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Beginner Study Section
DANGER! CONSTRUCTION AREA!!
I started adapting TeachingPaths to have it serve as a way for beginners to quickly start studying. Upon closer reflection, Dieter probably wrote the page as a guide for people to teach other people, which is not the same at all. Hence this new page. When I started to play go, there wasn't anybody around telling me how and what to study. Looking back I didn't actually fair so bad, really. My first contact with go after hearing about it was through picking up Iwamoto's "Go for Beginners" in the local library. And once we got our club up and running, a photocopied bundle of "Basic Techniques of Go" by Nagahara was passed around under the table. Plus we got wiped off the board twice every Monday evening in 9 stone handicap games against experienced (and blood thirsty) opponents. (If there's one proverb I ever applied it was "Lose 100 games as quickly as you can" :-)
If I needed to do it all over again, or I wouldn't want to count on luck to bump into the right things, here's how I would proceed.
1. The rulesThe rules of go are inherently very simple. However there is a bit of a problem to formulate them 100% consistently, i.e. to cover all possible board situations unambiguously. Don't worry about that - I have never cared about the finer details of the different rulesets and so far it never mattered in my go life. When you start, just take fifteen minutes to read and understand the basic rules of go, and reserve study of the nuances until it starts to be a big deal for your tournament results or there's nothing more interesting left to study. Recommended SL reading: 2. The concept of territoryOnce they have read the rules, but before they actually played a few games, there's typically two things beginners don't quite understand. How the heck do you decide when the game is over, or in other words when to pass? And what's with this fuzzy 'territory' thing? The answer to both is based on the rule to capture stones, although it's 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. Recommending SL reading:
3. The concept of life and deathYou now 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 life 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. Theory: from Go for beginners; Kaoru Iwamoto Sensei's Library Material: Interludium
You've already done enough hard work to deserve some go eduction of a lighter nature. If you want, you can read about some of the tradition and etiquette of go, such as how to properly 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 deathTheory: from Life and death; James Davies Sensei's Library Material:
5. Fighting: counting liberties; how to win capturing races
Theory: from Second book of Go ; Richard Bozulich, Chapters 7 & 8 (Richard Hunter)
6. The concept of efficiency: shape and tesuji
Theory on shape: Bruce Wilcox Sensei's Library Material 7. The fundamentalsTheory: Lessons in the fundamentals ; Kageyama Sensei's Library material: Interludium
You've deserved a break from serious study again. Why don't you 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".
8. The concept of positional judgment
Theory: Positional judgment ; Cho Chikun
9. Strategic concepts10. More tesuji and tsumegoSensei's Library Material: 11. The endgameTheory: from The endgame; Ogawa and Davies 12. Study professional gamesThis is a copy of the living page "Beginner Study Section" at Sensei's Library. (C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0. |