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January 07, 2005

How to Play Go

So, you want to know how to play Go (also called Paduk in Korean, Weiqi in Chinese, among other names)? Go is a fun, simple game that can be addictive. Be forewarned...

... please download the rather large file here: Introduction to Go.

If you have suggestions for how to reduce the size of this PDF, by all means, feel free to send email to webmaster.

Diagrams cordially provided by David Fotland of Smart Games, the creator of Many Faces of Go

Posted by wayofgo at 12:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Elevator Speech v.1

People often ask for a quick elevator speech on the Way of Go. What is it? What does it do, in three lines or less. Here goes:

The Way of Go shows how strategy and its principles are universal across domains and that knowing the nature of these principles can help your decision-making process, think of different approaches, and lead to a more sound and complementary understanding of your strengths and weaknesses.

Posted by wayofgo at 08:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How Go is played

Simplistic version:

Played by two players, one playing black stones, the other white stones, placing a single stone at a time on unoccupied intersections of a 19x19 grid. The object to control more of the board than the opponent does. One other rule is that should a stone be choked off of friendly neighbors or have no adjacent intersections unplayed, it is removed from played or that intersection is unplayable.

Depending on the country and the year, the rules may change subtly, but the gist is the same. There are many different rule sets in existence: Japanese, Chinese, American, Korean and Taiwanese, to name a few. For a more in depth study of the rules of Go, please see the follow sites:

From the US Go Association (PDF)
More on the variety of rules
From the British Go Association
Flash Demo on more than just the rules

Alternative rule set for learning to play quickly and intuitively:
From Mindy McAdams

Posted by wayofgo at 03:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 03, 2005

Happy New Year Offer

I resolve to pay more attention to this blog this year and this site. Yes, it needs lots of help. Will get to work on it.

In the spirit of the new year, if you've bought a copy of the Way of Go, feel free to send me a game record to review (free of charge) if you play Go, or ask me for free help in getting to know more about this game!

Posted by wayofgo at 03:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack