Just Go

Just Go

59 ratings
Useful links for learning more about the game of GO + some tips for new players
By Ayo sussin
A couple useful links to help with getting a hang of the rules of GO, and making the beginning process less painful. This would be for those that keep playing games, and are either losing or winning and not knowing exactly why.
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Intro
Hello, I am writing this guide to show other useful resources that I have used to help with learning GO. GO was a very frustrating game for me to learn and kinda get the hang of, so I'll add this here to help others who may be in the same position.

This guide itself will not explain concepts in GO, as they are quite complicated and there are already high quality resources available for people to use. This will be more of a guide to those resources.
GO Foundations
I would suggest first reading some basic information about go from the following links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)#Overview
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_ranks_and_ratings

These will give you a basic understanding of the vocabulary used in GO.
Tutorials vs Playing
I've heard some conflicting ideas about if someone should start playing game after game or if they should try to look into tutorials explaining moves to get started.

I believe that there is no harm in learning the basics of the game before getting started playing games. There is a website called GO magic that has 3 free courses on it that worked really well for me while I was learning the game. I would suggest looking into the intro to 9x9 or intro to 13x13 courses that the website has to offer.

https://gomagic.org/

There is also a free app called Badukpop, it contains a tutorial section that has all the basic "shapes" that are found in the game of GO. I would suggest completing all the level 1 tutorials and puzzles in the app before moving into playing games. Otherwise things will happen in the game that will make no sense to you.

https://play.badukpop.com/

I played through level 1 and 2 of badukpop (tutorials, then puzzles), then moved onto using GO magic. After finishing a couple go magic courses I felt ready enough to play some online games and not be completely clueless in what I was doing.

After completing the GO magic courses and the tutorials on Badukpop, the tutorials and training section of Just GO will make a lot more sense, and will be a lot less frustrating.
Losing your first 100 games.
The next step in this list is simple, lose your first 100 games. You can use the OGS website ( https://online-go.com/ ), the OGS integration in Just GO, or you could use the career mode in Just GO. Its all up to you and what you are comfortable with.

After each game, you should review it and see where you went wrong, or where you opponent went wrong. You can replay the game from different points and crate variations in the game. This can all be done on OGS website by clicking "review game" after finishing a game. You can also save the game as an SGF, and then import it into your favourite SGF editor. I personally use https://www.gokgs.com/ to review my games, but any SGF editor should work.

If something did not make sense and you want someone to clarify what went wrong you can upload your game record to a website such as https://gokibitz.com/ to get feedback from other people on your game.

If you have a higher end computer, you can also review games using https://github.com/sanderland/katrain/releases

Katriain has a high level AI that will run and show you mistakes in the game, as well as possible variations. Most advise against beginners using the AI to show mistakes as the AI will make very complicated moves that even high level go players struggle to understand. But, I will put the link here in case people are curious. https://gokibitz.com/ or reviewing in https://www.gokgs.com/ are both good, or potentially better options for you to review your games with.

I review my games in an order, first I review them by myself in KGS, then I will upload the SGF file onto the gokiblitz website and wait about a day. I will review any comments made by others and then import the game into Katrain. This way I can see the obvious human and AI mistakes that I made in the game.
OGS Game Settings
Here I will try show the best way to get started playing online games with OGS. (In my opinion)

In GO, you have a rank that determines the handicap different between you and other users. I would highly suggest setting this to automatic when starting off. (I often see people turn this off)






Match these settings for now, and click "Play Human". This will put you into a live 19x19 game soon. Note the settings with a blue border, that means they were selected. The ones without are not selected.

Other links
GO style analysis:
upload a zip file of your games and it will let you know common mistakes & give advice on how to play (potentially broken)
http://gostyle.j2m.cz/webapp.html
https://style.baduk.org/

GO Game for absolute beginners:
https://zxnashx.itch.io/beginner-go-game

Convert Go Game to a gif:
Converts your SGF go game into a .gif to share (potentially broken)
https://sgftogif.herokuapp.com/

Gomagics beginner guide:
a basic guide for beginners
https://gomagic.org/beginners-guide/

Go puzzles:
tsumego / tesuji puzzles for all levels
https://blacktoplay.com/

Reddit:
online forum with a lot of useful information
https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/

European GO Journal (I enjoy reading these, keeps me invested in GO because its monthly):
interesting read
https://www.patreon.com/europeangojournal

Pro baduk game guesser:
guess the next move of a pro game
http://javiergonzalezvega.com/badukguessr/

Go Books List:
list of go books and decent reviews for each one
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G2iNpr1XOG0LpidkFWgRzYbj0DEAQZmm6S-GwhHjBpY/edit

AI Sensei (use for reviewing your game):
upload your sgf game file and generate puzzles based on your own games
https://ai-sensei.com/

GO Reviews:
read past reviewed go games of all levels
https://gtl.xmp.net/reviews/by_strength

GO Library:
information on go theory and lots of go puzzles
https://en.1200igo.com/

Contraband GO / How to improve:
guide from a strong player on how to improve
https://contrabandgo.com/category/how-to-improve/

Way to GO
interactive basic guide on getting started in go
https://way-to-go.gitlab.io/#/en/intro

Is this shape dead or alive?
quiz showing common dead or alive shapes in GO
https://status.antontobi.com/

tips for improving:
http://www.361points.com/study/

Practice Counting / Scoring:
https://count.4tc.xyz/

Beginners guide (text):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11NRF4gLcr4aRTxZAC3-khFXbQBKMGIhU1ZxpxbhJXJw/edit

Go School ($):
https://yunguseng.com/ & https://internetgoschool.com/

Old but gold learning go website:
http://www.learngo.co.uk/index.html

AlphaGO Documentary (must watch if you have not already)
https://youtu.be/WXuK6gekU1Y

Online shared GO board:
https://board.tripleko.com/

Full board GO problems:
https://realgoproblems.com/

GO Guide 30k-1d:
https://soumyak4.github.io/baduk/30K.html

GO account analysis:
https://gome.at/
FAQ
Q: What ruleset of GO should I learn?
A: I would learn Japanese as it is the most common. For a beginner, just learning japanese rules and sticking to those will be fine.

Q: Why did the AI resign randomly?
A: The AI plays at a much higher level than most humans, so it can see that in theory it would have a small chance to win, so it simply resigns.

Q: Why is there no detailed answer to the tsumego?
A: Answering every single tsumego and explaining it would be very time consuming, and for beginners its often suggested to just imagine every possible move instead of asking for a answer. You can also copy the tsumego onto a real life go board and try to use it to help visualise the moves. If you finish a tsumego and do not understand why it is complete, most apps will let you continue playing the tsumego and see the different variations. You can also remake the tsumego in your own SGF editor and create all the possible variations for said tsumego.
fin
Feel free to comment any suggestions for this guide or questions about this guide.

7 Comments
Iztonder 30 Oct, 2023 @ 6:31pm 
Thank you for a very usefull guide for a novice players to the world of Go!

Also i'd recomend for all novice players to find a Go club in your local area - here you will find a new friends and very usefull feedback for your games.
Just do not fear to play against real human :steammocking:
Absur 🏝 26 May, 2023 @ 7:55am 
Hi, first of all, thanks for this guide, very useful stuff!
Now, 2 of the links are not working for me so far:

1) http://gostyle.j2m.cz/webapp.html - the website is up, but when I try to upload a .sgf (from Just Go) or a collection inside a .zip the website just returns a "FAILURE" message. Anyone knows what this might be?

2) https://sgftogif.herokuapp.com/ - seems to be offline, "an error has occurred".

Thanks!
StarLight 3 Mar, 2023 @ 6:11pm 
Thanks so much for providing a life jacket for those who is trying to get started on Go. I agree with the Baduk Pop and Go Magic suggestion.

Another suggestion I could offer is playing Go Quest (on Mobile) starting with small 9x9 board. The level of difficulty slowly increases as one improve. It is free and just require email for registering an account (instructions can be found in 1 of the free videos in Go Magic Courses)

Good luck and have fun anyone. Feel free to add me for a friendly games. Welcome experts who can help me to improve more too :)
9-Volt 13 Nov, 2022 @ 6:47pm 
I'm just getting into go, and want to learn more. Thanks a lot for the guide, you've put a lot of great stuff to check out here.:steamthumbsup:
aristeros 2 Nov, 2022 @ 7:37pm 
Good intro to try and help folks out.

I played a bit on KGS in the `90s and returned to the game sporadically since. Purchased 'Just Go' for that reason. So far so good.
Silren 17 Aug, 2022 @ 1:57pm 
Can't agree more, more resources are extremely helpful. Trying to help some friends learn the basics and improve back up to my old rank but I must say KGS doesn't have as many people that are willing to help review games so I was at a loss for where to look without some of these links.
Ryke 17 Aug, 2022 @ 10:25am 
Thanks for the resources, I think probably the most important thing this game could use is better ways to get beginners into the game. I would also recommend Michael Redmond's YouTube videos which includes both beginner's guides and some content (full games, tsumego) that would probably interest advanced players. https://www.youtube.com/c/MichaelRedmondsGoTV

Even for basic stuff that I figured out on my own, sometimes having it explained by another real person helps to understand it better, and use it better in actual play.