I’ve been playing go for a year and a half and recently I’ve been playing white more often. When I take a handicap, I know what to do, but when I give a five-stone handicap I am immediately at a loss how to win. (I’m not exaggerating.) What should I do? By the way, I’m 4-kyu on PandaNet. from Mr. Sawada Hallo, Mr. Sawada. Thank you for your question. If you’ve been playing only a year and a half, you’ve made rapid progress. Judging by your question, you play a lot of actual games. I think that’s good. I think that playing with stronger players and with people of the same level (even games or black giving no komi) is best for you, but at this stage playing handicap stones giving five stones may be too tough for you. It’s probably not good either for you or for your opponents. When you give five stones -- and this is true for me, too -- you feel that the stone on the centre point makes things really tough for you. If you can’t handle the centre stone, you should just give four stones handicap or perhaps play on even with white giving a large komi. You can work out with your opponent what the komi should be. Generally, the conversion rate is ten point per stone, so four stones would be 40 points. A long time ago, I often played like this, since you get into bad habits if you play only handicap games. Since you’re still improving, perhaps you should avoid playing handicap games in which you give the handicaps (one reason being that one tends to play a lot of unreasonable moves). The best thing is to play a lot of games. I hope you keep improving. Please do your best.