Jedo's Study Journal

Jedo · Post by **Jedo** » Wed Jul 07, 2010 10:45 pm

I'm now reading through The Direction of Play. I'm really enjoying this book so far, as this is my favorite aspect of go, and the one that I'm trying to improve the most. I'm hoping to stabilize as a 2k by the end of the month and so far my studying seems to be paying off. I'm playing fine against 2Ks, but the 1ks always seems to yank the game away from me! I'll get my revenge :mad:

ethanb · Post by **ethanb** » Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:18 pm

Jedo wrote:I'm now reading through The Direction of Play. I'm really enjoying this book so far, as this is my favorite aspect of go, and the one that I'm trying to improve the most. I'm hoping to stabilize as a 2k by the end of the month and so far my studying seems to be paying off. I'm playing fine against 2Ks, but the 1ks always seems to yank the game away from me! I'll get my revenge

Awesome progress! Did you enjoy memorizing the game, and do you think it helped?

Jedo · Post by **Jedo** » Sat Jul 17, 2010 8:34 pm

ethanb wrote:
Jedo wrote:I'm now reading through The Direction of Play. I'm really enjoying this book so far, as this is my favorite aspect of go, and the one that I'm trying to improve the most. I'm hoping to stabilize as a 2k by the end of the month and so far my studying seems to be paying off. I'm playing fine against 2Ks, but the 1ks always seems to yank the game away from me! I'll get my revenge

Awesome progress! Did you enjoy memorizing the game, and do you think it helped?

I'm not actually done yet, as I took a break after reaching move 100. After going back however, I've now got 200/275 move memorized from the game! Almost done, and I never really thought I would be able to do that. I'm also trying to replay games right after I finish them, and I think I'm seeing a slow but steady improvement in that area. I usually get to around move 60-100 just fine, but after that can't remember the order of some exchanges.

At the same time, I just finished reading The Direction of Play. I loved reading this book, as this is the part of go I'm most interested in, more than say tesuji or life and death. I'm hoping this will have a positive impact on my go. Does anyone know of any books like that one(as in, are more about the big picture than the little one?). I also just got Kato's Attack and Kill, which I haven't started yet. I've read Attack and Defense, is this book similar? Or good :?:

ethanb · Post by **ethanb** » Sat Jul 17, 2010 8:52 pm

Jedo wrote:
ethanb wrote:
Jedo wrote:I'm now reading through The Direction of Play. I'm really enjoying this book so far, as this is my favorite aspect of go, and the one that I'm trying to improve the most. I'm hoping to stabilize as a 2k by the end of the month and so far my studying seems to be paying off. I'm playing fine against 2Ks, but the 1ks always seems to yank the game away from me! I'll get my revenge

Awesome progress! Did you enjoy memorizing the game, and do you think it helped?

I'm not actually done yet, as I took a break after reaching move 100. After going back however, I've now got 200/275 move memorized from the game! Almost done, and I never really thought I would be able to do that. I'm also trying to replay games right after I finish them, and I think I'm seeing a slow but steady improvement in that area. I usually get to around move 60-100 just fine, but after that can't remember the order of some exchanges.

At the same time, I just finished reading The Direction of Play. I loved reading this book, as this is the part of go I'm most interested in, more than say tesuji or life and death. I'm hoping this will have a positive impact on my go. Does anyone know of any books like that one(as in, are more about the big picture than the little one?). I also just got Kato's Attack and Kill, which I haven't started yet. I've read Attack and Defense, is this book similar? Or good

The "Whole Board Thinking in Joseki" books (2 volumes) by Yilun Yang are good at helping see how the little picture impacts the big one.

http://www.slateandshell.com/SSYY002.html
http://www.slateandshell.com/SSYY003.html

Numsgil · Post by **Numsgil** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 11:04 pm

Jedo wrote:At the same time, I just finished reading The Direction of Play. I loved reading this book, as this is the part of go I'm most interested in, more than say tesuji or life and death. I'm hoping this will have a positive impact on my go. Does anyone know of any books like that one(as in, are more about the big picture than the little one?). I also just got Kato's Attack and Kill, which I haven't started yet. I've read Attack and Defense, is this book similar? Or good

Sector Fights is along that same vein. It's an interactive book. Really all his stuff is good (don't let the weird covers fool you

) because it covers material a) not in other books (I have a lot of books so I should know

) and b) not in ways that other books cover it (so you end up thinking about familiar ideas in unfamiliar ways and maybe grow from the experience).

I got the EZ-GO, Sector Fights, and Contact Fights and I'd recommend all three (try asking for a deal on buying all three). EZ-GO is a PDF giant go bible that covers all aspects of play (again, a lot of the material wasn't in other books) and Contact Fights teaches some basic rules of contact fights that make it easier to know what you're doing. Both Sector Fights and Contact Fights are continuations of chapters in EZ-GO.

Anyway, that's my fanboy rant.

Jedo · Post by **Jedo** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 9:28 pm

Numsgil, it seems like that program is pc only, so I'm probably out of luck again. Yes, I am too lazy to restart my computer... :lol:

So anyway, here's what's been going down recently. For some reason, my only play has been terrible as of late. I've lost 8 out of my last 10 games, including losing 5 in a row. I've almost been kicked to 4k, after wavering between 2 and 3 for a while :sad:

As discouraging as that is though, my in person games have been going very well. Since I have amply opportunity to play face to face combined with the fact that online play hasn't been going well, it seems I'm taking another unofficial break from it.

Regardless, I've been have a lot of fun in my f2f matches. I've gotten to play a lot of dan players recently, and I hope that these handicap games will be helpful for my improvement, because they're certainly fun. In addition, there is no doubt that my memory has improved greatly as of late. I finished memorizing the Go Seigen game, and I must admit I was proud of myself to be able to replay the entire game from memory. More usefully though, I've been having much greater success at remembering my in person games for review. This is really a godsend, because I can now replay the game while asking stronger players for specific help.

I've also been reflecting on my game as a whole. It sometimes seems to me that for every go player, there exists one of those charts that shows what specific skills a player is strong or weak at. Like the groove radar in ddr!

For me, my strengths for my level are definitely strategy and direction of play as I was talking about earlier. My weaknesses would be contact fighting and tesujis. My games usually go the way where I get off to a good start and enter the middle game well. Once the mid to late middlegame come around though, I often make stupid tactical mistakes that have bad consequences and my position will collapse, after which I'll struggle to make it all back in the end game. For this reason, it was recommended to me to go through some tesuji problems, which is just what I'm doing now.

Anyway, has anyone had similar experiences or advice?

Jedo · Post by **Jedo** » Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:34 pm

Here's a game I played recently, a rematch against the same guy I played with two stones previously, except this time I won! I would appreciate any comments, and there are some comments of my own strewn through out. Also, this was a game I played in person and then recorded after I got home, and serves as a testament to the improvement of my memory, That being said, The last 50 moves of the record I don't really remember the order of, and I'm sure there are some mistakes anyway :mrgreen:

ethanb · Post by **ethanb** » Fri Jul 30, 2010 9:50 pm

Jedo wrote:Here's a game I played recently, a rematch against the same guy I played with two stones previously, except this time I won! I would appreciate any comments, and there are some comments of my own strewn through out. Also, this was a game I played in person and then recorded after I got home, and serves as a testament to the improvement of my memory, That being said, The last 50 moves of the record I don't really remember the order of, and I'm sure there are some mistakes anyway

Most obvious mistake I see is move 94. Push down at R15 and then cut at S14. White resigns.

I mean, the three stones can escape, but White won't want to run with them. It's just pain.

Jedo · Post by **Jedo** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:42 pm

Haven't updated in a while, but my study routining is maintaining! Now that I'm back at school it's possible I
ll have less time to play, but I'll see what I can do. My routine consists of in person games once a week and few online games scattered throughout the week, in addition to some tsumego. Time will tell wether I'll be able to push out of 3k!

I also noticed that on my old account, I still don't have a ? next to my ranking, despite not playing on it for over two months! Just when will KGS let the past rest

Jedo · Post by **Jedo** » Mon Sep 27, 2010 9:36 pm

I finally broke through to 2k! To be a fair, I had been winning a pretty high percentage of my games before, so it's only fair enough. I've won a few games since then, so I'm probably safe from sliding back ( I hope) I also managed to beat a shodan from my school club with 2 stones! I'm now going through 501 Tesuji problems, which I'm enjoying. After that I was considering Lee Chang Ho's Tesuji Problems, but his grouping by tesuji is a big turn off. So instead, I'm leaning towards "The Book to Increase Your Fighting Strength at Go" Volume 1, as I've heard good things. Shodan isn't so far away after all!

Anyone have memories of what helped them make that push to the last kyu rank?

Website · Post by **Chew Terr** » Tue Sep 28, 2010 7:34 am

Congratulations! It seems like you've been improving fairly quickly. Good to hear you've made so much progress. As I'm trying to follow your recent footsteps, has anything particular helped you gain your last few ranks?

Jedo · Post by **Jedo** » Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:06 pm

This is pretty general advice I guess, but what worked for me was just doing what I liked. I didn't force myself to do life and death problems which I hate just because everyone says to and instead tried to identify my specific weaknesses. Since my biggest problem is small scale fighting and the like, I chose tesuji problems as the cure. I thinking working on improving at remembering games was also a big help though. Perhaps most importantly though, I cornered stronger players into playing games with me as much as possible :twisted:

SoDesuNe · Post by **SoDesuNe** » Fri Oct 01, 2010 6:12 am

Congratulations!

I, too, follow the advice of just doing what I like. Sadly, in the moment this has nothing to do with Go ^^ I think, I'm still solid 4k but my ability to read Life-and-Death situations has decreased rapidly.
We'll see when motivation comes back, maybe in November when I'm participating in a big tournament.

Jedo · Post by **Jedo** » Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:42 am

Thank god finals week is almost over. I think my go study has been going pretty well lately. I've been winning a lot on kgs recently. To be fair, a bunch of those games have just been me beating up on the 3ks, but I guess the fact that I can consistently beat them bodes well. I'm slowly working through the first volume of "the book to increase your fighting strength at go" which I'm actually enjoying a lot. The types of tesuji problems they have seem more realistic than in other books.

My goal is definitely to hit 1k before the end of the year. After that, I'd really like to hit shodan before the end of the school year. We'll see!

Jedo · Post by **Jedo** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:10 pm

So, it seems like I'm a pretty solid 1k on kgs. I've been going even against the other 1ks, and usually beat the 2ks. However, no 1ds will play me! If I start a game, I basically never get a stronger player to join, and I rarely can find shodans who have long enough time settings and will accept my challenges.

As for my studying, I'm mostly just playing even games, along with some games with stronger players and reviews by them. I haven't done tumego in a few weeks, is this a problem :?:

Maybe I should start doing more problems to make the final push to 1d, but I just never feel like doing them! Maybe if I just sprinkle in a few...

My club games are also helpful, as sometimes I get handicap games with stronger players, and theres one player there who I guess is a friendly rival since although he was giving me stones for a while we're now evenly matched.

It can sometimes be hard to fit go in with school and everything else, but I will do my best :salute:

I think I'll post one of my games in here soon. I always feel embarrassed though :oops:

Life In 19x19

Jedo's Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal: The Road to Shodan!

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal

Re: Jedo's 2010 Study Journal