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HOW TO STUDY AND GET STRONG AT GO
Beginners
If you have never played Go, you will need a beginner's book that will teach
you not only the rules but give you some of the background to the game.
The ideal book for this purpose is GO: A Complete Introduction to the Game, written by Cho Chikun, the number one player in Japan. (The
first four chapters of this book are presented in Menu 2.)
After reading the first four chapters, you should understand enough
to be able to play a game. Your first games should be on a 9x9 board.
This is more suitable for a beginner than the standard 19x19 board.
On the smaller board, games take less time, so you will be able to play
many more games, get more practice in counting the score, and familiarize
yourself with the rules.
You will have to find an opponent for your first few games. The ideal
opponent for a beginner is a computer. Go-playing computer programs are
not very strong - and possibly never will be - but they are an excellent
way for a beginner, who may be shy about asking an experienced player to
play, to get in some practice games. There are many Go-playing programs
on the market and you can purchase one from Yutopian Enterprise
http://www.yutopian.com/
or from Schaak en Go Winkel het Paard
http://www.xs4all.nl/~paard
After you have gained some experience and have played some games on a
19x19 board you might want to venture out into the real, or the virtual,
world to play some games with a human opponent. You can either go to a
go club, if there is one near you, or can play on one of the Go servers,
such as "Microsoft's Gaming Zone", which has a Go section. There is also
news group (rec.games.go) where you can join discussions on go and obtain
information from the participants there.
Solving Problems
While studying your beginner's book, you should be working on the problems.
Problem solving is essential, if you want to become strong. The perfect
problem book for the complete beginner is Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Vol. 1. There are four volumes in this series and
systematically working your way through the nearly 1500 problems in this
set will give you a solid foundation in the basic tactics.
Rankings
A beginner is arbitrarily given a rank of 35-kyu. After reading a
beginner's book and playing a few games, the novice will have progressed
to about 25-kyu. The stronger a player gets, the lower his kyu rating
becomes. A 3-kyu player is already quite knowledgeable about tactics
and strategy. 1-kyu is the strongest kyu rank, after which the dan ratings
begin. A 1-dan (pronounced "show-dan") is the first rank of an expert go
player. The stronger a player becomes, the higher his dan. The top amateur
dan rank is 7-dan.
Professional go players are also ranked by the dan system. Professionals
start off with a rank of 1-dan. A 1-dan professional is markedly stronger
than a 7-dan amateur. The top professional ranking is 9-dan.
Handicaps
Go has a handicap system whereby a strong player can play a weaker player
on equal terms. For example, 5-kyu player will play the first move against
a 4-kyu player; against a 3-kyu player, he will place two stones on
designated handicap points; against a 2-kyu, he will place three stones, etc.
In theory, all amateur kyu and dan ranks are separated by one handicap stone.
The maximum handicap usually given is nine stones. This is the handicap that
beginners usually receive from strong players. To give you an idea of the
difference in strength between an amateur and a professional, a professional
1-dan can give an amateur 1-dan nine stones and expect to win about half the
time.
Playing Go on a 19x19 board can be quite bewildering for the novice player.
But taking a nine-stone handicap, where you place a black stone on every
star point, is a good way to learn how to take territory and how to attack
you opponent's stones.
From 25-kyu to 10-kyu
At this stage, the book you should study is Basic Techniques of Go.
(You can find this book and other books mentioned here on the
"English-Language Books on Go" menu of the index page.) The most important
part for the beginning player is Chapter 2, which is devoted to 9-stone
handicap strategy. The first chapter of this book is also essential
reading for beginners: it lays down the principles of even-game opening
strategy. Another approach to 9-stone handicap go is given in Chapter 2
of The Second Book of Go. A very useful highly recommended book on handicap go is Kage's Secret Chronicles of Handicap Go.
For a lot of general problems and ideas on handicap go strategy, from both
Black's and White's point of view, Get Strong at Handicap Go makes
for excellent study.
Once you have mastered handicap opening strategy with nine stones, you will
need to develop your ability at killing your opponent's stones and living
with your own stones. The perfect book for studying this is Life and
Death, Volume 4 of the Elementary Go Series. At the same time, you should
also be studying Tesuji, Volume 3 of the same series. (Tesujis are
skillful moves that accomplish some tactical objective.) Another important
book that will improve your tactics and fighting ability is Get Strong at Tesuji, Volume 6 of the Get Strong at Go Series. This
book contains 534 relatively easy problems. Concurrently, you should also
be solving the problems in the four volume Graded Go Problems for Beginners. After you have studied these books and played up to
100 games, your game will have a solid foundation.
The Opening
Go is a strategic game and it is in the opening (fuseki) is where
you plan your strategy. Most go players find studying this part of the
game the most enjoyable. Kiseido publishes a number of books on the opening.
In the Beginning, Volume 1 of the Elementary Go Series is the ideal
introduction to the basic principles of opening theory. While you are
reading this book, you should also work on the 175 problems in Get
Strong at the Opening, Volume 1 of the Get Strong at Go Series.
After you have worked through the problems in this book, you will have
familiarized yourself with the details of the most often played opening
strategies.
The Endgame
The endgame is where you win your won games; it is also the stage where
you can pull off upsets. The endgame is a hard subject, requiring a lot
of painstaking calculations (in contrast to the opening, where intuition
will point to the right move). However, Get Strong at the Endgame
is a book that takes a lot of the drudgery out of this subject. In an
easy-to-follow course, it teaches you how to calculate the most common
endgame moves and shows you many different useful endgame tesujis. You
can also get The Endgame, Volume 6 of the Elementary Go Series,
the definitive work on this subject in English, from Kiseido.
Josekis
Josekis are fixed sequences that take place in a local area, such as in
the corner or on the sides. For a sequence to become a joseki, they must
give an equal result for both sides. Studying josekis is useful because
of the many examples of tesujis and good shape that arise in these sequences.
Moreover, to understand opening strategy, it is essential that you study
josekis.
Joseki is a vast subject, and the best way to start is to study 38
Basic Josekis, Volume 2 of the Elementary Series. Once you have
mastered this book, you should go on to study the 544 problems in the three
volumes of Get Strong at Joseki in the Get Strong at Go series.
This series shows you what kind of josekis to select in various opening
patterns and how to play the follow up moves in josekis.
The Middle Game
Although quite short, the best introduction to middle-game strategy is
Chapter 4 of The Second Book of Go. This book is also of great
value because of the two chapters which exhaustively analyze capturing
races, a situation which often occurs in the middle game. Invasions
are another area of the middle game that a Go player must master and
the 170 problems in Get Strong at Invading systematically analyze
this topic. This book shows you how to invade on the side, in the corner,
and how to defend against these invasions.
Life and death situations often arise in the middle game. The best book for
this subject is Get Strong at Life and Death. This book is not
only a good introduction to this subject, but the section which
covers life-and-death positions that arise in josekis is
clearly
an area of immediate applicability.
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of the following addresses:
Kiseido
CPO Box 1140, Tokyo, Japan
FAX +81-467-57-5814
e-mail: kiseido@yk.rim.or.jp
or:
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2255 - 29th St., Suite 4, Santa Monica, California 90405
TEL: +1-800-988-6463; FAX: 1-310-578-7381
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