My Week of Go Activities: Reading Go Books

 

My top Go Activity last week was Studying Go Books which came in at exactly six hours. I decided to read a series of books called "Black to Play" and I finished the first two books in the series, and I just about managed to finish the third book.

I am reading these books on the SmartGo One app. So far these books are a great introduction to the game. I didn't have any trouble answering anything in the first two books. Surprisingly, I did have a bit of trouble with some of the problems in the third book which is ranked at 20k to 15k. It was mostly tesuji problems I was having trouble with if I recall correctly.

I have the remaining books in the series to read and I may pause on the series after the fourth book which should take me to 10k.

Now for my usual Go Activities summary:

I spent nearly 27 hours on Go Activities last week. It was a fairly active week for me, but I was not active with Live Play.

I got in only three games last week. They were all games that I had to play for a league. I didn't play any games on Fox nor did I seek out random games of any sort.

One thing I did, which is unusual for me, is to go into depth with self review on one of my games. I spent nearly two hours reviewing my NAOL game.

When I had my lesson with Ben I had him open my review and I handed him control. That way he was able to see the comments I had made about my own game as he was doing his review.

I actually typed in comments when I reviewed the game which is probably why it took so long to do the review. I went over it on my own first and then I did look at AI. 

If anyone cares to look at my self review you can find it here. There are variations in this file from Ben's review as well as my own, but there are no typed comments from Ben, just variations. The cool thing is that handing the control to Ben to review my game will allow me to type in some of his comments later if I feel like it. I'm not sure if I will do that, but it is nice to know that I can.

What I found interesting during my review with Ben is that I had a really vivid memory of the game because I had spent so much time on the review myself first. I had a real feel for what I considered to be the story of the game and I told it to Ben. I knew pretty well what was coming up as Ben reviewed the game. 

Contrast that experience with the fact that usually by the time Ben or Clossius reviews one of my games in a lesson I have very little memory of what I played next in any given situation.  That might be because I usually play eight or more games in a week, and I play rather quickly. I felt as if I was better prepared to ask questions during the lesson because of having spent the time on the review. It was a nice experience.