Beginner suffering from doubt

Hi Guys

I’ve been playing for about 2 months now and this is my record. I feel a bit down about how I’m going because I feel like I just keep walking into easy traps etc. with players of my own rank. Is this in the normal range or am I really not suited to this game?

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That pie chart tells you that you are playing vs stronger opponents almost exclusively

No wonder you feel “down”.

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You’re winning almost 76% of games against weaker players. That’s quite good!

At the same time, you’re losing about 76% against stronger players… so this seems pretty balanced.

My suggestion is try to play more weaker players. Maybe even exclusively for a little while if you’re feeling down and considering quitting. Then once you approach a 50/50 win loss ratio you can start playing stronger players again :slightly_smiling_face:

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I think your graph looks normal. Either way, don’t worry too much about the graph. Worry more about the quality of your games. If you think that you keep making the same mistakes, it would be good to have some examples.

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I don’t trust that chart that much, so I briefly checked out your profile and saw you were playing a game. You did well, looked stronger than 25k.

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Note that since they have been playing up a lot, their rank is currently on the low side.

If they played down until they were 50/50, they’d win a lot, and their rank would shoot up…

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When I started playing go, I practiced life and death problems. You can try the easy problems here

Or you can try the app “Tsumego Pro”, and buy the set of “basic problems”.

Not everyone like tsumegos, but I did and found the activity interesting in its own right. A few months later I found that it often helped me to outread my beginner opponents.

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I agree with both comments. When I started playing on DGS / OGS I chose my opponents carefully (or at least I tried to) and that made my learning curve quite stable. Just take small steps to be able to enjoy the games and learn from them as well.
I recently played on Go Magic and I can recommend their tutorials and skill tree excersises. Just subscribe for a couple of months to get started.

All the best!

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As long as you have fun, or think you gonna have fun once you improved a bit, I think youre very much suited for this game.

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a) Your pie looks normal. Actually, I think that it is better than mine at 2k. So, you do not need to feel any urge/pressure to “improve the pie” to improve in the game or in ranking. It doesn’t work that way.
b) You have more ranked games in two months than I do in 8 years, so that’s also good.
c) Do not hurry or worry about ranking, just focus on having fun :slight_smile:
d) If you want to improve by playing, challenging better players is a good strategy, but you need to look back and review the game, instead of diving immediately in the next one. Unless you look back - even for 10 minutes - to locate your mistakes, then you are bound to repeat them in the next game.

I will second all the other suggestions and say that studying/reading a bit on the game in order to become better and enjoy more of the game’s nuances, might be a good idea. You can have a look at some suggestions in this recent topic:

Good luck and have fun :slight_smile:

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Thanks everyone for your feedback, such a great community. As long as I’m not way off the norm I shall recommence my journey with renewed vigour. :grinning: :pray:

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Ignoring the actual numbers…

Yes, I still get this at dan level. Go can be a humbling game. It can also be beautiful and inspiring. Focus on the positives :slight_smile:

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Switch the ranks to hidden for a while and enjoy playing go. You win you lose it’s just a secondary goal considering all what you have to joyfully discover. You may even fall in love with your opponents strong moves.

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