Life In 19x19

Hi L19. I've been getting much more serious about Go in the recent months and I think now is the perfect time to start a study journal to keep myself accountable to my goals. I think my goal is to get to low SDK by August and start playing in a league (either Yungseng or Osaka). For the next few months, I will dedicate 2-3h/day to the game with a mix of play+review, problems, and replaying professional games.

Bonne chance!

2-3h is pretty ambitious but feasible if it's your primary focus outside work & family (if any)
Feel free to post some games, with or without AI analysis.

Does your name have a specific meaning, maybe one related to your study purpose?

Study Plan - Week of 26th April

• 2 games + review per day (standard OGS time settings 20min+3x30s or longer)
• Finish Baduktopia's Level Up Book 6
• Play through main line of Relentless Game 2 w/ commentary
• Play through main line of AlphaGo Games 14 & 15 w/ commentary
• 1001 Life and Death Problems - Problems 300-400
• Get Strong at Tesuji - Problems 1-100

It's an ambitious plan, we'll see how it goes this week.

Good luck. With 2-3 hours per day, you should start seeing results pretty quick!

Progress Update

To Do (Week of 26th April)

• 2 games + review/day
• Baduktopia Level Up Book 6
• Relentless Game 2
• AlphaGo Games 14 and 15
• 1001 Life and Death Problems - 300 to 400
• Get Strong at Tesuji - 1 to 100

I feel like my reading ability has improved quite a bit by doing the Baduktopia books. Here's one of the games I played this past week, playing the black stones.

and some thoughts about the few moves at the win-rate turning point:
Could maybe have been played at G4 (?)
was too slow, those stones were dead anyway.
could have been used to invade the upper left corner, KataGo still thinks there is enough room to live there.
per KataGo's suggestion is better at C17. I think blocking at D9 is decent too.

Reflecting on the game, I feel that I could have looked for better 'direction of play' and to find more opportunities to invade. I was under the illusion of a territorial lead at this point in the as I felt I could convert a large part of the center of the board from my thickness on the right side. Perhaps that was too optimistic.


I will be traveling for part of next week so it will be more difficult for me to play live games - instead aiming to do more problems. I'll aim to complete the following this week:

To Do (Week of May 3rd)

• 8 games + review
• Baduktopia Level Up Book 7
• AlphaGo Game 16 and 17
• 1001 Life and Death Problems - 300 to 400
• Get Strong at Tesuji - 1 to 100

A few notes on things that I noticed when skimming the first 100 moves:

• The standard place for is H3 when both ladders work (read Attack and Defense if you don't know which ladders I'm referring to). C17 is also available, especially since White made such a wide extension to G17.
• You have an instinct to peep whenever you see a one-space jump (e.g., , , ). You will need to unlearn this instinct at some point, better now than later.
• was -1 point in gote. At 11k you should not be playing moves like this anymore. If it was a panic move with one second to go in byo-yomi I understand.
• at C10 would have saved a lot of points on the left.
• :b102: : at 11k you should be able to read that this is not necessary. You just need to read one move ahead. Every time you play a needless move in gote you lose 10+ points from opportunity cost. As you play stronger players it will be harder and harder to recover from giving away those points.

Moves 64-77 deserve a review: you seem hellbound on attacking that white string which is connected anyhow. In the meantime White gets about 4 free moves to expand the top into the center.

One of these moves doesn't recognize a snap-back.

Cheers