I'm 22k on KGS and have played around 20 or so games, and out of those games I've won 1 or 2 games. The people I've been losing to have been higher ranked than me in the 23,24,25k areas.

How long are you suppose to lose for until you actually see some improvement? I know everyone is different but was just wondering what has everyone else's experience been like as a newbie and when you've seen some improvement.

The rule of thumb is to get through your first 50 losses as quickly as possible. Some people say 100. I probably played 50 about 9x9 games against the computer before I was willing to go online and play actual people.

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Go has the hardest learning curve of any game that I have ever seen. What you are experiencing is normal. Hang in there, it will get better. It will be worth it in the long run.

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Try to finish 100 games as quickly as you can afford to. Don't worry about the wins and losses.

Another good thing to do is have stronger players review your games. It's what I was told and it really does help. I can't say I'm the best teacher in the world, but considering your level there might be some things I could help with.

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You've probably improved drastically already without realizing it. Go back and look at your first game and see how many of your moves you still agree with. Heck, I bet if you looked at your most recent game you'd find some moves you'd play different now, too...

I agree with the people that say quickly playing a ton of 9x9 games vs igowin will teach you to avoid a lot of easy to make mistakes that are disastrous on the big board.

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I think the fairest response is that it varies from person to person. Different people will pick up different concepts at different speeds. 20 or so games is definitely not enough to conclude anything from. Incidentally I was only brave enough to go onto KGS when I'd played the computer perhaps 100-200 times on a 9x9. If you miss out this step of development and move straight to playing on a 19x19, you might miss out on some immediate benefit.

For one, you can play four or five 9x9s in the time it takes to play one 19x19, so you get a lot more practise of fighting a lot more quickly. Fighting skill will set you apart at your level - a 20-25k player generally is not going to be fighting very well on a 9x9 (never mind a 19x19!) If you can get in the practise now on a smaller board, you'll have a leg up on your competitors.

Secondly, as a beginner, you need to focus more so on what's going on in a local area (though this will change as you move up!) If you're trying to juggle all the information of a 19x19 in your head with basically no experience, it might be a bit overwhelming. I remember being somewhat scared to play on a 19x19 when I was a beginner - it was so big! So many choices... How could I keep track of all of that information properly...? Now I play all my (non-teaching) games on a 19x19, and the 9x9 looks so tiny . I played on a 9x9 in real life a month or so ago and it was really surreal. But it's where the journey begins . Build up, bit by bit. A good, secure house is built on a solid foundation. Think of your go skills like that.

Good luck, keep at it!

If you are frustrated by your progress, you might also ask whether you are playing too quickly. I, at least, learn to spot glaring mistakes by analysis first, and only later learn to spot them by intuition; so when I'm learning quickly it shows up much more in my considered decisions than in my impulses.

But my thought is less important than the other thought which the others have offered. Don't worry about your rank or your progress or anything else until you've played many more games. If your kgs account is "skynative", you've only been playing for 9 days! (And you won seven of them, you sly dog.)

By the way, I hate to introduce you to one of the most narcissistic habits of Go players, but...

First, at your stage you are probably learning something in every game, whether you win or lose.

Second, you should lose about half of your games. If you are playing the same people, change the handicap after each game. Otherwise, if you are losing too many games and your handicap is based upon your rating, your rating is too high. It should correct quickly.

Third, don't take your rating seriously during your first year of play.

Good luck!

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Everything with love. Stay safe.

Also, before 12 or 13k, you'll get a lot of incorrectly ranked players on KGS. Not just sandbaggers, but also other beginners who may be very strong in one aspect of the game (possibly one where you're weak in) and not nearly so in other areas. The differences between 15 and 25k on KGS are probably relatively marginal.

The proverb, I think, stems from a time when beginners played against much stronger players as a rule. Today, you get roughly (very roughly) equal players -- other beginners -- as your opponents, so you are not "supposed" to lose 100 games straight. As Bill said, it's more like 50% (also very roughly). It also doesn't necessarily mean you should lose 100 games in a row, but that after 100 lost games you may have a grasp on the basics. (Or more, if you only blitz through your games.)

Don't worry about the rank. It's just a tool to give you opponents that you can have enjoyable, somewhat even games with. It doesn't reflect on you as a person, or your intelligence -- only on your experience with go and your current ability (when it comes to go). Look at some of your games and try to find 2-3 significant mistakes you may have made and try to think of a better move. Also try to identify 2-3 good moves you made.

Play play some 9x9 too. You can do that against the computer (on 9x9), which will help you with tactics and reading. Before putting down a stone, visualize your next move on the board, your opponent's possibly next move, and your response to this, even if it's a seemingly obvious move you are going to make. You can also consider different responses. That's perfectly do-able at your current level and as a side-effect it'll prevent you from playing too fast too.

Long...

I heard some ppl saying that you keep losing consistently on a regular basis til 8k...

That's just not true. It depends who you play. If a 12k player plays 20k people all the time, he should win pretty much every game.

Impossible, as should be apparent.

I heard that even pros lose sometimes, but I'm sure that's a myth.

Thanks everyone, I'll definitely keep playing.

Who knows...you might run into me....we can't both lose

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In fact, you necessarily win more than you lose on the medium term as long as you improve.
What is true is that a go club is usually mostly visited by high kyu or dan players (because you don't stay very long DDK). Overall, as a beginner, you can feel that most games played would be with handicap but you shouldn't worry that much about it. Little by little the handicap reduces.
On my experience, I would say it could take between a few months and a year to get to 8-9k KGS (obviously depends on your investment in the game).

I would read a couple of beginner go books. The Janice Kim series helped me a lot at that level and showed me some basics on correct play. KGS teaching ladder also will help.

When I was a beginner I started playing in person with people who could easily give me more than 9 stones, so I lost every game. Then I played on IGS, and at that time, there was no BC (beginner class.) I lost not every game, but many games, until I dropped down to 28k. At that time, I said, "aha, at least now I'm at the bottom" because I knew from the documentation that there were no ratings below 28k. Then one sad day I logged in and noticed that my rating was NR*. This requires some explaining. In the old IGS rating system, a * after your rank meant that you had played enough rated games that your rank was reasonably accurate according to their system. (Kind of like not a having a ? on KGS.) If you didn't want to play rated games or didn't want to expose your rating, you could set your rank to NR, meaning "not rated." There were actually some very strong players who played as NR, so this was a kind of anonymity and not necessarily a stigma. But it seems I was losing so much that I was branded with this strange NR* rating, which in effect meant "we are confident that you are so weak we cannot measure how weak you are."

Now I am stronger than my first teacher, so do not lose faith. But I confess I did enlist a better teacher to improve...

Mmm, a teacher is a good idea, but probably equally effective as a DDK is just finding someone around your level to be a study partner/friendly rival. When I started a couple of months ago, I got as many friends as I could interested, since well - it's more fun to play with friends than random unknowns from KGS! I find that with most things in life, if someone finds it fun, they're more likely to improve. How many people get good at a subject in school when the teacher is crap and completely unmotivating? Compare that to having a really good teacher who makes their subject come to life, or having friends interested in that subject who can share their passion with you. As such, I think (especially as a DDK), you're likely to improve naturally quite quickly just by having fun and playing a few games with friends. If it becomes a chore/annoyance due to the "damn, I'm always losing, this is no fun...", that's really not a good way to get stronger. At the end of the day, it's just a game .