No, I have not yet made it to shodan. I did, however, finally make it to KGS 4 kyu. Other than my AYD games and the occasional WBaduk game, I’ve been training via fast games with dan level bots on KGS. These games are played with the handicap adjusted to one less stone than appropriate for my current rank. I lose most of these games, but I’m also improving at a steady rate.

I’ve come to a big realization the past couple of months, one that I’d heard from stronger players but that I hadn’t properly internalized - that improving at my level is almost entirely about making fewer mistakes. So while reviews of my slower AYD games help identify big picture problems with my game (bad habits, misconceptions, playing too slowly), understanding an issue in the abstract isn’t the same as actually training the old noggin’ to stop playing those bad moves.

Given the adjusted handicap it’s no surprise that my Go is mostly lose, lose, lose. But eventually a small light bulb goes off and I start trying something a little different and my results improve a bit. Then it’s lose, lose, lose again - rinse and repeat. I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised it’s working. If I was a frequent club player, I would be requesting games from players two or three stones stronger and adjusting the handicap to a bit less than is appropriate for my level.

Playing lots of games has had another affect in that books that seemed pretty cryptic like Naoki Miyamaoto’s book now seem very digestible. Don’t protect the corner, pincer. Don’t go back for the corner, push straight through even if you’re on the fifth line. Don’t just blindly play joseki, look at the whole board. All extremely simple stuff, I know, but without all these losses it was going in one eyeball and out the other.

The only other theory books I’ve been bothering with lately are Yilun Yang’s Workshop Lectures, specifically “How To Choose the Right Pincer” from Volume 2 and “Choosing the Direction of Attack” from Volume 1 have been particularly useful for my game.

I’ve also restarted the Jump Level Up! series from Volume 1 and my opinion of these books has completely changed since the last time I looked at them. In a real game you have to be able to read tricky situations quickly. Ideally you can choose the right move in thirty seconds or less. That means you need to be able to refute the good looking moves that don’t actually work in that time as well.

So that’s it. Playing faster games against stronger opponents with adjusted handicaps and focusing on fast, perfect visualization of easy tsumego. My KGS rank is steadily climbing and I’m on another winning streak in AYD. So the journey continues!