12k

Hey I got to 12k matches are getting a little harder now.
sorry for this mostly blank blog entry. haha.

What do I do in my spare time? + A WIERD COINCIDENCE

So when I'm not learning Japanese, playing Go, or writing a blog about learning Japanese or playing Go, What do I do? Well lots of stuff but A big thing I do is design and program video games. In fact today I was doing just that. But as any good programmer knows, programming is not fun if there is noone to share it with. So I was in my usual programming chat room! It had been a while since I had visited that room so of course one of my acquaintences asked me were I had been for the past few weeks. When I told him I was playing Go he had no idea what I was talking about. (now here is where it gets interesting). So we had a short conversation about what I was going to be working on and then another of my friends logs in. The first thing he says is 'So does anyone want to play go?'
I thought he must have had an alt logged in or something. But nope. He had no Idea I had been playing Go. I asked him his rank. '12k' he said. This must have been the biggest coincidence ever.

Played against a 9d on kgs with 15 handicap stones:

Yeah I was black. I had FIFTEEN handicap stones. I lost by over 50.

In this game I was 13k btw.

Egad should stop fooling around with kgs and go pro haha.

13k a sense of weariness

Yesterday I got to 13k but today I feel like going on is pointless. I don't know why but I have absolutely no motive to continue in my go studies today. I think this will probably change but as for now I feel unmotivated. Uhg... will post further updates as to my mood. cya good luck everyone don't give up.

Heavy rank - kgs

after getting to 14k on kgs I got a huge burst of confidence and started studying like crazy.
I've won my first 9 games as a 14k. However my rank is not going up much. This is due to
the 'heaviness' of my rank. The more ranked games you play the less freely your rank moves. This is a problem in the kgs ranking system. If your rank gets heavy their are a couple things you can do
1. make a new account (obviously a new account is very light.)
2. play stronger players without handicap and beat them (this overcomes the heaviness by playing heavy matches)
3. take a break from ranked games for a few weeks(after a while your rank will become light again.)

Thanks for reading hope you don't have to suffer the same problem I am.

Egad'z Blitz Tactic

Egad: in blitz i try to taunt my opponents with bad moves that they can't seem to kill
Egad: then i press my face up against the glass and make blowfish faces
DukeDaniel: nice

These are his exact words. Feel free to try out his methods and/or comment your opinions of them

You play Go? what is Go?

14k today. yaya!

After a couple difficult matches I've finally made it to 14k.
I've been able to beat most 15ks for a while but now kgs recognizes me so that makes me happy.
Now moving back to tsumegos. I can't stop here or I won't make it anywhere.
Today one of my rivals who was 17k also advanced. So I'm not going tolet him catch me either.

Black's strategy in a 3-4 stone handicap game.

A common misconception for begginer players is that the advantage of a handicap game is the extra points you can get from the stones starting in place. The real advantage is that white must try to overcome that advantage and therefore play high risk deep deception attacks. A good strategy for black is to try to simplify the board as much as possible by settling the corners and sides. As black calmly addresses all of whites threats white will with growing frustration have to come up with even high risk high gain moves. At this point black should try to regocnize whites plot and punish it. In the end Black should seek to win by a few points.

Cool Beans: I'm a teacher!

My 3 year old brother agreed to me teaching him how to play go! In the past few days
he's learned how to: capture, count liberties, count territory and what constitutes a living group. Currently he is about 30k In a 19x19 games many of his moves seem to ignore what his opponant is doing.
But hopefully in a few months he will be able to play a respectable game. His name is lincoln and I expect him to be a great player someday. Teaching him is both fun and difficult as well as rewarding.
Wish me luck.

Breaking news from ASR: kotomi has run out of icecream

Kotomi[-] (high dan) has run out of icecream. Fortunately she has marbles to play with.

In other news locals of asr have discovered the corner to be the safest terrain on the map (t19 excluded (t19 as tesuji excluded from the exclusion))

Kotomi: -eats words-
Fayt: now speak
Kotomi: -speaks
Fayt: good girl *gives ice cream*
Kotomi: YES
Kotomi: -takes and runs to corner and eats icecream o _ o
DukeDaniel: corner is safe
Kotomi: yep
Kotomi: safest place
DukeDaniel: well t19 isn't safe
DukeDaniel: but around the corner
Kotomi: ice cream all gone o _ o
DukeDaniel: o.o I better write an article about that
Kotomi: what?
DukeDaniel: on my go blog
Kotomi: oh o . o
Kotomi: ok
DukeDaniel: how do you feel about running out of icecream?
Fayt: "t19 isnt safe unless used as tesuji"  done
Kotomi: i ha\/e mar6les
Kotomi: : D
Kotomi: 110 fo them
Fayt: thats how
Kotomi: theres a green one and i call it the awesome green mar6le of doom o _ o
DukeDaniel: http://30kto1d.blogspot.com/2012/02/breaking-news-from-asr-kotomi-has-run.html
Kotomi: i also has 2 dollars in my room somewhere
Kotomi: : D
DukeDaniel: cool huh?
DukeDaniel: I have about 80 readers a day so
DukeDaniel: everyone will know now
Kotomi: my room is a messsssssssss
Kotomi: this is the first time in ......... 8 years?
Fayt: should see mine
MrEmDash: hello my friends

joeseki

Ok, so we've all heard so many different things about joseki. Joseki are like 9p moves, Joseki are bad for beginners. If you can't understand each move in the sequence then you won't proceed and will have a fatal error.
The pros don't always use Joseki. Learn joseki lose 4 stones. Don't memorize. etc etc etc.
So for the average j=Joe what do we do with joseki? I study joseki this way. Pick a point 3,4; 4,4; 5,3 etc and look at a few joseki for it. Try to figure out why each moves is played and the overall effect it has on the board. Then when you are playing  a game try attacking someones stones approaching the way they did in a Joseki. Try it out several times and get the hang of it.
This is a great way to learn how to get good at attacking corners. After that the next step is to learn how to defend your corners. Once you understand allot of the joseki for a point you get a good idea of how you can defend the corner and get a good overall advantage from your defending moves.

Here is a really interesting website of my friend's http://www.learngo.co.uk/index.html he has some cool stuff and a good joseki study page.

Improving Visualization

Basically this is very simple. In order to be able to read more, you have to read. Read far. Read allot. Read read read. I especially recommend tsumego. But you can also improve your reading in the middle of a game. Just pick a random point on the board and 'see' in your mind the consequences of it. Our minds like to make sense of things so you won't be as focused if you try practicing visualizing random sequences of moves with no goals or objectives in mind. This is why tsumego have a goal. Even if the goal isn't written and you have to decide what it is for yourself, there is at least possibility to live or kill in a tsumego. You could just visualize random problems but that isn't as engaging. In other words, tsumego have goals to make them more fun. So to practice your visualization just read out patterns with goals in mind.

Critical Thinking and Visualizing.

There are 2 main ways we determine our move on the go board. Both are very important to your success. Today I figured I'd write a brief summary of what each does and how you can improve it.
The first way is critical thinking. Critical thinking is taking a problem and simplifying it. It's gives us people the advantage over computers in go. Some examples of critical thinking are: counting liberties, determining the biggest areas, deciding if a group is weak, knowing shape, figuring out where a good cutting point is.
Critical thinking is used to find many possible good moves and ideas.
The second method Visualizing and planning is when we take a point and see everything we can do from there
by reading ahead. We take a point and find out what we could do with it and how our opponent can respond.
Reading and planning can be applied to any point.

By improving both your critical thinking and visualizing you can use them synergistically to quickly determine the condition of the board find some high quality points and then find the best ones and the strategy and tactics to be implemented after moving depending on your opponents choice of response.

Improving visualisation

Rival match: Kalin2:[8k] Vs Therookie:[8k]

A newsworthy rivalry

Kalin2 and Therookie have been rivals for a long time. Therookie however didn't acknowledge
Kalin2 until 2 days ago (february 12th) when Kalin2 beat Therookie by 13.5
Kalin has been steadily making ground. Just last month Kalin was 12k and hadn't beaten Rookie at all.
Here is a kifu of the exiting match(Kalin is black Kalin also had a 2 stone handicap and Rookie was simuling). Its exciting to see new players rising in the Go world. we have an exciting year ahead of us.

The importance of a go community.

While this may seem obvious, you can't go very far in go by yourself. If you don't have friends, teachers, competitors and other people you know who are interested in go, then you won't grow as fast as you could. This is one of the reasons I have so many friends on kgs. That, and having friends is fun and they are great people.
I suggest bringing your questions to sites like life in 19x19 their friendly forums have been a huge help to me.

A go study group is a good thing. Where would Hikaru be if he never joined Waya's study group? HnG refrence aside It's really helpful to be part of a group that meets regularly to study. As your group grows stronger you will too.

Or at least I THOUGHT a study group would be good until I tried studying with my sister.

Ikebrawler: The upcoming pro

A new face is appearing on the world of Go. On kgs under the psuedonym 'ikebrawler' a go legend is growing.
He started go a few years ago when his dad first brought him to a Go salon. since then he has been advancing quickly. big name players like MrHyphen are looking to him as their 'potential rival'
here is a kifu of one of his recent games against myself (he gave me 9 handicap stones)

He beat me by 46.5 well its always fun to be smoked by the future pros.
anyway watch out go world new players are coming your way.

Advanced Study Room

 Bensensei

Advanced Study Room or asr is a teaching room on kgs which has an ongoing League system. To join simple go to the advanced study room on kgs under the Lessons category. One of the best thing about asr is that the stronger players almost always offer to review the game.
       Another added bonus is the competition which is an added incentive to play go. At the end of the month scores are compared and the top players in each section move up. There are also various prizes awarded to players who did the best in their bracket as well as to the most outstanding players overall. for more info look at their website. (also if you are in gamma II bracket pm me username: dukedaniel I'd love to play you)

Nature vs Nurture GO style

Some people believe you can get to high dan rankings just by pure effort.
others believe this requires innate ability.
here is a quote from Guest1dan from kgs

DukeDaniel(me): would you say effort is the biggest thing? or is it natural ability
Guest1Dan: u need to be smart..like smart as mount everest

this seems to be up for some debate.
 wait for part 2 coming soon
Nature vs Nurture GO Style: The research

Killing 3,3

Okay, so any of us who have played go very long run into this all the time, you play a decent game and its about even and then at the very end someone plays the 3,3 right in the middle of your territory. Egadz.
fear no more today I will take you step by step and show you how to kill the ugly beast that has landed in your hometown. HOWEVER this will not work at the beginning of the game because you need a large influence in the area in order to make sure he cannot escape. Role film Jerry.

This is how the 3,3 usually works out in a game where the players are both unaware of blacks possibility to kill. black loses allot here and it isn't fun for him at all.

                                                        THE KILLING POINTS

 Number 4 on the left diagram is the killing move, after this black must prevent white from making 2 eyes
it can be difficult but if you think it through you can kill white.
On the right diagram move 2 does the same thing.

Knowledge is power! Test it out in some of your games till you get it down pat. soon people will be to afraid to play the 3,3 at all against you

Some simple suggestions

1. make sure white cannot escape through the top
2. don't let him get 2 eyes in the corner
3. don't play s5 or s4 in the beggining of the game or white will end up killing most of you and getting a large base

Reviewing games

Feel like you played so many games without learning a thing? Have a stronger player review your games.
This can make a world of difference in your rate of improvement. Stronger players know allot of basic principles they can impart to you which will make you a better player. These will come out when they review your games
and they can point out your weaknesses. If you can make friends with a strong player or pay a pro to teach you you could be much better off.
     Also try replaying your games later to reinforce what you learned. This will help you remember what you learned and also will help you see new things you missed last time you reviewed or while you played the game.
I try to review at least 1/4th my games.

Playing games

Probably one of the most important things you can do to get better at go is to play go.
I use gokgs.com to play with people all over the world. This is where I got my start in go.
There are many friendly people on the server who will be willing to teach you if you do the same to others.
They also have many cool tools for allowing you to make save files of your games and go back over them.
I have used this for the tsumegos I've made and posted on here.

Things to try in your games

1. experiment: This is one of the best things you can do, try out many many different things. try different openings and attacks, find out the best ways to attack certain groups. Try anything that comes to mind

2. Blitzing: when you don't have time for a slow game you can try blitzing. Set the timer for 10 seconds a move and play by feel. This helps you quickly evaluate the position of the board in general and develop a better overall sense of strategy.

3. Playing very slow games. when you have plenty of time try setting the timer for an hour and think through everything you can before playing a move. this will help you grow your reading and tactical thinking. As well helping in almost every aspect of the game.

4. FIGHT!!! If your not sure if you can kill someone, then try to kill them. don't be afraid of losing. if your willing to take risks then you can reap rewards. Sometimes you will lose everything but this will only help you become a stronger player and make you think deeper while launching attacks. Don't wait till you are a strong player to take risks.

1000 tsumego challenge

This is the first post on 30kto1d.com where my goal is to get to 1d and help others do so as well. My first challenge for myself (and to you) is to do 1000 tsumego. tsumego are go problems which you must read ahead and find the best sequence for each player black to kill white or black to live. For example I sugguest you read
until you are sure that you have the best solution for each side. by reading I mean visualizing the results in your mind and 'seeing' what will happen. Try reading out every possible response from the other side to be sure of your result. I am currently using Cho's Encyclopedia of Life and Death Elementary
as a source for problems it's and I highly recommend it to you. At the time of this writing I am only on problem 58 of that collection. here is an example problem (which I made)

find the best possible solution for black and the best response for white have fun!
(hint if black doesn't live no matter what then your solution is wrong)