love the game would like some pointer on how to win havent won a game yet
Hello @blackcatontheprowel, and welcome to the forums.
Don’t worry, it is normal that the start is rough 
, after all when joining the server for the first time it means everyone here have played more games than you and thus are more experienced.
Check out https://www.learn-go.net/, which we made together with several other players here, the basic techniques might help start you off, or if you are open to correspondence feel free to send me a challenge and we can discuss our moves during the game. Unfortunately I rarely play live games anymore, sorry.
Otherwise, just persevere, the learning curve is long, but wins will come.
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A couple of things:
First, a lot of Go wisdom appears in “proverbs,” owing to the game’s East Asian roots and wide latitude of move choices. If you’re a reader, you’d do well to explore the list of proverbs on Sensei’s Library: Go Proverbs at Sensei’s Library (xmp.net)
Second, many beginners wrongly link the object of the game (to control the most territory) to the tactics used to do it. They surround territory directly, mind their own business (sort of), and apply no effective threats to opposing groups. In my view, you should think about Go as a game of survival of stones. In fact, during most of the game, don’t pursue territory at all. Instead, secure your stones, and pressure and split up enemy stones if you can do that safely. If you disrupt the stability of your opponent’s stones, this tough situation for them will inevitably lead to a loss of territory on their part.
Good luck, and don’t forget the most important pointer of all: Have Fun!
Capture more stones
Greetings! I searched for your username on OGS, and took a look at a few of your games. Here are a few general pointers:
- A good portion of your recent games are against much stronger opponents (i.e. 16kyu, 3kyu, 2dan etc). While you are just starting out, I would look for games against players in the 20-25kyu range.
- If you are playing against a stronger player, trying to use mirror-go will often work against you one way or another. I would explore other tactics based on utilizing the efficiencies inherent in the game.
- In many of your games, you begin contact fighting early rather than playing on parts of the board that represent unclaimed potential. Unfortunately, contact fighting contains many risks and pitfalls, and can be very unpredictable from a whole-board perspective. Try to focus on playing more of a “territorial game” rather than contact fighting to kill or capture your opponent’s groups.
Speaking for myself - when I look back on my early games - I often found myself losing not because I was bad at contact fighting, but because I didn’t understand the underlying flow and language of the game:
- because I couldn’t see the necessities of SENTE and GOTE, I didn’t understand how much risk I was in at the moment, and played the “right moves” at the “wrong times”
- because I didn’t understand what made a LIVING SHAPE or a CONNECTED SHAPE, I didn’t know how to SETTLE MY STONES and so my frameworks got cut apart or captured
- because I didn’t understand WHOLE BOARD PLAY or the STAGES OF THE GAME I would fight hard for areas that only represented a few points, or gave my opponent the whole board advantage, rather than claiming potential efficiently and in the correct order of priority.
It took me a long time to understand the language of the game, and even longer to be able to use to tell the kind of story I wanted to tell on the board. I’ve been writing a (long) series of articles, trying to help beginners wrap their heads around these elements. If you take a look at the Intro here, you will find links to the subsequent articles at the bottom of each given article.
Good luck
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No worry you gonna win but I just hope you don’t run away after that mountain of advices
I’ll tell you, play and if you want to feel good by winning sometimes, play with people starting like you (ranked as 25k or a little bit more)
Have fun!
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