There are a few things I think I especially need to work on.
I feel my reading is too weak, especially in life and death. So I think I will benefit from tsumego. I found Cho Chikun’s Elementary Encyclopaedia of Life and Death got too easy, but that the Intermediate was uncomfortably difficult. SL’s “kyu exercises” are pretty limited. I could grind through Attorante’s problem thread but the ratings of those puzzles are of the vague “Easy–Medium–Hard” kind. I used to use TsumegoHero, but I eventually reached a point at which I’d already done all the tsumego I could do and the more advanced sets seemed too hard. I suppose I should go to 101Weiqi but the Chinese interface seems like a bother.
My joseki fundamentals are perhaps lacking in the realm of post-AI Go. I am still being surprised by new moves that players have researched at home with bots, that secure them some 90pc ok result but will not be on Waltheri or OJE. I’ve never studied with a bot and it doesn’t appeal to me, but practically every 5k-up player seems to do so, so maybe I’m putting myself at a disadvantage.
I don’t count the board and I tend to play eyeballing territory and going by a feel of who is ahead. Some people advise counting in pairs, but I can’t see why it’s any easier to count pairs of points than the points themselves. I would like to develop my counting skill, but in a real game there never seems to be the time. I’d really like to pause for ten minutes, heh.
I may not own the right books. I have a variety of books, including the classics Attack and Defense and The Breakthrough to Shodan, but I don’t think they’ve helped me. I’ve never read Lessons in the Fundamental Principles of Go which is so popular.
I’ve never really bought teaching, only a couple of lessons from an amateur back in the day. I probably should, as Nibby advised, but I don’t have a ton of cash for it. Especially I can’t afford to join an 80 euro / month payleague like some other improving SDKs. gennan and a few other dans and other SDKs do give me pointers on GoKibitz, which I’m grateful for.
I found the comment to “change your technology” interesting. I used to play quite territorially as Black and I’d often cede too much centre and lose that way, so around the start of this year I began playing much more influentially, whilst staying territorial with White.
I can’t say I don’t review enough, but I wonder whether I’m reviewing in the most efficient way. It’s easy to review for a long time but not so easy to make that time worthwhile. When reviewing with a stronger player, the stronger can ask the weaker questions about the position and ask them to propose candidates and ideas; but the weaker player doesn’t know what questions create the most revealing dialogue.
At Durham I definitely suffered from not having a good idea of when I was ahead. It’s hard for me to blunder twenty points and say calmly “I still have five points; the position isn’t bad, I will play on.” Especially if there isn’t enough time to even try to count.
So, tl;dr
- where are the tsumego?
- how do I improve my counting and positional judgement of who is ahead?
- is it necessary to study with a bot?
I also remember now that I discussed whether commercial teaching is necessary to reach shodan in my thread Discussion of the relationship of student rank to commercial teaching (or a similar title).
As a longtime OSR and GoKibitz member, I can’t say that these free communities have brought me far closer to shodan, despite much work by GoDave on the former and Gennan on the latter. It would be a shame if there is an “improvement paywall” through which sufficient funds are needed to advance, but I can understand that that may be the reality of growing at this rank. Strong players are within their rights to charge for their time, although I’m thankful to the ones like Martin, gennan, GoDave, Mark etc. who don’t.
Now I know your weakness. Watch out for my late comeback in our ongoing correspondence game!
