5 early lessons from 9x9 Go / Baduk

I’ve been playing Go for one week, mostly 9x9 games.

Overall, I've played 359 games and won 172 (48% win rate). But in my first 10 games, I lost 7 out of 10 (30% win rate).

Here's a snapshot of my OGS (cokiengchiara) metrics.

I recently graduated to 24k (actually, got downgraded again to 25k) and just started playing 13x13 and 19x19.

I wanted to capture the most important lessons I learned playing 9x9.

Lesson 1: Track your games and analyze your losses.

I track mine in a spreadsheet with these columns: Date, Board Size, Opponent (Rating), What to Practice, Result, One Mistake or Lesson.

Whenever you lose, ask yourself, “What’s ONE mistake I made in this game?” For me, this has been the key to not getting frustrated and figuring out what I should learn next.

It’s also been helpful to have an intention at the start of each game and ask, “What’s ONE thing I want to practice in this game?”

This In Sente video is where I learned the concept of reviewing games.

Lesson 2: Always be mindful of and count your liberties.

Even if you have a large group (which seems invincible). My initial mistakes were usually getting a large group captured because I wasn’t paying attention.

Lesson 3: Stay connected.

Move across the board using basic moves that keep you connected. The ones I use the most are:

• one-point jump
• knight's move
• diagonal move

I’ve tried but haven’t managed to instinctively use two-space jumps and large knight’s move yet.

This video has been helpful for learning the shapes.

And here is a list of moves in Sensei's Library.

Lesson 4: How to open: When black, play in the middle 5-5, then 2 corners.

This has worked pretty well for me.

I'm not sure how best to open when white, I just kind of over near the middle when black plays there.

This video has been helpful to me for winning 9x9.

Lesson 5: Focus on expanding territory, don't capture for capturing's sake.

Go is a “surrounding” game. Capture only when there is a specific reason. When an enemy’s group is in atari with no way of escaping, don’t waste a move capturing the group (it will be considered prisoners at the end of the game).