I've found it very hard going learning this game so far. I can solve many of the exercises here and at Hiroki Mori's page, and understand what's going on, but as soon as I try to play a game against the computer (gnugo on CGoban), I get mercilessly slaughtered. Not even going to consider a game against an actual human being yet! I'd just be wasting their time and mine.

The computer kills my groups, invades my territory, and there's not a thing I can do about it. This is very disheartening because I rarely have any idea where my mistakes were and so it's impossible for me to learn anything. I know the advice is to lose your first fifty games as quickly as possible without becoming upset over getting decimated, but there seems to be little point if I'm not learning anything or improving my play. I was on the verge of just giving up.

Then I found the KGS home page and their tutorial flash thingies. There's one where you play against the computer and the only point is to capture a piece. I couldn't become overwhelmed right from the start. For the first time I felt as though I was comprehending the game, even when I lost. Even better is that the computer is really stupid without being completely random; this can't be said of gnugo. Then they have a 9x9 board where I get a nine stone handicap. Cool. I have a huge advantage, let's see if I can keep it.

There it seemed as though the comp only had a few things it could do, and once I learned how to deal with those I was invincible. So I tried the 9x9 board with a 9 stone handicap against the more formidable gnugo. It was tougher, but I saw the same tricks turning up again as well as a few new ones that I duly learned to counter. So I dropped to an 8 stone handicap, and after a few goes mastered that as well. Right now I'm playing on 11x11 with a six stone handicap and winning about half my games, so I feel as though I'm making progress.

I guess my experience runs counter to the advice I've seen. Rather than "lose your first 50 games as fast as you can" it's more like "find the weakest opponent you can and play them until you can pummel them mercilessly". Probably this approach is getting me into some bad habits that I will eventually have to break, such as being too obsessed with forcing the opponent into the corners in order to retain control of the centre. But I finally feel like this is a game I can get the hang of. What does everyone else think?