First 50 Games Done: Suggestions and additions for next steps?

Teaching
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Hey all,

Thank you guys so much for your advice on previous posts. Your suggestions to do just play fifty games was helpful and I did it. It helped me to appreciate the game-its complex simplicity-it really is such a good game and I learn so much from it. It’s really encouraged me to continue playing. I wanted to share my tentative plan and get some ideas and feedback.

I definitely want to improve my play-and the way I see go for me now is like it is a “Mental Martial Art”. So I would really like to devote the time I have to a good balance of learning and playing.

First and foremost I think is just to keep enjoying it, make sure I have fun and just keep Go and fun closely associated with eachother.

I had been working out of Kano Yoshinori’s “Graded Go Problems for Beginners.” I’ve started to work on it again-but I was wondering if people had suggestions for how to learn the most from go problem books. Right now I’ve gotten a lot of the problems answered but haven’t gone to the back of the book in search of answers. How do people like to work through tsumego books-to get the most enjoyment and learning from it?

I think I also want to play go to experience competition again. Where are good places to start? How to people prepare-when do they know when their ready? I definitely want to do well in competition-but I also just want to experience playing well-the ritual, the preparation, the way you feel lit up when you are under pressure to perform competitively-but at a basic level. I definitely feel like keeping the majority of my games friendly/unranked. But I would love to take advantage of the competitions online to experience competition and the pressures of it again.

Finally-I liked the suggestion before to do 9x9 games. I wanted to start doing 13X13 games as well and later on 19x19 games. 19x19 seems to be the traditional standard-but what is each size board good for-especially for the learning novice?

Thanks all for your thoughts and suggestions,

I appreciate it!

Tyrone

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I’m not sure how the professional players prepare themselves before the match, but I suppose it’s based on experience.

As for someone who just started out learning Go, perhaps I would recommend your play 9x9 first (I’ve been to your profile, and see that you did). Learn some joseki and fuseki, which will help you out A LOT. I concentrate more on 19x19, because it is, as you said- the traditional standard. There are different opening moves, you could try experimenting with them and see which you are most comfortable with, or which you think you have the most confidence with.

I have a link that I find helpful: http://cdn.online-go.com/81_little_lions.pdf

Lastly, send me a match if you want to and I’ll be more than happy to help you.

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9x9: is focused on fighting and life and death.
13x13: you can start making small frameworks.
19x19: you can adapt many styles of play, territorial, moyo building, fighting, it is up to you and your opponent.

By the way, I am free for a teaching game. Just sent me a message and we can arrange :slight_smile: