I used a chess tutorial program that wold offer tips if I didn’t get the move right. If there’s a similar one for GO, I can’t find it. I’d like to know what’s considered the best program to learn GO on the Mac.
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If you are looking for a strong engine (in go terminology usually called a bot or an AI), those are available. KataGo and LeelaZero can be downloaded for free.
But I think those would be of little help for beginners, because they don’t explain anything. They can only communicate by showing variations they consider optimal, and that’s it. And most of that would be incomprehensible for beginners.
If you need a tutor that explains to new players the reasoning behind moves and what makes moves good or bad, I think that for now, only humans tutors can do that (live or by videos or books).
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It depends on your experience. Are you a beginner?
If so, forget about the answers talking about AIs, play a lot mostly and experiment by yourself.
If you want more theory, you can read books or watch videos but don’t expect this to be very useful for a beginner.
Playing is essential for like a hundred games at least.
For having more fun play with players at same level.
Check if there are maybe players nearby, face to face games are awesome for teaching too.
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If you are in fact a beginner, and are just starting to learn how to play Go, I will join the other folks in this thread in cautioning you about what you will be able to learn from the move-suggestions of any of the AIs mentioned here so far.
The crux of the problem is - unless you already have a significant knowledge of Go under your belt - all of these AIs will be giving you much more high level advice than you will be able to make sense of or use on your own.
It would take me a long time to explain exactly why that is the case. Think for a minute about the distinction between STRATEGY and TACTICS. Tactics are specific skills for handling the nitty-gritty aspects of advancing your immediate goals - is it better to mount the attack this way or this way? Strategy is a much more broad-brush approach to analyzing the entire board, seeing the opportunities there, and making the best use of them.
When beginners start the game - their tactical and strategic abilities are fairly limited. Until they play a lot of games, it is difficult to even perceive all of the information you need to formulate a strategy, much less know how to express it using actual tactics. As such, both tend to be simpler - going after simpler goals with simpler tools.
The move-suggestions you’re going to receive from any of these AI will involve very complex strategies - and those often depend on very high-level tactics to carry them out. As such, you might have a hard time understanding why a particular suggestion is the “best” move for that part of the game. Even once you begin to understand why the AI chose that move, you might realize that the move opens a can of worms on a much more complex tactical / strategic goal than you would be ready for (i.e. capturing your opponent’s weak group outright rather than just pushing your moyo away from the edge, etc).
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