The negatives of studying.

I have been studying quite a bit lately. School has started up again, and being a High School teacher takes up quite a bit of time. However, I've been able to be reading my Graded Go Problems for Beginners (Volume 2) book in spare time, and in the evenings I've been reading the tactics chapters from The Second Book of Go. I haven't been playing as much as I was over the break, but have been studying more. I have more ten to fifteen minute sections of time, as opposed to the hour or two chunks of time over the Holiday break. To sum up, I've been reading a lot more, and playing a bit less.

Well, today I played a couple of games. The first was against Kurissu [13k]. While I consider myself just a "weak" 14 Kyu player, I didn't expect to lose so badly. It was by about sixty or so moku, which I felt was quite a large margin. I felt I was playing decently until near the end. It's funny how when I feel like I am just ahead, I end up winning by a large amount, but when I feel like it is close, I lose. It sort of goes back to the recent post about the sides and corners versus the center. In this game, I didn't ignore the corners and sides, but did focus on connecting through the center. The result? One huge chain of stones cutting the boards into quarters, surrounding almost no territory, while my opponent had the corners and sides.

Here is the game:










After this game, my sensei Terri had a few minutes to do a quick review. We discovered that I made a number of mistakes while my stones were in atari. I tended to ignore the ataris and try cuts which were simply mistakes. It seems the studying of all these tsumego have made me look for tesuji where there were none. It's a sort of growing pains area in my development. I am looking everywhere for these tesuji because of all the studying. Once it all sinks in, Terri feels I will settle down and then see new strength. In the meantime, I may experience a slight decrease in strength as I re-learn certain things.

After the loss to Kurissu, I then played a game against grimm [17k]. Grimm had to leave early due to exams. I felt that I played horribly again, and while the KGS score estimator says I am ahead by a good margin, I am not satisfied with my play in the game. I don't feel like I should be struggling as much as I was during the game. I was having a very hard time finding good plays. On top of everything else, I hit the "pass" button just before we adjourned the game, so Grimm will begin with an extra play when we resume (assuming we meet up again).

Here is that game, so far:










I am going up to Prescott, Arizona this weekend (for three days) for a school camping trip, and will not have access to play Go. However, I will be reading a lot. I have The Master of Go and First Kyu to read, as well as my tsumego books. So...more reading and less playing! It will be interesting to see how it affects my play in both the short, and long-terms.

Stay tuned!