Your Study Plan: How Much to Study and What to Study to Improve at Go in 2026

Overview

Spend about 50% of your Go time playing, 30% on life and death puzzles, and 20% reviewing your games. Puzzles are the fastest way to improve, especially for beginners. Give each one 30 seconds to a minute, focus on one category at a time, and work up from the easiest.

How to split your time

Play online and play bots. Both help in their own ways. Playing people trains you under time pressure and against tricks a bot won't play, which is hard to get any other way. Bots are good for low-pressure games and for learning to handle more standard play.

Puzzles are very important, and most people don't spend enough time on them. They're by far the best way to improve, especially for beginners and intermediate players. 30% is only because most people find more than that too boring. If you can, do puzzles more than you play!

How to do puzzles

Time-box yourself, and enjoy it. That's what Puzzle Run is for.

But Puzzle Run should only be part of your puzzle study. If you're serious about improving, spend most of it in Standard Puzzles and Spaced Review.

Give each puzzle about 30 seconds to 1 minute. If you can't solve it in that time, make your best try, then review it afterwards.

To drill a concept, pick one category and focus on it. When you're ready to test yourself, remove the filter, so you see puzzles without the category as a hint.

Start from the easiest puzzles and work your way up. The more you do, the better you'll become at Go! We have over 10,000 puzzles and add more all the time. You won't run out :)

How to review

Reviewing with the AI is tricky; it can be a double-edged sword. It's best to have a teacher walk you through your games. The AI Coach does its best and works well for beginner and intermediate players, but it isn't perfect. It will miss things a human teacher would spot.

Still, review every game with the AI Coach. You'll get tips and a list of your habits. Work on them over time, and pin them so they stay on screen while you play, to remind you.

Don't blindly follow the AI's top move. Play through the variations from the top moves, especially at your mistakes, and compare them with what happened in the game. Try to understand why they're better.

Go isn't about memorising what to do in one position. It's about learning the pattern, so you recognise it next time, when it looks slightly different. That's why your mistakes become puzzles in Spaced Review, and why you can play a bot from any position, at any rank.

Keep it up

The best way to improve is to be disciplined. Be consistent: set aside some time for Go every day, and follow a training plan like this one. Find a teacher if you can.

If you put in the work, the results will come. Best of luck on your Go journey!