This past week or so, I've been playing a game a day on KGS, and reading Davis' Life and Death while starting to read The Second Book of Go. I'm finding that it's not really gelling with me though. The Life and Death book seems to [I]teach [/I] life and death more than allowing you to practice it. I've read about a quarter of it, and it's above my level at this point. The Second Book of Go's first couple of chapters are not that great, and then the third is an EXTREMELY superficial look at joseki.
"If this happens, use this, if this happens, use this, if stones are here, do this, if they are here, do this, if they are here, do this..." and so on. It is presented in such as way so as to be non-memorable to me.
So...what I'm thinking is skipping ahead to the chapters on invading/attacking/defending. This is what seems most helpful to me at my mid-kyu level.
What I will do is continue to try and play at least one game a day, while reading the later chapters in the book, and studying my Graded Go Problems for Beginners when I'm not sitting down at home. We'll see if this change in my studying habits helps with what seems to be a stagnation in my improvement.
Maybe this is all just a backlash from my very fast improvement. I just really got serious about Go a month ago, and rose to 14 Kyu within a couple of weeks. Maybe I've just hit my skill level, and now I need to work harder to improve it. Time will tell.
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2 comments:
Good blog! I like coming here and reading it.
When I first started playing I too bought the "Second Book" of GO, and to be honest my experience was similar to yours. The book touches on many subjects at a very basic level, not explaining much or going into detail.
My goal was to improve my opening play, so I read the chapter concerning that...and found it somewhat lacking. So I went away and bought "In the Beginning: Elementary Go Series, Vol.1" which proved to be a much better book.
Perhaps it´s so that if you want nore in depth knowledge the more focused book is better, but the second book of go at least provides a basic overview.
Keep on blogging!
Cheers
/Asaph (weak KGS 12k)
Thank you for the comment. The "Life and Death" book I mentioned is the fourth book in the "Elementary Go Series" of books, and I found it a bit above my level (weak 14k). I seem to be stuck at a mid-point between the absolute beginner books and the intermediate ones. For now, I will just continue playing and studying tsumego until I get to about 10k, and then I will try re-reading the harder books.
Thanks for reading!
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