how long does iit take to win a couple of games i been at it now about ten days and about 200 games or so and have only one real win – what should be my expectations to breaking even at least on win/ lose – say 6 weeks 6 months a couple of years ? do people give up playing this game after on average how long before they do?
how is this game going to grow when the learning curve is so hard? playing at 25k, against others who are supposed to be 25k is really depressing - if they are 25k aren’t they supposed to be a bad as me and lose or at least play like they are 25k maybe there should be a 30k or 40k for people like me
If you play people equally strong/weak as you, then to win 2 games you would need to play around 4 games on average. That was my experience as a beginner on KGS years ago. Evidently you are playing too strong people. It is unfortunate that OGS displays all ranks lower than 25 kyu as 25 kyu which makes it harder for you to get good match ups.
2 Likes
It really depends. At the start when learning Go, it can be really helpful to learn some basic techniques: ladders, netting, positioning, types of connections.
Some ways that I would recommend learning about these is for instance through the Learn to Play Go page on the website. If you think you already know the basics of how the game works, like life and death, you could try chapters 3 and 4. Once you finish both of those, you might already have a real edge against your current opponents. (Up to 23k for chapter 3, and 22k for chapter 4.)
Another thing that might help you out is solving Go puzzles. A lot of playing Go lies in pattern recognition, and doing life-and-death puzzles (tsumegos) might help you recognise some of these patterns. Once you are adept at this, you will see when your own groups need a few stones extra or when your opponent’s groups are lacking and can still be captured. To practice with puzzles, I’d recommend either these puzzles or some puzzles from 321go (great source of puzzles, just not the best design). If you prefer to practice from your phone, you could also try Tsumego Pro (for Android).
Although this might sound boring, both of these can be really helpful to quickly get better at the game.
Here’s another way to think about it - rather than framing it in terms of “how many games will I play before I start winning?”
think about it this way - once you finished playing a given game - ask yourself, what did you LEARN from it? Because, if that answer is “I don’t know” and you keep trying the same things over and over, chances are you will keep losing games, regardless of the number of times you play.
Imagine you’re playing tennis - but you aren’t aware of the rules involving which lines on the tennis court are “in bounds” / “out of bounds” etc. You keep hitting the ball and playing games - but if you don’t understand why you won or lost a given game, how can you improve?
There have been some excellent suggestions in this thread so far (i.e. start with the beginner resources that are available, learn why those rules are important, and try to apply them to your own games).
Here’s another good exercise for beginners - as you make each move - ask yourself
- is this a SENTE move (i.e are you making a move that challenges your opponent to respond locally right now, or risk giving you more of an advantage?)
- is this a GOTE move (i.e. are you making a move to protect something because your opponent just threatened something of yours that requires an immediate response)
What is your move DOING? Are you building? attacking? protecting? connecting?
What are all of the possible options on the board at this time? Are there multiple good options available? Which is most appropriate at this very moment in the game?
When you first start (at 25kyu or 30-40kyu etc) it can feel like you’re playing in a fog. You might have no idea what sente and gote even mean! However, as you begin to wrap your mind around these concepts, it slowly starts to come into focus. Not like a sudden flash of light where you instantly understand EVERYTHING about sente and gote, but like a slowly clearing fog where you can gradually see more and more, and that helps you find your way and feel less lost.
So yeah, my advice is - just forget about winning and losing for a while. Just focus on whether you feel you’ve learned something from each game. Once you finish a game - look over it - review it move by move. Look at the AI Review graph on the sidebar - where did the Score % change? At what point did one person take the lead, and WHY did that happen?
The more you can understand the reason for each move, the less lost you will feel. Good luck.
2 Likes
Watch some videos:
Start from the oldest ones. Have fun!
1 Like
thanks for the helpful input – i will do some more puzzles for a while maybe it will help
2 Likes
Just one suggestion different: instead of
set it to show the points difference, and watch out for big(ger) changes. The % often just once lurches from ~100% to ~0%, but you can usually find multiple mistakes where you lost points. Look at them one by one, see if you can understand them; if not, see if there is an AI suggestion that you understand; if not, do not worry but move on: there are probably other mistakes you can understand.
Another thing to look out for is a saw-tooth pattern in the score graph: that usually means that there is some vital thing that both sides are overlooking.
And I hope you enjoy yourself: it is frustrating until you find some appropriate opponents, but keep trying!