Life In 19x19

Me and a friend started playing go in June. One month and 137 games later, I've finally hit 9k on KGS (He is still 11k but his real strength probably 10-9k). I'm guessing I've reached the point where just playing isn't enough if I want to improve fast.

My current goal is to reach 5k in a month, which is probably a bit optimistic, considering that I spent 13 days as 10k. My plan for reaching that goal is to do a lot of problems because reading is my weak point. I couldn't tell if a group is alive or dead for the life of it. Also, I'm planning on reading this forum and maybe posting some games for analysis.

Here is the game that broke the levee:



I believe a victory fanfare is in order:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/-YCN-a0NsNk[/youtube]

A special thanks to Numsgil who taught me how to invade. Revolutionized my game, man.

Congratulations on reaching SDK! I won't review the game, as this is more an occasion for celebration than for any sort of pointing out of errors. Great job, and well done Numsgil!

And man, pushing him up the whole right side on the second line? Awesome choice!

As far as getting to 5k, I got from 9k to 5k mostly by focusing on not leaving weak groups, and starting to poke more at my opponent's weak groups. (Incidentally, I recently started feeling like I was improving from 3k by focusing on that again). This seems like an obvious thing, but really hurts if you fail.

Wow, fast improvement!
Good luck!

Glad it was useful But really I was just paraphrasing Yilun Yang (from the lecture book I mentioned and from an in-person workshop I attended).

I think you need about 300 additional games to go from 9k to 5k (give or take, depending on any tsumego on the side). So get cracking

So a month and a half later, I am only KGS 7 kyu. I took a few weeks off from playing last month though. I feel my strength is a bit higher than my rank as I'm 9 to 1 in my last 10 games against 7 kyus.

Lately I've started playing on Tygem too where I have a negative record as a 10 kyu, which is pretty tilting. The level there must be a lot higher I guess because, despite having played pretty terribly on that site (I blame the annoying sound effects), I haven't played that terribly.

Joined the ASR league this month. I'm in class Delta I. Benefits have already surfaced as, apparantly, there's something called a double wing formation, which I knew nothing about before an opponent from said league pointed it out to me in a review.

Watching Dwyrin's (Calls himself Battousai on KGS I think) lectures and games lately have helped me immensely. Definitely going to attend his wednesday lectures going forward.
http://www.youtube.com/user/dwyrin

My graph:


Shodan before Christmas?

A game I played, which I'm fairly happy with:



Any comments, advice or whatever is welcome.

KGS 6 kyu reached!

KGO wrote:KGS 6 kyu reached!

In the previous game, move 60 at B6 would have decimated him. If I read the clock correctly, you took less than a second to play the passive C8 instead. Take just a bit more time to think things over, and you'll be 5K.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:

KGO wrote:KGS 6 kyu reached!

In the previous game, move 60 at B6 would have decimated him. If I read the clock correctly, you took less than a second to play the passive C8 instead. Take just a bit more time to think things over, and you'll be 5K.

Yea, I don't know how I missed that.

I'm actually a pretty slow player. I always reach byo-yomi in 30 min games. I do a lot worse in games with less time. It's the same thing when I play chess or poker (I'm a professional poker player btw). My intuition is bad but my reasoning skills are superb.

KGS 5 kyu finally reached. Feels like it took me forever. Takes too long to increase your ranking on KGS.

I have arrived in the world of 4 kyus. Those above shall fall and those below shall bow down before me.


Broke through the gate with a crushing victory against a 2kyu. I don't feel he played like 2 kyu though. Comments and critique are welcome.



What we do in life echoes in eternity.

After a fairly slow start to my 4 kyu career, it seems I've finally captured some momentum again. 9 wins in a row and counting and 14 wins in a row only broken up by a 1.5 moku loss. After 7 days as 4 kyu, I'm about halfway to 3kyu, which is more or less on pace for making shodan before christmas. I think 4 things have made the difference in my games recently.

1. Starting to play the orthodox fuseki again. I love this opening.
2. Double and triple checking and making ABSOLUTE sure that my surrounded groups can actually make life. I've lost so many games through making fairly simple reading errors in those situations.
3. Realizing something important about enclosures with an extension. Namely that they are extremely awesome. Now I try to get them whenever I can, and perhaps more importantly, I stop my opponent from getting them.
4. Related to number 3 and something I actually internalized only after reading the "jts takes notes" thread here in the study journals forum. I quote:

Build boxy moyos
[Not only are squared shapes efficient and easier to defend, but they're 3D; a further extension off one side makes it very easy to expand the whole moyo.]

Oh, and another thing I've learned is the value of the cap for reduction. I used to always play the shoulder hit, but the cap has its uses I've found.

Here is a game against a 3 kyu where I feel I put these concepts to good use. Made a rather large misread in the upper left, but still managed to win fairly comfortably.



EDIT: Also, I've been reading this blog by a Finnish insei in Japan recently. I find the games and comments he's posted to be extremely educational.

Link: http://gooften.net/

After bordering on 3 kyu for a while, I've finally crossed over.

I wont make shodan before christmas at this rate though.

It's been a long time since my last entry now. Fell off the wagon in a major way. Didn't play much and loitered forever at 3k and 2k until I started playing seriously again. Failed miserably at getting to Shodan before Christmas. I have now recently made 1k on KGS, going on 14 straight wins and I hope to make Shodan this month. That would make it Shodan in 9 months since I started playing go, which isn't too bad.

My new goal is to make it to 3dan before having played a full year.

A couple of games I played recently that I was happy with:


Daddy learned to fight:



14. Probably bad because of the K14 stone.
58. D5 is better? I really hate the cut at d4 that arises from this sequence.
64. Should probably play around k4 or something instead.
70. Terrible. B should ignore
74. Feels wrong. Shoulder hit would be better I think.
103. B H10 doesn't work. W will just nobi at L10.

Shodan level?:



12. W R7 is correct, I think. B has to respond again and the turn is very big because W has to respond and it works well with q16.
14. R2 is painful for white.
46. P2 is very passive for white. Allows B to gain influence by attacking later. Jumping out with the weak group at k5 or something must be much better.
57. I thought this would be sente for B.
63. Not good obviously.
64-68. These exchanges seem good for B because of the weak groups that can be attacked at the top and bottom.
83 and 85. These are my new favorite moves. So effective at exploiting weak 2 space extensions for influence.
92. W is already connected. Small.
195. Actually a mistake by B. W should connect at S10 and W is fine, but he failed to notice. He claims he was leading before this, but I'm not so sure.

Awesome! When you were 7k (in Sept) I was more or less around that strength too... And look now! I'm just 5k and you're rolling around the 1-kyu/1-dan area!

Regarding game 1 above, black can surely connect on the other side, namely L11 rather than L9. Once that fight is lost, then the E5 cutting point becomes a real problem. Oddly enough, black actually spent a little while (20 seconds or so) thinking about this, so its a surprising error.