PatrickBsTrainingBlog/PastStudying

This page stores an archive of old log entries from PatrickBSTrainingBlog, as well as information on studying I did prior to starting the blog.

Studying history (Jan-1998 to Aug-2003)

At the moment, I'm about an AGA 3-4k, though I haven't had any time to study lately. I've decided to start another major push to improve and see how well it goes and to log both my studying and progress on here.

My past studying had 2 major parts:

1. Playing a variety of people and discussing games with a study partner (Scott Watterson) - this was probably the most helpful tactic, as we would discuss game positions, board postions, and debate the right way to play in different positions. This was particularly useful as Scott had a very different playing style than I did. In addition, when we couldn't agree on what to do, we would take the position to a strong player on line (like Steve Fawthrop, Jeff Shaevel, or Phil Waldron.) Their insights were particularly useful at times.
2. Reading Go Books, some of which were more useful than others. The push from mid-teens to 8k or so was reading In The Beginning, Lessons In The Fundamentals, and Tesuji The Book (by James Davies), and then drilling that material into my head by ForceFeeding Graded Go Problems For Beginners volumes 2 and 3. Of course, I was also playing and studying as described above in this interval. I read other books in the grind from 8k up to 3k, including Attack And Defense, Life And Death, and a wide range of others, but the 8k-3k stretch was more of a grind, perhaps because I no longer had as much opportunity to play or study Go because of school commitments.