Hey everyone, glad to see a subforum like this added. Anyway, thought this was a good opportunity to post some goals of mine here

MY BACKGROUND: I originally learned about go about three years ago, but I didn't start seriously playing until a year and a half ago. I've been stalled at 4K for two months and enough is enough. Therefore:

SHORT GOAL: To stabilize at 2k by the time I get back to school in the fall.

LONG GOAL: To make shodan before my second semester at the end of january.

METHOD: There are several things I'm doing. My main plan is to take a temporary hiatus from playing games on KGS. I've decided to do this for several reasons. The most practical is to let it loosen up my rank a little bit, and perhaps let me be able to jump up after two weeks or so after studying. More importantly, I'm using this time for a combination of studying and in person games. My goal is to play about an average of a game a day, hopefully against stronger players. For studying, I'm re reading Life And Death as discussed in another thread and plan to go through a variety of other non tesuji/l&d books over the course of the summer. This in combination with reviewing the occasional pro game seems like a good study plan.

So what do you guys think? Anyone have any advice?
And of course I'll keep you all updated.

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

Unless you're great at memorization, perhaps record your games occasionally so that you can properly review them, since they're in person. This is all I can comment on, since you're better than me, but reviews are quite helpful. And that way, perhaps you can share some of the games you've played here to show your progress.

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

Alright, now there's some momentum behind this whole journal idea. I'm a trend-setter. I set trends. Well, SoDesuNe is technically the trend-setter, but I'm the first follower.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

That's a good idea, I'm gonna try to record my in person games on my iphone for later review. My guess though is that it will be like playing with a clock in your first tournament; I'll keep forgetting to do it after every move. Hopefully this will get better with practice!

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

Better yet... practice your memorization!

Try to memorize a pro game. Replay your own games immediately after they end.

By the time you reach shodan you should probably (barring playing under adverse conditions - too tired, hungry, whatever) be able to replay your own games for review accurately nearly 100% of the time.

Replay the game immediately with your opponent so that the two of you can review, then record the game on your phone or your home computer afterward. Believe in yourself, you can do it!

This isn't only for cool points; it helps your visualization which helps your reading. It can also help your reasoning, which helps your direction of play and helps you get more value out of reviews.

EDIT: That goes for you too, Chew Terr.

Start off with a pro game, one with a theme that appeals to you. Play the first 50 moves slowly, finding the reason for each one. Make it up if you have to - just so your mind has something to anchor each stone in its sequence. Then clear the board and replay them. If you have to look at the game record, do so and then start over. When you've played 50 moves from memory with no errors, play the next 50 from the game record. Then clear the board completely and play the first 100 moves over from move #1. If you have to look at the game record, do so and then start over.

I memorized my first pro game this way at about 10 kyu. I think it took about 6-8 hours (that was about 6 years ago - I still remember the first part of the fuseki because Takagawa Kaku [black] played a high approach to a 3-4, was pincered low, finished the joseki there and then made a sanrensei AFTER that because it worked with his influence on the other side of the board. Gave me a new understanding about making your stones work harmoniously.)

But the next one was easier. And the next was easier still. And then reviewing games with my opponents became less about gestures to quadrants of the board saying "I probably should have played there before you got to invade" and more about specific details and sequences (of course, I was starting to get stronger opponents too, who could also remember the game afterward.)

After the NOVA tournament this past weekend, I came home (2 hour drive normally) and recorded two of my games. I'm narcoleptic, and at various times in the other two games I was falling a bit under (medicine helps, but it's still not perfect), so memory failed me there. But I remembered one win (of which I am quite proud) and one loss (which I asked for commentary from a pro, since I am having a hard time finding the best solution for a sequence in the game myself.)

Believe me, you can do it. Just practice.

I took your advice, and am actually trying to memorize a Go Seigen game right now. A question I have is, do you think its important that I memorize the game until the very end, as in all the late endgame?

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

There is little benefit to be gained from memorizing those moves, for instance shape is completely unimportant at that stage, which is a main factor when memorizing pro games. For macro-endgame however there are only a few possible moves at the same time which are approximately equally big, so once you can calculate endgame moves or remember the value of e.g. a 2nd line hane it becomes easy on it's own. There's no reason to memorize in which order they played one of 10 2pt gote moves or dame though...

Unless you believe Michael Redmond's endgame study was responsible for his recent win over Cho U.

Seriously, averell is probably right in that you get most of the benefit before the last point on the board is taken (if you're memorizing a Japanese game they won't play out dame.) I go to the end, because to me personally anything else feels like I'm cheating; and obviously I'm only cheating myself, so what's the point?

i would have to disagree. people memorize by association so if you are able to memorize then you have a understanding why they played that move in that sequence. at first i didnt think much of memorizing pro game but later i realized it helps.

endgame is also important..
just make sure you findout why they play their move.

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

I just played a game recently, and was looking for some feedback. Unsure of whether to post it here or in the games analysis board, but here it goes. This was a two stone game where I played black.



Perhaps not connecting at 61 was the game losing move. Other comments about anything about my play? I figured a game where I lost by half a point would be a good one to get comments on.

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

i usually try to find first bad move that i see...
move #16 was a winner for the first bad move prize.
it seems you didnt read what will happen after your invasion.

one more advice on getting strong:
if you are not confident that your move is a good move it probably isn't.
there are time when you might have to play an over play and this wasn't that time. (beginning is usually not such time)

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"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

Also, the invasion follow up was wrong.

Focus on separating your opponents' important stones, and trying not to let them become unimportant.

With #18, when you attach underneath his stone you let him discard it easily - if you're going to overplay, do it right ; attack broadly by jumping to P12 (EDIT: actually, P11 should be better)

After white connects across with #27, black already feels like he's lost his 2 move advantage, if not more (forced to play low in the bottom right, weak top right corner, thickness muted by white's strength to either side.)

Success! I seem to be making good progress. Both playing online and in person I've managed to hold my own against 1ks the past few games, in addition to beating the 3ks I played. I was stuck at 4k for a long time, so finally making a big breakthrough is a big accomplishment for me. I probably still won't play on my old account till maybe 2K, but my studying and playing seem to be paying off.

A question: I was looking into playing on Wbaduk, but is there a way to do this on a mac?

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

You can install wine (a somewhat difficult process on a mac), use crossover, or a vm.

Aww Wine/Bootcamp is such a pain. It's a shame I can't run Wbaduk natively, as I really wanted to play! Oh well...maybe they'll change this soon?

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

I'm now reading through The Direction of Play. I'm really enjoying this book so far, as this is my favorite aspect of go, and the one that I'm trying to improve the most. I'm hoping to stabilize as a 2k by the end of the month and so far my studying seems to be paying off. I'm playing fine against 2Ks, but the 1ks always seems to yank the game away from me! I'll get my revenge

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

Awesome progress! Did you enjoy memorizing the game, and do you think it helped?

I'm not actually done yet, as I took a break after reaching move 100. After going back however, I've now got 200/275 move memorized from the game! Almost done, and I never really thought I would be able to do that. I'm also trying to replay games right after I finish them, and I think I'm seeing a slow but steady improvement in that area. I usually get to around move 60-100 just fine, but after that can't remember the order of some exchanges.

At the same time, I just finished reading The Direction of Play. I loved reading this book, as this is the part of go I'm most interested in, more than say tesuji or life and death. I'm hoping this will have a positive impact on my go. Does anyone know of any books like that one(as in, are more about the big picture than the little one?). I also just got Kato's Attack and Kill, which I haven't started yet. I've read Attack and Defense, is this book similar? Or good

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

The "Whole Board Thinking in Joseki" books (2 volumes) by Yilun Yang are good at helping see how the little picture impacts the big one.

http://www.slateandshell.com/SSYY002.html
http://www.slateandshell.com/SSYY003.html

Sector Fights is along that same vein. It's an interactive book. Really all his stuff is good (don't let the weird covers fool you ) because it covers material a) not in other books (I have a lot of books so I should know ) and b) not in ways that other books cover it (so you end up thinking about familiar ideas in unfamiliar ways and maybe grow from the experience).

I got the EZ-GO, Sector Fights, and Contact Fights and I'd recommend all three (try asking for a deal on buying all three). EZ-GO is a PDF giant go bible that covers all aspects of play (again, a lot of the material wasn't in other books) and Contact Fights teaches some basic rules of contact fights that make it easier to know what you're doing. Both Sector Fights and Contact Fights are continuations of chapters in EZ-GO.

Anyway, that's my fanboy rant.

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1k KGS