Life In 19x19

Fwiffo's 2010 Study Journal



My goal is to reach 1 kyu on KGS by year's end, and 1 dan by this time next year. At the time of writing, I'm borderline 4-3 kyu.

Weekly:

Each week will include one or two days with no serious study. This is an idea that bodybuilders and weightlifters take seriously; even if they're competitive at a high level, use a split routine, whatever, they don't work out seven days a week. Rest is critical to progress and growth physically, I see no reason why that shouldn't apply for mental pursuits as well. At the very least, it'll avoid burnout.

At least two serious real-time games per week. It's not enough - I intend to increase this as I get my life back together and have more contiguous time to devote to playing.

At least five ongoing turn-based games. I may reduce this if I start getting in more real-time games.

One hour with teacher. Review of games from earlier in the week and teaching games.

Daily:

30-60 minutes on problems, whenever I can fit them in. If I'm in the mood to do more, I'll just grind away. Sometimes I'm more in the mood to do problems than play. Split about 50/50 between life and death and other types of problems.

30 minutes misc. study, whatever I feel like reading.

None of this time includes dicking around on the forums, blitz games, drunken go, screwing with my club web site or updating my study journal. Those activities will continue, of course.

I'll post updates here to track my progress and hold myself accountable.

My favorite scene in one of my favorite cult movies. Gotta love John Carpenter. You made my day fwiffo.

You're welcome.

June 27, 2010

Lesson with teacher
Gokyo Shumyo, Section 1, #17-28, 8/12 correct
Five ongoing DGS games
Ongoing Malkovich game against Chew Terr

Eager to see progress! Keep us posted!

Best of luck If your supply of turn-based games is running dry, let me know.

Wanna do a Malkovich or DGS?

Normally I'm an OGSer but I recreated my old DGS account just now. Challenge away: http://www.dragongoserver.net/userinfo.php?uid=55738

(It seems to have translated '1k AGA' into '3k DGS' all by itself... interesting)

Challenge sent.

It translated me to 7k for my starting rank. We'll see how that is once I finish some games. There's not an mobile client for OGS, is there?

June 28, 2010

The Direction of Play, Chapter 1
Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol. 4, #1-18, 16/18
Started new DGS game (6 total ongoing plus Malkovich)

Omgomgomg so cool that my thread (although I am/was to lazy to update properly) led to an own subforum, maybe I'll start an own journal again

fwiffo do you prefer realtivly "easy" problems over "long-thinking" problems?
Don't know if you have read Benni Teubers guide to improve, but I found it really helpful to break through to 1d ( http://senseis.xmp.net/?BenjaminTeuber% ... comeStrong ).

I'd be glad if you would post some of your played games here.


Good Luck!

Jonas

Jonas wrote:fwiffo do you prefer realtivly "easy" problems over "long-thinking" problems?

fwiffo, please think of how your answer affects the audience here. If you label those problems as "easy" I might implode from the awesomeness that is your tsumego solving skills. I don't want to implode, pls.

Gah, I envy you all.

My study journal consists of 1, hopefully 2, games a month

topazg wrote:Gah, I envy you all.

My study journal consists of 1, hopefully 2, games a month

You said teaching others seems to help your grasp on fundamentals. You should make a teaching journal!

Chew Terr wrote:You said teaching others seems to help your grasp on fundamentals. You should make a teaching journal!

Haha, I would if they didn't keep getting too strong

I prefer a mix of easy and hard problems. Most of the ones I've done so far from Gokyo Shumyo are quite challenging, and they seem to be getting more difficult as I go along. There are some easy ones in there though. #1 is solvable at a glance, for instance, #2 and #12 are less than 30 seconds, #22 is a basic shape you should recognize at a glance. But some have stumped me even after working at them for a long time.

I just picked up Graded Go Problems for Beginners vol. 4 and (The Direction of Play) when I was ordering a replacement copy of Making Good Shape. So far, the problems in GGPfBv4 (as it shall henceforth be known) are mostly pretty easy. About half are solve at a glance for me. A couple required some serious thought. A couple were of the "so obvious that you almost get it wrong for over-thinking it" variety. They seem to be getting harder as I go along though.

The GGPfB books have a diagram for each problem, then "Black to play" or "White to play and live" or some such instruction, then below that a short hint or additional instructions. It's hard to not read the hint because sometimes it's actually necessary instructions for the problem. But sometimes it's a REALLY big hint. I was going through GGPfBv3 recently (the last time I had looked at it was before my 5-year hiatus) and most of the problems were pretty easy even without the hint. I remember that book being pretty challenging when I first got it! It must have worked.

I have run into some problems in both of these books that think I've seen elsewhere, or I've seen a variation of. Some I wasn't sure, like this problem:

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$B
$$ ----------------------
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ . . . . . X X O O O O |
$$ . . . X X X O O X X X |
$$ . X X O O O X X X O . |
$$ . . O . . . X . O O . |
$$ . . O . O X O O O . . |
$$ . . . O . . X . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . X . . . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . . . |[/go]

I got this one right, and quickly, but have I seen it before? All of the wrong moves are obviously wrong and none fail in any kind of subtle way, so you move on to the less obvious moves pretty quickly.