Play a lot of games

It's easy to get sucked in to studying go, but rarely playing. I have this problem a lot. I enjoy the feeling of progress I get from studying, but I tend to ignore playing actual games. So, when I finally get around to playing competitively it turns out that I haven't advanced as much as I thought.

Studying is great, but you need to apply those lessons in competitive situations. In order to get myself playing more games I have joined a league. At the very least, I have to play everyone in my class (E2) over the course of January. I find that I am eager to play extra games, to make sure I am sharp for a competitive league game.

• Recent league game

The moral of the story is, play a lot of games. The real world experience of competitive games is an integral part of getting stronger at go.

Studying joseki

When I was a beginner I thought that memorizing joseki would make me strong, but that's not how joseki should be studied. When you study joseki you should be mindful of the shapes involved. Each move of a joseki has been carefully considered and decided upon by professionals as the best possible move in that situation.

So, when you are studying joseki, look for the shapes that are made and try to apply them in other aspects of your game. To demonstrate I have made a demo board* that goes over two 3-3 invasion joseki and a problem set* with two problems that take the user through the joseki. Both pay special attention to the hane at the head of two stones.

As always, let me know if you find any issues or have any feedback.

*The demo board and problems were made on the beta site for OGS because we were testing. From here on, they will be made on the main site.

Addendum

It was recommended to me by thouis that I should create a puzzle to accompany the demo board from an earlier post: One of my favorite sequences. So here is one for the demo board. I'd also like to thank xhu98 for looking over the problem for me before I posted and using it in his weekly Fridays with xhu98 lesson this week.

I like this format and will be adopting it for later posts. If you see any mistakes or variations i missed, Please let me know. I am new to this :)

We're only human

That moment when you play a move too quickly and lose a chunk of stones... It's incredibly discouraging and makes you wonder why you even play this stupid game!?!!?!cos(0)?

Don't be too hard on yourself, we've all done it. I've done it recently. I played black in that game about a week ago. Check out move 225.

Moves like this happen because we get excited and swept up in the intensity the game. Had I taken a moment to stop and assess the situation I would have seen the correct move, but I was amped and my finger moved to place the stone before my brain was even aware that something needed its attention.

The discipline to stop and assess before placing a stone lets us grow stronger. This discipline is one of the lessons go teaches us. A lesson that is also useful off the go board. Even the little bit of patience (very little...) I have learned from go over the last four years has improved many of my relationships, both personal and professional.

So please, keep at it! The payoff for improving at this game is so much more than a higher ranking on some go server. As cheesy as it sounds, go teaches us about life. It's truly remarkable.

I'm going to leave you with a well known video in which a professional Japanese player puts himself into atari by accident. Remember, this man plays go for a living. But, as the title of this post says, we're only human. If Nakano Yasuhiro 9p is susceptible to mistakes like this, then you can forgive yourself for making similar ones.

Welcome (redux)

So, I accidentally deleted my original post while messing with the mobile app. Here's a repost that's reasonably close to the original. xD

Go is a great, rewarding game, but it can be both challenging and discouraging for beginners. I was lucky when I was a beginner, I met a great group of guys who loved the game and encouraged me through the rough initial stages of my journey.

I would like to offer that same encouragement to beginners. So, like every other child of the internet age, I created a blog! I plan on adding clear, concise lessons on specific situations in the hopes that I can help beginners avoid some of the same mistakes that I made (and still make!).

I'm new to the idea of teaching someone else to play go, so please bear with me. :) Hopefully, we can all improve together.