Poll: How do you improve?

Do you know if I can add options later without ruining the vote?

I wanted to allow others to add options, but it didn’t seem possible.

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I did it before in a poll, press enter, * with a space and the option you want.

Edit: maybe it’ll ruin stuff and it was just a work around.

I’d be careful with that - I share Vsotvep’s suspicion that ths will lose the votes…

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There, tonybe fixed it.

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I tested in a PM with discobot: it does lose the results, but when you try to vote again, it does remember your original vote, so you only have to look at the new options…

Edit: No it doesn’t, the vote vanished after reloading the page.

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In any case, these are some very good points :slight_smile:

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Most of all, I like to goof off on a go forum (post memes, make polls, rules pedantry, etc).

One day, I discovered that I could remove the word “forums” from the URL and go directly to http://online-go.com, which is a nice little website that has an interesting game involving black and white stones.

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I followed the “weekly” stricture in my reply, but I have read go books and hope to again (when I retire, perhaps in a year and a half). I have read a lot in SL, but not recently. And I do self-review all my games; however, I don’t play much online, and my IRL games are not recorded. After the IRL games, we generally discuss the major points in the game.

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“Playing Stronger Players” is a great one - especially with Analysis Off (and definitely unranked, so you don’t have any silly psychological pressure and can just learn)

I want to tip my hat to @Kosh who has been my teaching-partner in that: it’s been awesome.

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wuss. play ranked and WIN :smiley:

FIFY

Um, if I could play a stronger opponent and win, I would have failed, right? Because that means they were not actually stronger :man_facepalming:

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TBH i dont do anything to improve my skills, but i do browse senseis and watch streams, youtube videos, and other people playing purely just as an entertainment. Go is a fun hobby, i like playing and doing go-related stuff, but i havent really improved much during past 5 years >____>

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thx mark! i wanted to say just that ^^.
a very important part of my go experience is talking go with others and teaching newcomers/weaker players what little i know :smiley:.


in the second poll i chose “i frequent a go club” and was surprised to see i am the only one so far… well, playing at a club is probably not the most efficient way to progress. theres no methodology, sometimes even no seriousness.
on the other hand, for one, i am in the lucky position of having much stronger players in my club, who always have something to teach. secondly my motivation to actually study is what limits my progress most (im not lazy or anything -.-, but its supposed to be fun right?). playing irl, going to tournaments together, having tangible goals makes me do other stuff to improve i probably wouldnt do otherwise. thats why i feel that after everything is considered joining a club has done most towards improving my game.
if asked what specific things improved my play most in the past, id say #1 reading my first book #2 start playing correspondence games #3 receiving teaching games (those are also chronological).

PS: @Kaworu_Nagisa
im curious, who is the stronger player you play teaching games with. should be reasonably hard to find much stronger players at your level!

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Any AI or mostly any Dan these days are stronger than I am.

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I don’t think it’s surprising that there’s a small percentage (only you atm) that in the 2nd poll picked frequent a go club.

The second poll is a bit vague (pick the one you do most or learn the most from or like most - I’d bet some people could give three different answers depending on which of the above you chose - eg maybe you like meeting up with people most but learn more from books/streams/videos but maybe you play lots of games online (incl correspondence) most often? Who knows)

Anyway, the go club near me only meets once a week while I can read a book/ebook whenever or wherever. Or once there’s internet access there’s tonnes of videos to watch whenever.

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Im just jumping in here without reading to offer my own opinion on how to improve.

Really, we should all be trying to do as many of the above listed things as we can if we really want to improve our game. But then, this is a game that i personally play for my own enjoyment. So while i do try to improve my game, its in ebbs and flows. Not so long ago, i hit 7kyu for the first time, after a couple of months of semi dedicated learning on my part. but ive leveled off at around 9kyu again.

But, for those that are like me, who just dont have the energy or time, or will to do much… then do the things that are easiest for you to challenge yourself. For me, its a lot of tsumego and life and death problems. The reason i do those more than anything else is because of the comparitive energy it takes.

Sitting down, an dedicating an hour at a time to watching a nick sibiky or dwyrin video can sometimes be a lot. As can reading a Go book…(which ive never actually done, but i dont think it would work well for me, generally, the only books i really read are fantasy books).

So, sitting down, and rocking out to some good music, while doing some go problems, is much more fun and easy, and on the plus side, my reading gets better as a result. and because im able to listen to music and chill while doing them, then i can do a lot more of those than i could videos or other things.

But, if getting good at Go is your goal, and you want to be really good, then there has to be a much higher level of dedication to the game than i have. and it has to come in many shapes and forms in terms of study, unless you’re one of those people i hate, the naturally gifted XD.

For reals though, just do what works for you, and you’re bound to get better eventually. With that being said, i think the most reliable way to get better is to have someone stronger than you point out where your weaknesses are, so you can target those areas and work on them.

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This is an appreciation quote.

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I made the same and it saved the 2-3 votes already posted in the previous version of the same poll. I don’t know if the result depends by the poll type. @Vsotvep, you should try at your (poll) risk.

I suppose I watch professional games actually includes also I watch dan amateur games. I know that it isn’t exactly the same thing, since a professional go player play quite differently from an high-kyu/dan amateur player. By the way, when I don’t have too much time for a game, I like to observe live high-ranked players’ games. You can learn a lot also in this way if you are a mid-kyu player like me.

There is also someone (I know a couple of such go players) who is inclined to improve only playing instinctively and applying go proverbs - finding with the experience - time by time new shades and deepness in the interpretation of go proverbs.

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Besides the issue of potentially clearing old votes, I think it is better to simply start a second poll with additional options rather than try to edit the existing one. This second poll could also have a catch-all like “None beyond what was listed in the other poll”, which would help confirm that people saw and participated in the full set of options across both polls.

I think we would get more voter participation with a new poll, and it would be clear which voters did not see the second set of options, by seeing who did not participate in the second poll.

Even it it were possible to edit the old poll to add new options, while not clearing the votes, I think it would be a worse way to do things, since some might not even notice that new options have been added and that they should edit their votes if they wish. Further, it would be impossible to distinguish between voters that did consider the new options but chose none of them and those that were simply not aware of the new options or did not participate in editing their vote.

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