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Learn to play Go

online-go.com

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Re: Learn to play Go

#51

Post by tasuki »

szopa wrote: post #31

I first learned to play Go back in university, but never got very good (it was competing with learning how to program). Many years later, shortly after the war in Ukraine started, I was looking for an activity to share with my 8-year-old son. Life was chaotic then: everyone was anxious, we were hosting a refugee lady, and I could see the stress taking a toll on him. I wanted something where it would be clear we shoul…

> [...] spend our vacations at Go summer camp. The camp is actually a magical event.

I look forward to it the whole year. I've been going there for the past 20 years and been the main organizer the last 10 years. The magic happens by itself though.

Re: Learn to play Go

#52

Post by rplnt »

tomaskafka wrote: post #50

I apologize to hijack this a bit, but do you know of similarly accessible resources about chess? So far the stuff I found online is either nerdy or explaining the basic moves to the children.

Not really an answer, as I only tried it once, but there's a Chess course on Duolingo now. You can skip the very basic lessons and then it seemed to focus on positioning in openings.

Re: Learn to play Go

#53

Post by iberator »

szopa wrote: post #31

I first learned to play Go back in university, but never got very good (it was competing with learning how to program). Many years later, shortly after the war in Ukraine started, I was looking for an activity to share with my 8-year-old son. Life was chaotic then: everyone was anxious, we were hosting a refugee lady, and I could see the stress taking a toll on him. I wanted something where it would be clear we shoul…

There is no such thing as Kaszuby Lake District wtf

Re: Learn to play Go

#54

Post by iberator »

bubblyworld wrote: post #17

I love Go and have played it a lot in person, but I always struggle to get games online, even on OGS. Feels like the online community is very small compared to chess (which is now my boardgame of choice, basically for this reason). Has this changed? Are there better sites now where a beginner can find matches without waiting half an hour or more?

[flagged]

Re: Learn to play Go

#55

Post by jkkola »

iberator wrote: post #53
szopa wrote: post #31

I first learned to play Go back in university, but never got very good (it was competing with learning how to program). Many years later, shortly after the war in Ukraine started, I was looking for an activity to share with my 8-year-old son. Life was chaotic then: everyone was anxious, we were hosting a refugee lady, and I could see the stress taking a toll on him. I wanted something where it would be clear we shoul…

There is no such thing as Kaszuby Lake District wtf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashubian_Lake_District

Re: Learn to play Go

#56

Post by heeton »

iberator wrote: post #54
bubblyworld wrote: post #17

I love Go and have played it a lot in person, but I always struggle to get games online, even on OGS. Feels like the online community is very small compared to chess (which is now my boardgame of choice, basically for this reason). Has this changed? Are there better sites now where a beginner can find matches without waiting half an hour or more?

[flagged]

To be clear, there are 140 active games right now. That 21k number is active “correspondence” games where moves can take a day and games can take months.

Re: Learn to play Go

#57

Post by preek »

tomaskafka wrote: post #50

I apologize to hijack this a bit, but do you know of similarly accessible resources about chess? So far the stuff I found online is either nerdy or explaining the basic moves to the children.

This is very similar for Chess: https://lichess.org/learn

Source: I am playing both Go on OGS and chess on Lichess.

Re: Learn to play Go

#58

Post by drillbit »

I learnt to play Go about 15 years ago, in university—never to a particularly high level, but it was a satisfying experience nonetheless. Much like learning to play a musical instrument, it teaches perseverance, discipline, and self-restraint while also letting you have fun. Back then there were many fewer online resources in English for learning Go. These days there's also professional-level commentary in English (Michael Redmond's youtube channel is particularly good).

There was an older guy running the local club at the university, a strong player who had a passion for teaching the game. This is in a small town in quite a remote area. I later heard he had learnt Go in the 1970s, first by reading books, then by meeting Japanese fishing crews who had come to the harbour to play. We're still friends today.

Go has many proverbs which act as rules of thumb for playing well (e.g. 'hane at the head of two stones'). IMO an underrated one is 'make friends playing Go'. As great as resources like the link are, I still prefer to play in person, over a board, for this reason.

Re: Learn to play Go

#59

Post by kawzeg »

dragontamer wrote: post #7

Unfortunately, the early moves in the game ("Joseki") are the most important. They are also the most difficult to learn. It is essential to study these tactics in this website... if only because they are the only "ground truth" known about Go. But for rapid improvement, the only real way forward is to play lots and lots of games to learn how the early game flows. Direction of play, which side of the board is most imp…

I think your valuing of moves is flawed. Yes, during the fuseki the best move may be worth 20 points. But there are often many moves that may be worth 19 or 18 points. So, playing perfectly only gains a few points compared to playing acceptable moves. In comparison, tactical situations often have a crucial move that wins many points - in low-level play swings of over a hundred points are not uncommon. There, missing the crucial move can lose the entire game, no matter how perfect the opening was played.

Re: Learn to play Go

#60

Post by swannodette »

bubblyworld wrote: post #17

I love Go and have played it a lot in person, but I always struggle to get games online, even on OGS. Feels like the online community is very small compared to chess (which is now my boardgame of choice, basically for this reason). Has this changed? Are there better sites now where a beginner can find matches without waiting half an hour or more?

It's easier to get games on Pandanet https://pandanet-igs.com/communities/pandanet and Fox Weiqi https://www.foxwq.com. You can run Fox on OS X w/ Parallels or Crossover. It supposedly possible with Wine but I could never get it to work.
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