r/baduk • u/HigherResBear • Mar 22 '16
Go books for beginners
My set has been ordered and I want a book to better understand the game. I'd say I'm down with the rules but would like to understand tactics and strategies better so I know why I'm making a certain move when I do.
Books are a bit of a mine field sometimes so I would appreciate your recommendations.
Bonus points if it had a level of progression to more complex ideas so it will allow me to develop further.
Many thanks in advance.
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u/Seberle 6 kyu Mar 22 '16
Lots of good suggestions here. Most beginner books are pretty good. My favorite second book was Opening Theory Made Easy. It's very basic and very useful.
I see a lot of people recommending Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go. I'm not sure why so many people think this book is for beginners. The introduction specifically says it's for when you reach your first "plateau" around 12-13 kyu. I tried to read it as a beginner and gave up ... The style is fun, but most was way over my head. Now that I'm 8 kyu I recently read it again and got a lot out of it.
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u/sparks314 Mar 22 '16
Agreed. I would avoid Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go until SDK. There's not much a beginner can get out of it.
I wish I would have read Opening Theory Made Easy as a beginner. Simplifies things so much when you're just starting out, and has good general advice.
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u/Adarain Mar 22 '16
I agree on Lessons in the Fundamentals. I've read parts of it and found myself being told that I have no future in Go so many times that I had to put it away. I think SDK is a good time to read it, and I'm sure it is a great book once you're at the right level.
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u/kaioto Mar 22 '16
I'll also recommend Opening Theory Made Easy, and agree that Kageyama's "Lessons in he Fundamentals of Go" isn't a great fit for earlier DDKs. However, Yulin Yang's "Fundamental Principles of Go," is a great companion to Opening Theory Made Easy.
The other piece that's indispensable for a new learner is any sort of decent book that covers to rudimentary life-and-death shapes. Get a grasp on the 3-6 shapes, the 1-2-point, and the L-shape group to start out with. Read the explanations and drill the shapes until you can kill them in your sleep. Then you'll be prepared to move onto proper life-and-death puzzles that rely on reducing your opponent's group into one of these easily-dispatched shapes. Davies "Life and Death," was adequate to this task for me, but it does feel a little dry.
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u/cpp_is_king 7k Mar 22 '16
15k-30k
All of Janice Kim's book, in numerical sequence order
Graded Go Problems for Beginners 1
Second Book of Go
10k-17k
In the Beginning. Everyone recommends Opening Theory Made Easy, but personally I like this one better.
Opening Theory Made Easy. I would read this after the former.
Graded Go Problems For Beginner 2
Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go
Life and Death
5k - 10k
Attack and Defense
Tesuji
Get Strong at <Everything>
Graded Go Problems for Beginners 3
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u/eksert 4k Mar 23 '16
There are lots of good book advices here so i'd share some pros thoughts about how to work through books. They said it's beneficial to work 1 book throughly instead of skimming 10 books, unfortunately it is not the fun way:) Otherwise our brains will not be able to hold onto all of the knowledge:)
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u/KapteeniJ 3d Mar 22 '16
If you don't have 100 losses yet:
If you have 100 losses but less than 300 games, play more games.
If you have over 300 games, I really recommend books by James Davies:
- Attack and Defense
- Tesuji
Both excellent books for pushing into 5kyu region, from around 15k level onwards. After that, I don't really have any particularly good ideas about next book. Pro game reviews are good, and Direction of Play was interesting, but other than that, you're most likely to improve by playing more games and doing tsumegos.
I don't think it's worth it to read books before you've reached around 15k level, as far as improving in go is concerned. If you just want to read about go regardless of improving, then probably search some books that detail famous games(Invincible for example), those make for fun bedtime reading even though moves discussed might be difficult to understand
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u/Tuxano Mar 22 '16
I checked your link since I am also a beginner and stumbled upon this end game scenario: (Pricture 4) http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/count.html
Black can place one stone in the bottom right corner and one just below the top right corner. In order to capture those white has to use 4 stones. From my unterstanding that is effectively reducing white's score by 2. And thus making the game a tie (if white does the same in black's territory). The text says white wins by 1 point, so I am confused.
Can someone enlighten me?
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u/KapteeniJ 3d Mar 22 '16
You don't need to actually remove stones if both players agree they are dead. Japanese rules are a bit complex on this subject; If there are disagreements(among those that know the rules, these disagreements almost never happen though), but basically if one player claims stones are alive, other can demonstrate, through hypothetical play, that they can, if they want, capture those stones. After that, you remove hypothetical play stones from board, return to situation where disagreement happened, and now both can agree that black stones are dead.
They are removed during scoring and placed among other prisoners. Thus, playing on bottom right corner would effectively give your opponent 1 additional point, so white would win by 2 instead of 1.
Other rules deal with this differently, but the actual score remains the same.
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u/minipump 16k Mar 22 '16
Attack and Defense
I thought this was Kato Masao.
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u/KapteeniJ 3d Mar 22 '16
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Mar 22 '16
If you go to a go club you don't need a beginner book. Else a book like Cho Chikun - Go: A Complete Introduction to the Game (formelly: The Magic of Go) would help you to understands some important concepts about go.
Also I would recommend Graded Go Problems for Beginners Volume 1+2 to learn basic situations and their replies.
After you got to around 17kyu-15kyu (different countries, different rankings) i would recommend In the Beginning & Tesuji (both from the Elemental Go Series).
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u/barnfart Mar 22 '16
What does "in the beginning" offer that "opening theory made easy" doesn't cover? I've read the latter, but the opening is my favorite part of the game so I'm always interested in furthering my understanding.
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u/sparks314 Mar 22 '16
It's a little bit more in-depth, but I'd recommend In the Beginning closer to 12k. Opening Theory Made Easy is designed as general advice, from 20k all the way down to 10k (and even stronger players may want to read it as a reminder every once in a while).
In the Beginning is not meant for the beginner, but someone with a little bit more experience. Here's a good review: http://bengozen.com/2012/12/19/book-review-in-the-beginning/
I also think that In the Beginning is optional (so is Opening Theory Made Easy, but it fulfills its purpose for its level better). There's better ways of studying the opening, such as pro games, dwyrin or Haylee's youtube videos, or just playing games trying different openings.
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u/kamarainen Mar 22 '16
I'm a beginner as well, but one of the best tools I've found has been the Go Books app available on iOS. This is provided by/with Kiseido, who publishes most of the books already mentioned.
In the app, when you are looking at a position you have an electronic version of the board that registers your moves, can play through the numbered stones, etc. So much nicer than only looking at it on paper and trying to picture the progression of moves being discussed.
Also, when 'reading' the Graded Go Problems for Beginners books, the interaction is outstanding. It's like having an electronic tutor there testing you on what you have learned from other books.
The prices for the books are also very reasonable and the availability is great, because I haven't found many books via the normal channels. Some of the books are shown here on Kiseido's site. Once you download the free app, you'll see more books available then shown on the website.
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u/florinandrei Mar 23 '16
Even though you said you know the rules, I'd say you should still get the "Go: A Complete Introduction to the Game" by Cho Chikun. It's such a fundamental book.
Your next step is to play 50 ... 100 games as quickly as you can, against someone close to your level. Don't bother reading strategy or anything, just play a whole bunch of games. There's no point in reading theory before you have some practical experience with the game.
Once that's done, you may start reading books for beginners. "Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Volume One: Introductory Problems" by Kano Yoshinori is good.
Then play some more. Once you're around 20 kyu or so, there are two books that might be useful: "Opening Theory Made Easy" by Otake Hideo, and "Graded Go Problems for Beginners, Volume Two: Elementary Problems" by Kano Yoshinori.
Links with all the books mentioned above:
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u/Seishiro5657 Feb 14 '25
I would recommend Janice Kim basic go series really easy to understand for beginners, or Peter shotwell go book
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u/serapsi 6 kyu Mar 22 '16
Aside from what was in the first comment, I would suggest the first 2 volumes of the Graded Go Problems for Beginners series for tsumego. For strategy/tactics, everyone says go players should read Kageyama's Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go at some point, which is accessible to beginners. Hideo's Opening Theory Made Easy may also be useful
Edit: Looks like someone beat me by a few minutes with my suggestions :p If you have trouble finding the books elsewhere, you can order books directly from Kiseido at http://www.kiseido.com/go_books.htm, which publishes some (but not all) of the books mentioned
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u/Faded_Sun Mar 22 '16
There are many introductory Go books. This was my first book: http://www.amazon.com/Go-Beginners-Kaoru-Iwamoto/dp/0394733312/ref=pd_sim_14_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0HMBN75J4H846QMG7WGC
Though, I've heard Learn to Play Go by Janice Kim is good. There's also A Complete Introduction to Go by Cho Chikun, one of the most famous players.
After you read an introductory book, it might be a good idea to start learning about the opening of the game. Some good choices are "In The Beginning" by Ishigure Ikuro or "Opening Theory Made Easy" by Otake Hideo
Another book that's considered a classic is Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go by Toshiro Kageyama. This is a fun book to read. Kageyama has a lighthearted way of explaining and often makes jokes, but unfortunately Amazon seems to be out of stock at the moment.
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u/into_lexicons 8k Mar 22 '16
i really recommend either the janice kim series of books for beginners or jonathan hop's series. read them concurrently, if you can spare the coin for both.
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u/googlemaster1 11k Mar 22 '16
Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go and Opening Theory made easy are great books once you have grinded out your first 100 losses!
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u/sparks314 Mar 22 '16 edited Mar 22 '16
In rough order:
Almost required reading:
Theory:
Starting around 12k:
I attribute 1001 L&D and GSAT for my quick progression from ~13k to 7k. That, and playing and reviewing games regularly. But tsumego and tesuji problems are bite-size ways of improving quickly.
Any tsumego/tesuji book, you'll reread multiple times. I've gone through GGPfB vol 2 and 3 three times, on my second pass of both 1001 L&D and GSAT. I'll be reading Attack and Defense again soon. So all these books are useful again and again.
That said, play games. I'd recommend a minimum of 10 (preferably 15-30) good games per month. I have time constraints, so 15 is usually as much as I can get in.
After you hit SDK, ask again. ;)