PeterN's Study Journal

Create a study plan, track your progress and hold yourself accountable.
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EdLee
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Post by EdLee »

PeterN wrote:Invasions are a bit of a mystery to me still,
Difficult, indeed. You need to understand so much: basics, timing, assessment of the situation, vital points, etc.
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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by PeterN »

Thanks for the comments Ed.

18 - It seems I need to learn the difference between low and high stones. :oops:

19 - Good point, I think I still mix up solid and heavy.

40 - I think this sort of slow play where it feels like I'm building up my own territory is one of my weaknesses.

78 - Even with this pointed out as a shape problem I'm not seeing what the good response is, except maybe don't even start the cross-cut. :scratch:

84 - Oops, didn't notice this.

92 - Definitely agree, I wasn't happy when that was the outcome.

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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by PeterN »

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners III (92.2% correct) again.
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games (both on the ASR League)
Elementary Go Series: Started reading In The Beginning again.

Unfortunately all attempts at keeping track of how long the tsumego book took me kind of fell to the side, so not sure how long it took me compared to the first time round. However this time round it didn't feel like I was running face first into a brick wall at various points like it did the first time, so that's good.

Both reviewed games I was considerably outmatched on but did surprisingly well considering the rank difference (as I didn't get utterly wiped off the board :lol: ), it showed up a number of times where I simply went after small points when larger ones were available. It seems I need to repeat "Corner, Sides, Centre" still.... :oops:

Will be no progress report next weekend as I'm away.

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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by SoDesuNe »

PeterN - Sun Aug 18, 2013 7:14 pm wrote:Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Started on Graded Go Problems for Beginners III


PeterN - Sun Aug 25, 2013 5:12 pm wrote:Progress Report: -

Tsumego: About three quarters through Graded Go Problems for Beginners III


PeterN - Sun Sep 01, 2013 12:29 pm wrote:Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners III (86.7% correct) and started volume II again.


18. August to 1. September: ~14 days.

PeterN - Sun Sep 08, 2013 4:22 pm wrote:Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners II (97.9% correct)


I assume you started Graded Go Problems for Beginners III shortly after that.

PeterN - Sun Sep 15, 2013 6:24 pm wrote:Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Continuing with Graded Go Problems for Beginners III, however I slacked off and only did about half as much as usual this week.


PeterN - Sun Sep 22, 2013 4:22 pm wrote:Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Continuing with Graded Go Problems for Beginners III


PeterN - Sun Sep 29, 2013 4:51 pm wrote:Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners III (92.2% correct) again.


8. September to 29. September: ~21 days, but - as you said - you slacked off somewhere in the middle. And you got a around 6% higher score.

Keep it up! =)
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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by PeterN »

Thanks SoDesuNe, I intend to :)

The slacking off was the problem with measuring it, could have lost anywhere up to a full week on it really. I definitely lost half the first week, and there was some slacking off in the next two that I didn't list down as it wasn't as much each week.

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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by PeterN »

Progress Report: -

New rank: 6 kyu!
Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners II (97.6% correct)
Games Reviewed: 1 lost game
Elementary Go Series: Continued reading In The Beginning

I did slightly worse for getting the right answers on tsumego this time round (1 more wrong answer) but it was completed much faster, taking just three days. Approximate time for this is around 120-150 minutes, compared to the previous attempt at 180-225 minutes.

Been somewhat slack on the reviews and elementary go series this week, though a number of my recent lost games might as well have been self-ataris even if they were more literally removing a critical liberty and setting myself up for death on a big scale.

Seeing the number next to my name change has made me think a bit and realise that I still don't have much of a clue about significant portions of the game. It feels like I rely solely on reasonable fuseki and then fighting. When I was still DDK it felt like SDKs knew what was going on, that and they seemed to have mystical stone killing powers! :lol:

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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by PeterN »

Progress Report: -

Tsumego: Read through about three quarters of Graded Go Problems for Beginners III
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games
Elementary Go Series: A little progress in continuing In The Beginning

I feel like I'm making good progress with the tsumego and focusing most of my efforts on that as it seems to be pretty effective. I might be getting outplayed in terms of big moves, but if I win the majority of fights it works out. Also beginning to get more of a liking for influence and using it to attack groups, even if I still have a "kill!" instead of a harrass for profit mindset. I'm thinking Attack and Defense should be my next book to go back to.

At the club this week I played two even games (one as black, the next as white) against someone who gave me five stones when I first started going, felt good to be able to measure my progress that way.

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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by PeterN »

Progress Report

Tsumego: Read through Graded Go Problems for Beginners III (93.1% correct).
Games Reviewed: 2 lost games, 1 won game
Elementary Go Series: No progress

The last quarter of the tsumego book is still a hard slog for me, taking the same amount of time as the first three quarters and accounting for about 80% of my wrong answers I'd say.

I'm feeling it's time for a bit of a break from tsumego to concentrate on the Elementary Go series. I still feel the same as in the last update; in fights I'm doing well, but outside of this I'm making small moves with little idea of what to do. I intend to finish In The Beginning and then move onto Attack and Defense.

I also still need to get rid of the "Kill!" attitude, got pointed out to me by two opponents at the club this week that I could have done a lot better if I hadn't tried to kill everything and subsequently died myself :oops:

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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by PeterN »

Progress Report

Tsumego: On hold
Games Reviewed: 2 won games
Elementary Go Series: Finished In The Beginning, Started Reading Attack and Defence

For the 10 problems at the back of In The Beginning I scored 70 out of 100, though I haven't got a clue just how good or bad that's meant to be.

I have started my concerted effort to start trying to harrass for profit instead of attacking to kill. Results so far are... not so good. It seems to gain me about the same as when I try to kill (i.e. not a lot of profit if any) but has a much lower chance of actually killing the enemy. I am hoping going through Attack and Defence will point me in the right direction of how to do this as I think I'm still doing some weird half way mess.

Overall it's felt a bad week for go, trying to switch to a new attitude leaves me floundering around and doing nothing well.

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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by SoDesuNe »

Regarding killing or profitting.
My rule of thumb is: When I'm sure he can die, I play inside, i.e. the vital point. If I'm unsure, I play from the outside, surrounding him and look if I find weaknesses then - or maybe he defends and then I have influence to use. When I'm unsure about killing but also cannot surround with one move, I mostly play Tenuki and look for chances to exploit the Aji later.
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Post by EdLee »

SoDesuNe wrote:My rule of thumb is: When I'm sure he can die, I play inside, i.e. the vital point. If I'm unsure, I play from the outside...
If I'm sure I can kill, I play the best move I can see:
if it happens to be inside, so be it; if it happens to be outside, so be it.
If either way kills, then I prefer the outside (tends to be more useful than on the inside, except for the exceptions, of course :)).
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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by SoDesuNe »

All true! But that's not a rule of thumb anymore, is it?
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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by PeterN »

My rule of thumb so far has been more: If there's any hope of killing it (false or not), try to kill it!

I was also preferring to play on the edge side of a group where possible, because territory is always better than influence, right? :oops: This one I'm now more or less out of the habit of, or at least much reduced, which has actually made the killing task a lot easier.

I'm suspecting my tendancy to play slow/small moves is contributing to me not making much out of harrassing so far, or maybe I'm harrassing them straight into my territory, hard to say from memory. I need to find a good example of where it's gone wrong without me having switched to kill crazy mode.

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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by PeterN »

Progress Report

Tsumego: On hold
Games Reviewed: 1 lost game
Elementary Go Series: No progress

Yeah... I kind of got sidetracked this week, played some games but forgot to do any studying.

Black mark against me this week :oops:

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Re: PeterN's Study Journal

Post by PeterN »

Ok, found a couple of games to put up, first game is a loss and demonstrates my current attacking pretty well, I'm intending to review it sometime this week, but haven't had the chance yet.



Second game I'm putting up because it was a really strange style my opponent was playing, I won so I'm not so sure if I'll review it or not yet, but I'm keeping it in mind in case I come across this sort of thing again.



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