After a 28 year break I started playing GO again last may. I’m 62.
I’ve been struggling for 10 months now at 20k.
I’m reviwing my games. I’m trying some beginner Tsumego problems.
I go to a go club once a week. I’ve had a few teaching games.
I play online 1 - 10 games a week on OGS.
Watched quite a few YouTube video’s.
Just dont seem to be able to get above 20k for any length of time.
At 62 I’m wondering if 20k is going to end up the best I can be.
Anyone else in their 60s struggling to make progress ?
Anyone else got stuck at 20k. What was the key breakthrough for you ?
I’m 57. I took up go again after not playing for 11 years. At that time I was about 10kyu on KGS. I’d say I learned about 50:50 playing games and doing problems. The gomagic skill tree is very good, it covers far more than just life & death (which some problem sets focus on).
Even now I feel like I have a mental barrier to visualising the stone placements 4 or 5 moves ahead. I feel like I have achieved my 7kyu rank more by recognising patterns.
I’m 70 (pushing 71). I learned go when I was 12, only played a little until I was about 20, then stopped for lack of opponents. Started again in 2016 when I found a small local club and OGS. I have played mostly IRL, because I prefer it.
The only ideas I could remember when I restarted were corner-side-center, double atari, ladders, ko, and seki. I read Iwamoto’s book for beginners and watched all of Dwyrin’s Basics videos. Subsequently, I have found tsumego to be the most helpful activity. But I do them for a few months and then stop, in cycles depending on my mood.
I believe I have reached my limit, but I don’t worry about it. The fact is I prefer to devote more time to my main lifelong interests: books, films, and classical and jazz music.
I realize this is tangential to your question, but since you asked about progress, I took a peek at your latest game:
I left some comments, my overall feeling was that you are very safety oriented. That’s helpful, but at the end of the day the game isn’t about keeping stones safe, but claiming as much territory as possible. So you could probably gain a rank or two by forcing yourself to accept a little bit more danger, play bolder moves that ask for bigger chunks of the board while knowing that the opponent may be able to deny you. And doing it earlier in the game where that can still succeed.
But also, it looked like a fun and exciting game, I guess enjoyed playing it?
Never too old or too late for anything. Your rank isn’t something you think about too much, only the quality of your play. Start again from the beginning and focus on the fundamentals.
Getting out of ddk is about learning to recognize good form and shape but getting to 10 kyu is about learning when your opponent can be cut to shreds. I would advise 100 9x9 games. Don’t worry about the results of these games too much, just read if you can cut and capture stones. Play short time controls. OGS has a thriving and strong 9x9 community btw
A strong Korean teacher described reading ability as the physical strength of go and until you’re a pro you can always gain a stone or two by getting better at reading and life and death.
I also advise two books:
Book 1 is Graded go problems for beginners vol 1, Kano Yoshinori. Get this book in paper and keep it with you. As a frequent ddk spectator, many games could be decided by simple 3-5 move sequences which gain enough points to win on the spot and this book is pretty much targeted for your strength. Read it 15 times at least. Spend no more than 5 minutes on a problem before checking your answer.
Book 2 is Opening Theory Made Easy, Otake Hideo. Could be considered out of date by now, but that’s irrelevant at most levels of amateur play. This book is full of simple proverbs and 2-3 move diagrams explaining the opening in very clear terms for beginners. This book should be played through on a real board at least once, some things don’t become clear until you see it on the board.
Sooner or later every go player will experience a glass ceiling.
Maybe you reached yours, maybe not. Maybe there still is room for improvement, maybe not.
In the meantime enjoy the beauty of go and have fun.
Rank is just a number.
… if you were following Dwyrin/Clossius’s “simple rules”, that game would have looked very different. Even just one change early on (move 8 is not following the basics) could have made things very different.
What this tells me is that there are certainly things you can try that have a good chance of helping.
Being 62 means you’ll learn much more slowly than teenagers, but doesn’t mean you can’t learn. To improve, you’ll have to change your way of thinking. One important point:
I agree with this. I’d suggest to tenuki much more. Each time it’s your turn, ask yourself if you can play elsewhere. If the answer is yes, do it! You will probably sometimes misjudge and die (or at least your opponent may profit too much from attacking). If that happens, don’t consider it as a failure but an opportunity to practice life and death.
There is one professional player, a famous one named Shuko who won a major japanese title at the age of 63.
Go seigen was no more in competition but still devoted to go at an even more advanced age. He wrote books…
Not saying you’ll do the same but anyway go is surely something you can still enjoy.
Thank you for reviewing my game. I went through your comments.
Very helpful.
Move 125 if I had played s17 I would have been able to capture the white corner group and connect my group BUT I should not have got into that mess in the first place. This happens a lot when I try to be adventurous.
Move 214, would be interested if there was a better response to interfere with the invasion.
Overall this game demonstrates my worst blunders.
not going for the corners earlier
loosing the stick
thank you for the review, Now I just have to remember to adjust my game - not so easy.
I enjoy the game but want to play at my best and I feel I can do better, just stuck in some bad habits. I’ve done a couple of tournaments and they were very enjoyable. I was the weakest player in rank but won 2 of 5 games at Newcastle 2024. I came last in both tournaments but I didn’t care as I had a lot of fun and the GO community is such a great bunch of kind, welcoming and interesting people.
When I started in my early 30s I never really got beyond losing my first 200 games. And I realise now I was just feeling my way. I’ve literally had to start from scratch 10 months back.
I think J3 is the first move that should stand out (added a variation) - the invading white stone was already kinda blocked on the left, so also blocking it on the right would mean that it has to work real hard to find eye space.
Or if you are still worried about the cuts (you don’t need to be, but I understand if you like to play safe), you can G4 to fix the cut and attach to the invading stone at the same time. It’s always good if you can have one stone do many useful things at the same time
After watching a YouTube video on Dwyrin basics.
I thin mmy first 20 or so moves were much better as a result.
After about move 50 I was stuggling to work out how to expand territory.
I was probably too heavy building that first larger territory in top tight.
Its the concept of running to the centre and making territory at the same time.
Obviously my opinion is based on just two games, but I would say this game definitely had more of a balance of occasional reckless diving into potentially lucrative situations but then also coming back and fixing things. So whatever it is you took away from Dwyrin’s video is worth keeping in mind!
… and the first couple are a bit “finding his way with the idea” … he gets more solid after that.
I think it paid off, as Simphh said.
My advice, after a quick scan, is to be quite religious with “corners first, then sides, then center” (except when forced -which Dwyrin says, but Clossius really hammers). This is “easy to follow advice”.
No move closer to the center that the 4th line is “corner or sides”. So… O15… M13…
The less easy to follow advice is “don’t play small moves”. What the heck is a small move? That’s the problem This can best be answered by “reviews”. Get reviewed and hear what is small.
Like … B13
But your position at Move 44 was way better than the last game I looked at from a beginner (me) perspective…
i am 78 and have been playing for 60 years. i have noticed a slow decline over the last 20 years or so and a quicker decline over the last few years. you can see this in my history.
you should be able to get to the sdk levels.
if you have skype or something that lets us chat and share a screen i will give you some lessons.
I’m 55 and started playing 4 years ago. I can recommend the lessons and excersises of GoMagic. They have some free content but I signed up for their basic membership for 3 months and watched all accessible videos that came with it and completed the “skill tree” within that time. The 30 dollars (10 dollars a month) was money well spent. Some of the basics were familiar to me and were easy to understand but I also noticed that there were flaws in my play. Just bad habits, as a result of figuring the game out for a couple of years without proper guidance I guess. And like they say: bad habbits die hard. But eventually they do die.
I have looked at 2 of your games and I’m positive there’s room for improvement. I agree with the comments made by others. I’m just 10k so I’m defenitely not a teacher but if I can spot “remarkable” moves they must be obvious and easy to fix. Unless you’re very stubborn of course
I have heard a lot of good things about Clossius too and I’ve watched some of his videos but I really liked the interactive approach offered by GoMagic. I recently discovered AI Sensei and I upload games I have played to look for bad moves I made. I hope I can learn from that as well.
Wish you the best. Kind regards
I tried Go Magic, I got the $30 dollar 3 months deal. It is good stuff BUT I found it hard to find a progressive pathway through the material. The problem I am finding is that you have a question and there’s really no one to ask apart from getting a game review.
