PatrickBsTrainingBlog/StudyPlan

As part of my attempt to improve my Go game as logged at my blog, I put together a study plan after talking to a number of strong players.

Current Study Plan (Aug-2003)

1. The first step to tracking my progress will be to get a solid rank on KGS, where I plan to do most of my playing outside of the local go club. As Roy Laird and Barry Phease pointed out, I'll need to be careful not to just play fast, careless games online.
2. Force Feeding Get Strong At Tesuji, then the Segoe Tesuji Dictionary. I'm also considering doing this Cho Chikun's Life-and-Death dictionary at some point, a portion of which has been translated as All About Life And Death
3. Review all of my games for strategic mistakes (reviewed games will be linked from the blog) and at least one missed opportunity to play Yosu Miru. In cases where I'm not sure what happened, ask a stronger player or submit the game to the Go Teaching Ladder.
4. Watch games of players 5 or so stones stronger and try to guess the next move as a way of identifying, for example, places where I would fail to punish a bad move, take a big points over urgent points, or play a move that was too slow.
5. Study Pro Games - I plan to do this occasionally, though not with the frequency of the points listed above. At the moment, I'm partial to the games of Takagawa Shukaku.

Credits: Steve Fawthrop for ideas on how to review my own games, Roy Laird for suggesting I study pro games, Roy and Richard Mullens suggesting using Cho's life and death dictionary, and Roy and Barry Phease for debating the value of playing games online.