Let me start off by saying that this post is not about bragging or that you can, can’t, or should do this. It’s to explain how I did it so you can hopefully have an idea of what you can do yourself to improve.

When I first started playing Go, it was because I was watching the anime “Hikaru No Go.” I was really into it and wanted to play the game myself. I got a Chess board and some of my mother’s stone decorations that were kind of black and white and challenged my brother to a game.

I did this for three days and then once I was confident I was stronger than a beginner I got online and made an account on KGS. (OGS didn’t exist yet.) Once online I thought I was hot stuff and decided to try and play some people and claim that “I think I’m pretty good.”

This was the line Hikaru spoke in the first game because he had a ghost with him that knew how to play. I didn’t have a ghost but I did have 3 days of practice. (I think you can see where this is going.)

I proceeded to lose every stone on the board and was taunted by my opponent that I wasn’t very good or even good at all. I was very bad and worse than a beginner. I was so surprised that I asked if he was a pro and he laughed and said no. (I think he was sdk.)

I could have gotten dissuaded by this and had no one to blame but myself for being cocky, instead I took it as motivation and kept playing. When you are the worst at the game the only direction your skill can go is up.

I believe I started playing 15-20 games a day. Some players noticed my activity and started giving me teaching games. When I lost I didn’t care and just played another game. (Ah the stamina of youth.)

I didn’t really do go problems at this time because I just wanted to play. I know it was recommended, but I played so many games that I probably solved 2-4 problems per game because of our attack and defense mistakes.

With the game reviews I was also learning more and more shapes and solutions to problems. After literally losing my first 100 games in a few days I was quickly out of the 20 kyus.

The game types at that time didn’t actually matter to me. Handicap, big board, small board, I didn’t care. I just kept playing and having fun. I really enjoyed playing the game and improving and that created a very healthy spiral.

Inspired -> Play -> Review -> Get Inspired -> Repeat

I think the reason I improved so fast was because of my youthful energy and my pure enjoyment of playing the game and improving. Losing didn’t hurt, or if it did I was over it by the next game.

I had made friends who were constantly encouraging me and teaching me, and I had an anime that inspired me to get really strong. Though at that time I didn’t realize how strong really strong was. Ah youthful naivety~

The things I want you to take away from my experience is this; enjoy the game, make some friends, and just play. If you can do these three things, you will improve naturally. (Though I don’t recommend 20 games a day. Who has that kind of time?!)

I hope this helps you and I hope you can also find some inspiration from this.

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