A beginners main problems when relearning the game of Go, and how to solve them.
As it is the third time now that I start playing Go I think I am fairly qualified talking about beginner problems...
- The most important one is in my opinion the motivation. Although people are usually eager to learn and rather excited encountering something as new and entirely new such as Go, they are often put back by other, more skilled players. Whenever I started playing again I felt like I am the worst player out there becouse somehow my opponents always managed to keep my score at a minimum... And often I had no idea why at all... Somehow my territory seemed to continuously shrink without me making any mistakes, or at least none apparent to me... And if you're on a loosing streak it's always a simple way out to simply quit, especially if you don't know why you keep loosing. But, luckily, especially on KGS there have always been people trying to help and support me, and I am very grateful for that. You need other people to keep going, or at least I do. That's why I think a local Go-club is very important to ones development. On the Internet you are somewhat anonymous, but in a Go-club you're not. The person opposite to you sees your face and gets to know you, and might recognize you in the future somewhere on the street. And imagine you have quit playing and you meet that person again, what are you going to tell him or her? That you simply gave up? I now that I couldn't do that, and therefore I “have” to keep playing in order to avoid that situation. Anyway, Go has never been all about the game for me anyway, but also about the people. Never in my life I have encountered such a nice bunch of intelligent and kind people such as Go-players. They seem to be always considerate and respectful, for, somehow, the game seems to form your character. Another good reason for joining your local go-club I guess... Go is more fun on a real board anyway. But coming back to the topic:
- Another problem is getting better. Whenever I do something it's not that much about doing it but more about getting better at it. And that's what I like so much about starting go: you usually get better so fast! Every once in a while you may encounter a phase when you simply don't improve, but by playing continuously, solving tsumego and studying theory you'll manage to survive these times as well. One never stops improving, only the speed differs. There are always better players out there that enjoy teaching beginners, and that's part of the reason why I started the “Sarthilfe” on KGS. When I was one of those better players I very much enjoyed teaching weaker ones, and so do many others. Just ask a dan player for a game, you'd be surprised how many times they agree to playing a game or two. It's an awesome experience that nobody should miss. Again, joining a real life Go club comes in handy here. Usually there's at least one strong player there, or if you're lucky a lot of them, and they'll happily play you and comment your and their moves if you as them to do it.
In this post I talked about joining a Go-club frequently. But what if there isn't any around that you know of? Well, using the Internet in order to gather intelligence is the obvious thing to do. But if you still can't find a club this way why not found your own one? You could teach some friends to play, and you could meet frequently. That's good fun, good for your social life and also good for your playing skills.
