I don’t know the correct way to start playing Go.
I watched some joseki but didn’t know how to deal with moves not in joseki.
I also want to know more about midgame fighting.
My advice: play.
Not much to teach when you start you need first acquire some experience.
Try to play with people starting like you. Try to understand when your territories become fully closed, when you catch or when you are caught, use the edge to help to build or capture.
Basic ideas: life with 2 eyes (see some tutorials), cut and connect. Liberties.
After some dozens of games, you ll have enough basics and visualisation for more. Patience.
I don’t think dr-p is a novice player.
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I’m new fr. That was the game I tilted the most where I felt like ok I can kill this group but suddenly I lost my group. Idk whether I have advantage or disadvantage.
What does fr mean?
Perhaps fr = “for real”?
Anyway I don’t think that josekis are your weakest point. I’d say
- Don’t play too close to strength (your own strength or your opponent’s strength)
- Beware of invasions that are too deep/too risky.
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I suppose they are for real new to OGS, but not a new player. Their rating is approaching 8-9k OGS.
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Yeah fr= for real.
Joseki is not my weakest but sometimes idk how to deal with pp don’t know joseki.
As I tried joseki feature in OGS, I know just the standard move only, and that may not be my strength or weakness.
And idk my strength and weakness as well.
I see my rating on OGS also but I don’t think that rating is a true one.
I try to play go simple as my strategy is focused on enlarging my territory only and trying to connect all the walls around that area. Sometimes it works and sometimes I suddenly lose due to a moment. So Idk what’s wrong with me right now and where to improve on.
Welcome to OGS.
I suspect that no one has offered a teaching game here because you are clearly not a beginner and they do not know what your rank is. When you play probably 3-5 more games, you will get a real rank. Then people will know whether they are strong enough to teach you anything.
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Let me take two examples from your games.
In this position you played E9. This makes a bad shape (empty triangle). You saved the three marked stones, but these stones are not very important at the moment. The board is wide open, there are bigger points elsewhere.
In that position you played F2 but this is too close to strength. Black is already quite safe. On the other hand the marked white stone R12 is not safe, you could attack it with a move at A. This puts pressure on the white stone while making territory in the upper right corner.
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Well, I suppose this goes for all of us. When your opponent deviates from common joseki, you’re just on your own.
When they deviate from what you know, it doesn’t mean their move is bad. It may only be slightly suboptimal, or it may just be a legit move that you haven’t seen before. Just be careful in such a situation and don’t overdo it trying to “punish” them deviating from the joseki you know.
Not an easy question to answer in general. I think the middle game is even difficult for professional players. Perhaps you’ll get more answers when you ask questions about specific middle game situations from your games.
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So i misunderstood that you were a full beginner.
If you understand the moves in the joseki, you can understand moves different from the joseki.
Yeah so I try to play Go by myself so may not be the correct way to play.
I understand that joseki brings an equal start to both with some potential territory and follow-up.
However, I still cannot understand the move that deviated from the joseki.
The point is that if you do not understand the moves that deviate from joseki then you also do not understand the moves that follow the joseki.
There is a world of difference between understanding that joseki gives an even result overall and learning the sequence of moves on the one hand and on the other hand understanding the meaning of each move in the joseki (which goes together with understanding the meaning of moves off joseki)
It’s probably better not to rely on joseki dictionaries and things but rather just play and review after to see what effect particular moves had in the context of the whole game.
All of us have that difficulty. Many times my opponent has deviated from the joseki and I’ve made 5 point mistakes, when variations are complicated… Anyway if you are not sure, play safe moves/shape moves, and don’t forget to look at the whole board to decide which move to make. Even if you lose a few points at the opening it’s not a big deal, go is a long game and you can catch up later.
I’d say the number of go players worrying too much about josekis far outnumber those who don’t worry enough about them. Even though I’m trying to change that, I still consider my self a part of that first group. 
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Something not always clear is that a mistake doesn’t involve each time a catastrophe.
Sometimes it’s just about 1 point in the endgame, or one ko threat less…
Besides josekis are linked to surroundings, and what is not in the catalog may become finally very fitting.
Josekis are made to be explored, the frame is good to search variations or “punishement” but will never be like a magic solution to open a game.
When I look at your games, I don’t see much of a problem related to joseki knowledge or middle game strategy (at least not at your level of play).
Situations where you fall behind are typically missed local tactics: missing some crucial defect in your opponent’s shape or your own shape, often related to a basic awareness of cutting points and liberties.
I’d say that this is just normal at around 10k level.
Possible ways to improve your tactical ability:
-
Practice tesuji puzzles.
I can recommend the book Tesuji by James Davies. -
Play a lot.
Trial and error is indispensible in becoming better at go. But try to learn from your mistakes. -
Check the AI reviews of your games.
By that I don’t mean analysing every move in great detail, but checking spots where the AI review graph shows a sudden drop, such as here (33 point drop), here (44 point drop) and here (60 point drop). Try to figure out which tactic you missed.
If you can avoid such big tactical mistakes, I expect your rating to rise solidly into SDK (single-digit kyu) range. -
Ask for reviews.
I think it would be even better if you ask additional questions to reviewers, and try to be specific with those questions. Not “How could I have won this game?”, but more like “Did I choose the correct direction/timing/distance in my attack from move x to move y?”, or “Why is the AI review graph so jagged here in this game?”
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@dr-p you would be welcome to join our book club experiment for the Davies Tesuji book.
There are a couple of threads on this so far:
Chapters 1 and 2