Hello.

I'm a total beginner, I've played a dozen games but have never won a single one.

I would like to buy one or more Go book(s), on this page: http://www.variantes.com/120-livres-jeu-go-initiation
(The website is in French but all the books present on the page are in English.)

I would prefer books that are written by very strong and well-known Go players, and I would prefer books written in good English (since most Go players are Chinese, Korean or Japanese, maybe they don't speak English very well?).

So which book(s) is/are the best for complete beginners like me?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Hi Alcadeias,

My first book was "So you want to play go" and I liked that one. Its a really written in a relax style.
but it is not on the page you just posted.

Are you from France ? if so, there are also a few books here :
http://www.jeudego.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=23_24

If you speak french, like I do, I will also recomand the serie "Le Go Pas à Pas" by Fan hui.

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Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

I purchased the bundle of 4 PDFs of So You Want to Play Go 1-4, so since I had it, I read the introductory book, too. I found it very good, I definitely would recommend it to a beginner. Also, play a lot.

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

Also something that really helped me is getting comments from stronger people.

So if you have a few games, you can maybe post one on the "game analysis" section, http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4

I would say "The worse the game is, the more valuable it is"...
If you don't know how to proceed to post a game, just tell me I can give you some help for that.

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Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

I would not recommend any book just yet. Play a lot and expose yourself to lots of shapes. Once you have played at least 100 games, many of them on a full board, then you can think about buying books.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

As a complete beginner, "Cho Chikun - A Complete Introduction to the Game" is a good first book.

Another good first book is: Go! More Than a Game by Peter Shotwell. It will give you a good introduction to basic principles and also a bit of cultural background.

A good second book is ... The Second Book of Go by Richard Bozulich. This offers an overview of things to think about during a game.

Once you get the hang of things, it is useful to do some go problems, and the Graded Go Problems for Beginners series is a great place to start.

You can find a list of reviews done here on L19 here: viewtopic.php?p=45918#p45918

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Patience, grasshopper.

I would recommend either the level up series or the speed baduk series. They are systematic and pedagogical in a way no other book series really is.

Regards
Avi

Thank you all for your answers.


@oca: Yes, I'm French. But I don't want to buy books in French because I also want to improve my English, so I only read books in English.




Humm... What about these two:

- JEONG SOO-HYUN, KIM : Learn to Play Go (5 volumes)

- YANG YILUN : Fundamental Principles of Go

Has anyone read one of them?
Are they good?
Are they suitable for beginners?

There are two major considerations for you:

1) As an absolute beginner, you cannot profit too much from books for beginners beyond absolute beginner level yet because they will be too difficult for you at the moment. Therefore, currently I do not suggest you the otherwise good to very good books First Fundamentals, Lessons in the Fundamentals, Fundamental Principles, Life and Death Problems 1, Graded Go Problems for Beginners 2, Second Book of Go etc. What you currently need is books for ABSOLUTE beginners or personal advice from experienced players. So you also should not consider to read all volumes of Learn to Play Go yet, but volume 1 is enough. Our problem is that during the recent years a couple of books for absolute beginners have been published but most of us are too advanced to have read them, so we are unsure which of them to recommend and which might be dubious. One good candidate is Go Problems for Beginners 1, but also this should not be your first book, because before you need to get an idea what problem solving is at all.

2) Since you have not won your first game yet, you need a couple of very basic informations guiding you to overcome your very basic knowledge gaps. Things like "Do not always play one stone next to your others.", "Learn how to remove simple strings.", "Learn how to read ahead one, two or three moves.". You should read books teaching you this, but I do not know which of the absolute beginner books fits. Others having read absolute beginner books should know.

Do not forget to play more and ask your opponents for your major mistakes.

I own Fundamental Principles of Go (in french)
That was one of my first book, and it was a bit difficult for me at first (and still some parts are difficult at 13kyu),
but that's one of whose books that you can read serveral time, and each time you can take a bit more of it.

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Converting the book Shape UP! by Charles Matthews/Seong-June Kim
to the gobook format. last updated april 2015 - Index of shapes, p.211 / 216

Both are highly recommended.

Learn to play go is great for first books. Fundamental principles will be a bit difficult for a while.

Good luck!

Yes, play a lot of games, especially in a 9x9 board. Solve go problems... but don't buy a book yet.

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si no puedes triunfar, muere gloriosamente