hi everyone,
I’m a 25kyu ranked player and I’m looking for a free course, app or anything like that to start learning the essence - studying in short - of go.
I don’t wanna just go to sensei’s library and memorize the names, I want something to teach me with a real game.
any suggestion?
thanks
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which do you think should i start first with?
I would begin by reading Falling in Love with Baduk and then EZ-Go Oriental Strategy in a Nutshell.
The Skill Tree at GoMagic is very good to practice and learn the basics. Then there are a lot of Interactive stuff at 101weiqi and you can either use the plugin or Google translate to navigate the site. It also has a lot of books with systematic Go problems which teaches you the basics of tactics and strategy so it is worth to get a subscription, the first problems of each book in the series is free for trial: 棋书列表 - 101围棋网
12 Week Miracles is a fun reality show produced by BadukTV which also teaches you the basics. Dwyrin’s series Back to Basics is also good to get the basics of strategy.
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This hail of links is nice and all. You can watch all of that after you connect with your local community! Find a local club and learn Go from real people. 
That is what you should do first.
This site can help you find clubs and players nearby: baduk.club
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haha thank you, but there’s no go club in my city (in fact there are none in my country, so I started the first one (it’s name is “Soyux dashlar” and I’m the only member lol)
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Meh I’ll throw mine in there for fun
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If you’re a beginner don’t study, just play. A lot. Don’t get overwhelmed by theory, teachers tend to tell far too much as you can absorb. Books too.
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when do you think should I start studying?
I’m 25 kyu now
The skill tree at GoMagic still contains stuff that is good for absolute beginners, but perhaps it is not meaningful to start reading too much before you are 15 kyu.
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When you feel to be a bit out of the cloud and feel like you get some creative power in your moves. Maybe around 18k, it’s hard to fix a precise rating.
Before that use the edge to build, check the cuts and connections between the stones to try to guess what is in danger to be captured. Go players achieve more by threatening as by realizing so first you need to get what can be captured or not. That’s a lot of advices already
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Nick Sibicky <3
I can also recommend his channel, when i started with go, pretty much the only “studying” i did until i was ~18k was binge watching Nick Sibickys videos (he had less than 100 at that time) and browsing thru senseis library. And of course playing a lot of games ^^
He used to teach the ddk-class at Seattle Go Center and record his lectures, so i found those easy to understand as beginner. He also focuses a lot on core consepts that can be applied in almost every game, like his “9 answers to low approach on 4-4” lecture was really good for generally understanding the direction of play and the same ideas work in pretty much everywhere.
If theres one negative-ish thing about those old lectures, its that those were made before alphago and modern josekis. Nowdays its common to invade on 3-3 right away as early as move 5, but before 2016 people usually wanted to approach on outside first. But still, i highly recommend checking out his channel ^^
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yeah that’s what I’m doing,
I’ll get myself to 18 kyu and then, I’ll read the book “falling in love with baduk” and youtube videoes,
and after that I may find my way,
thank you all.
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From all the stuff suggested, Imo, just do what you have the most fun with.
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Welcome to OGS
download Igowin Free Go Software Download or the mac equivalent.
play the 30k bot and work your way up.
send me a game with the bot and i will review it.
? Why would you encourage playing bots, especially pre-nn bots?
The best advice, in my opinion, is, play ranked or unranked games against a really weak AI -there are a few on OGS- until you get the hang of it. You will not be frustrated, because they play as badly as you, or even worse.
My other advice is a series of books that´s decades old but very reliable- Learn To Play Go, by Janice Kim. The 1st volume is precisely what you need if you are a really bloody amateur. I was there!
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