reach shodan in go

Unfortunately haven’t been able to make any time for study or live play since. May have dropped again. What little I do know seems to come natural, but that includes the bad habits. Need to squeeze in time to start progressing again. Next tournament is on the December 13th.

I’ve worked my way up to 2 kyu. Bouncing around between 1 & 2 at the tournaments. Got a 1 day tournament next Saturday and then the 2 day MD Open on Memorial Day weekend. I hold no illusions about making shodan by then. I would like to reach 1 kyu and hold it.

One thing I’ve figured out is that I’m not devoting enough time to this. Not much can be done about the exercise or work or other obligations, but I should be avoiding a lot of the other distractions. Internet arguments, hanging out w. people who won’t even remember me, random surfing, all take up precious time in this far too short life. The one key to excellence in all fields is time. I need to practice problems, go over pro games, and most of all play, play, play. I also need to go over games that I’ve played (perfect practice makes perfect).

My performance in the last 3 tournaments has jumped me up from 5k to 3k (-5.3 to -3.8 I think). I’m feeling a bit daunted at the notion of playing as a 3k in the next tournament this coming Saturday. But challenging oneself is how one gets stronger.

Given that I’ve been weak about getting online, I attribute most of my progress lately to tsume go and tesuji problems every day.

I’d been feeling frustrated at being stuck at 5 kyu (see previous post for rating system), but I’m starting to feel like I’m getting over the hump. Proper moves are coming easier and more naturally to me. Not only is fighting getting easier, but I’m better able to see how to set up situations for a fight. The difficulty is in pointing out any particular weakness I had or have in order to improve. I think my best strategy remains a broad approach of studying pro game, reviewing my own games, doing life and death problems and playing lots of games.

When I started it felt like I had a talent for this. That combined w. my high intelligence made me think that it wouldn’t be long before I was in the dan ranks and making waves. I was dicouraged to soon discover that advancement was not only a logarithmic curve (30 kyu to 29kyu^{1^ is a breeze, 8 dan to 9 dan is astoundingly hard), but I also faced limitations due to my age, level of free time, and perhaps less innate talent than I thought I had. I’ve been playing about 9 years and am now about 5 kyu in the AGA and 10 kyu on KGS. Meanwhile the kids jump up to dan ranks in a couple years or less. Very discouraging. But I’m not giving up.}

Some things I believe I should do to improve my progress:
1) Stop passively watching high ranked games- When I do watch these games I should clone them in another room and spend my time actively analyzing them. More often though I should be playing my own games and reviewing and analyzing them.

2) Make use of my board or a go client when reading go books. It’s one thing to see a diagram in a book. It’s another to play it out on the board or screen. I think this will help the concepts ‘stick’ better.

3) Get my games reviewed by stronger players. Not only does Yuan Zhou offer a chance for commentary once a month at a club in our area, there is also the Go Teaching Ladder. I need to make more consistent use of these resources.

4) Organize my time. This is something true of my life in general. The better I manage my time, the more I should have free for go after the necessities of life.

1^For those who don’t know, rankings in go follow a Japanese system where beginners are rated 30 kyu (Usually. Some systems start as low as 35 or as high as 20.) and that number decreases as they advance. After 1 kyu there is the rank of shodan or 1 dan (like a black belt in go). The dan ranks go from 1 dan to 9 dan