Dieter: some thoughts (2007-08-02 10:44) [#3681]

Hi Imagist,

You can (have) discard this post if you want, but I want to respond to your feeling about not progressing. It's a feeling we all know very well. And your explanation for it feels all too familiar too. "I cannot read deeply, I don't have the discipline to read, ...". Since I have been studying with Minue I'm again convinced that only a small percentage of our weakness is due to lack of reading ^[1] and the large chunk is due to lack of knowledge, bad habits and doing things wrong even if you know it.

During self-analysis and through comments of Minue, I discovered that I have a strong tendency to defend unimportant stones, that is, I forget to recheck their status and decide about their importance. So I end up with heavy groups. Secondly, during opening and early middle game, I am too jealous of prospective territories and break up the moyo too early, resulting in thin positions.

Now, I already know for a long time that one should play thickly and keep light positions in enemy zone. Still I make mistakes against these principles.

Among kyu players whose games I review I often see the tendency to play too close to (their own) thickness. They know the proverb really well, still they do so, caught up in the pushing battle, or anything. Another one is to start a battle without any notion of the outcome. All these players have fallen in love with the proverb "keshi is worth as much as invasion" but invariably they invade.

I'm telling you this to restore your hope in improvement without a major breakthrough in reading ability, although not reading variations will always limit your moves to common sense and good shape. I think you can make a decent dan grade with that alone.

For myself I have created a compass. I advise you to do that too (and take some lessons with Minue perhaps).

[1] Behold, Minue puts emphasis on reading ability and his teaching is full of exercises for you to read out. But through these exercises and game discussions, it turns out that there are a lot of things that you do not know, technically or strategically.