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Beginner Study Section at Sensei's Library

Beginner Study Section

Paths: Study =>   ·   <= Teaching Methods =>
    Keywords: Strategy

This page offers a guided study course for beginners who are trying to teach themselves how to play Go. Do not take it as authoritative.

Table of contents


0. What is Go?

If you already know what Go is, skip to the next section. Otherwise, you may want to read an introduction to the game. Want to learn more? You might also enjoy some Go trivia or a few thought-provoking quotes.


1. The rules

If you are starting to play with no experience at all, take fifteen minutes to read and understand the basic rules of go, as explained at rules of go - introductory. These rules will teach you which moves are legal, and how to make captures.

The rules of Go are inherently very simple. However, writing these rules to be perfectly consistent and unambiguous (that is, writing them to to cover all possible board situations, including very rare or unlikely situations) takes a bit of effort. You don't need to worry about the finer details of the different rule sets until later in your career as a go-player.

The advantages in practical play from knowing the rules very well are negligible or very rare. Reserve study of the nuances either until they start to be important for your tournament results (like in the 5th game of the 2002 Kisei title match), or at least until there's nothing more interesting left to study.

Sensei's Library Material:


2. The concept of territory

After the rules, the next hurdles for beginners are typically: How the heck do you decide when the game is over (in other words, when to pass)? And what's with this fuzzy 'territory' thing?

There are two approaches to help:

  1. Don't worry about these questions yet. Just pass when you can not place a stone on the board anymore without harming yourself. Then simply count how many stones each player has on the board. This way of counting is not used anymore because it's a bit tedious, but it is close enough to the current practice so you will have no problem unlearning it once it becomes boring. "Territory" under these rules simply means: Room for your stones.
  2. Try to understand the modern rules of capturing stones, although they are not immediately obvious. Playing games is the quickest way to understand how, but if you're looking for an explanation, you can find a detailed description in an example game. (See also territory.)

3. The concept of life and death

After a few games you will understand that keeping control over some territory on the go board (or goban, in Japanese) depends on your ability to kill invading stones and groups of stones. What makes the difference between life and death of a group? The answer is: eyes. A group with at least two eyes is alive.

Over time go players have systematically studied the status of various groups and shapes hovering between life and death. It is now time to start dipping into that collection of basic live shapes. Once you familiarise yourself with these, you'll notice that they appear again and again in your own games. Knowing what their vital points are will help you to dramatically improve your winning rate.

Recommended reading:

Sensei's Library Material:


Interlude

You've already done enough hard work to deserve some go education of a lighter nature. If you want, you can read about some of the tradition and etiquette of go, such as how to hold and play a go stone and playing the first move in the upper right corner, or some good habits and bad habits shared by players all over the world.


4. The theory and analysis of life and death

You're now ready to take a very big bite out of the apple of go wisdom. There is a good chance you'll enjoy your biggest leap in go strength ever from this lesson: the theory and analysis of life and death. But one should be very careful not to over concentrate on this subject. Wasting a valuable move early just to ensure a small group lives is a guaranteed way to lose. So what then? Learn the basic shape of living so that you don't have to worry about life or death.

...

(observe a minute of silence, to contemplate the significance of this historical moment)

[Diagram]
It's life, Jim. But not as we know it!  

Certain stone patterns on the board, like the black one in this diagram, deserve your close attention because they share two characteristics: they hover close to the border between life and death, and they appear frequently in real-life games. The idea is to get so familiar with these shapes that you know how to handle them correctly in a game without the need to spend a lot of time reading them out (or play them incorrectly). Invest time now, reap victories later!



Recommended reading:

Sensei's Library Material:

Additional Material:


5. Fighting: counting liberties; how to win capturing races

Recommended reading:

Sensei's Library Material:


6. The opening

The opening, or fuseki, is not the easiest part of the game to learn. Typically stones are played far apart and because of this lack of contact, the rationale behind the moves can appear rather vague. Nevertheless, knowledge of a few basic principles allows you to lay a good foundation for the fighting typical of the middle game.

Recommended reading:

Sensei's Library material:


7. The balance of power; strength, thickness and influence

Now that you have learned about the technique of fighting, it is a good idea to start thinking about the purpose of that fighting. In a well-played game of go, you don't fight just for the heck of it, but you fight to gain an advantage in one of the two balances.

Recommended reading:

Sensei's Library Material:


8. Local efficiency: shape and tesuji

[Diagram]
How would you protect the cut?  

In the context of go, 'efficiency' stands for how well a stone is doing its primary job on the board, as well as how well it is doing secondary jobs. The difficulty is, of course, that you don't know what those future secondary jobs will be when you play the stone. Consider this diagram, and assume you're looking for a move to solve the problem "protect against a white cut at 'a'". The first candidate is a itself. But b, c and d also protect against the cut. (Look at how the cut is protected if you don't see how.) Secondary objectives in this case could be "protect another cut" (not relevant here), "make territory" (not really), or "prepare an eye for this group" (aha!). It's because of this last one that d is the move that makes 'good shape' in this context. The alternative moves at 'a', 'b', 'c' therefore are considered zokusuji (aka bad moves, crude line of play or anti-tesuji).


Recommended reading:

Sensei's Library Material


9. The fundamentals

By now you have touched on a wide variety of go topics. If you got the 80 for 20 out of all of these, you made big leaps in your go strength. This is also the fastest phase of improvement of your skills (but don't take our word for it - the world is always ready for another go prodigy!). It is natural to expect your subsequent progress to occur in the same fashion. However at this point the biggest return on your investment will probably come from studying go deeper instead of wider. It is time to thoroughly understand the fundamentals.

Take your time for them, and start to appreciate the satisfaction derived from playing a sequence 100% correctly. It is a less spectacular or visible thrill than killing a 40-point group, but it is important you start to think of a 90% correct solution as a failure. Learn to read out a life and death problem until you are certain you have the right solution, not just very confident. Learn to only play atari when it serves a clear purpose, and not automatically or because you'll benefit from it if your opponent doesn't answer!

Recommended reading:

Sensei's Library Material:


Interlude

You deserve a break from serious study again. Why not take a look at some go humour? Or do you feel more like doing something half useful? In that case, learn some of the (mostly Japanese) technical terms, slang or jargon in "go terms". Or even be trilingual and learn the go terms in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.


10. The concept of positional judgment

In order to win, you need a plan. In order to come up with a good plan, you need to assess your current situation. And in order to assess that, you need to be able to accurately count and make a positional judgement.

Why is this important? If you are ahead on the board, you maximize your chances if you simplify the game and avoid dangerous fights. If you are behind, chances are you will lose if you just cruise along to the end: you need to complicate matters to create opportunities to overcome your disadvantage.

Recommended reading:

Sensei's Library Material:


11. Strategic concepts

So far you have improved your go strength by developing your technique. For most amateurs, increasing their tactical level is a source of improvement for a very long time. But due to the law of diminishing returns, the rate of progress inevitably slows down.

Stronger players not only work on superior technique, they are also working on the way they look at the game. This is why looking at a club game between players 4 or 5 stones stronger can be such a bewildering experience. You see what they're doing, but why are they doing it?

To get to where they are, you will need to develop a strategic toolbox. Consider the eight concepts below the basic tools. Expect to study them for a long time, because they are profound and subtle. Well, by now you probably realised that most of us are lifelong students of *all* the sections on this page.

Recommended reading:

Sensei's Library Material:


12. More tesuji and tsumego

An ever evolving go player is on a daily diet of tesuji and tsumego like a long distance runner on carbohydrates. Exercising like this keeps your working knowledge of life and death shapes up to date and sharpens the intuiton to find vital points and moves that work in a large variety of tactical combats. Some of these get progressively more difficult and involve or develop reading at the dan-level.

Sensei's Library Material:


Interlude

No sweat, big pay-off. Take five minutes to read some advice which sounds obvious but comes from very experienced, uh, chess players. Woo!


13. The endgame

The endgame or yose starts when both players' groups are stable and they start to solidify the boundaries. How many points do you reckon a strong player can catch up at this stage? The answer is: a surprisingly large number!

Expertise in the endgame is comprised of two parts. The first is calculating the value of individual plays, which is to a large extent static. The second is understanding the relative importance of sente and gote, which is about the dynamic sequencing of moves.

Recommended reading:

Sensei's Library Material:


14. Study professional games

Professional go games are an endless source for the study of good play in all aspects of the game. Don't expect to understand everything in a game, but use them to learn tactical sequences that work and to get ideas for your whole board game plans.

Sensei's Library Material:


What to do if you're tired of cycling through the above 14 sections again and again?

You could move on to the Advanced Study Section or take a look at Pages for Beginners, if there is still something you haven't seen there.


[1] BillSpight: The most important thing, I think, is to study what you enjoy studying. :-)

Anonymous: However, it's a bad idea to neglect topics you enjoy less.

Anonymous: A harmony is required, like in life. Studying enjoyable topics only, will result in poor player... Goal-oriented studying is less enjoyable though. Am i right?

Archaic: It's possible you can reach a certain level of clarity in go, being that you have cleared away most confusion of the basics, as with anything. So keep up the hard work, and it will pay off when you realize you're no longer having brain crashes and your interpretation of the game is at a certain level. It is possible to achieve a certain level in Go (pertaining to skill, which is what defines the amateur expert), do realize that it's not impossible to attain a certain mastery of the game. Go is definitely not an endless tunnel, so don't get discouraged. As long as you are able to continue practicing, you can still make improvement. Study what's most important.

Also try to look at what your opponent does also, so you can learn from him.

Just to list out some real guidelines, what go is about after learning the rules:

1. the basic mechanics such as life&death 2. then the overall principles/ideas/concepts/theory in strategy such as positioning in the opening (mirror go is not necessarily a special topic, just a strategic technique) 3. concrete analysis of sequences etc. where-in ideas come to life

Lastly, keep in mind there are exactly 4 different types of moves in Go and this is the order in which you should play them in regards to importance: namely,

1. a general and principled move (based on positioning) 2. a specialized strategic move which is what most people teach. 3. a very basic move that isn't listed in any particular book but is a technical move which serves to expand your territory or capture stones. 4. And obviously, there is also the last move which is to copy your opponent's move, but this is more special than anything.


Paths: Study =>   ·   <= Teaching Methods =>
Beginner Study Section last edited by 172.0.9.139 on March 15, 2013 - 19:19
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