I'm so freaking depressed right now...I was playing Go against my older brother and we started with some smaller board sizes like 5x5 and 9x9...and then we moved on to 13x13. I got destroyed by my brother. I don't have the game record but I don't really care. Why did this happen to me? I play as much as I can, solve Go problems daily, and I even sometimes replay professional games on my goban. My older brother doesn't play Go that much, and we just started playing together today because we were playing checkers before and I asked him if he wanted to play Go and he said yes. I don't understand...I want to get better at this game and I want to maybe make a Go club at my school when school starts...but if I can't even beat my older brother who doesn't play Go that much then that basically means that I just suck at this game...I don't think I'll ever get better at Go.

Sorry to just ramble about my feelings right now but I just needed to put this out there.

_________________
Tonight we’ll leave these chains behind
Shed the skin from another moment in our lives
We’ll turn our faces to the frozen sun
So take my hand
Chase the sky and watch it burn
Waiting for the world to turn

A younger brother couldn't really understand...

Okay well I just played him again on a 13x13 board and won 46 to 14 (we didn't use any komi).

Yeah this is awkward...

I guess I kind of underestimated him in the first game and didn't take him very seriously, so I didn't really read ahead at all. Well I learned two things from this: One, always, always, always read ahead no matter what. Two, I'm an emotional wreck.

Sorry for this random thread, I don't know what I was thinking...

_________________
Tonight we’ll leave these chains behind
Shed the skin from another moment in our lives
We’ll turn our faces to the frozen sun
So take my hand
Chase the sky and watch it burn
Waiting for the world to turn

No problem, we all go through the 'I suck so much' phase. In fact, I'm not sure it ever goes away, but after a while you get used to it and it is no longer painful.

Speak for yourself.

If you don't, why should we? We cannot tell you about your mistakes unless you tell us what you have done. Just post a match where you got destroyed and check the comments.

I'm sorry, I was just really upset when I wrote that but I'm feeling better now. I'll try to record a match with my brother the next time we play.

_________________
Tonight we’ll leave these chains behind
Shed the skin from another moment in our lives
We’ll turn our faces to the frozen sun
So take my hand
Chase the sky and watch it burn
Waiting for the world to turn

Lamb

I started playing this game badly a couple of years ago, and got beaten game after game.

I then gave it a very wide berth and put away my small collection of books.

On a business trip a few months ago I came across a book (kageyama) and thought I'd buy it to read in the airport, It rejuvenated my thinking and gave me the desire to try again.

I've gone from 30 to 20 K in a couple of months (Im not in any rush) and am trying to slowly build on the basics.

I am getting older and work, family life and study all take its toil. I started my friend playing who said just like me that he couldn't play and he beat me. I understood quickly that this is a game to be played and the learning of it could take years.

My advice is to enjoy the journey, to look with your brother about any errors in the play and ask people on here, as they are really helpful.

Both KGS and the slower format DGS have helped me no end. It may take a life time to become a single digit kyu, but the discussions we have are endless as the possibilities.

I used to play tournament chess, and got as you put it 'depressed' my opinion is don't (!) life's too short and a game however great just isn't worth it.

Regards

Mark

When I first learned go in college, I was pumped about it. I read lots of books, played online, and even hired a pro teacher.

After playing for a few months, I was probably around 20k, and I taught my roommate how to play this game I had been obsessing about.

After learning the rules for the first time, he went on to play a game against me - and beat me soundly. How could this happen? I was so frustrated! I assume he is more naturally inclined toward games than I.

Despite my frustration, I just kept playing. I learned of a kid in another dorm that was 8k and played him regularly.

I've been on a hiatus from go for a bit, but last time I had a rank on KGS, I was around 1d. My friend? Around 20k, still.

If you like this game, keep at it. Persistence always wins.

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be immersed

Play your first 100 games on 19x19, just to get some basic experience. It does not matter whether you lose most of them. Afterwards, ask again what to study.

I think most of us have gone through those times where you make a real effort to improve and all that happens is that you seem to play worse than when you didn't try hard. In fact, this happens almost every time to me when I put together a rigid study plan or "get really serious" about the game (that's usually when I spend way too much money on Go stuff, too!).

And that may well be the answer: You're trying too hard, you focus too much on winning, you want this too badly. Try (but not too hard!) and shift your focus a bit away from the destination (the result) and more toward the journey. Okay, that sounds a bit philocheesy, so what does "toward the journey" actually mean? It means that you start to care more about the fun and the learning than about owning your brother (or anyone else).

Not only will you have more fun, you'll also be less frustrated, and you'll feel more chilled when you do play. And if you have fun and learn something new (even if it's learning what doesn't work), you win even when you lose. And that's great, because you'll lose a hell of a lot of games!

I forgot who said this, but remember that when you're a stronger player, you won't care about how many games you've lost when you were a beginner. You improve even when you lose, but you can augment that by recording your games and by looking at those records. Yes, those ugly games that ended in a crushing defeat and made you feel like a dumb moron. The ones you want to forget, bury and burn, in whatever order you prefer.

But that would be a shame. Face those games and look over them -- try and find a three or four larger things you could have done differently. Then next time, or the thirty-seven next times, do them differently and see how that works. Make it a game, toy with it and have fun experimenting. If something blows up, do it again next time and if it still makes your match go BOOM!, tweak it a bit and see if you can make it blow up even more spectacularly or if it works better.

Stick with it. It won't ever get better, but you'll get better at dealing with it.

Hey there!

I would like to give you a few positive notes
First of all as someone who has recently (since the beginning of this year) started playing go I totaly understand you!
The whole year I was a bit frustrated about the fact that I'm still the weakest player of our go club. (lowest are about 5kyu kgs)

Now here is the funny part: Now that there are new kids in town who started playing I'm not the weakest anymore and guess what.... I still feel like the weak guy.
Only the other onces are even more weak

My point is, you can never win this. Even if you spend lots of time on this game ... Maybe you even become 8 dan amateur.
But I'm sure, very sure you will never feel like being strong because there is always the next challenge ahead for you.

Eh, that did not really sound very positive did it ?

Well here is the positive part:

- It does not matter how strong you are, you can always enjoy this game. Everybody here on this forum knows the thrills of being in a very complicated capture race all over the board. Or this game deciding ko which we must evaluate carefully across the board... Or those hillarious moment when both of you don't want to loose sente and start ignoring very big sente moves and get mutual damage all over the place... Or maybe just very simply the fun of unexpectedly catching up a lost game because you played great endgame. All of these moments (I asume) happen at any rank.

- Because you are an amateur player and won't ever have to make a living with this game you are free to study whatever you want. For example I really enjoy studying fuseki patterns. Everybody always tells me that it is dan material and I should not study it.(you can check my post about it @ viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6305) Howhever I still have the liberty to study it if I think it is fun

Don't let anybody or anything (including yourself) stop you from enjoying and learning the most fun game in the world!

Cheers,
Otenki

I suspect a typo here: he probably means 9 x 9.

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Help make L19 more organized. Make an index: https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5207

This! I think the 9x9 board is under-appreciated.

It's a great tool to learn reading, and it makes it so much easier to grasp the concepts of life and death. Plus you can play so many more games on the small size. I actually prefer the small board over the large one, but in many ways it's a different game. Just a skirmish rather than a global war, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

A lot of my early beginner issues would never have manifested and become an obstacle if I had spent more quality time on the small board when I started out (and even after). For example, at around 10-12k, I played (for where I was) a good strategic game and felt that I had decent (for where I was) handle on the "meta game", but whenever I bumped into an aggressive, touchy-touchy player who picked a fight every time he put a stone down -- and you trip over them at that level --, I went under like a bowl of stones.

Spending more time on 9x9 helped me with that (still does!), because it's all about reading and you don't get overwhelmed. It's a bit like a single, dynamic tsumego problem, rather than a book full of them.

Nah, the size of the board isn't the issue; it's all about the enjoyment.

My first few games were on 13x13. After about five game at that size, I tried the 19x19 board. I can still recall just how large it seemed at the time... but I quickly got used to it, and never looked back.

I can't image forcing myself to play 100 games on the 9x9, the 13x13, or even the 19x19.

Find the size of board you find most enjoyable, and play with that. I think most people would gravitate towards the larger boards (of those size mentioned, anyway), simply because they offer more possibilities (without becoming mind-numbing... like 37x37, for example).

Oh wow, thanks for all the replies everyone! It means a lot to me...

I'll try my best to improve from now on, and I won't become depressed again. I'll learn from my mistakes and become better at Go.

Once again, thank you very much for your nice replies. You guys are great.

_________________
Tonight we’ll leave these chains behind
Shed the skin from another moment in our lives
We’ll turn our faces to the frozen sun
So take my hand
Chase the sky and watch it burn
Waiting for the world to turn