Learn to Play Go: A Master's Guide to the Ultimate Game (Volume I) Paperback – June 22, 2010

There are several beginner books out there, this one fits well those people that pretty much have never played a game and need to learn about the objective and rules of the game. People that are beginners but have already played a few games, understand about captures and basic life and death will probably be better served by going straight to Volume 2 of this series or look for a different beginner book, such as Go for Beginners.The book consists of two parts, with the first one focusing on Fundamentals and the second one on Basic Techniques. In the Fundamentals, the authors do a very nice job in explaining the basics of the game. This is why I am recommending this for people that don't even know about the rules, since here they will get a step by step explanation on the objective of the game, how play works, capturing, illegal moves, the rule about ko and counting territory at the end of a game. They use diagrams generously and even beginners won't need to grab a board in order to follow the explanations. They also do a very good job with terminology, which can be overwhelming. Thus, they use the English name for many of the terms and only in important cases revert back to the Korean or Japanese names, with a clear explanation of what they mean of course.Compared to the book by Iwamoto mentioned above, the examples here are much simpler. When explaining connecting and cutting the authors focus on the basics and stop there. At least in the Fundamentals part, when they move over to Basic Techniques there is a little deeper examination of capturing (ladders, snapbacks, throw-ins, etc.), connecting, life and death, capturing races, ko fights, and endgame. In the book by Iwamoto, the examples are much deeper and require the reader to have some experience with reading (being able to mentally calculate a sequence of moves) in order to understand some of these.I particularly liked the test questions at the end of each chapter, since these allow the reader to check and see if she understood properly the concepts that were presented. There are special sections throughout the book with additional information, such as where to play on the internet, how go rankings are defined, and many others.Those people that are brand new to the game can seriously benefit from reading this book, but those that have already some experienced will likely find it too basic and will be better served to look at the options mentioned above.

Review – Learn to Play Go: A Master's Guide to the Ultimate Game”This book is the first volume to a 5 volume set by Janice Kim and Jeong Soo-hyun, both masters of the game. It is written as an introduction to the game and is intended to enable a player to play at the most basic levels of the game Go. It succeeds very well. I do not feel ready to go out and play tournaments, but I could play simple games.The Game of Go has very simple rules. But the strategy and tactics are extremely complicated. While computers can beat the world champion chess players, they can only play the very elementary levels of Go.The book has been carefully formatted with very many board examples of the game. The writing is clear and easy to understand. The levels of complexity have been kept to a minimum, with more to come in the remaining four volumes of the series. And while deep study is needed to master the game, this book enables the English speaking American to at least start to play.After reviewing several other books on Go, I decided to try this series by Janice Kim. I am glad I chose Kim's books. This is an excellent introduction to the Game of Go. I look forward to reading and working my way through the rest of the series.

This is it, the best learner's guide to Go I've read. The explanations are clear and concise and the problems are on point and very helpful. They say that you can learn Go in 5 minutes but it takes a lifetime to master it. This book will get you started no matter how far you want to take it.

I am pleased with the introduction to the game of go that this first book in the seres gives. It is very thorough and explains in more detail than any thing i have been able to find on line including [...] and their video , interactive lessons and The Way to Go which i downloaded in pdf form from their website . I am through the first section in Learn to play go. (their are 2 sections to this book.) So far the book has taught me everything i need to know to play go as well as for giving a notated game to follow along with. Rules such as for ko (the author explained an example that looked like a ko but was not) and also scoring have been cleared up for me The second section as far as i have gotten into is geared towards teaching techniques for capturing and then connecting techniques and life and death techniques. there is a chapter on capturing races, ko fighting and ending and counting. Although these subjects were touched on in the first section they are explained in good detail and have variations .All in all, if you have been playing go on the web and just cant seem to get a win in the beginners class, I highly recommend this book. this book is meant for beginner players up to a certain strength and the next book is to start from there to a better level of playing . I recommend this book to any who would like to learn the game . There are very many examples , not a lot (but enough) of words , do it yourself puzzles at the end of each chapter. As well as pages on history , etiquette , various names etc.