Playing fast or slow?

I have been trying to play a bit slower lately, actually sometimes thinking BEFORE putting down a stone. I tended to just put down a likely stone, without really evaluating all the options. It's good for my reading, because I read out more sequences now than when I was just plunking down random stones. But I have found myself over-thinking things too much sometimes, spending lots of time to make a very sucky move. Oh well :-)

One thing I am starting to realize, is how the choice of joseki influences the rest of the board. I knew that was true, but never really 'saw' it while playing. I still have a hard time seeing it while playing, but at least I am starting to recognize it in hindsight. Geez, did I really have to use that fancey and fun joseki, which then utterly destroyed the influence of one of my other stones? Couldn't I just have used the simple version of the joseki, which would have been fine?

Some games I am playing ok, other games, I get too caught up in local fights, and ignore the whole board situation. And there have been too many games, where I lost the game within the first 10 moves, looking back at it. Lots of room for improvement :-)

Still doing problems, working my way through Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol 3. It is not going as fast as I would want it to go, guess I am not patient enough. Some one gave me a nice problem challenge yesterday, about the Korean Problem Academy. He said I should be able to do level 1 (200 easy problems) within 15 minutes. Without mistakes too. I looked back at my notes, and the last time I did level one, it took me 26 minutes, and definitely was not spotless. I was curious to see how I would do now.

Found out that not only had I become slower at them, but I also made more mistakes. I think trying to do them fast made me first click, then think. And I don't think that's what this is all about. This is a perfect exercise for me. I ended up taking 30 minutes, and made way too many mistakes. I guess I am going to work on this every day now till I do get it perfect :-)