Forum:Have a good strategy for descension?

I've been playing for around a month now and I can make it easily a few levels under Minetown, and have made it once to the top of Sokoban, and have been at most 12 levels down. It seems I'm not at all progressing in my skills.

What do you do when you descend? What paths do you take? Do you go to Minetown then up and then back down the Dungeons of Doom? or do you skip the Gnomish Mines altogether? How do you descend?