I'm a keen beginner who learned the rules 4 weeks ago. I've read the beginners books by Chikun and Iwamoto plus Bozlich 'second book', Graded probs for beginners 1 (now onto 2) plus Kim vols 1 and 2. I will start on 'Tesuji' (Davies) and 'Opening Theory Made Easy' (Otake) soon.

I have the possibility to attend the European Go Congress in July (next month) for a few days (as I will be on holiday in the UK and could travel to Bonn for a few days). I would be fascinated to see Go in action with face to face games but is it too soon for me to also play there? The weekend tournament which is what I am looking at has some 20kyu players registered.

I have played 42 IGS games and won only 7 but I am improving albeit inconsistently. My guess is that I perform about 25kyu (I have been BC then 17kyu then BC again on IGS) - this might improve before the congress with continued study. Because I don't know the Go tournament scene I have no idea of whether it is common, rare or unheard of for someone like me to play in such a competition. My aim would be to play as well as I could and be competitive - results would not (could not) be a prime concern.

I have a lot of experience in face to face chess competitions which might mean that I won't be too phased by that aspect. I have not played Go face to face before but only through IGS.

Thoughts and advice welcomed, thanks.

If you want to play in the tournament, go for it. In my experience the Go community is a friendly bunch, and part of the tournament scene(and I generalize beyond Go here) is meeting people and getting to know them. And perhaps seeing them at the next tournament.

Edit: I think Opening Theory Made Easy, is an incredibly useful book. I read it when I was 21 kyu or so and it caused a spike in my ranking. I think most of it was not playing as many slow moves in the opening.

Tesuji, may be to early for this one. I see it on alot of sdk reading lists, myself included more then ddk. That said give it a shot! Alot of tesuji are arcane until your shown that they work. If you work on Tesuji, its often recommended to compliment it with 'Get Strong at Tesuji.'

Attack and Defense. Perhaps try this before Tesuji. It deals in more large scale tactics, which I found useful. You might lose out on some killing opportunities because you dont have the closer range fighting skills that come with tesuji. But if you attack right you might not have to have killed anything.


Most importantly I would say just keep your stones connected, and if you're cut, cut back. In the ddk for sure its simple things like that which lead to the most improvement.

Edit Edit: Tesuji IS a good book, I just feel at 25kyu its not really the most pressing improvement in your game.

What are the alternatives? And what is the down side? The only down side that I can see is the cost.

If you are asking "Should I go or stay at home?", then I say, yes, of course you should go. You will learn something.
If you are asking "Should I go this year or next, because I only have enough in the vacation budget for one?", then I say. no, you will benefit a lot more when you are 10K or 15k next year.

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Assuming that you have an infinitely long vacation and great personal wealth, of course you should go. There's no such thing as going to a tournament too soon.

But were are you on holiday from? If being in the UK makes a jaunt to Bonn seem easy, it's likely you're from Asia or the Americas. Europe has three thousand years of culture treasures, and other continents have dozens of go tournaments every year. It might make more sense to do things in Europe that you can only do in Europe, and sign up for a tournament in your home country the second you get back.

The only con to a beginner playing a tournament that i see is that they might be discouraged by the competition, or by the great amount of stronger players than them. But if you already have experience with tournaments, you are not likely to be phased by it, so I would recommend going. The EGC has an amazing atmosphere for go players.

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It is absolutely common for beginners to go to go tournaments, most of them being friends, spouses or children of other tournament participants. And because of the McMahon Pairing method that focuses on matching opponents of similar strength, the probability of getting interesting matches is very big.

Ranks on IGS in this area are pretty meaningless. Have you tried playing at KGS? Seems to be more beginner friendly..

Both are no beginner books. I have created a list of books with a range of strength where you can probably get most out of the books.

The only problematic aspect may be the counting at the end of the game, since there is no computer button to count for you. My advice would be to ask an experienced tournament player to show you how it works (I'll be at the EGC as well FWIW). It's not that difficult though.

If you're 25k, xcaissa, you can probably advance quite quickly at this point without reading any books, just playing games and doing tsumego. If you do enjoy reading books, though, I see nothing wrong with reading Davies' Tesuji, particularly if you find tactical combinations to be the most fascinating part of Go.

Many thanks to you all for these replies.

Knowing that being such a raw beginner at the congress will not make my presence particularly unusual or unwanted helps my decision greatly. Unless travel problems occur I intend to go. As has been said here, there are a lot of things to be gained from attending especially as I don't intend to be put off by results at this stage. The tournament pairing system is new to me having only encountered forms of Swiss pairing before in chess. The avoidence of very large ranking mis-matches in the first or subsequent rounds sounds very sensible.

I'm trying to play as much as I can and will add KGS to IGS. I also like studying with books and the discussions of some titles in this thread helps me to plan for new titles to add.

My visit to Europe is from Australia where according to the web there are about 10 tournaments a year so I will check out those in due course. I will be sure to let you all know if and when I have achieved infinite holiday and unlimited expenses status

Thanks again for taking the trouble and time to reply - and in so doing helping a newbie.