Shodan comes ever closer…
Yesterday my rank increased on the KGS server to 9-kyu. I’m happy to finally be a SDK but I cannot help but feel that there’s still a very long way to go! Now that I am ‘SDK’ I feel confident that I can, at least, no longer call myself a beginner. I’ll feel more like an SDK when I’ve penetrated the ranks a bit further (5-8 kyu), but even before 9-kyu I’ve begun to find some understanding in the game.
I had a long discussion with some friends on “The Goban” (Room on KGS) about “understanding” go. I believe that there are somewhat distinct levels of understanding and that progress in go comes from a certain enlightenment that takes place. It’s easy to comprehend what I’m talking about at the new player levels. A 30-kyu (and weaker) understands the rules of the game (because she may have been taught) but cannot understand concepts like “atari.” Certainly they know what “atari” is, but it isn’t something natural to them.
Between 25 and 20 kyu “atari” becomes a natural way of playing. Escaping atari is easier and escaping atari into atari is almost never done any more. Some minor slip-ups of being put back into atari (such as in a ladder situation) still occur. Understanding captures such as Geta (Nets) and many Nakade (killing shapes) are still lost on them. Certainly it’s understood that two eyes lives, but gaining two eyes is easier said than done. The 20 kyu understands that you should be sprinkling stones during the opening, and usually carries the knowledge that stones should first be placed in the corners, then the sides. Proper extensions, extensions from shimari (corner enclosures), and responding to kakari (corner attacks) are not yet fully understood.
At around the 15 kyu level this is harder to describe. Primarily, all of the things mentioned as not understood at the 20 kyu level are at least mostly understood by the 15 kyu. In my own experience, I found that travelling between 20 and 15 kyu was based on learning these topics and that the journey from 15 kyu to 11 kyu was based on refining these topics. The only real new topics concern Attack and Defense (the book is excellent).
The 11-kyu is a shape based animal. Pattern recognition is now a key skill. Seeing Life and Death patterns is key. Finding basic “key points” is necessary. The opening is usually refined and played out equally with most players of a similar level. Now a refining of Attack and Defense can give some small gains (12-11 or 11-10 kyu perhaps). Now Life and Death and Tesuji become key, but not for pattern recognition! The next hurdle is one of reading ability. The game can be played up until 12 kyu without ever having to read more than one (or maybe two) moves ahead. Any moves read further than this are from pattern recognition. At the 11-kyu level it is imperitive to learn to read. Using influence is starting to become important as well - the game that earned me my rank increase was one where I controlled an equal amount of corner and side territory as my opponent, but his moves were submissive and I also gained the entire center. Disrupting and preventing influence is also important - and the path to these ends come from reading skill.
Further than this I can only speculate, but from what I’ve read it seems that most progress up to about 5 kyu is reading ability based. One needs to learn to read Fuseki (aiming for good extensions and moyos 3-4 or more moves before they occur), Joseki (corner battles in general - not memorization… reading), Attack + Defense, Life & Death, and escape and containment tactics.
I hope my speculations are correct… it sounds fun 
Perhaps it’s best to focus on game playing and observation at this point…