Life In 19x19

Weekly progress update:-

1. Won my first 3 stones handicap game against a Singapore 3 Dan. The guy was very kind to agree playing against me and review my games. We'd been playing for the past few weeks.
2. Lost 16.5 points in a winning game against local KGS 3 kyu player. It was painful to know I've lost when I'd the advantage. My local club's 3 Dan commended my improvement and I'm pleased on the effectiveness on the change of my game mentality and daily practices. Now I may need to play more games to further refine my new discovery.
3. Approached a more flexible mindset and suppressed by jealousy of territory, I'm starting to accept the trade-offs of territory and influence and less rushed to play and kill. I'm starting to understand what does it mean by "satisfy with opponent living small" because Go in the end, is a game of territory.
4. The fundamentals drill on tesuji (repeating the same technique across different problem patterns) is working fine and I can see vital points more often now. But my reading power still need to improve further. I still have problems reading a contact play, cross cuts and overplays. I'll do more life&deaths and progressively increase the difficulty.
5. Learning how to win a game at advantage is something I need to work on. Perhaps end game knowledge is vital.
6. Online Go server ranks are still stagnant, I'm lacking motivation to really start playing. Maybe I should really care less about my rank, as pointed out by SoDeSune, also rectified by my recent improvements in the most recent 2 games. Just do it and play games, focus on refining new found / learnt knowledge and enjoy the game itself (Yes I'm a competitive person and all I ever cared was winning or losing, but Go taught me there's more beyond results.)

You can find my last week game highlights here.

Splatted wrote: The reasoning is that more complicated tsumego are built on top of the simpler ones. This is an entirely literal statement. The positions found at the beginning of beginner tsumego can also be found 1 or 2 moves in to the solutions of a more advanced ones, and those advanced problems will again be found 1 or 2 moves in to the solutions of yet more advanced tsumego. It is by building this foundation step by step that one learns to solve more advanced problems.

He also stresses that it's important to repeat problems and always read out the answer thoroughly. This applies even when you remember the answer from last time you solved it. I'd also like to mention Kageyama's "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go", which is a book available in English I think many people here have read*. The very first thing he has people do is read out ladders. Of course we all know the solution to a ladder, but that's not the point. It's about reading practice and fully internalising a common pattern.

So my opinion is that although SoDesuNe's experience of improving more from hard problems because they forced him to read is likely very common, the important difference was not the problems themselves, but actually that he was reading in one instance and not the other. In other words I think people are focusing on the wrong variable.

Sorry if I repeat anyone else

So, the thing here I like is the focus on reading thoroughly. That said, while much of optimal study is debatable (I myself study and learn very quickly, but even if you use my methods can we say you get the same result? Not really). However, I may be able to convince you that solving easy problems is actually detrimental in comparison with solving real problems (and I hope to show why I say real problems).

Before we get into that, I must mention this pro's advice can be effective -- it's not my intention to say it's bad advice. However, I do think there is better advice AND I don't think upo hearing his advice that majority of players can follow it.

So what is a tsumego problem and why do we do them? Tsumego may actually be a specific reference, but is also used generally for other problem types in which on must analyze a position in Go. We solve them to improve our reading ability.

So does solving easy problems improve our reading ability? Well, let's think about that. We would probably consider the problem easy if its within our ability and not so easy if it pushes us - so already i think if you are looking for easy problems you are specifically preventing yourself from being challenged. You may find this subjective, but you must consider that this subjectivity means people WILL interpret it that way and as such by following this advice many will end up failing to challenge themselves.

On top of this, some define easy based on time to "solve". But what is a "solve" and how are you timing and verifying it within the time? A solve would be to have read out and understood the moves and variations of a position. It is very much NOT simply being able to find the solution one has marked as correct in some answer key or program. Generally if people are timing, they're using a program as well. These programs have the benefit of enforcing a time however they have the downfall of not being able to test what you actually read out aside from the one variation.

On top of this we have the issue of the initial advice and reasoning "Building on top of simpler tsumego" -- This may be true to a degree, however it's not clear advice. I'd posit that touting such a thing as a reason simply encourages people to try to reduce problems to instinctual/vital points. The issue there is that those types of behaviors are not reading, they are where your reading should begin. You don't play the move that feels right, you read the move that feels right and then decide if its a good idea after hopefully considering other moves. The simplest example would be a 3 space eye, one would play the vital point in the center -- would get a problem marked as correct and yet it reads only one move and no responses. It may be silly to think one should read the actual capture since you "know" it will happen, BUT that reading is actually practicing the skill you're supposed to be practicing AND not all situations are equal (which is to say in a real game playing in the center of a 3 space eye because that's how it worked in the problem will not lead to a kill, the group must first be surrounded which itself should be read out to be done efficiently)

These things together, the advice, the types of problems being sought, the impossibility of knowing whether you read out all the variations within 60 seconds, the tools being used - They all encourage many people to avoid reading.

If used properly it CAN still be effective. However, even used properly it's not as effective at improving your reading as maintaining habits which force you to practice reading when that is your goal - Such as just solving problems that aren't too easy out of a book with no answer key. [Having a book or program tell you the answer does not improve your reading even if you read out the problem, its pretty useless to improving your reading skill].

Coming back to the same problems is good as well, as what matters most is that you're reading this in your head. Coming back to problems allows you to much more confidently know if you had solved them and can even show improvements in reading when you realize you missed a variation last time around.

In summary:
Telling people to solve easy tsumego, while a completely legitimate way to improve, actually tells them many things which encourage them to not solve the tsumego at all or to put very little effort into it and either way stifle reading improvement. Also, even when it works it is outshined by the results of practicing deeper reading. These exercises are simple: Practice imagining moves in your head and you become better at doing so -- This is true if you stare at a blank board with no problem, or the hardest problem in he world.

I'd also add that keeping them "easy enough", which is basically just meaning that you won't get bored and walk away, has merit. But it's more about moving on from that which is just beyond you than doing what is "easy". To that end, if you feel like you want to give up on solving all tsumego because the problem is just so hard, then move on to the next one.

"In other words I think people are focusing on the wrong variable." -- With this I'd disagree in part. I do agree that reading focus is what's important. I have to say disagree though because I acknowledge the proposed [and common] advice of solving easy problems is, has and will lead to players who are practicing exactly how not to read. Even with the added bit noticing the importance of the thorough reading -- and this can be seen in attempting to teach players. Give a beginner a tsumego app and try to convince them to read everything in their head before playing it out on the board and I'd be surprised if less than 80% of them just try to brute force the problem sets even while you're giving them the advice to stop doing that.

Hello all,

It has been a long time since I last updated this thread on my Go progress.
Honestly speaking, I'm nowhere near 1 Dan when I'm writing, but I'm 3K in Tygem as of now. I wish that would be considered a huge progress from where I started when I began writing this study journal.

My job as a freight forwarding agent was rough and still do as the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the worldwide supply chain. I'd not been able to find consistent time for Go during the past 8 months, but I made it a habit to solve tsumego problems everyday. And on the topic that solving "easy tsumego" problems with "timer", I'd done a bit on that and it actually almost pushed me to bad reading habits (relying on instinct and not thorough reading), but I disregarded the practice and turned to Nihon Kiin's Dictionary of Life&Death. Reading the whole book everyday for about 10 questions is quite mesmerizing and fun, so I've come to develop better understanding on corner and side life and death shapes.

At one point I lost motivation and stopped for Go for a month, and came back after I'd finally get rid of hassles that took away my time. I worked 3 jobs, other than my super busy main career as freight forwarder, I'm also a part time tutor for 2 tuition centers, and that took away too much of my energy for a living. Then after the break, I've dropped my part time and I felt I could make use of my night time for Go now, then I got back and I am now a 3Kyu in Tygem.

I'm no longer making it a stress with deadline to reach a certain rank, I would prefer to complete my goal of studying and implementing the topics that I would like to focus on, and hopefully the rank will come by itself when I've done enough to improve my inner strength.

So here's what I'm doing currently:-
1. Daily tsumego
Material: Lee ChangHo's Tesuji / Life&Death series (6 volumes each)
2. I made it a commitment to play at least 5 games per week
Side Note: Black I will play sanrensei, and as White, nirensei, I'm developing this fuseki pattern to my games
3. Study Focus: Practical invasions and shapes
Material: YouTube videos that talked about this topic and also Dictionary of Life&Death
4. I take a 2 hours class from a Taiwan Dan player every Saturday.
5. My current reading goal: Completing Elementary Go Series: Attack & Defense (2nd read)

Go is not your vocation in life, it's a pastime. So make sure you have fun playing or studying it. A great deal of our satisfaction comes from improvement, which is most often measured by rank, whether we think that's "right" or not.

I can't judge if you get more joy of intrinsic improvement, like the ability to solve tsumego which you couldn't solve before, or extrinsic improvement, like winning more games and move up the ranks. Looking at the title of this journal, I'd wager you get a fair amount of motivation and satisfaction from winning.

The things we like to study are not always translating to wins. And even the things that have a major impact on our level, don't do so immediately because transferring learning to performance takes time, often even including a throwback.

And then people owning a study journal, like myself, get their joy out of musing about their improvement (or that of others) That's also fair.

Myself I'm trying to study things that I enjoy and not expect too much of immediate impact on performance. On the other hand I try improving my performance mostly by focusing on aspects of gamesmanship: fighting spirit, time management and in general play games in good physical and network conditions.

Over time what I like studying has changed. For example, since I have understood that the purpose of tsumego is actually reading, not solving, I enjoy it more because I'm less frustrated with not finding the solution. Another example: I enjoy reviewing my games with AI. I don't care if anyone says AI reviews are for high dans or pros. I enjoy it.

Knotwilg wrote:I enjoy reviewing my games with AI. I don't care if anyone says AI reviews are for high dans or pros. I enjoy it.

AI reviews are for everyone.

Knotwilg wrote:Looking at the title of this journal, I'd wager you get a fair amount of motivation and satisfaction from winning.

I must applaud your observative nature, this is true to me. I find myself extra motivated when I happen to move up ranks and win games. Then it hit a drought, and then I win again, the process rinses and repeats, so it became a matter of how long I can move out from that drought. But over these months since I first started this journal, I've lost enough games to not afraid of losing too. I've also to come to realize that my ultimate satisfaction is to actually able to discuss and review games with strong Dan players on equal footing. And I'm very satisfied if my view or idea was taken into account, more than winning games. And if my idea of play astonished strong players, I felt an instantaneous enjoyment out of it. I've found my very reason why I'm working hard.

Knotwilg wrote:The things we like to study are not always translating to wins. And even the things that have a major impact on our level, don't do so immediately because transferring learning to performance takes time, often even including a throwback.

Yes. At one point my reading ability does not translate into real games and it still does, perhaps that has to do with my obsession of solving tsumegos instead of "reading" them. But I've since changed my approach to tsumego problems, I spend ample amount of time to "read" and assure that all the possible variations was discovered before I submit my answers, I find peace in doing so, and it's mesmerizing to be able to find my solutions and variations matching the answers.

If you want to win more games with your current level of understanding the game, I advocate 5 laws of gamesmanship to apply:

https://senseis.xmp.net/?DieterVerhofst ... mesmanship

I have elaborated more on what I think is an underrepresented part of advice in Go literature:

https://senseis.xmp.net/?DieterVerhofst ... Management

If you also get the kick out of discussing positions with strong players, do post some here!

On Wednesday Dec 04, 2019 this post was created.
1 year, 9 months and 29 days later I've finally made it to 1Dan @ FoxGo server.
FoxGo may have inflated ranks but I'm still fairly excited to share my progress.

Now, onto more challenges ahead! I'm considering to play at more servers and increase my Go game activity time.

Quick updates here, been few months away from this forum after I picked up a new role at work.

It seems I moved fairly comfortably up the ranks at FoxGo right now after the 1D breakthrough. I did not play much online so it took me few months to hit the rank.

Achieved 2D as of 6th February

What further put me in surprise was I find it manageable now playing against doge_bot_2 on OGS (Ranked 2k-4k) which was so much difficult for me back then.
I also managed to reduce my handicap game against a Singapore 4Dan player from 3 to 1 stone now.

I have not changed how I study, and in fact I study less, but I played more games and kept a very detailed review every time I finish them.
What I found was, when I focus working on my weaknesses, I tend to improve faster.

On every occasion, regardless of playing a [5mins + 3x30s byoyomi] or a [30mins + 3x30s byoyomi] setting:
1. Always throw games to KaTrain and generate a game performance report (KaTrain was really awesome in helping this aspect that I was looking for)
2. Blunders aside, identify key areas of inefficient / ineffective plays. Review these aspects and recall to my thought process during the game.
3. Compare and track the history of mistakes, on where and when I made them.
4. Come up with an improvement plan and raise my awareness on such occasions, to put practice into action.

I focus only "1 aspect at a time". In my journey of hitting 1D, what I did:
[5k - 3k] When I was fairly weak in opening, I studied more joseki variations and after joseki follow ups. I sticked to only josekis I know at this point.
[3k - 1k] When I was fairly weak in opening - middle game transition, I studied positional judgements, invasion and reduction timing and techniques.
[1k - 1D] When I was fairly weak in closing games out, I studied yose.
[2D - now] Still fairly weak in yose, work-in-progress.

Of course, tsumego everyday is the only thing I've not changed.

zafuri95 wrote:Quick updates here, been few months away from this forum after I picked up a new role at work.

It seems I moved fairly comfortably up the ranks at FoxGo right now after the 1D breakthrough. I did not play much online so it took me few months to hit the rank.

Achieved 2D as of 6th February

What further put me in surprise was I find it manageable now playing against doge_bot_2 on OGS (Ranked 2k-4k) which was so much difficult for me back then.
I also managed to reduce my handicap game against a Singapore 4Dan player from 3 to 1 stone now.

I have not changed how I study, and in fact I study less, but I played more games and kept a very detailed review every time I finish them.
What I found was, when I focus working on my weaknesses, I tend to improve faster.

On every occasion, regardless of playing a [5mins + 3x30s byoyomi] or a [30mins + 3x30s byoyomi] setting:
1. Always throw games to KaTrain and generate a game performance report (KaTrain was really awesome in helping this aspect that I was looking for)
2. Blunders aside, identify key areas of inefficient / ineffective plays. Review these aspects and recall to my thought process during the game.
3. Compare and track the history of mistakes, on where and when I made them.
4. Come up with an improvement plan and raise my awareness on such occasions, to put practice into action.

I focus only "1 aspect at a time". In my journey of hitting 1D, what I did:
[5k - 3k] When I was fairly weak in opening, I studied more joseki variations and after joseki follow ups. I sticked to only josekis I know at this point.
[3k - 1k] When I was fairly weak in opening - middle game transition, I studied positional judgements, invasion and reduction timing and techniques.
[1k - 1D] When I was fairly weak in closing games out, I studied yose.
[2D - now] Still fairly weak in yose, work-in-progress.

Of course, tsumego everyday is the only thing I've not changed.

Congratulations. For comparison, I am 4d on Fox, 3d on KGS and (brittle) 2d on OGS. I play on OGS most often.
Fox is definitely more fighting oriented and players will take needless risks in winning positions. Hardly any positional judgment is going on there. On KGS, the tendency is opposite and players often make soft moves. OGS is more balanced: players put on the pressure and can counterpunch in a fight.