i have started week three of my journey into playing go, and its very trying at times, that’s for sure, the game is not as simple as i was told before i started. There are too many rules to remember or what to do’s, if your opponent does this or that, you do this or that too many names to remember, but i am trying to understand. This week i lost as many games as i have in other weeks but the disappointment is less with each loss - getting some advice from other kind opponents, which is great, so the goal is to try and stay as long as i can till they score 40 % or more. forgetting about trying to get stones and just trying to make shapes and eyes when i can.------ Anyone can send me a 3 day or up game i love to try to stay in the game as long as i can and listen to your advice after each move
I’m sure you don’t really care about the nuance here, but…
… what people say is that the rules are simple ( * ).
The resulting game is one of the most complex there is. Which is part of the fascination. How does such a complex and challenging game arise from such simple rules.
The rules are like “To play the game, place a stone on an intersection, alternating between colours. If a connected group of stones has no liberties, remove them”.
The game is like “what to do’s, if your opponent does this or that, you do this or that”. These aren’t rules, this is just “advice how not to lose so quickly” 
( * ) Rules nerds can point out that there is complexity in the rule-sets as well, but in principle the rules are simple.
YOU’VE BEEN SUMMONED
I left a few variations on your game.
I think you could’ve won this one.
I’d like to hear why you played what you played.
i have no idea why i gave up on that game at 5% behind-- Usually, i stay till iam 30 % behind so maybe it was a miss click or something maybe time out i don’t know why
maybe another game i try a little harder ?
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MAYBE A GAME AND YOU COULD HELP ME OUT ON EACH MOVE
I see your message in chat, but I think it’d be wrong for me to play a teaching game, given I am only a 20kyu myself. So, there’s only a 5kyu difference between you and me. I can only leave basic variation on your game, if those are helpful.
Someone more advanced than me would be a better suit for a teaching game.
For a teaching game, yes, but there’s a very special benefit to playing peers, or generally people around your strength (plus/minus a few stones), namely that they make mistakes that you can recognize, and thus exploit!
Keep in mind - OGS caps the rank at 25k. So a 25k could be anywhere between 70k (random) and 25k (beginner, but capable of some reasoning)
You can see the “true” rank on the profile page, game history table. In this case, I think you would be more of a teacher than a peer.
It’s possible to “teach” quite early, a 20k can teach a lot to a full beginner. The usual problem is more that 20k underestimate what he knows already.
Simply restrain your teaching with what you know for sure. (Rules, 1 eye/2eyes, closing boundaries, ladder, atari…)
Teaching is a great experience, it helps to fix and establish your knowledge, so help to progress yourself too.
@NEWOLDGUY sent you a 9x9 correspondence game request!
week four has begun and i have been trying to master making snakes, these look good, but don’t seem to help at all i don’t get it , making eyes doesn’t seem to work either, still get over come by move 15 and usally have to resign by move 20 to 25 well i try to make laterial snakes instead see what happens
going to try Square Fuseki opening to see if that will help me get past move 20 next couple of games
Do you mean the 2 headed snake?? You know this is very rare, none try to get this! Well I hope I misunderstood you.
Wow you tried more as what I ever tried. Anyway, should be a lot of fun.
no its called a square cause you start out equal distant from each other stone in a diamond or square to the board shape – iam just trying it and when i am first to play it does seem to help when iam second to play not so much . i keep working on it sense making snakes shapes don’t seem to be working or maybe iam doing the snake thing completely work iam not sure
I don’t even know what you mean by “snakes” … could it be that you mean Dragons?
And the square Fuseki is (AFAIK) highly experimental, are you aware of that?
The point with all kinds of shapes in Go is not that we play Go to create these shapes, we play these shapes in certain situations in order to win the game.
Seriously, @NEWOLDGUY – to me, your last two comments look like a first-grader trying to learn mathematics by jumping right into Complex Analysis or Number Theory.
Currently you still have my sympathy and solidarity, but you seem even more stubborn than I am (which is QUITE something!) … have you worked through the interactive tutorial and those FREE lessons I linked to?
Learn the BASICS first, you can learn the Pirouettes and Salto Mortale later.
well those tutorials for me do nothing, they don’t help understand what iam supposed to do after move 3 or 10 or 15 etc etc
Beating the dead horse: if you’re not reading as described elsewhere, nothing else will make sense.
What moves to play next always depends on what the board will look like after you play it.
There’s no “formula” or “knowledge” you can learn to tell you what to play next that will work without looking at what will happen when you play it and deciding if it is OK in this situation.
You need to use your stones to enclose parts of the board, so they can go from
claimed areas
to
enclose areas
to
secure territory
I illustrated this in a previous post, so I won’t go through it again
WHILE THERE ARE UNCLAIMED CORNER OR EDGE AREAS FREELY AVAILABLE ON THE BOARD
you play you your stones in unclaimed parts of the board, and then play additional stones in that area to MAKE A BASE - this gives you a GROUP that you can enlarge through extensions, or you can attack from because it should be able to MAKE LIFE and be a STRONG GROUP
if your opponent approaches
just block or extend your groups in such a way that you limit your opponent’s expansion and grows your potential
If you want some good moves that work really well, please check out some JOSEKI
ONCE ALL THE EDGE POTENTIAL IS CLAIMED
expand your potential away from the edge
find where your opponent has WEAK GROUPS - places they played their stones 3 or more spaces apart, or where you can reduce their chance to make life (steal their BASE) and make them run to reinforcements
Just try those few things and see if can try something different.
You don’t need to understand “what you are supposed to do”. Instead, you need to understand the basic principles. And most beginner tutorials are good learning materials for this purpose.
Well as far as I’m concerned, you’ve been given all the advice you need. If you don’t follow it, that’s on you (sorry to say).
If we look at the end position of this game
You write “i have connected my snake and it still goes up for you now 77 % win rate”
Did you try to understand why the win-rate is to your disadvantage? It doesn’t do you good if you only look at the AI win rate, you need to think and understand yourself.
It only requires you to look at the board. Which parts of the board are controlled by Black, which by White?
Look at this game.
Your opponent (black) enclosed territory on the left and on the right of the board.
You (white) never tried to make territory.