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PatrickB's Training Blog
   

This page is where PatrickB logs his current studying and progress at improving at Go, as a way to encourage himself to keep studying and as a way to help figure out what helps and what doesn't. In addition to this blog, which logs what I've done over the last month or so, you can see a history of my past studying and my current Study Plan. Please share any ideas, comments, suggestions, and discussion about this blog on the separate discussion page.


Weekly Progress Report


  • 25-Aug-2003 - Goal: Finish getting a solid rank on KGS. play and review at least 4 more games.
    • Studying - Enter and drill Geta and Shicho problems from Tesuji Jiten.
    • Games
      1. Even versus lazyplay(4k)? Result - win by 41.5. Analysis and review to come.
    • Progress - Not much. The first week of classes ate all of my spare time preparing lectures. I finished entering all of geta problems from Tesuji Jiten and the first 96 problems from Get Strong at Tesuji for review, but besides that didn't get enough done.

  • 18-Aug-2003 - Goal: Establish a [ext] rank for my KGS playing account so that I have a baseline for improvement.
    • Studying - First 150 problems of Get Strong at Tesuji
    • Games
      1. [ext] H3 from handi(1k) Result - win by resignation, though I made many bad mistakes in the game; at least some of the earlier ones are commented in the game record. Studied a new joseki as a result of botching it in the game (joskei 2.2 on the linked page). The tesuji at 4 in the joseki along with its followups was eye-opening. It gives up two corner stones to get a good result even though they were salvageable. Not something I would have considered, but considering why saving those stones was too small and the joseki line of play better was very enlightening.
      2. [ext] White vs. excal(4k) Result - loss by 2.5 points. [ext] Reviewed version by Austin Frakt - I tenukied in the right place early, but then didn't play properly when he handled a corner. Also closed a corner too early. Thanks to Austin for the helpful comments. Didn't play very thoughtfully in this game - a number of places were I didn't read things out that I could have, and it cost me. One point to Roy.
      3. [ext] White vs. shui48(5k) Result - win by 1.5 points. [ext] Reviewed version by Austin Frakt - a big moyo game that I managed to squeak out because of some pretty basic endgame mistakes by my opponent. Interesting comments by Austin. I fought in an area where I didn't need to and simply destroying my opponent's center moyo would have been enough. Also got a little greedy in a corner joseki choice, but my opponent messed it up. Most importantly, I lost sente a number of times in the endgame by playing poor gote sequences when there were bigger (and in many cases sente) sequences.
      4. [ext] H5 to f3lini(9k) - Result - win by resign. First game giving handicap with this account. Black liked to push and cut without thinking through the consequences - I had experience with this kind of game from learning to play at the Tucson Go Club. Made some tactical and strategic mistakes (playing a cut knight's move (ick) when a hane with the cut defended by a driving tesuji was available, for example) as noted in the game record, but won without too much difficulty. Now 3k? on KGS.
    • Notes - Tesuji Jiten arrived from amazon.co.jp on 20-Aug-2003, and it's very good but very hard. The C-level problems are doable for a 4k, but there aren't that many of them (the 53 geta problems in volume 1, for example, contain 3 C-level problems and 19 B-level problems). The B-level problems are hard but approachable - I can make a decent stab at them but am frequently wrong; I do feel my brain muscles expanding as a result, though. The A-level problems are very difficult - I'm more-or-less leaving them be for now until I'm more comfortable with the B-level problems. On the whole, I'm very pleased with the book. I think it'll help me read faster, deeper, and more accurately in general, as well as introduce me to new moves I haven't seen before. I'm also entering the problems as SGF into the computer as I go so that I can use uligo to drill them.
    • Evaluation - now have a [3k?] rating on KGS, not a solid rating, so that didn't quite get done. The first 150 problems of Get Strong at Tesuji weren't enough for the week, because they're pretty easy. I did the first 200 problems instead and spent some time on the tesuji dictionary as well.


This is a copy of the living page "PatrickB's Training Blog" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.