Life In 19x19

So apparently it's possible to be a 7k in 12-weeks time when you are trained by a professional. There was a show released where they selected two Korean celebrities who knew absolutely nothing about Go and the aim was to turn them into 7k by giving them personal lessons from a professional Go player.

I was skeptical while watching through the series but they actually pulled it off! Meanwhile, few months in and I'm still at KGS 10k haha. I think this goes to show how important it is to have a teacher who can give you clear instructions. I'm honestly a bit jealous.

How long did it take you guys to get to 7k?

This was from tvbaduk for a show called "Miracle in 12 weeks".

Nice to hear 7k being touted as a miracle

(It took me 4 or 5 years to reach it)

It took me half a year studying on my own,with pros help its for sure possible to reach it in 12 weeks.

I'd say it took me 2 years to be kgs 7 kyu, but after 3 years, I'm still 12 kyu EGF.

But I guess that the training of these celebrities was a full time job.

Actually they only met once a week. Both of them had full schedules doing full-time jobs. They tried hard, but definitely not full-time.

Pio2001 wrote:I'd say it took me 2 years to be kgs 7 kyu, but after 3 years, I'm still 12 kyu EGF.

But I guess that the training of these celebrities was a full time job.

It probably helps that Koreans are born at 18k.

It took me around 8 months to reach 7 kyu (probably about AGA 6-7 kyu today). 11 months to 4 kyu. KBA ranks are stronger than AGA, right?, so this is probably more comparable.

Meanwhile in China

https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments ... name=baduk

Is there any way to watch this online?

Yes, but it's in korean. The tvbaduk site has a replay of all their content. But it costs $3 to watch the entire series, or $5 to watch all their content.

Satorian wrote:Is there any way to watch this online?

It took me six years to get to KGS 7k, and I've been bouncing between 6k and 7k for nine or ten years now, with two brief visits to 5k and a few more times back at 8k.

Perhaps we are confusing two very different meanings of "it is possible"

a) That a randomly selected beginner* could after 12 weeks of THIS method of instruction be at or above 7 kyu.

b) That there are SOME beginners* (maybe only 1:100 or 1:1000) who would be at 7 kyu or above with perhaps any method of instruction, perhaps just having played a few dozen games.

I am one of those people who only once or twice met anybody who played go (and the few I had met were beginners, maybe 20+ kyu, who told me that I was stronger than they were by enough they couldn't tell) until found a local go club, where after their having me play a few games with various opponents, told me that I was around 8 kyu.

So it is POSSIBLE in that sense. But that says nothing about method of instruction, more like "good at games" << I was a reasonable chess and bridge player when younger >>


* By "beginner" I mean somebody who ha never actually played go against any opponent, human or computer. They might have some understanding of the fundamentals of the game from books about go.

Probably the first. These guys when they first were instructed to play started playing five-in-a-row and had to learn from the very basic. The pros did not consider them to have any significant talent for the game.

Mike Novack wrote:Perhaps we are confusing two very different meanings of "it is possible"

a) That a randomly selected beginner* could after 12 weeks of THIS method of instruction be at or above 7 kyu.

b) That there are SOME beginners* (maybe only 1:100 or 1:1000) who would be at 7 kyu or above with perhaps any method of instruction, perhaps just having played a few dozen games.

I am one of those people who only once or twice met anybody who played go (and the few I had met were beginners, maybe 20+ kyu, who told me that I was stronger than they were by enough they couldn't tell) until found a local go club, where after their having me play a few games with various opponents, told me that I was around 8 kyu.

So it is POSSIBLE in that sense. But that says nothing about method of instruction, more like "good at games" << I was a reasonable chess and bridge player when younger >>


* By "beginner" I mean somebody who ha never actually played go against any opponent, human or computer. They might have some understanding of the fundamentals of the game from books about go.

Zhao Chenyu 5p started to learn Go at 6 (I think his first teachers were high dan amateurs). After taking 3 months of lessons he participated in Taiyuan amateur shodan qualification competion (there were over 300 participants). He won all 13 rounds to take the championship trophy and got his shodan.

I studied when I was young (13 years) hard on my own and could become 10k in a month and participated one month later as 8k (3-2 result) my first ever tournament,im sure with proffessional help and dedication its definetely possible to become 7k in 12 weeks.(but im pretty sure kba 7k is weaker than egf 7k,so defenetely possible in my opinion)