Can someone teach me?

Hi i am very new to Go and was wondering if someone would be kind enough to teach me from the very basics. very willing to learn but can be a little slow at times.

Thank you.

I would be willing to help you. However, I do need to know what you already know. Do you know how to capture stones, do you know how to make points, do you know what joseki is and do you know where you should play in the opening? It is not a problem if you don’t know any of these, I just want to have an idea of where to start helping you.

Hello MrMartin.
I don’t know any of it, i only found out about this from Hikaru No Go and taught i would like to learn how to play.

Since you don’t know any of those I recommend you watch this list of video’s I found for you. The first few are short while the others go a bit more in depht.

Basic rules:


Basic rules more in depht:


After you have watched those 4 video’s you should play around 20 games on a 9x9 board and experiment. However, the most important thing is to enjoy playing!

A video that is a bit more difficult, but try to understand what is being said.

Watch 10 games being played on a 19x19 board.
Play 20 or more games yourself on a 19x19 board. You will most likely lose all of them, but that is very normal. Don’t get discouraged!

When you have done all that you know the very basics of the game. When you know this it will be much easier for someone to help you continue improving, and there are many people in the Go community that would love to help a beginner like you.

You can also continue watching videos on these 2 amazing youtube channels that upload regularly and have alot of video’s for you to watch!
https://www.youtube.com/user/nicksibicky

I hope this was useful and that you can start enjoying this ancient and amazing game, good luck!

3 Likes

Hello and welcom to OGS :slight_smile:

My suggestion would be to first learn the rules, we have a nice and simple guide, you should not need any help with that:

If you want some deeper guide and basic strategies check out the interactive way to go. It is a little old design, but the informational value is big.
http://playgo.to/iwtg/

Then it is usually good to play at least a few 9x9 games to get the hang of the total basic moves and captures. The traditional game is played on 19x19, but I strongly recommend starting on the small board, which lets you play several games quickly and not waste a lot of time on a game you do not yet understand. Who knows you might find out that go is not what you expected…

If you still want to improve by then I would be happy to play a few games.

3 Likes

MrMartin
Thank you for the videos, they have helped me understand more of how to play after watching a few times lol.

@AdamR
Thank you for the website, i would be very happy if i could play a few games so that i could improve.

Sure :slight_smile:

As usuall you have two options.

  • Send me a correspondence challenge and we will play
  • If you prefer live games, add me as a friend and PM when you see me online so we can arrange a live match