8 Common Beginner Mistakes

If you know the rules and have played a few games but just aren't getting stronger, the problem is usually habit rather than ability. Here are the things that players stuck at the same rank tend to have in common.

Go for beginners · about 8 minutes to read

1. Always playing in contact with your own stones

This is the most common one. Placing a stone right next to your own looks safe, but in reality it is slow and inefficient.

A single stone has four liberties. Put two side by side and they have six, not eight — the points where they touch are wasted. Leave one point between them and you keep all eight while covering twice the area.

The fix: unless it's urgent, make a one-point jump. The proverb "there is no bad move like a one-point jump" exists for a reason. Save solid contact moves for spots where being cut would really mean death.

2. Being obsessed with putting stones in atari

You give atari, the opponent runs, you chase and give atari again. Repeat this and the opponent naturally grows thicker as they escape, while you, busy chasing, lose all the big points.

Atari only means something when you can actually capture. Giving atari to stones you can't capture just helps your opponent get stronger.

The fix: before giving atari, ask "if these stones run, can I keep chasing them down?" If not, play to enclose them instead. Even if you can't capture, herding the opponent into a cramped space is a gain in itself.

3. Starting a ladder without checking for a ladder breaker

A ladder captures stones by chasing them in a staircase pattern, but it fails if even one opponent stone lies in its path. That stone is the ladder breaker.

Starting a ladder that doesn't work is a disaster. All of your chasing stones end up in atari and an entire large group changes hands. It is the classic scene in beginner games where the result flips in an instant.

The fix: before you start a ladder, trace the diagonal with your eyes all the way to the edge. If there is an opponent stone on that line, give up the ladder and consider a net instead. A net doesn't care about ladder breakers.

4. Adding moves to groups that are already alive

A group with two clear eyes can never be captured. Yet many players get nervous and add one more reinforcing move. That move is completely wasted, and the opponent uses the time to take another big point.

The reverse happens too: continuing to play inside stones that are already dead, trying to rescue them. Every extra stone you add to a dead group is one more point handed to the opponent.

The fix: get into the habit of asking "how many points is this move worth?" before you play. Reinforcing a living group is often worth 0 points, while a big point is often worth 10 or more.

5. Not looking at the whole board

When a fight breaks out in one corner, it's easy to keep staring at that spot. Meanwhile, the big points on the other side of the board sit empty.

Go isn't a game of winning local battles; the player with more territory across the whole board wins. Winning the fight and losing the game happens all the time.

The fix: scan the whole board once before every move. Especially right after your opponent answers, consciously ask: "Do I keep playing here, or go somewhere bigger?" That is the beginning of a feel for tenuki.

6. Starting in the center

The center looks wide open, so it's tempting to start there. But the efficiency of making territory goes corners > sides > center.

The reason is simple. In a corner, two edges of the board already act as walls, so you can enclose an area with few stones. In the center you have to surround every side with your own stones, which takes far more stones to make the same amount of territory.

The fix: in the opening, play in the corners first. Once the four corners are settled, move to the sides, then the center. That is why the first move in professional games is almost always in a corner.

7. Judging life and death by feel

"It looks big, so it must be alive" — and then the large group gets captured later. Life and death is not a feeling; it is calculation.

Size alone doesn't decide it. Among four-point spaces, a straight four in a line lives, but a 2×2 square four dies. The six-point flower six dies too. You have to look at the shape.

The fix: memorize the four basic shapes (straight four and bent four live; square four and flower six die), and in real games ask "can I turn this into a shape I know?" Solve life-and-death problems steadily and that feeling turns into calculation.

8. Playing the endgame carelessly

An awful lot of games are played well up to the middle game and then lost at the end. The endgame isn't flashy, so concentration slips.

But games of Go can be decided by half a point. Play the endgame without telling sente from gote and you can lose 10 points or more in no time.

The fix: in the endgame, keep just two things in mind. First, play sente moves first. Playing where the opponent must answer lets you keep the initiative and move on to the next big point. Second, play the biggest remaining point first — not simply in the order you happen to notice them.

To sum up

The eight mistakes boil down to two things.

• Think about efficiency — not playing in contact, not adding moves to living groups, and starting in the corners all come under this.
• Look at the whole board — not clinging to atari, tenuki and the order of endgame moves come under this.

Keeping just one of these in mind per game makes a difference. Try to fix all eight at once and you'll end up fixing none.