Review req: I feel so bad about my go skills, need help badly

Teaching Reviews requests
1

So I have been playing go for a few months now in real life and on here on and off. Recently I played against a 2kyu player and even though obviously i lost he told me he felt that by the way i played he thought i was closer to a 10-12 kyu player than 23 kyu…

Fast forward to now I have played a bunch of games on here and lost every single one of them against various ranked players (mostly 20+ kyu though) and its not even close, I mean I am getting destroyed pretty much and i don’t know WHY.

I would like someone to review this game and give advice on what are really crucial mistakes because i just feel so demotivated right now that after reading SO much go related books (beginner books) and doing tsumego exercises I just do not seem to progress at all.

Link to the game: https://online-go.com/game/3793314

Thanks to anyone willing to take a look at it!

2

Here is a review. https://online-go.com/review/102833
Try to avoid bad shapes like empty triangles. Also you don’t have to save every stone and try to keep your groups connected and your opponents groups disconnected

2 Likes
3

Thank you for your review, it was quite helpful!

4

I am in a similar situation. I love the game, have played quite a few games, studied some tsumego and several books, and I think I’m moderately bright in general, but I also get creamed an awful lot of the time. I wonder if there’s a specific aspect of the game that I don’t even realize I’m missing, and that is obvious to the people who make steadier progress. For now, I propose to myself that I keep enjoying the ways that Go seems to be a very flexible metaphor and a seed for lots of reflections, and take for granted that if I’m content to go slow for a time, I will go faster eventually. Best,

1 Like
5

There’s an old saying that you should lose your first 50 games as quickly as possible.

This was a breakthrough for me. It changed my mindset from “I need to improve, therefore I need to read more books and start winning” to “I will improve by playing”.
The thing is, go is a very strange game. It is a whole new world you need to get accustomed to, for example the notion of attacking is almost counter-intuitive for a beginner (at least for me it is).
I made a goal to lose 50 games (not deliberately by playing along the edge of the board, more like I don’t care whether I win or not). It helped me a bit with my playing anxiety (it’s a real thing!) and it built up experience that is so much needed in the beginning (e.g. How do stones behave when they touch? How much room is enough for two eyes? For an eye? Can this be cut? Ok, I cut, now what? Oh, my liberties! and so on).

2 Likes
6

this is so true. you can read all the books in the world and do all the problems you want, but you will only improve so much without play play play play. lose or win, just play play play and you will get better. It is literally ‘book smarts’ and ‘street smarts’ you can only learn so much from books and problems without real life experience to match.

2 Likes