Learn Go!

Learning Go from scratch

This is my own introduction — still a work in progress.

How to Play Go — The easy part: learning how to place stones and follow basic rules
How to Stop playing Go — The tricky part: knowing when the game is over
Nets and Ladders — The bread and butter of capturing stones
Life and Death — The real challenge: keeping your stones alive and capturing others
Official AGA Rules — The official rules, in case curiosity strikes

Basic Tactics - Basic captures, nets, ladders, etc.
More basic tactics - Mark5000’s Tactics Tutor – basic instincts of hane at head of two etc.
Basic Life and Death - Mark5000’s tsumego
Basic Stone development - Mark5000’s stone development

You must create an account to play.
Go to Play screen, use Quick Match finder. Turn 9x9 on and 19x19 off, and pick 3m+10s.
Challenging a friend:
- Search (last spot in top row menu)
- Type first part of their name
- Click their name
- Challenge

Traditional amatuer ranks start at 30-kyu and work up to 1-kyu. Then dan (black belt) ranks start from 1-dan and go up.
Professional players have a separate rank system 1-dan (1p) to 9-dan (9p).
Every server/organisation has very different difficulties for ranks
These assume OGS ratings. Asian servers (Fox etc) and AGA is easier, EGF harder
- 30k-20k = Beginner
- 19k-10k = Casual player
- 9k-1k = Club player
- 1d-3d = Expert
- 4d-6d = NM
- 7d+ = IM
- 1p-9p = GM