Life In 19x19

The above post is absolutely correct, there is no one path through the sdk ranks. Some people swear by tsumego, some people reach dan without touching them (they do however have to play a ton of games to do this normally).


It's pretty hard to improve without at least sometimes playing stronger players though.

Boidhre wrote:It's pretty hard to improve without at least sometimes playing stronger players though.

I think one key is to get new ideas from somewhere. Stronger players are probably the best way to do this, but not the only way.

My plan, if you can call it that, which has got me to 6k and hopefully 5k soon is to read a bit of everything just to get a general idea, and then make sure my fuseki is good enough to not be behind from the get go combined with lots of tsumego to win as many fights as possible.

Downside to this is outside these categories I am playing smaller moves than my opponents more often than not.

Before I tried to improve using tsumego I "stalled" at 8k, though others have told me it wasn't long enough to consider it stalling.

PeterN

If you guys play on KGS, then you can you kgs.gosquares.net to track your statistics. It does win-loss. It tracks how you do against players stronger, even, and weaker, as well as handicaps. It's so useful.

Hope it helps you guys.

1. Play
2. do tsumego
3. find a source of information (teacher, book, pro game)
4. review your games (with someone stronger if possible)

The tsumego part is tricky. It doesn't immediately or tangibly improve your strength in games. Therefore, do it as an activity on its own and track your solution rate as a separate mechanism for positive feedback.

The other three are related. Play and deliberately try out things you got from your source. Review if it worked out. Find out weaknesses and work on those in the next game. Play to improve, rank is secondary (this is hard!)

And yes, Attack & Defence is the best choice for a lifetime source of information.