Teach Yourself Go

If you are serious about learning to play the game of go, this is an excellent first book.

Concise, understandable, and loaded with information. Includes a complete game, with commentary explaining the reasoning behind the moves. I expect I will be referring back to this book regularly.

Teach yourself Go is a nice little book that will teach you a lot with its 200 pages. I knew some Go before I started reading this book, and I think that a complete beginner may find Janice Kim's books (Learn to play Go) a bit easier to learn from. With that said, this book is still a great book to start with even if you don't know anything about Go. It's just a bit harder to read, but it also contains twice as much information as the books Janice Kim writes. Teach yourself Go covers all you need to know about Go, from rules to simple strategy, and a bit more. I felt the book was hard to read, maybe due to the layout, and that the book itself is filled with tons of info. This is a book that takes time to read. Reading isn't everything either, so you have to digest what you read, play Go, and try it all out. If you just rush trough the book, you won't get out all its potential. If you invest some time in the book, you will be rewarded. I find some of the words used in the book to be too advanced. There must be easier words to use. This might not be a problem if your english skills are a bit better than mine, and maybe you really have to use words like this to make a good explanation. Some of the sentences are also a bit awkward. After each chapter you will be met by some Go problems that will check that you understood everything in the chapter. These Go problems can be a bit tough, and some of them are actually quite hard :) On the other side, you might become strong ;)

A treasured item. It's an easy to read, well structured volume; an invaluable help in moving the reader from novice to the first steps on this life-time journey. It's nicely concise and easy to refer back to. One to keep and recommend.

I have checked out several books from the library on Go, and I found this to be one of the better introductory level books. It's not as instructive to the complete novice as Janice Kim's "Learn to Play Go: Volume 1" (an excellent series btw), but it does cover more material. This book goes over some concepts and then has problems that test you on what you've just read about. It covers a wide range of material from basic moves like nets and ladders up to an example of a complete profesional learning game on a 19X19 board.