has climbed all ranks between 15k and 6d at approximately the same pace.

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[AaronBC]

Thanks, jlt. Sounds like a good idea. I know of American Yunguseng Dojang, but it's too expensive at the moment.

Do you have any suggestions of whom to go with?

[jlt]

I don't have good recommendations for you because I live in France, so I'm not aware of what is available in the US apart from AYD. I see that AYD is 145 USD for 1 month (5 game reviews + 3 lectures + lecture library). For information I've occasionally taken courses with

• Lucas Neirynck, EGF 6d. For 75€ you get 5 league game reviews + 5 lectures, but that's in French.
• 9-week program with JIGS. For 90€ you get 9 league game reviews + 9 lectures + tsumegos. Courses are in English, in the evening (European time) but they are recorded so you can watch them later, the main teacher is EGF 6d.
• Polgote used to have an affordable online league, with reviews by 6d+ teachers, but it has been discontinued a few years ago.

I didn't try Yunguseng Dojang yet so I can't tell which one is best. Also, Nordic Go Dojo had an online league that I didn't use, but it has discontinued I think.

[Knotwilg]

I agree that setting ambitious goals can be motivating to start such a track but in my experience they can become demotivating if they don't materialize soon enough. For example, there will be a point when you have become 1 kyu through a streak of good results, then fall back to 2 kyu, because of randomness in your results or because of fatigue. In such a case you may feel like not succeeding.

I think that you should figure out some extra KPIs to focus on the continuous progress and not the eventual outcome. Like:
- number of games played
- am I playing serious games or just carelessly blitzing (monitor time usage)
- am I consistently reviewing?
- can I take any learnings from previous games/reviews into the next ones (feedback loop)

Tracking and measuring your process is a good complement to the customary tracking and measuring your outcomes (= rank).

It might be personality dependent, but recently I got good results in physical efforts, precisely by NOT chasing goals.

[AaronBC]

Thanks, guys.

[AaronBC]

Weekly update here.

I played a ton, but it was mostly fast games on Fox Go Server. I wanted to establish a rank there; I seem to be between two and three dan. I dislike their ranking system. It seems inappropriate for someone of my level to have suck a high rank. I prefer the distribution of ranks that OGS has.

Also, I did play some correspondence games on OGS, and also played some vs. the ai-sensei computer. In total, I played over 22 and a half hours.

I spent an hour and 12 mintues reviewing my games.

I reviewed pro games for three hours and four minutes.

On Awesome Baduk, I spent two hours and 12 minutes.

Also, I did tsumego for about four hours.

In the future, I would want to normally play slower games to take more time to consider to my moves, and then review the games more.

I think for the coming week I’ll focus mostly on doing tsumego.

[Knotwilg]

Fox ranks are inflated indeed. 2-3 dan there would equate with 1k elsewhere.

Impressive volume of play and review!