Study one player versus many, Pro versus Amateur..

[Xaos]

What is the consensus here? For a beginner, is it better to review games from a large sample of pros or amateurs? Is it better to study pros, and see moves a beginner has no way of understanding, or review amateur hour and see the mistakes to avoid? Is it better to review and study the games of one pro and his style, or several pros with different approaches? SHOULD beginners review pro games at the start, or wait till the fundamentals are sound?
Thanks

[SoDesuNe]

My opinion is that you shouldn't start studying pro games at least until somewhere around 1-dan. You might learn quite a few new moves or Fuseki patterns but in the end, when your opponent e.g. attacks you, pro games will not help you a bit.

You need to have a "decent" reading ability and a "firm" grasp of Tesujis to become a sound player. THEN you can start study pro games to learn more about the depth and the beauty of the game (and accidently you might understand one or more moves played).

[Twitchy Go]

SoDesNe has a good point. But I have a few additions. Just my opinions.
1: i find pro games very fun to play out. Even if I'm not learning much it's fun. If you do choose to study pick something basic/simple and focus on it. For example it can give you a feel for the feasability of an invasion. What they think are the big fuseki moves. Until Dan level(I suspect) your not going to be able to see more then a basic idea of a move. Ie: attacking, defending, developing.
2: if you can find well commented games it can be informative. Battousai has a bunch of go lessons on YouTube. You might try checking him out.

Edit: I think as beginners, and I include myself here. It doesn't matter if we pick one pro or many. All of them play so much better then us and we have so much to improve on it doesn't matter. In the long term you might single out some pros with a specific study point. Lee Sedol for fighting as an example. If you know they often play a certain way it should make for a more focused study.

[Boidhre]

Studying shape is one thing you can do in them. Don't expect to understand much but look at the shapes they make when they reply to a move and try to figure out why they make them. It's quite enlightening.

If you want to improve fast though, at your level, just play a lot of games, get reviews and start doing tsumego regularly. I didn't take this advice when I started out and I'm kicking myself for it.

[Bill Spight]

What is the consensus here? For a beginner, is it better to review games from a large sample of pros or amateurs? Is it better to study pros, and see moves a beginner has no way of understanding, or review amateur hour and see the mistakes to avoid? Is it better to review and study the games of one pro and his style, or several pros with different approaches? SHOULD beginners review pro games at the start, or wait till the fundamentals are sound?
Thanks

If I were starting out, I would not try to study pro games by myself. Commented games are fine, though. I would, however, spend some time watching the strongest players play and trying to guess the next move. If the pace is slow enough, I would try to understand why the player made a move that I did not guess.

As for reviewing amateur games to see mistakes to avoid, the best thing is to review your own games. The mistakes you want to avoid are your own.

[Magicwand]

My opinion is that you shouldn't start studying pro games at least until somewhere around 1-dan.

i strongly disagree with above statement.

i started with professional kibo when i was 10 kyu and that helped me improve much faster than others.
professional kibos are much simpler than amature kibo because they usually choose simplest way to win.
professionals make less mistake and they focus on the balance and simplicity.
they are two characteristic that will help you get strong.

some kibo is very hard to understand but if you read their explaination you will understand why they play such move.

[lobotommy]

Pro games - you don't need to study them, you don't need to understand them, you just need to slowly replay them through, a lot of them, to get a large mental database for all kind of shapes (single shapes, josekis, fusekis) then with your progress you can replay them more actively (book comments and analysis). It is very good to use some pattern searching software to get a lot of games with fuseki you want to learn about. There is a lot of such software, you will find it with ease.

Also it is a good idea to replay games of one particular player. For example I choose Rui Naiwei as my "mute teacher", and I enjoy her games more and more, and to my own surprise I found some of her games are so easy to follow that it's hard to believe that go can be so predictable on 9p level, but of course it is only a mirage, an illusion. But when you find that some portions of games you are replaying are predictable to you - well, then it's a succes, you learnt something.