Happy Belated Halloween & SDK's

So I know… where have I been over this past weekend? A myriad of events and things to do. A belated Happy Halloween to everyone on the blogosphere. Midterms are past now, and I managed to pull off an A- in the Data Analysis class and a 101% in the Applied Social class. Sweet. Moving on to my Go progress, there is five more days before month three is up. As to how I’m doing, I just got off my winning streak and was promptly crushed by 10 kyus.

In the first game, I let myself lose a capturing race… yeah I know… and then I regained composure and pressed my opponent flat but failed to kill the group in the middle. Not sure I really could have, but I tried anyhow and then loss a corner because I thought it would be intelligent to play out a ko.

Second game, my corner was promptly taken over. Was going to resign since I wasn’t sure I could continue properly, but pushed through and actually saved the group… just to have it cut because I wasn’t paying attention to a shortage of liberties and let my opponent get to moves in. Resigned after that.

So to all my Go players who are stuck in the DDKs, I think I may have figured out why I keep getting destroyed by any opponent 10k or better. They simply do the fundamentals a lot better than we do. What do I mean by that? They cut, connect, and think about most of their moves which simply allows better play.

I really don’t think that I’m not at the SDK strength, it’s just that I’m failing at the fundamentals and letting my stronger opponents take advantage of my weaknesses. And since they know how to properly punish the mistakes most of the time, so it’s just miserable. If I leave just one cutting point open, they’ll rush in. Bleh… Once I surpass the DDK barrier, I’ll be sure to let you know how you can also blow past the DDK barrier.

Do I think I’ll break the SDK barrier on KGS in 5 days? Absolutely not. I don’t have the time to play enough games to do so. Will I evolve my playing ability in these next five days? You can bet the farm on that sonny boy. =D