Learn Go by Playing

Reading about Go only gets you so far. The rules make a lot more sense once you're actually placing stones. This tutorial walks through them one small idea at a time on a real board, with instant feedback on every move, and ends with a full game against the computer. It takes about 10 minutes. Prefer reading first? The rules of Go, explained simplycovers the same ground in plain text.

Lesson 1 of 6: The board — step 1 of 4

Go is played on the points where the lines cross, not in the squares between them. Place a black stone on the marked point in the middle of the board.

Need a hint?

Tap the highlighted crossing point.

What you'll learn

  1. The board: stones go on the crossing points, turns alternate, stones never move.
  2. Liberties: the open space every stone needs to survive.
  3. Capture: how a stone or a group comes off the board.
  4. Stay alive: suicide, the one exception to it, and the ko rule.
  5. Territory: surrounding empty space, and counting a finished game.
  6. Play!: a full 9x9 game against the computer, using everything above.

Who this Go tutorial is for

People who have never placed a stone, and people who half-know the rules and keep losing groups they thought were safe. You don't need to know a single Go term to start. Nothing is assumed, nothing is skipped, and you can't get stuck: if a move doesn't work, the board says why and lets you try again. There's no timer and no score, so take as long as you like on any step.

It also suits anyone who has bounced off Go before. Go is usually taught as a list of rules, which makes it sound harder than it is. Here you meet each rule at the moment it matters, on a board small enough to see all at once, which is a much easier way to learn to play Go.

Why the six lessons come in this order

Every lesson is the smallest step from the one before it. You start with the board itself because Go surprises people immediately: stones sit on the intersections, not in the squares, and once placed they never move again. Get that and the rest has somewhere to attach.

Liberties come next, because liberties are the one idea the whole game rests on. A stone's liberties are the empty points directly touching it, and that single definition explains capture, life, death, and most of what looks like intuition in a strong player's moves. Capture is then just the obvious consequence: fill the last liberty and the stones come off. Doing it yourself, on the board, is what makes it stick.

Lesson four covers staying alive. You learn that you cannot play a stone with no liberties, the one exception when that move captures something, and the ko rule that stops two players recapturing the same stone forever. Territory follows, because territory only makes sense once you know which stones will survive to hold it. The last lesson is a full 9x9 game against the computer, where you use all five ideas together with no prompts.

How long it takes

About 10 minutes for the five teaching lessons, and roughly 20 minutes more for the game at the end. Your progress is saved in your own browser, so you can close the tab after any lesson and pick up where you stopped. Nothing is sent to a server and there's no account to make.

After the tutorial

Play a few games first, then come back for the parts that only make sense once you've been confused by them in a real game. How to play Go: your first game step by step walks through a complete game from the opening move to the final count.Liberties and capture goes deeper on the idea lesson two introduces, and the ko rule explains the one rule that trips up almost everybody.Life and death covers eyes, two eyes, and why some groups can never be captured, which is the single biggest jump in beginner strength. When you want to start planning rather than reacting, readGo strategy for beginners.

Then go and play Go online against the computer on the main board. Easy is a fair fight straight out of this tutorial. The full set of written guides is inlearn to play Go.