realistic beginner expectations

[MS_Sydney]

In a rather general sense, what might an adult of moderate intelligence expect over several weeks to several months of playing at least some Go several times a week?

I don't play for hours a day (although at least once a week lately I have spent a few good hours over the board with a stronger player), but I've been playing around 5 days a week. Sometimes it's just a few 9x9 games, sometimes 19x19.

Most days I also get in at least enough time to read a page or three from Sense's Library and/or puzzle over tsumego on the smartphone.

msgreg might chime in on this thread, as we play together face to face. In under a month of this I've become comfortable determining which groups are dead when it's time to score a game, helping along other beginners on KGS a bit, etc.

My question is purely idle. I'm just enjoying the game so far.

[EdLee]

In a rather general sense, what might an adult of moderate intelligence expect over several weeks to several months of playing at least some Go several times a week?

There are really too many variables, and it depends greatly from individual to individual.

In a general sense, it's not unlike learning the piano from scratch (with zero ability to read sheet music,
or any other musical training), or, learning a foreign language from scratch (again, with zero familiarity with its characters or alphabet).
If you have had similar experiences like these, maybe you already know the answer?

I'm just enjoying the game so far.

[Bill Spight]

In a rather general sense, what might an adult of moderate intelligence expect over several weeks to several months of playing at least some Go several times a week?

Many hours of enjoyment.

Welcome!

[jts]

There's a proverb that goes "Lose your first 100 games quickly," or something like that. People disagree on the meaning and even the wording of the proverb, but I take it to mean that you shouldn't bother to have expectations, or worry about improving, or think about much besides enjoying the game until you've racked up a serious number of losses. Everything changes so quickly when you're just starting out.

[Alguien]

In a rather general sense, what might an adult of moderate intelligence expect over several weeks to several months of playing at least some Go several times a week?

[big guesses here, don't take the numbers as predictions]

From the experience of discovering go to friends and see them start from scratch, I'd say that playing at a "several games per week" pace, with maybe some visits to goproblems every now and then, will get you to 15k in a couple of months.

Then, if you just keep playing without any interest for "study" (reading game reviews or such) you'll reach 10k in a year or less.

I think the only way to stop before 10k is to not play enough.

from 10k onward, you'd have to play a huge lot to keep advancing without some reading/studying/watching lectures.

[MS_Sydney]

Maybe I'll remember to come back to this thread in a few months & comment on how things came along.

[Samura]

I started playing Go five months ago, so I think I can say some things.

In one sentence: "Your idea of what is "to play Go" will change a lot of times".

When I played for the 10th time, the game looked different from the 1st time, and at the 30th time it was different again, and by the 200th, again... and now, approaching the 500th, the game looks like a completely different beast.

At first, all you can think is how to survive in the board, and trying to secure some territories at the end too. So you build long strings of solid connections and some diagonal moves here and there. You don't understand the size of the board and do things like let your opponent take big "bubbles" (now I know that it's called "moyo") of territory or don't use the sides of the board to your help (I remember a lot of games where I went full force to take the entire center and let the opponent take the sides and still thinking "What a moron, why he is letting me take all the center of the board? I'll win in a landslide"... just to think after the game "I had the entire center of the board, why the hell I lost by 28.5 points???").

Then, you see the 5d's at KGS playing games completely different from yours and you don't understand them. "Why they play the stones so apart? Why their groups are so small?. Aren't these weak groups? Why all these games look like a half-dozen of semeai problems at the same time?".

With time you get that the way you play always left you with few points, you must be more aggressive at taking territory. You understand that you need speed! And by the way, probably you already learnt not to play at dame points too! But to be fast you need to play more sparsely, you need to play more light. And then you start experimenting with one point jumps and keimas. And through trial and error you start to get what combinations are safe and what not. Now Go is not a game of survival anymore, it is a game of making efficient living shapes. By now you know a lot of tricks in local fights too! You are getting good at tactics.

Then the dan games at KGS start to make sense.

But to focus only at each group isn't enough, eventually all the groups will clash and you must prepare the outcome in advance thinking about the whole board, thinking strategically. You must try to be ahead of your opponent in every place of the board. You need to reclaim spaces with stones here and there. And must try to kill weak groups by surrounding them... and the semeai situations start to appear more and more. And you must learn how to make your stones work at multiple functions, and how to equilibrate a lot of things. Now Go looks more like a game of keep a fragile equilibrium at your advantage.

The dan games at KGS now totally make sense.

What I meant by all this is that Go is a deep game, with layers and layers to discover. And the journey through this layers is a fun journey. Oh yes, I almost forgot to say: Learn to play Go is ridiculously funny!

Expect to learn a lot of things every time!

[MS_Sydney]

Great reply!

I can already tell I'm learning, because I find myself giving helpful comments to others in game review.

[Coyote]

If you're not Shodan by the end of the week, quit.

Seriously though, while I can't honestly preach against measuring oneself since I'm also guilty of it, your goal for the next 6 months should be to still love the game as much as, if not more than, you do now.

However, sometimes when you're losing a lot and feeling lost it's nice to know that you are getting stronger.

[otenki]

If you are refering to what rank ,I can give you the obvious answer:
I think the best way to improve is just not care about what to expect rank wise.

To give an example from my own go:
I was 12kyu on kgs and was intrested in trying out a new server so I started playing on tygem.
I registered at 18kyu (which is the lowest rank there) and lost almost every game.
Howhever I did not care, after weeks of loosing against these 18k's i started wining some of them and gradualy i felt myself becoming stronger. Still my rank would remain 18k for a long time on that server. I experimented every day with new ideas and learned again and again from it. I never had to play really safe or anything because I knew that it did not matter that I lost. I also felt for the first time that I could actualy read something after these weeks.

When I returned from tygem to kgs after this time I realised I was 8kyu! I just gained 4 stones without even knowing myself about it. And I guess the reason for this is because I just experimented a lot and learned a lot without caring about winning or loosing.

Good Luck!
Otenki

[MS_Sydney]

Actually, I wasn't thinking in terms of rank, but more generally.

Rank-wise, I'm hovering in the 20s on KGS & Kaya. But my game experience is changing rapidly.