Improving my Go

• 06 August 2026
• Go

Three months ago I started playing Go again, both online and at Winchester Go Club. Most Wednesday evenings I enjoy sipping a Guiness 0.0% at The Black Boy pub and getting completely absorbed in games against stronger players.

Some of my recent games are as follows:

• Nigel (10 kyu) gave me a 3 stone handicap. I won.
• Wayne (6 kyu) gave me a 7 stone handicap. I won.
• Marcus (12 kyu) gave me a 2 stone handicap. I won.
• Mike (4 kyu) gave me a 9 stone handicap. I lost, but it was close.

Since there’s supposed to be one handicap stone per difference in rank, that puts me at around 13 kyu, although I’m still trying to break the 19 kyu barrier online.

My more recent games are as follows:

• Marcus (12 kyu), even game. I lost.
• Phil (4 kyu) gave me an 8 stone handicap. I lost.
• Angus (? kyu^[1]) on 13x13. I gave him 5 stones and lost and then gave him 4 stones and won.

Studying

I’ve already acquired far too many Go books. Although they are all supposed to be for beginners, some of them make me feel out of my depth.

I’ve subscribed to “Go Magic” which has excellent videos combined with exercises and puzzles.

I’ve enjoyed some of Nick Sibicky’s YouTube videos (categorised list). He recently admitted “Go is so hard and so complex that you never know what you’re doing.” which shows some humility for a strong player.

I’ve also watched some of Dwyrin’s “Back to Basics” series on YouTube.

Hardware

I found lugging my beautiful 4.3 kg goban to the club rather hard, so I’ve purchased a thinner/lighter board.

Working memory

I’ve never been very good at reading in Go, which means working through sequences of moves in your head. Generally, I’ve tended not to try to keep much in my working memory and have found ways of working around this. But, especially when playing in person, there’s no alternative to reading out some positions to determine the best move.

I wonder if it’s even possible for me to improve my working memory significantly.

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