Well, it’s more like if
each player has several kings
and
the players can tell that who’s turn it is won’t affect
which of the kings would/wouldn’t get checkmated
and
the players can tell which of the kings would/wouldn’t get checkmated
, since it’s not just I would lose , it’s
I would lose by exactly these kings against these kings, no matter who’s turn it is .
So I have been working on videos and tools to help new players.
Check out Adventure and to start you can click the play button to play Squishy Go which starts on 5x5 but the game quickly can get difficult as you level up the AI. There are also beginner puzzle sets that I have hand picked out of all of the types of Go problems in order to help beginners understand the game.
One thing you will see in Squishy Go is that the rules are very simple, the most stones on the board wins. This will help you understand what the goal of the game is. Once you fill in all but two points in your area you will see how many stones you have. This transitions into Chinese rules which is basically the same thing and since this is a Chinese game it is arguably the correct rule set. When you play on OGS I highly encourage you to play Chinese rules as well.
Once you feel you want to start learning some strategy, you can check out this playlist I made where I talk about where to play and why starting at 25kyu. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5mVjO5OFYSymMy2Mixl7E5vpwFDO_0B4&si=PuXO3ZzKtl2zMhjM
Maybe this book might help you: https://www.go-spiele.de/en/graded-go-problems-for-beginners-volume-1.html
+1 for using stone scoring. 
Thanks. I like Squishy Go. It helps to see the stones blob together as one or getting scared of being surrounded.
I’m a little puzzled by their arms linking together diagonally though. Does that mean anything real in the actual rules/principles of the game, or is it just a visual aid to give me a sense of what the stones’ relationship to each other is/could be?
I’ve started on the videos, but I’m going pretty slow because I barely understand the basics.
The link shows that the stones can’t be cut directly. It is only shown for diagonal stones with both of their shared liberties unoccupied, because if your opponent takes one, you can take the other to connect solidly.
This is what is suggested by the arms
with a diagonal move, white two stones look like connected, if black 1 then white 2, and if black 3 then white 4.
but you are right to ask yourself about that kind of implied connection because in fact it can still be not so well working. The move which takes one can be more as a single threat to disconnect (and so connecting solidly may be not enough).
For example according to the software these 3 white stones would be linked with little arms together
the white stones are not perfectly connected in diagonal shapes here. when black push at 1 he creates 2 cutting points (triangles) that white has to defend at the same time.
In this shape and according to the whole board position (what other stones we have around) there could maybe still be ways to implied connection for the 3 stones together but this would take us a bit too far away in tactics (like different ways to connect, ladders…). Anyway it looks very difficult, like impossible, to keep these 3 stones connected.
Put it simply, if white connects solidly one of the triangle cuts, black cut on the other one
so white failed to keep all his stones connected.
Happy experimentations to you!
This has all been pretty helpful. Thanks everybody. Yall have been great.
I (think I kinda sorta) understand some of the basics of what’s going on (mostly) good enough to actually try to play (badly) now, and start learning from my mistakes and successes, instead of only being able to stumble around in the dark with no clear idea what the goal was. I even managed to win a 9x9 against a noob-bot last night (after trying about 47,000 times. lol.)
I don’t think I could play a whole game with a real board and keep score, or teach a new person the rules yet, but it looks like a do-ably difficult task instead of an impossible paradox of insanity, or Sisyphus being cursed to be whipped at lightcycles forever. And now it looks like it could be fun instead of being like confusing homework that I keep making F’s on.
That’s great!
Enjoy your games.
