Greetings LittlePebble - I can really relate to your experience.
One of the most frustrating things for me when I was a 25-20kyu player was the feeling that
- there were so many different aspects of the game I had to wrap my mind around (i.e. shape, joseki, stages of the game, territory vs influence, etc)
- there weren’t very many resources for beginners at my level - when I made mistakes and lost, it was very difficult to extract a nugget of wisdom that would help me avoid similar mistakes in future games.
The majority of “for beginners” resources out there are aimed at players who already understand the fundamental elements which inform the game (let’s say 15 to 10kyu players) and are trying to get better. But how is one supposed to get from 25kyu to 15kyu? The standard advice seems to be “keep losing games and playing teaching games until you figure it out for yourself.”
I took a look at a few of the games from your history on OGS. I’m actually pretty impressed by your knowledge of good shape and basic joseki. However, when you’re playing un-handicapped games against the 6kyu noob_bot, you only play 2 or 3 Opening moves and then you jump right into a Midgame strategy that would be appropriate for much more advanced players - i.e attacking your opponent’s groups trying to cut and deny eye-space. This strategy requires a very high level understanding of sente/gote, direction of play, managing cut points, etc. - as such it’s all too easy to make a simple mistake, have your own stones cut off, and get in trouble very quickly.
For the last few years, I’ve been trying to write my own 19x19 for beginners guide - something that takes a step-by-step approach to explaining these fundamental aspects of the game
- sente and gote
- settling one’s stones
- playing a balanced opening
- joseki basics
- the stages of the game
The goal is to help beginners learn the language of the game. Rather than seeing an overwhelming range of too-many-options – one can transform the game into a clear narrative that tells you how much risk you are in, what strategies and tactics are most likely to succeed at that part in the story, and whether it’s time to attack, defend, or maybe play somewhere else.
For me - being able to break the complexity of the game into these manageable pieces made the game much more fun, because it no longer felt like I was re-inventing the wheel every time. Instead, I was using my analytical skills to figure out where I was in the story, and then picking from a smaller arsenal of strategies to make the best decisions to change that story to my advantage.
Good luck!