Life In 19x19

Hey all, thought a study journal would be a good idea to keep myself on the straight and narrow and get back in the studying groove. I haven't studied hardcore since training in Korea two years ago, and I want to get back to feeling in shape, Go wise that is. My goal is to get to 7 dan, and I'm not sure how long it's going to take because my ability to improve is wildly unstable. Sometimes I'm riding high and other times I feel like I'm 5 kyu again. I want to get to 7 dan so I can be in the strong player's room next time I go to congress. Not that I'd be really competitive with anyone there, I'd just like to be in with the special people I figure it will take at least a year of solid effort to reach it. My problem with Go studying is that it really just breaks down into:

Play lots of games
Review lots of games (preferably with someone stronger)
Do tons o' tsumego
Review pro games
Watch Baduk TV

Lather, rinse, repeat.

In Korea it was really easy to get games in real life, and playing with strong little kids was a great way to sharpen my fighting skills. I won't have that here in the stix of good ol' Michigan where the next Go club is miles and miles away, so I'll have to play on Tygem. Also, having a 9 dan teacher was awesome.

The question is, what would be the best regimen? How many games per week? I don't know anyone that's 4 stones stronger than me to review my games, so I'm gonna have to review most of them myself and do it slowly with a database to see how pros play and compare it to my own. I find that studying your mistakes and mining through your games works more so than trying to play 20 times a day. Besides I wouldn't have time for 20 serious games.

So, here's my regimen:

• At least 3 games a week but bonus for playing more.
  All games are slow and serious.
  At least 30 seconds thinking time per move unless it's blatantly obvious or joseki. This will help me stop playing so fast. One of my biggest weaknesses is that I play entirely too fast and make mistakes that don't need to be made.
  Do at least 20 problems a day. I have plenty of tsumego books and I have to stop being so lazy and just sit through them and solve problems like I used to.
  I already watch a ton of Baduk TV, so maybe take more notes and try to memorize new joseki patterns.
  Study Joseki - I actually don't know very many of them as I mostly just figure them out, so I think I can crack open a joseki book I've been meaning to read but haven't.

We'll get started tomorrow. I'll play a serious game and post it here with self analysis, but would love any comments from the peanut gallery.

What do you consider "slow and serious" time settings?

At least 25 minutes main time and a minute byo yomi. 35 minutes would be pushing it. I mean, hour long games are fine in real life tournament settings because there's people around and I won't be bored, but staring at a screen for more than 35 minutes to play Go would probably fry my brain

Good luck and I look forward to reading about your experience. I think you are the strongest player to hazard a public study journal here, for a long time anyway. Also with your background as a Go author, I hope you will not be shy about keeping us updated.

yithril, Good luck!

yithril wrote:but staring at a screen for more than 35 minutes to play Go would probably fry my brain

If you set up a nice physical set near your computer,
use slow time controls (45 minutes at least? Much slower than your 'pushing-it limit'),
and you relay both your opponent's and your own moves, then you can enjoy your time mostly on the nice set,
and very little on the screen.

That only works if I have a live human being at like...a tournament. I have weird go tics. I can sit in front of a go board for 45 minutes if there is a room full of people also playing. It makes it more fun. I really would prefer to play on a real board and interact with another person, but like I said, not looking like much of a possibility

ez4u wrote:Good luck and I look forward to reading about your experience. I think you are the strongest player to hazard a public study journal here, for a long time anyway. Also with your background as a Go author, I hope you will not be shy about keeping us updated.

Thanks I'm actually going to create a website with Go videos soon, so I wanted to boost my strength before it's released so the quality of my lessons can improve.

Just wait until we've finished our game or something!!

Just kidding, obviously - sounds like a superb idea and good luck

Okay so today started off pretty well. I did 20 tsumego problems and played a fairly slow game. I broke the 30 second rule twice and paid for it. I gotta come up with some system to suppress my need to play as fast as my opponent plays. It cost me dearly this game. I came out ahead though.

Here's the game I played with some comments from my review. I don't agonize over game reviews and try to psychoanalyze my every move. That's not important. What's important is to be sure I'm following fundamentals, reading as well as I can, and finding the major mistakes.



After reflecting a bit, this game is indicative of my Go in general. I've got an okay opening, I have a decent grasp of positional judgment and I have basic fundamentals in place. I never win because I played a globally super efficient move, it's always because I just come out the victor in ambiguous situations. If I get a whiff my opponent is overplaying I get aggressive and invite local mistakes which pile up to a global win. I've always wanted to play more stylish moves that reflected deep strategy, but I guess a street brawl is what ends up happening.

Woohoo, Lee Sedol is playing Baduk TV. I'll catch the game and that'll be my studying for today.

This may be a stupid question, but in your loose ladder variation starting at move 92, can White not get out at the end, starting with G9?

Missed that, nice!

Want to practice with me? I'm horribly out of shape since my trip to China last year, and I want to get back into shape. It'd be nice to play some serious games - when I play these days I tend to just throw trick plays out until I win or lose.

Sounds like a plan! Let me know your KGS handle and we'll set a time to rumble.

I play mostly on Str1fe these days, but I don't log on regularly. Let me know here what times are good for you

So I did ze problems today and have cracked open "After Jungsuk" by Sungrae Kim. It's a pretty decent book and goes over some joseki variations that really actually do come up in games. It's a short book though and it's really for those of us that just need to learn new shapes. My slow game for today went well. I was losing though, because my opponent went full force after losing a lot of points in the beginning. I have to stop making my opponent desperate and causing them to give it their all to win I won by 8.5 in the end, though, because I made mutual life in the corner and he just didn't believe that I could



I had a good game at the beginning, but ran into spots where it was not clear to me what the best way to play was. Towards the end though, I practically gave points away, which I cannot do. I've got to be more flexible and be willing to lose some stones to go for the big prize.