Life In 19x19

I don't know Go, yet.

I understand the basic concept of it but it might take some reading, and playing to fathom it out.
For a couple of years now, the goban with it's black and white formations have drawn me in but I never really 'got it'.

I do tinker somewhat already with Shogi and it's variants but the concept of checkmate, promotion, , drops, attack, castle defences etc aren't a million miles from western chess so aside from learning the moves and the kanji for the pieces, it wasn't 'that tough' to assimilate.

Yet, I find Go harder, despite it's simple rule set.

So, I'm here to learn to play Go basically.

Thanks.

--
Keith

Hi Keith.

Welcome!

I can highly recommend these resources to new players.

http://senseis.xmp.net <<< This is a website that has a whole host of resources on the game, its rules, players, strategy, and so on. Start clicking away!

http://www.gokgs.com <<< This is a very popular place to play against real people and computers.

https://online-go.com <<< This is also a popular place and "newbie-friendly".

http://www.smart-games.com/igowin.html <<< Play against igowin on 9x9 board to get a feel for the game.

http://www.wbaduk.com <<< This is another place to play. Many strong players, but best of all, there are hundreds of free 10-minute lecture videos by pro players for beginners all the way up to dan level. (You'll need Java in your browser, and unfortunately I think it doesn't work on Chrome).

There are many great channels to check out on YouTube, and a lot of good books to buy, too. Really, we are spoilt for go resources these days.

As a beginner, don't focus on any one thing for a great amount of time, just dab in and out of go topics: fuseki (opening), joseki (corner patterns), tesuji (skilful plays), life and death, tsumego (go problems), strategy, direction of play, endgame, shape, invasions... it's all useful.

A bit of advice:

You're going to lose many, many games. Play your first 100 games and don't worry about losing. Try to get a feeling for it. You might want to start on smaller boards. If you want to play on a full sized board right away (and there's nothing wrong with doing this), think about these things:

> Play corners, side, then centre
> Try to separate the opponent's groups and connect your own groups
> Understand that two eyes are alive and one eye is dead
> You and your opponent have the same number of moves. Efficiency wins. So, the winner will have:
> Made stronger groups (strength)
> In better areas of the board (growth)
> Post your games here for lovely people to review.

Welcome to the game. You're going to be overwhelmed with advice at the start, so don't get intimidated.

It's the best and most beautiful game in the world.

You can also look at the British Go Association at http://www.britgo.org there may even be another player lurking in the channel islands...

Jujube wrote:Welcome to the game. You're going to be overwhelmed with advice at the start, so don't get intimidated.

That's good advice. There is plenty online these days, presented in no particular order. An introductory book is also likely to help, therefore.

Javaness2 wrote:You can also look at the British Go Association at http://www.britgo.org there may even be another player lurking in the channel islands...

I did actually find that already and straight away, realised how much MORE material there is in English regards Go than Shogi for example despite the fact that there are/were, some very good British shogi players. Sadly, most was written in now defunct magazines and many excelled pre www.

Now I'm overwhelmed with material to view and read though no doubt, there will be much to discover and perhaps even avoid so as not to swamp myself.

I have just read Janice Kim's Learn to Play Go V1 and most of that made sense first viewing though seeing the patterns in a vs computer game still eludes me.

Hopefully there is someone else locally as I had to teach my brother shogi to get face to face games and it's actually much better now as we gently push each other as we discover new techniques and tesuji.

Already I'm coming across weird conflicting terminology as the meanings in Go are quite different from Shogi but I'll hash through it all I guess like everyone else has had too.

Keith White wrote:
Already I'm coming across weird conflicting terminology as the meanings in Go are quite different from Shogi but I'll hash through it all I guess like everyone else has had too.

Just curious about this. I play a little Shogi, but I haven't run into too much terminology difference. One I can think of is sente/gote. Others?

oren wrote:

Keith White wrote:
Already I'm coming across weird conflicting terminology as the meanings in Go are quite different from Shogi but I'll hash through it all I guess like everyone else has had too.

Just curious about this. I play a little Shogi, but I haven't run into too much terminology difference. One I can think of is sente/gote. Others?

Yes, those two threw me immediately.

As a Shogi player, you might be interested in John Fairbairn, a British author of both Go and Shogi books, who is active on this forum. He might not check this Intros sub-forum, but if you start a thread somewhere else (General Go Chat?) comparing and contrasting terminology or other aspects between the games he might offer some interesting insights.