too hard at 25k. But if you enjoy reading them, why not.
I am late to the party, so can only second some of the foregoing recommendations. I found Iwamoto’s Go for Beginners to be a great basics book. Cho Chikan’s Encyclopedia of Life and Death is available in the first couple pages of the Puzzles tab. It has been posted in chunks that overlap. Tsumego should be done in the head by reading. Don’t consult the answer unless you are absolutely stumped. Go back periodically and redo the whole set. I’ve done them almost 3 times now (didn’t quite finish the third time). The Learn to Play Go series is or was online for free. Not sure whether that was the result of pirating or not, or whether it is still available, but I vaguely recollect that it was in a university library online depository, so it may have been licensed.
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Cho Chikun’s Encyclopedia of Life and Death (Elementary), first ~50 problems. They climb up to 9k level very quickly imo, so don’t strain yourself struggling on later problems.
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Nick Sibicky
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Yeonwoo’s game reviews, but don’t work yourself out trying to understand the analysis: you can just follow the narrative
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OGS Joseki
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Waltheri pro game database (ps.waltheri.net). The Around Stones search is also very useful
Hmm if you’re 25 kyu just grab a friend and play, just treat it like any other board game like Catan or Command & Color whatever. See if it’s fun enough for you to play daily.
Reading book is boring and is only for fanatics.
Avoid talking to anyone with a single digit next to their account name. Those are the fanatics, just treat them like those Cthulhu followers and shun them.
Trash talk with fellow beginners, that’s where the fun come from.
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Inspired an idea for a meme.
I’ve been writing these 19x19 for Beginners series articles specifically with new players in mind, because I find that even Dwyrin, Sibicky, and InSente often assume that they understand the fundamentals - when no one has really explained really basic stuff to them.
You can either start at the Making Sense of Go article posted above, and that will lead you to all the 4 other articles I have posted, or you can go to the
OGS Community Resources Page (another great resource in general!)
And you’ll see my articles under
OGS Forum Article Tutorials
- tonybe’s 19X19 FOR BEGINNERS SERIES
Good luck!
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This. No amount of knowledge can help if you’re not able to read basic life&death situations.
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I’m not sure which tsumego teaches you
- that second line moves are bad typically bad in the opening, unless you have to live.
- how to efficiently enclose a corner
- how to effectively attack and surround a group (attaching is bad)
- how to stop your moyo being destroyed while it’s being reduced
- how not to lose tonnes of points from basic endgame
- how to find good invasion points that have miai between escaping and living
- general direction of play
- big vs urgent points
- etc
If we replace the word tsumego with more general go problems I’m on board. Hence the recommendation of things like Graded Go puzzles.
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I watched the full lecture today.
Sadly I can’t understand what Dan says (chicken?) and subtitles don’t help.
But now I have a better understanding of why I don’t follow Sibicky. 
The lecture is interesting but isn’t much entertaining.
I took a class on talking in public some time ago (before covid) and this video would be a good example of what you shouldn’t do when talking to an audience.
I don’t blame Nick: he’s teaching his friends and also sharing his lessons with everyone. It’s fantastic and I appreciate that very much.
But when I have to choose how to spend one hour of my leisure time I prefer Dwyrin’s “acting” and editing. Yeonwoo is good too at entertaining. It’s a matter of voice, posture, timing…
Many other go channels aren’t good at that. They can be Pro and very good players, but after few minutes I start yawning. My bad!
Just to give an idea of what kind of speaker I like best, let me name few other channels that don’t talk about go: Veritasium, Smarter every day, Steve Mould. It would be fantastic to have someone like them explaining go: it would be both funny and instructive.
Dwyrin isn’t that good, but for my taste and my skills he’s the best.
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Sadly I can’t understand what Dan says (chicken?) and subtitles don’t help.
Yup, he calls pros, chickens 
The lecture is interesting but isn’t much entertaining
Well, in their defense, they are learning how to do this, as well, and they are pouring time and thoughts on how to do it better, as evidenced by this lecture which is also around the time of those lessons:
I found that lecture very very interesting.
Dwyrin isn’t that good, but for my taste and my skills he’s the best.
The only quibble I had with Dwyrin is that sometimes (well, ok, most of the times 
) he goes “should I kill this or not?” and then he either proceeds to do so (and during the effort he forgets to explain how and why he chose most of the moves) or he says “well, that is not so basic, so I won’t do it” and then we are left wondering “oh, so it CAN be done. We need to know hooooowwwww” and he then forgets to explain it.
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I’m going to go out on a limb / swim upstream and just throw a word of caution regarding 25 kyu beginners focusing ONLY on tsumego.
Yes, studying tsumego is a great study tool for all the reasons shinuito mentioned above. However, studying tsumego will NOT help the beginner learn these other very basic skills that could help them make sense of a game:
- knowing when you have sente or gote in an exchange
- whether your stones are settled in an exchange
- if it is time to tenuki
- how to play a balanced opening
- what are the stages of the game, and what are the key priorities at each stage
- how to balance territory vs influence
- when to travel across the board, and how to use shape to travel across the board
- how to look for big move opportunities using the whole board rather than focusing on one exchange
My other problem with tsumego is that many beginners come away from these exercises believing that Go is a game where there is always only one correct answer for the “next best move” regardless of what stage of the game they’re in.
IMHO - the reality of the game is very different - and players are wiser to approach a game more as a “choose your adventure” story where they have different options depending on what level of risk / reward they’re comfortable with, rather than always making what Katago or some other high-level teacher thinks is the “best move” - and ending up trying a strategy that’s way more complex than they’re ready for.
My 2 cents.
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Agreed and adding TL;DR; version:
Tsumego doesn’t teach beginners how to reach those tsumego shapes.
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Right, the point of tsumego isn’t to teach concepts, even about life and death. The point is to practice reading, which is non-conceptual. It’s imagining pictures in the mind’s eye instead of using words. Tsumego isn’t the only way to do this, but it’s the best way. And this is not to say that concepts and words are not helpful; they are. But having a proper ability to make pictures of moves in sequence in your mind will enable you to remember all of the theory and concepts better, learn from your own experience (ie play), and even arrive at your own concepts based on experience. Consider also that incorrectly-learned theory has to be unlearned later. Concepts without experience can actually become stumbling blocks, like a proverb that isn’t violated when it should be.
Quality tsumego training, playing games, and a little bit of review from stronger players to drop in the occasional concept (e.g., sente/gote) is the most efficient way to rise through DDK.
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Yep I completely agree with this post and disagree with the lists of concepts I saw before.
We are speaking on a 25k not on a 15 or 12k level.
At 25k you learn how to close your boundaries and survive with 2 eyes. Even a shicho is already not so anticipated. You learn to see, an Atari for exemple. Not how to use influence.
So best is play and get concise simple analysis from what you played by a stronger player. You don’t need a review of each of your game, you need keep fun playing.
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