Go/About this book

This is a beginner's guide to understanding the game of go. Its goal is to develop, explain and demonstrate the basic and foundational concepts of go. The intended audience is beginners through to the level of intermediate amateur, and will be structured using the stages of the game as a framework. The first few sections will include all the foundational concepts of the game, with examples and context to explain why they are important. The final section is split into subsections covering the opening game, middle game, and endgame, in both theory and practice. Within each section strategy will be covered first, then tactics. Strategy concerns the big picture and focuses on larger portions of the board or even the entire board. Tactics, on the other hand, focuses on the small and intricate details specific to smaller portions of the board.

The distinguishing factor of this guide is this intended goal and structure. It is intended to be concise and clear, providing a complete framework to initiate someone into the game. Other sources are more expansive and detailed, and are designed to either act as a form of Go library (for example GoBase), or a complicated discussion and analysis of concepts and principles (for example Sensei's library). There are also hard copy books in print for beginners, such as "Teach yourself Go" by Charles Matthews. Next section: Go/Basic Rules and Foundational concepts

Below is an example illustration used throughout this guide. It was created by the author using the tools on gobase.org.