Video Tutorial for the Game of Go - Part I, Overview (WeiQi, Baduk)
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
- Part 1 introduces the game of Go to anyone who is curious about it. Parts 2 and 3 add details for people who plan to take up the game.
Hope you enjoy the tutorials!
The rules seem so simple, but those last couple of minutes quickly became mind boggling. I'll have to watch this a few more times before I'm ready for part 2.
+wcsxwcsx it get easier my friend, I hope you kept at it
afa
I always get amazed when someone gets this totaly amazing tutorial, and has the perfect voice, perfect tempo, perfect volym, and yea kinda everything perfect.
This is the very best breakdown i've heard thus far.Thank you for taking the time out to make it.To reveal the essence of the game as you have.
I have known of this game for decades because of cultural references. But I never took the time to learn it until now. My first attempts were to read some basic instructions online. They were fine but it was still a little unclear to me. Knowing that you can learn ANYTHING on RUclips, I searched for some tutorials. This one is the best so far!! You have done a great job.
BTW, I was inspired to learn more because of The Art Of War documentary on The History Channel. Ref: Go vs. Chess
Thanks for the tutorial. I tried to learn the game 10 years ago, but didn't have a teacher that could explain it this clearly. Never knew the game was about balance, not capture.
My girlfriend bought Go a couple months ago. It was just kinda sitting there until I finally decided I wanted to try and learn it today. Your video has been the most useful one I have seen so far on youtube. Good job!
Thanks for the clear video. I did watch some other beginners videos as well but this one was definitely the best. I think the reason that some people struggle to understand is that it is not clear to them that the edges and corners of the board count as well. Their lack of liberties make that a stone or group can be caught. To a layman the stones don't look surrounded at all. This should be emphasised more and more often if a beginner wants to understand.
By FAR the BEST Go tutorial on RUclips. Most excellent. Thank you for making this. I send all my friends to this video for an intro to Go.
Thank you so much for the tutorials! I got Go as a Christmas gift, and after reading through the rules several times I was a bit confused with just about everything. Looks amazing! Good job!
this is a great review that clearly goes over the rules of go from the very begining, possibly the best starter for beginers on youtube
It makes me so happy that people still have an interest with go, i wanna make a high scool go club and we can have competions just like them, i love go and really wanna learn how to play it
Thank you for introducing me to the amazing world of Go! This is the beginning of a new time for me.
I've learned the basics from a website but didn't understand most of what was going on when I started playing against the computer. I didn't understand why I was losing etc but after watching your video, I have a better understanding now! Thank you so much!
This is excellent and I'm showing this series to my friends. I also recommend the book "Learn to Play Go" ... 5 in the series. Play several games after reading each; they cover the whole game incrementally, rather than fully covering each part. So the first book grazes opening, capturing, ending, etc; the second covers the same stuff, but with more strategies and more depth.
@TheSdem The four arts of the scholar are:
- Qín (a musical insstrument akin to a guitar)
- Qí (The Game of Go)
- Shū (The art of Chinese calligraphy)
- Huà (Chinese painting)
its a slight mistake in the video, they are the Four arts of The Scholar, I think the poster has slightly confused his terminology with "The Four Treasures of the Study" (Brush, Ink, Paper and Stone)
That's one of the great things, though: there are a great many levels of understanding. Every game, or every study session, gives you a little more understanding, and your next game is a little better. Each game brings a fun challenge and new insights, no matter what level you're at. Keep at it, and enjoy!
Nicely done. Concise, accurate, and pleasantly put.
Fantastic introduction. Concise and eloquently presented, superb job on this.
Yes Yes thank you very much this video is just the thing i needed before i start my trek in understanding and mastering this game see you in 90 years where i will be world champion
Very solid intro to the game. It gave some clear perspective. Kudos!
Thank you I understood this more than any other youtube video, I played a couple games of go and resigned because i knew i couldnt win and dad took my laptop away, i was so confused in the game, i love the intensity of the game and hikaru no go taught me about the game and it looked fun, so much that i wanna be as good as Akira Toya
the star points do have a purpose other than to orient you on the board they are use in conjunction with a handicap. when a handicap or "Furin" is used they are played on the star points or spiritual points as they were called, and their purpose is to lvl the playing field when playing against a much stronger opponent.
Your video explanations are just so great and clear, thank you !!
Great explanation! been looking for something like this to clear up some stuff - nailed it!
Thank you for this great Go Tutorial. I’ve founded a Go group in the North German village I live in and will send the members here. I just wish you’d upload more of your good lessons here :-)
Tom
this game is EXTREMELY hard to learn, but these videos are also EXTREMELY helpful
Why is this not the FIRST video on explaining go? It's clearly the best, the best rated, the most comprehensive, and the most current (read: not from 1996)?
i owe to this tutorial that i learned by myself to play go. now i'm sdk, just wanted to come back and say thank you
Over a year ago I came here to learn the rules for what would be my favorite game. Looking through the comment section, I am reminded that many people, including myself back at the time, have a hard time understanding how a few stones are "dead".
When teaching someone new, I need to emphasize that if there is disagreement on what stones are dead, the game can just resume. I forget how abstract even the "simple" parts of this game can be.
Thank you for the time you put into this series :)
Thank you this.
Just bought a go set, really glad i found this video
excellent video. i learned alot, and i liked the introduccion you provide with the history of the game. i am definately going to watch your other videos. thanks for this video. i am in mexico, and i can't find the game anywhere, or people who know of it. but i will start teaching some friends. the vision is to spread the game, i feel that the virtues of balance and judgement can use some re-enforcement in my country. i think of it as my grain of sand. thank you once again.
Hikaru No Go brought me here :)
a great tutorial! i understood it pretty well, thank you VERY MUCH!!
I started watching hikaru no go again and it made me want to try seems like a very good way to strengthen the mind thank you for the tutorial
Not very oftin nowadays can you find a board game where the ENTIRE "fun" of it come from the strategy alone. I'm glad this game has stayed as popular as it is and definitely might look into it.
THANK YOU I was loking all over for how to play go
Amazon has a pretty good selection, starting with some inexpensive sets. For a broader range of selections, you might start with Yellow Mountain Imports.
Watching this video because of: A. I just randomly found it, B. It does a better job at explaining the game in 8 minutes than most youtubers do in half an hour, C. I systematically found this video by watching all of the beginner videos until I found one that wasn't total crap, D. All of the above, E. Answers B and C, F. Answer E but not B or C, or G. Answer G.
A Beautiful Mind brought me hear!!!
A summary of the four arts can be seen at Wikipedia by searching "Four Arts." They boil down to: Go, music, calligraphy and painting.
A "full" set of stones is generally considered to be 181 black and 180 white - but this is something of a theoretical maximum because that lets you have a stone on every point on a full-size board. In any real game there are going to be a number of unoccupied points so 160 should be fine in practice. If you go over that, it probably means that there were a lot of captures and in a pinch you can reuse the prisoners (just keep track of how many were put back in play!) Happy go-ing!
This is why RUclips is awesome sometimes...
A very complicated game, but it could be really neat if you know how to play.
I might have to learn it in the future!
@marjan15 I didn't look real close at the transcript of the game that this example came from... but presumably there was a black stone at the 2-4 point in the lower-left corner, which white captured and then connected in that spot. That corner doesn't make much sense otherwise.
Great video!
I do have a couple of objections though. I disagree with your assertion that balance is the object of the game. The object is to secure more territory than your opponent. Balance is important, but it isn't "the object" of the game.
Also, you've probably noticed that black needs to play another stone in the example at 6:30, giving him one less point. I realize that a newer player may not notice this, but I feel it's important to have examples which are correct.
Nice work overall.
Great videos and all. But I have a question i would love answered quickly. Say for example that black has a straight row of stones from one end of the board to the other. This wall is in the middle of the board. How do you decide what side of the "wall" is his/her territory?
Thanks for these vids, this game seem like alot of fun, so I'lll order a board, instead of having something like chess, to play with guests, also I would love to learn shogi, I have only read about that game, and it's rules, and it looks really fun, and you can see how alot of classic rpg-strategy has been inspired by it.
Anyways awesome vids!
You forgot to mention that once you start playing, you're addicted to it for life xP.
@Kroatek In a nutshell, Chinese counts everything you occupy on the board - stones and surrounded territory - and ignores prisoners. Japanese counts territory + prisoners. These obviously don't come out to the same number, but the *difference* between black and white will be the same (or sometimes + or - 1). After all, you've both had the same number of turns, so the total number of stones involved is the same - Chinese counts the ones ON the board, Japanese the ones off the board.
I've already played my first two games just now but this is very helpful.
@hydrosbon This is an interesting point. When we study life and death, the discussion is in absolute terms - this group is alive, that group is dead. But in a game it often boils down to the skill of one player to save a group relative to the opponent's ability to kill it. When in doubt, play it out - either the group will get captured or not.
As you get better at reading out eye shape, you'll become more confident in telling whether a group is alive or dead.
Mastering life & death takes a few years, if one is taking about top level proficiency, but the principle behind L&D is simple.Life & death is actually an "emergent property" of the 2nd rule of Go: liberties & capture. (The others are the 1st rule, placement, and the 3rd rule, uninterrupted consecutive capture, otherwise known as ko.) In other words, life & death grows out of the 2nd rule. Basically, life & death is knowing whether a group of stone chains can be captured or not. The relationship between both is that territory is defined as part of the board that is controlled by one side unconditionally, as indicated by stone chains that cannot be legally captured. Otherwise, if the stone chains can be captured and so removed from the board, then it is territory for the capturing side. In Go, capturing stones is a secondary consideration; securing life and growth for one's own groups of stone chains is the primary consideration and sometimes it is necessary to do the former to satisfy the latter.To be brief, after the position has been finalized, is it subject to capture or not? If yes, then it's dead. If not, then it's alive. Verify for yourself that nothing can be done to change the position before asking the question.
The importance of 2 *solid* eyes in Go is that a group, even when surrounded on the outside completely by an unbreakable stone chain of the opposite color, can remain on the board as long as a minimum of 2 liberties are always available; as we know from the 2nd rule, a stone must have at least 1 liberty remaining in order to remain on the board. Against a group with 2 solid eyes, the opponent cannot play inside either eye has the group under attack will still have at least 1 liberty available, while the attacking stone has 0 liberties. The only way such a group can be captured is if the side with the 2-eye group is stupid enough to fill in one of them, thus reducing that group's available liberties to just 1 and so making it subject to capture.Often, a position is not "matured" (its status finalized) and so one has to find a line of play that leads to a desired result, whether to secure life for one's own group (that is, make it impossible to capture legally) or to kill the opponent's group (that is, make it subject to capture at any time).
@innkrebel I'm glad you liked it. You're basically right about both sides of killing your own group. In virtually every case this is a nonsense move and most rulesets disallow it. But you're also right that it doesn't have to be illegal, and in fact the Korean rules allow it; it turns out that if it is allowed then there are a few corner cases where it makes some sense - in some unusual cases you can actually get an extra ko threat from killing your own group (see part II about ko threats).
Good point, thanks. I'll add an annotation to that effect.
This is a great tutorial, no question about it. However, you say that the game is not about capturing stones. This is a bit simplistic, in my opinion. It is certainly true that one should emphasize balance when playing, as in building territory, connecting loose groups, etc. But when you see a good chance to capture a lot of enemy stones, there is nothing wrong in really going for it. This is especially true for newer players, as defending can get pretty complicated.
I am so excited. Thank god my brother is a pro, I have someone to play with me.
Excellent tutorial
Hi, pijuan! References to Go from ~2500 years ago indicate that it was well-established even then. Chess is a relative pup at only ~500 years old. Even if you include the predecessors of chess it only goes back ~1500 years. Wiki can fill in the details.
@Kroatek Go came to the West mainly through Japan; in my experience you see Japanese counting more often. Also, in the US the AGA tournament rules use a variation on the Japanese method. If you want to use Chinese just make sure that you and your opponent agree beforehand. Oh, and if y'all rearrange the stones to make counting easier, make sure your opponent does it right - many people play mostly online nowadays, and they often don't know the right way to do this.
@iloveyou8770 When you ask questions like that, I can tell you're going to love this game. For some resources to start with, see the end of Part II of the tutorial. I especially recommend working through both halves of Bruce Wilcox's Go Dojo.
Nice! Easy to understand. Thank you!
Very clear tutorial. Thank you.
@ryosukekaneshiro Thanks for the input. Actually, both are correct - with "judgment" generally listed as preferred. There is a real typo in Part II, though. Makes you wish YT let you edit your videos...
He oo
Impresive tutorial , Easy to learn !! could i translate your tutorial to another language?
The board game Gungi from Hunter x Hunter reminds of Go.
its more like chess or shogi than go
Excelent video, excelent work, thanks for the information
i just started playing this and i love it.. still i have to save for board game, i still play on internet vs computer atm wich suck...
Awhh thank you!! I tried playing it, It wasn't as hard as I thought I kinda like it I just need practice *^^* Thank you for the reply! Made me feel much better I needed that
I am a new player and would like to learn from a windows program one on one what recommendations are out there for a download?
thank you, great tutorial and very well paced =)
@GoshawkHeron Hmmm.. I think I got it.
wich one is the most regulary used?
is one easier than the other? I kinda like the chinese one but im not sure wich one to use.
Hard to say. I love it when people make their own equipment, so if you have the skills then certainly go for it. However, Amazon has some full sets for $20-30; they won't be the best aesthetically but will get you by until you can get what you want. Besides, most people nowadays do much of their play online, so you may find a physical board to be largely optional for a while.
The rules are very simple
An excellent video!
Awesome explanation
great vid, very clear. Thanks!
Hello, what is the Go program you use?
Great Introduction! Thanks!
this series is nice but it would be better for more videos
Thank you for making this.
The martial arts movie "The Divine Move" brought me here 😎
Andrew Matos my nigga lmao! Yeah same here I saw that movie on Netflix. I watch a lot of Korean movies and the divine move is actually interesting movie. It made me want to learn how to play it.
Thank god for this!!
i just downloaded online go, gunna try to learn it, it seems interesting
This is a great video, Thank you!
This was VERY interesting.
at 5:34 how can black put a stone there? it doesn't capture, so there are no liberties? or do only opposite stones take away liberties?
This move would make no sense in actual play; it's only shown to illustrate that Black has no way out. But it is a legal move - before that, Black has two liberties, one on either side of the white stone. Black's move does, indeed take away one liberty, but both Black and the single White stone still live due to the remaining liberty on the other side.
@nossmax The visuals of the boards are just a series of screenshots (tedious, but the only way I could get enough control over the outcome). The audio was recorded separately, and the final video was stitched together using Windows MovieMaker.
actually the points do have meaning when a player is significantly better than the other the black (the less experienced) can put stones on the 4 outermost points as a handicap
Can you please tell me the differences between Chess and Go/Weiqi, and which one is harder, I keep hearing from players who dont play the games, that one is harder than the other, and my friend who Plays Chess(doesnt play Go) mocks Go, and says its easier? Hes never played, so in your opiniion which one is harder to play? Does it depend on the player?
Thank you, this is very helpful.
ok, Iv read alot on the rules and territory, capturing and making eyes. but my problem is, when playing a game im so confused, i need someone to tell me when they move somewhere, why they moved there, like since its about claiming all the places on the bored. how do you start? you can just keep going in a strait line till you caim an area right?
Came here because of "The Surrounding Game." Would love to learn and plan on doing so. At 7:07 can someone explain why white has 1 prisoner in that game? Probably very obvious but I don't see it. Thanks.
It happended during the game
nice job i love go
@Jasonp49 For online, I think most people find KGS (gokgs.com) the easiest to start with, but there some others as well. For local play, you might start with checking the list of American Go Assn. chapters; that will at least get you connected with someone local. Happy go-ing!
Thanks for the tutorial!
Muy buen video
I still dont quite get it with the dead stones at the end. Do they count as prisoners then and does the area they once occupied also count? cause it seems, if black would have to play it out, he/she would get fewer points as he'd have to reduce the territory in order to caputre the stones..
so, what am I missing?
@phalluses Just swap some captured stones between players (as long as the trade is even; e.g., "you give me 10, i give you 10") if someone starts running out of stones, this is easy and the relative difference between the two sides' scores won't change after doing this so this won't affect the outcome of the game at all (e.g., trading 10 stones each would mean you each lose 10 points in captured stones, but if you would have lead by 5 points to begin with you'll still lead by 5 after the trade)
What are the other 3 things that the Chinese considered important to cultivate?
I believe poem, literature, music and chess
琴 The Guqin instrument , 棋 the go game, 书 books (history and literature), 画 painting
+Sudev Sen Here is the Wikipedia page for them: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_arts
Yes, the stones count as prisoners and the points they're on count as territory.
While it's OK to concede your stones to be dead, if you want to claim that they're alive you need to prove it by finishing the group, with space for two eyes. In fact, Black couldn't even "concede" that the stones are alive; there's no way to count territory until it's finished. So White needs to move there next, and if it eventually fails then he's given up one extra prisoner for every space Black had to fill in.
4:50 black is not UNCONDITIONALLY alive. It is possible for black to be captured if black is stupid enough to place one of it's own stones in one of the spaces, white can then place in the final one and capture. I only know this because I stupidly do it all the time against the computer.
Phil V however, if you already make the 2 eyes just like that black stones player, and you leave it as it is, nothing can be done by white stones player to take out the black stones.
@Jasonp49 ru able to read chinese? There are quite a lot of chinese sites for go lol