Hi. I recently started playing Go, and I might have played about 50 games since, across various servers until I settled on OGS. I didn’t win even 1 of those 50 games (All played on 9x9). I’ve heard the proverb “Lose your first 50 games as quickly as you can”, but I don’t think it means literally lose all of them? I expected to at least win a few. It’s really demotivating me and I don’t want to be discouraged so early in my Go journey, because I really have fun when playing. But 50 losses, 0 wins isn’t exactly motivating. If any experienced players have any tips or reassurance, I’d be happy to receive it!
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Hello Abdullah,
Welcome to the forum and the game. I’m not a teacher so it’s hard for me to evaluate your game history properly. However, it’s quite obvious that your understanding of forming groups that can live seems to be a bit underdeveloped up until now. I can see you’re engaged but your genuine efforts will not result in a win before you sort out the basics. Nothing to worry about, we’ve all been there.
I was lucky to figure out the basics with someone else, just by playing games together. If you’re on your own behind a screen, figuring out how the game works is a lot harder. If there’s a club near you I would advise to join for a couple of meetings. If you are not able to do so, try the teaching tools on OGS or join GoMagic for a couple of months. They have a very solid program.
If you have questions, just ask. And keep up the spirit I notice in your gameplay!
P.S.: If I’m not mistaken, the proverb says losing 100 games. You’re half way there 
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Hi Abdullah,
Go is a hard game and can be verry humbling. I scrolled throug your games and would give you two things to focus on:
- Try to stay a bit more connect with your stones. Stones that stay together are stronger. You play a bit all over the place.
- Think about the numbers of liberties your stones have. Liberties are the empty intersections arround a stone or connected group. Stones with few lieberties are easy to capture for your oponent.
- You can ask in chat for a teaching game, ask your opponent to review the game together or state in your game challanges description that you are looking for advice.
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Thanks for the advice. I’ll try to incorporate it into my future games. Appreciate it!
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As long as you are having fun, then the rest will follow. 
But for some practical advice I have this:
a) Try to review some of your games to find out which moves cost you points and the game (I will provide two reviews below)
b) Try to look into the most basic concept of shapes, eyes and direction. The goal of the game is to gain points/territory, so you should focus more in your moves being more purposeful. Here is the basic link for this:
And, that’s all you’ll need to win at 25k.
Here are the reviews, I picked your two most recent games that went to scoring:
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I really appreciate the reviews. Thanks a lot!
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Yes, but if two beginners play, one has to win.
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And mistakes will be made. Ask Ichiriki Ryo 
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From my experience here —- yes, it common to lose, lose and again lose to the point**** but don’t follow me down this rabbit hole —- you give up trying and just settle on playing with the idea that losing is part of the structure here– so good luck – 50 100 games is really not much to use as your base line - when you get 1000 games then you will have something to crunch numbers on hope things turn around for you and if you can understnd how this game works maybe you will win here and there
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Guys after reading your advice and going through the reviews I tried hard to play a game while really trying to use those tips, and I encountered my first ever real win. I hope I’ll experience many more throughout my go journey and thanks a bunch for your kind support .
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I was just looking at your win: week done!
But there are a couple of things you could learn from it:
- White’s last move would have been better at A: then you would have to play B to save your two stones.
- If you had played x, and they had played y (a mistake), you could have played z to capture 6 stones!
So the game could have continued a bit more.
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Another point: at the end of the game you normally full up neutral spaces (often known by the Japanese name dame) between opposing areas, as marked in grey:
From my previous post you can gather that you have to concentrate quite carefully in this process as groups lose liberties and cuts become possible. In fact there is one more place I did not mention where White could play atari or Black could defend, also making a difference of 1 point of territory.
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Great job!
Hopefully you will keep having fun playing the game.
Two pointers again:
In the game you responded to H7, by playing 1, but that is a move that does nothing.
The X marked stone is already dead, your group is alive and you just lost a move that could have been spent in helping out your stone that is actual danger, by playing A.
In the game you responded to J5, by playing 1, but this is also a move that does nothing, other than cost you a point and put the whole game in danger.
Your square marked stones are all alive, the points are secure and the only group that is in danger is on the right. Therefore there is no reason to play another move on the left group, let alone on the first line.
A or B would help your group get eyes and settle the group and the whole game in your favour.
A small help before making each move are those three questions:
– Which groups of mine are in dangers? Maybe I should help those first.
– If all my groups are safe, then which groups of the opponent are in danger? Maybe I can attack there.
– What does this move achieve? Does it defend? Does it attack? Does it just enlarge my area and brings me points? If my move does nothing of those three things, maybe I should think about playing a different move?
Good luck have fun.
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About “Dame” see Dame at Sensei's Library
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Note that W filling this Dame (arrow) forces B to play “Teire“, i.e. repair the vulnerability on “x”; otherwise, if W plays on “x” next, then those two black stones are irreversibly lost.
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Not necessarily in general but for OGS the answer to your question is yes. Unfortunately!
For every beginner starting on OGS there is this mandatory frustration period where you are paired against opponents way stronger than yourself. (At least I’m not aware of a way to avoid that on OGS.)
This is why my recommendation for a beginner on OGS is to deliberately lose games until they reach about 60 kyu and only then start trying to play real games. Otherwise the probability of the beginner quitting out of frustration before their journey even started is just too high.
For example, I would never let a child start playing Go on OGS with a new account. It’s almost guaranteed that the child won’t make it through this frustration period without giving up. What you can do instead as a parent is to deliberately play that new account down to the lowest possible level and only then let the child start playing with it.
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When I teach Go to beginners, I make sure they win about 50% of their games.
The recipe is easy. Play on 9x9 or even smaller boards, and give them a generous
handicap in the first game, e.g. 5 stones on 9x0. Then adjust handicap by 1 after every game.
So after 4 losses they would get 9 handicap, making it a lot harder to lose their next game.
Unfortunately, most online venues do not adopt this “welcoming” feature for newbies.
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That’s why the proverb says to lose them quickly. Don’t bother trying to win, but don’t lose on purpose, either; just try to learn and have fun.
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60 kyus are still paired with 25 kyus. The lowest rank used for pairing on OGS is 25k. Better play IRL until the child reaches 25k level.
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Please tell me that this isn’t true!
Because if it were true, OGS would rank very very high on the list of most beginner-unfriendly sites out there. 
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Besides the lowest grade being 25 kyu, playing with handicap is not the habit of the majority of players on OGS. On KGS handicap is automatically calculated and on Pandanet most players adjust the game-settings to a (more or less) even game. It’s odd that one of the aspects that makes Go stand out, playing with handicap, is not a custom on OGS.
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