Life In 19x19

So, I couldn't think of a witty title for this one. Thus I decided to call it "Untitled." It doesn't explain much, so whoever comes into this post will have no idea what I'm talking about until the second paragraph! MWA HA HA HA HA!

Joking. Anyway, I recently ascended to 10k. And I was quite happy about that. It seems like all my hard work is finally starting to pay off. But the strangest part is since I leveled up to 10k I've been playing very competitively against 7k's and 6k's without a handicap. Some I have won, some I should have won, and there are some I should have lost. I hope that makes sense.

What doesn't make sense to me though is this sudden increase in ability. Before hand I could barely compete with 10k's on an even playing field but now I'm competing with 6k's.

I don't mean to sound arrogant because I still have a lot to learn. I just don't understand how I could experience such a rapid improvement without even noticing it. It confounds me.

The whole point of this was to ask: Is there any explanation for this?

Have you been taking performance-enhancing drugs?

Fedya wrote:Have you been taking performance-enhancing drugs?

Unless it's in the food I eat, I doubt it.

But I thought the pizza tasted funny last night. <<

I usually play better against stronger opponents because their moves tend to make sense to me.

With weaker opponents, I get lost with their dumb mistakes and start making dumber mistakes myself.

Also, when I started raking up (before my graph actually caught up with me), it seemed like players who should have been stronger than me were suddenly making strangely weak moves, that I could now clearly see how to take advantage of. It was weird. It was like a light switch, the previous week I couldn't beat them, now I can.

xed_over wrote:I usually play better against stronger opponents because their moves tend to make sense to me.

With weaker opponents, I get lost with their dumb mistakes and start making dumber mistakes myself.

Also, when I started raking up (before my graph actually caught up with me), it seemed like players who should have been stronger than me were suddenly making strangely weak moves, that I could now clearly see how to take advantage of. It was weird. It was like a light switch, the previous week I couldn't beat them, now I can.

You might have solved the problem. That could definitely be it.

I experienced something similar when I finally broke through a barrier at 8k-7k after more than a year, and it only took me two months to reach 6k-4k. I was surprised at the 6k level to be able to suddenly do well against much stronger players.

Of course, I hit another wall here at 4k/3k, but hopefully that won't last too much longer .

Nikolas73 wrote:I experienced something similar when I finally broke through a barrier at 8k-7k after more than a year, and it only took me two months to reach 6k-4k. I was surprised at the 6k level to be able to suddenly do well against much stronger players.

Of course, I hit another wall here at 4k/3k, but hopefully that won't last too much longer .

I wish you luck in breaking the barrier!