Free Sample
The Complete Guide to Go
A clear-eyed look at what Go really costs, what you actually need to start, and how to know if it's the right hobby for you before you spend a dime.
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: What Is Go and Why People Love It
What Is Go and Why People Love It
Imagine clearing off a table, opening a wooden box with a satisfying click, and lifting out a board that's just over a foot square. You've got a small bowl of black stones next to you, a bowl of white stones across from your opponent, and for the next hour or so, you're going to do nothing but think and place stones. One at a time, alternating turns, on the intersections of a line grid. That's Go, in its physical form, and it's been happening essentially this way for over two thousand years.
Go is a board game, but unlike the games you played at Thanksgiving dinner, there are no dice, no cards to shuffle, no luck whatsoever. There are only two colors of stones and a board divided into a grid. Players take turns putting one stone on any empty intersection of that grid, and once placed, the stone never moves again. There's no capturing pieces by jumping over them like in checkers, no rolling to see how far you move. The entire game is about a single, elegant concept: surrounding and enclosing territory. If you can fence off more empty space on the board with your stones than your opponent does with theirs, you win.
That sounds almost too simple, and for the first couple of games, it is. On a standard 19-by-19 board, there are 361 intersections to play on.