Life In 19x19

A bit more than 4 months since my last post in this thread says everything there is to say about my go-studys.

Well, a new record . *counts* 8 months since the last post.

I just downloaded all sgfs still left on my micro-sd card (I use a nintendo ds to record all my tournament games) and there were still games from last spring.

But it's not the case, that were no go-related highlights in these last 8 months.
I finally broke the 1900 in GoR. My rating peaked at 1910 (dropped by 41 points after last weekend, but still), so my long-term goal of achieving a correct GoR is somehow fullfiled. Even though i would be a "weak" 2k now. (According to my GoR - according to most german 2k, i'm quite stable)

Kidocup 2012
The Kidocup took place last weekend and i'm quite happy with the tournament. It was 7 rounds with 75 minutes each (+ 20/5 canadian byo-yomi). I "only" managed to win 3 of these 7 games, but it was interesseting how the progression was during the tournament. As the initial pairings were done based on rating (and with 1910 i was the second-strongest 2k that pre-registered) i managed to loose the first 3 games.
I still seem to have trouble to get into "tournament-mode" and really think during my games. In these first three games i probably only used around 15-20 minutes of my time.

But after that i managed to win three games in a row. Including a win against a 1d (although a weak one, rating just below 1900). All of these games were quite intense. I made some stupid blunders, but so did my opponents and i got lucky.

Unfortunatly the last game was a loss again, otherwise i would have gotten a price. I don't know if i can call the last game a good one. While i didn't made any obvious serious mistakes (well maybe in one corner i played some crappy moves) i clearly can't say why i lost. Somehow in the middle game is was seriously behind and had to kill one of his groups, which backfired.
I will attack that game and i will probably send it to the teaching ladder.

The Kidocup also brought a nice boost in motivation to do something more with my go. One of the things i'm planning is joining a paid study-programm. More specificly i'm thinking about joining the Yunguseng Dojang. Thanks to a side job at the university money shouldn't be such a big problem. The only downside is, with the current term still running i don't have the time to join right now and therefore plan to join this fall. Which will be after the EGC in Bonn.

Also, one of the korean professionals, that attended the Kidocup is currently in Berlin and i'm invited to a small event this evening with barbeque and simultan games against the pro. =)

I only hope my motivation can survive the last two months of the current term.

Edit: I just updated the first post, as i have somehow reached my long-term-goal (well it took me roughly 2 years). From the 4 goals i formulated, i managed to achieve only two. Well better than nothing. Though it seems, i need to formulate new goals. (Well, one would be beating a player with a rating above 2000 in an even tournament-game)

Games
The fith round of the Kidocup 2012. Probably the most intense game i played that tournament.


The last round against a 1k (which managed a 5-2 thanks to this game).

MagicMagor wrote:Edit: I just updated the first post, as i have somehow reached my long-term-goal (well it took me roughly 2 years). From the 4 goals i formulated, i managed to achieve only two. Well better than nothing. Though it seems, i need to formulate new goals. (Well, one would be beating a player with a rating above 2000 in an even tournament-game)

Congrats! It's always great news to hear of someone even partly achieving their goals. On to the next ones!

I'm still alive. Though i didn't managed to play a lot of go the last month. (Well i played nearly no go at all)
University studys took a lot of my time, but the semester is nearing its end. My master thesis is coming up next semester, which means a bit more flexible schedule (i hope). So fitting some time for go into it should be possible.

Thanks to a side job i took at the university (preperations on my master thesis), i could convince myself to spend some money on go-teaching.

And so i joined the Yunguseng Dojang. Currently a spectator i hope to start next season in september as a player. Unfortunatly i was a bit late and ended on the waiting list, though pretty high up.

I probably won't take much out of this before the EGC, which is starting in two weeks, as i still have university this week and an exam next week. But i plan on watching a lot of lectures in august =).

For the EGC, i seem to be a bit rusty, as two games i played today showed. I haven't played so crappy in a long time.. (Even though i won the second one, my last attempt to kill him big succeded.. after everything before was an utter failure)

So just letting you know i'm still there and haven't forgotten this journal. Maybe i can formulate some new goals before the EGC.

Eighteen months, sure a long time since i last posted here. After the EGC 2012 in Bonn life took over you could say. The preperations for my master thesis and then the thesis itself left me with little motivation to seriously play go or improve my go-skill.

But now that is (hopefully) going to change. I finished my thesis just before christmas and once i find a job and settle into a routine, playing and studying go should become a part of my routine as well. At least that's the plan for now.

Let's start this new journal entry with a small recap. As mentioned in the last post i had joined the Yunguseng Dojang, an online teaching course/league by In-seong. I had joined as a spectator at first and then later as a full league member for one season (i think). This experience had some good points and some bad points, so let's start with the bad ones.
I didn't play enough during that time. When i was in the league i had to play five league games during a month and these were actually almost all games i played during these three months. As we all know, for teaching to be really effective one has to play and try out the new things learned during a lesson. Because i played so little during that time, the actual effect on my strength was limited - and because i didn't saw the situation improving for the near future i quit after this one season.

But it actually also had some good points. Despite my laziness in playing, some information from the lessons actually sticked and i can still remember them now. Also In-Seong helped me in correcting a huge mistake in my perception of my weaknesses. I always thought i was weak in fighting, but apparently that was one of my stronger parts. My reading is (or was) good, but i think i lack a bit in the tesuji-department. My other grave weakness as pointed out by In-Seong during my time in the league is joseki. My joseki-knowledge is limited to the most basic josekis it seems. Which is too limited for my level, my opponents apparently can often play joseki unknown to me which leads to mistakes and leaves me in a bad position after the opening.
I enjoyed the time in the dojang and fully intend to join it again this year. Maybe even as a spectator in march, but i plan to join the league again in april, when the next season starts.

Back to the present. I played several games on KGS over the holidays to see where i stand and get back into shape. Maybe i was unlucky with my opponents but almost all games turned out to be pretty aggressive fight-intensive games. And despite my strength in fighting i fell apart in most of them. I account that to not playing and not doing tsumego for the last year, so getting back into my old shape is one of my first goals.
For this i plan on going through "Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Vol.1 Life and Death" again. I remember being really comfortable with the difficulty of these problems. Some being very easy but most of them solvable with a bit of reading and some being really hard to crack.

My girlfriend got me the next two books from this series for christmas, so now i also have:
"Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Vol 2 Tesuji"
"Graded Go Problems for Dan Players - Vol 3 Joseki"
The great thing about these two books is, that they cover two of my weaknesses i plan to correct this year. The actual goal is to become as comfortable with these two books as i already am (or was) with the first one.

I will try to post reguarly in this journal a weekly schedule seems to be the best option. I will formulate a weekly schedule and will post each week wether i have succeeded in keeping the schedule or not. There will be no goals, short- or long-term. Keeping the schedule will be the only goal i try to achieve and then the results will show themself over time.

Weekly Schedule
I will try to achieve all of the following per week:
1. Tsumego
One hour each doing problems from the three "Graded Go Problems for Dan Players" books.
2. Theory
At least one hour studying new theory. This can be studying tesuji (Davis - Tesuji / Shuko - Dictonary of Basic Tesuji 1-2), studying new josekis (Takao Shinji - Dictonary of Joseki 1-3) or watching lectures.
3. Playing
In order to apply the new theory of point 2, and practice reading in real game application playing is important. So i will try to play several games per week. This means at least three games as a bare minimum but i will try to play at least four per week on average.

Outlook for the coming week
I'm going toe the Kisei Event in Madrid the coming weekend, together with my girlfriend. While that will give me plenty of opportunity itself for my planned scheduled (the side-tournament is 4 rounds alone) i will try to keep my schedule before flying to Madrid. As i said i feel a bit rusty after a year-long pause and i want my first tournament of the year not to be a total disaster. So getting in (better) shape before that is my current plan for this week.

To finish this first journal entry after a long pause and hopefully the first of many regular entries i will post one of my games from the holidays. I may have been a bit too greedy at several points in this game, but i think it shows my current problems quite well. It was an automatch game with 25minutes + 5x30s, so no blitz game. (I rarely play blitz)

Yeah, go for it, I wish you all the best! But, please, don't go too fast! Or I won't ever be catch up with you.. As I'm weaker than you I don't dare to review the game (or did we already have a look at this game together?), but I hope that someone will write a few comments for you.

Hopefully, Madrid will be a great experience for you, too ( ), and also provide plenty of motivation for you.

Motivation is a tricky thing. I had said i wanted to fullfill to my schedule before the flying to madrid but i wasn't able to.

I managed to play two games on KGS since the last update and maybe a total of ten minutes of tsumego from my life&death book. I just coudln't motivate myself to devote more time to tsumego or studying. After all i was happy enough to motivate me to play.

But after all i managed to win both games and the last one, against a KGS 4k, i even had the feeling of making a lot fewer stupid mistakes than before. So maybe i am getting back into shape, at least i don't fear making a fool out of myself in madrid anymore . Also i hope that the Kisei-Event and the side-tournament will provide me with plenty of motivation to at least fullfill my tsumego-pensum. If i file the commentary of the title game under "Study" i will probably fullfill my whole schedule this weekend.

I will report back when i return from madrid, so stay tuned

But, please, don't go too fast! Or I won't ever be catch up with you..

I will try not to improve too fast. But in my range improvement is slowly, so i don't expect to become dan in the near future. You have plenty of time to catch up

Kisei Update
I'm back from the Kisei Event in Madrid. The Event was really great, meeting two top japanese professionals and getting professional analyses of their game.

The side tournament was also nice, but i have to say that it wasn't my main focus that weekend. That can be said especially after sunday. On sunday i lost the last round of the side tournament in the morning, bringing me to a 1-3 result, far from being any good. But still i was not angry or frustrated, all i could think about after the game was "The rest of the day there will be commentary about the title game".

If you want a more detailed report on the whole event with pictures i suggest you head over to Ember's Study journal.

About my games i can say that i was satisfied even though i lost three of the four games. As there was a tight schedule with the game commentaries the time limits for the side tournament were quite strict. 40 minutes main time and 2 periods of 20sec byo-yomi proved to be really fast. I think in nearly all (or all?) games i came into byo-yomi and in one game i even made a fatal mistake due to the time pressure. If the tournament has told me one thing it is, that i'm not used to time pressure in tournament games. But still being able to use the whole main time of 40 minutes is good, as i'm often prone to playing to fast in tournaments. Also the rate of stupid blunders was pretty low for me, at least compared to the several games i played on KGS the last weeks.

Update Week 1
The tight schedule and fast thinking time however made it nearly impossible for me to keep my personal schedule. I still had to do the three hours of tsumego when we left for madrid. I managed to do one hour life&death during the flight but during the whole event i only managed to get some minutes of tesuji- and joseki-tsumego done.
And of course there was also no possibility to get that one hour of study done, but i didn't even bring any books for that to madrid. The game commentary could be a substitute for that, so in a sense i could say i only failed the two hours of tsumego for tesuji and joseki.

Change of schedule
While volume 3 of Graded Go Problems for Dan Players (Joseki) is really nice, volume 2 (tesuji) proved to be difficult to me. It is not only difficult but really frustrating. My rate for the first problems was something around 20% - and that are the easy problems of that book. The thing is i don't know if that is due to my lack of tesuji-knowledge or the presentation in the book.
In these problems i often have difficulties with even finding out the actual goal. Should i aim for cutting stones off, connecting my stones or should i aim at getting thickness or is saving the corner more important? How can i search for a tesuji-move and read if it is possible if i don't even know what the tesuji should be trying to accomplish? That is probably one reason while i preferred life&death problems in the past as there is a clear goal.

In order to overcome this problem and keep my schedule more managable i will reduce the time for l&d tsumego to half an hour per week. I am already good at reading and l&d so i don't need to train it that intensively.
The joseki-tsumego is dropped for now. I decided that i should either focus on tesuji or joseki-study for the time being and not trying to do both at once. So for now i am focusing on tesuji. For that i will devote at least one hour of study to tesuji, that means studying theory books about tesuji. (Davis Tesuji and the Dictionary of Basic Tesuji)
And that will be attended with one hour of tesuji-problems from the Go Problems for Dan Players, Volume 2.

In one or two month i will then evaulate my process in tesuji and probably switch over to joseki-study.

On the side of played games the weekend was obviously quite successful. As stated earlier i want to play at least 4 games per week on average. I have translated this in playing 200 games this year. I actually played six games the last weekend. The four games from the side tournament, a simultaneous game against a professional (which i won) and another game against my girlfriend at the hostel.
Together with the two played games before the event i'm currently at 8 games after only 1.5 weeks. Unfortunately these games brought my winning percentage down to 50%, i will see if i can increase it over the coming weeks and months

I'm curious, have you ever looked at 501 Tesuji Problems? I've normally seen it recommended for 5k+ but maybe some easier problems might help with the Tesuji study? Good luck regardless.

I'm curious, have you ever looked at 501 Tesuji Problems? I've normally seen it recommended for 5k+ but maybe some easier problems might help with the Tesuji study?

I have looked at it in the past and found the first problems too easy, so i never really bothered with it. So when i drew up my schedule plan for this year, this book didn't even cross my mind.
However, seeing that Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Vol. 2 seems a bit hard for me, starting with 501 Tesuji Problems might be a good idea. Starting with easy problems is better for my motivation i think. And as the problems in that book should get harder it might be best to switch to Graded Go Problems for Dan Players Vol. 2 only after i finish 501 Tesuji Problems.

Thanks for the tip, i will start my tesuji-tsumego with 501 Tesuji Problems.

Good luck regardless.

Thanks. I really hope i can keep the schedule and this journal up, i'm really curious how strong i will be at the end of the year if i can manage that

Weekly Update 2

Study Topic: Tesuji
Study Theory: Done
Study Tsumego: Done

Life & Death Tsumego: Done
Played Games: 4/4

This week was a success in keeping my schedule. I played two games on thursday. For the first one i tried playing on IGS again. As i am an EGF 2k and a stable 2k on KGS i find my current rank of 7k+ on IGS to be slightly outdated. So i thought of playing a game on IGS now and then to slowly correct that rank. But somehow it didn't worked that way. The connection to IGS seemed to be unstable as i was disconnected two times during that game. I didn't lost on time but somehow the time-setting of 25 stones in 5 minutes was a bit too fast for me, as i lost with over 30 points. I will probably ignore IGS for now and focus my online play on KGS.

That evening i played a game in the german "Bundesliga" with black against a 4k. I included this game in my post as it was pretty intensive. I thought i was ahead pretty clearly until the invasion in the upper right corner (Move 70 and 72). It was probably a bit greedy trying to kill everything (Move 73), but i actually thought i could. After the disaster there i counted and the game would have been even if he would gain no points in the center or we could gain equal points in the center - which seemed to be nearly impossible. I tried reducing his center afterwards a bit, even though i was sure i had messed up the game. However the center developed nicely for me and i thought i could win if i could gain some points in the center or cut some of his stones off.
The later one happened as you can see. I know for a review i should better post a game i lost, but i still would like to hear some comments about the upper right corner. Was trying to kill everything unreasonable or did i made a mistake afterwards?
Also i think the game is just pretty fun to watch .

Yesterday was the Go-Day of the week you could say. I played two games again, getting my quota of four games a week. One game against a KGS 1k, which i won and another game late in the evening against a 3k? (who is an EGF 1d, as he told me afterwards), which i lost. Just attacking without any grand strategy (because i was too tired to formulate one) isn't a good way to win a game .

I also started my tesuji-study with the first volume of "Dictionary of Basic Tesuji" and "501 Tesuji Problems" afterwards. The later one also seems to be a lot better for my current tesuji-level than volume 2 of the Graded Go Problems for Dan Players series. While some problems are pretty easy i also fail at others, i would guess i get around 2 of 3 problems right. Still room for improvement, considering i just nearly completed the first 50 problems of the book and the difficulty is sure to rise with the later ones. I may even go through that book a second time before moving on to the Graded Go Problems for Dan Players book.

The bundesliga game against a 4k

MagicMagor wrote: That evening i played a game in the german "Bundesliga" with black against a 4k. I included this game in my post as it was pretty intensive. I thought i was ahead pretty clearly until the invasion in the upper right corner (Move 70 and 72). It was probably a bit greedy trying to kill everything (Move 73), but i actually thought i could. After the disaster there i counted and the game would have been even if he would gain no points in the center or we could gain equal points in the center - which seemed to be nearly impossible. I tried reducing his center afterwards a bit, even though i was sure i had messed up the game. However the center developed nicely for me and i thought i could win if i could gain some points in the center or cut some of his stones off.
The later one happened as you can see. I know for a review i should better post a game i lost, but i still would like to hear some comments about the upper right corner. Was trying to kill everything unreasonable or did i made a mistake afterwards?
Also i think the game is just pretty fun to watch .

I was under the impression that white was ahead up through about move 160 or so, when he decided to kill himself by going all out against your relatively connected center. I think instead, white should have started the ko at S9 and used all those forcing moves in the center as ko threats. If you look at the game through about move 60 or so, black has split himself into SIX separate groups, most of which are relatively small and sealed in. I think this came as a result of a few slow joseki moves, as in the lower right, when black pushed one too many times before jumping, and in the top left, where black should have perhaps played a less aggressive pincer, given the isolation of the corner stone, if he was going to pincer at all. That said, when white focused on the small side at instead of sacrificing a bit to keep black low and maintain the center, things became more up for grabs.

That said, regarding the upper right, after , if black just defends the stone in atari, I don't think white has anything spectacular he can accomplish in the corner, and will likely end in gote after weakening the M16 group.

Thanks skydyr for your comments. Yeah it seems i underestimated the value of whites influence a lot. I felt uneasy pushing from behind several times in the corners, but rationalized it to me as to keep sente and the possibility that influences could always be negated later. That was also the reason to play K3, in order to negate the influence of white on both sides by placing a living group in between. If white already had a stone on K3 or K4 i probably wouldn't have played in those two corners the way i did.
Maybe i just need more playing practice to become better at judging the value of influence.

So far nothing done related to Go this week, my master presentation is coming up in two weeks, so free time gets a bit rarer. But i stumbled apon a nice free service (http://www.trello.com), where one can plan and organize basicly anything. Like setting up a to-do list and then move items from there to "Doing" or "Done" and tasks can also be composed of sub-tasks with a nice progress bar.
So i went ahead and set a board up for my weekly go schedule. I don't know if i have to re-set up everything next week or if i can just change the "due date" (currently set to next monday 0:00). I made it public so anyone can now actually watch my progress even during the week before the next update of this journal.
Link to my Go-Study board (also in my signature)

Weekly Update 3

No Go this week. I didn't do tsumego, study or played any game. Somehow the opportunity never presented itself and i wasn't really in the mood to play or do tsumego.
Of course one thing about this study journal is forcing myself to do this, regardless wether i'm motivated or not, sometimes i just have to push through.

My goal of four games on average per week is in no danger, as i already have played 12 games this year, so i'm right on schedule there. I hope this week will not repeat itself, then one "lost" week is no big deal. Or i might double my study-effort this week - we will see.

However i still intend to keep the trello-board for my study (see signature) and just updated the due-dates there.

See you next week (with hopefully a lot more to report).

Keep on going! We all have bad weeks but keep on getting up and fighting!

PeterN

Thanks Peter.

A quick note about the last week/days
As you may have noticed, the weekly report for last week is missing. After the week before, where i did nothing for my go at all, the last week was a bit better. I played several games and was able to achieve my goal of at least 17 games in January (i think i even managed 18). I also did some tsumego, fulfilling my quota of life&death, but i didn't study tesuji or did tesuji-problems.
Part of that, and the reason i have nothing go-related to report for the current week, was an important presentation i had to held yesterday - about my master thesis. I was therefore more concerned about that one, than about my go-schedule.
However, now that the presentation is over (it went very well) and i therefore have finished my college education i intend to come back to studying go.

I fully intend to keep my schedule for this week, even though there are "only" four days left (including today) - lets just leave it at that.
I will report back on sunday .