After watching Shin Jin-seo vs Kata Go, I have mixed feelings.

Game 1 was definitely my favorite, KataGo started with a novel creative fuseki. Game 2 included a very long book joseki lasting 50 moves that favored Shin. Game 3 had simple joseki variations that naturally led to settled living groups for both sides with little fighting.

Game 2 and 3 were somewhat of a letdown because it relied so heavily on a combination of book knowledge and submissive play from the human side. In fact, it felt like the AI was being more creative than the human. White's fuseki in Game 1 was already giving a really cool feeling.

I'm a low-dan Fox player and I'm fond of the romantic style. I love making bold moves that feel like overplays, and challenging my opponent to punish. I try to win by as many points as possible, rather than just 0.5. And many of my games don't go to scoring because someone resigns.

Ever since the AI revolution, advanced Go discussion has really become heavily analytical. Moves are evaluated by their winrate rather than their fighting spirit. Frankly, I will pick an aggressive continuation over one that is submissive but has a better win-rate.

The Ear-Reddening Game, the Game of the Century, and the Sixteen Soldiers Game are all great matches that would not stand the test of AI.

Disclaimer. Obviously, the gap between non-professional and professional is wide and a pro can play any style against an amatuer who memorized an AI opening, and the pro will still win. So I'm not suggesting that AI is the only correct way for students to learn to play.

Whoever said these 25kyu bots were easy and good for beginners, you lie, I'm getting smoked lol.

So as you might guess im a beginner. And I heard the proverb of losing your first 100 Games fast many times already.

Some times when i find time to play a bit i think to myself why not just play a quick game against a Bot on OGS or on JustGo. But the more i try to learn about the game the harder i feel like bots really throw me of. Like they play what, to a beginner trying to hold on to vague opening principle, looks like outrageously bad moves in the beginning (Obviously to match their rank) but suddenly they tie it to together completely overwhelming me.

I get that im just bad this is not me being angry about losing. Its more like i try to play a principled game to get a feel for it and it just unleashes complete chaos onto me. So i lose confidence in trying to uphold those principles (like corners>sides>center, mostly 3/4th line moves etc.)

I dont really know where to go with this beyond describing my exp. I feel like it may not really equal at all the progress/learning that you get from playing a human on your skill level or someone better.

Well thats all I had to say im very interested to see what everyone thinks! Still hanging in there haha

I've been starting to learn to play go over the past few days. I have played around 20 games on AI sensei and seem to win every game against the 30kyu one, win about 75% of the time against the 29kyu one and lose every time against the 28kyu one. I use the game reviews and quizzes but feel like I have no real direction on how to actually improve.

I am a student so money is not in abundance so I'm looking to what your ideas would be for an absolute beginner to improve their skill at low cost. I just currently feel like I have heard of different resources but am struggling to know how to use them and which ones to use effectively and would appreciate a sense of direction to how to actually improve.

Any advice is greatly appreciated thank you!

Edit: to clarify this is all in 9x9

Hi all, I made a thing these last few months (10 according the commit history).

Hoshizora (starry sky, you know hoshi)

It was primarily for me to put on the TV while I do other things, as a piece of moving art¹.

It replays random professional games, one per hour, synced: meaning everyone watching the site sees the same game at the same moment.

You can also browse the game archive to watch a specific game, or tune in to another synchronized “channel.” For example, if you choose a channel containing all Honinbo games, everyone watching that channel will see the same randomly selected game at the same point.

Everyone watching the Cho Chikun games will see the same Cho Chikun game at the same move.

You can, of course, opt out of synchronization and scrub through the moves as you like.

Long pressing on the goban copies the url to that particular game so it can be shared or found again more easily.

The archive of games comes from Mr Brouwer https://homepages.cwi.nl/~aeb/go/games/games/

¹: hence the stars in the background and stuff, I spent far too long on the different woods

edit: syntax, orthograph

Algun libro que me recomienden para empezar a jugar al go (baduk ) hablo español y un poquito inglés

Hi r/baduk 👋

I'm the developer of GoKifu AI (囲碁レコAI), a Go study app for iPhone/iPad. It's become pretty popular with players in Japan — even some pros use it — and I've just opened it up worldwide, so I wanted to share it here (and bring a free month for everyone heading to the Go Congress).

🧠 Fast KataGo Analysis：

Full KataGo runs on-device — no server, no internet. Win-rate, score estimate, best moves, and variations, all offline. Perfect for planes, tournaments, or bad Wi-Fi.

📸 Scan a real board with your camera

Point your phone at a physical goban and it reads the whole position instantly — then analyze it, save it, or replay it. This is the feature people love most. (short demo below 👇)

https://reddit.com/link/1v39hjg/video/59fa5cmulqeh1/player

A few other things it does:

- Joseki & fuseki search (learn from 170,000+ pro games)

- Play against legendary Go AIs — Shusaku, Sai, and more.

- Win-rate timeline to see exactly where the game turned

- Mistake finder that flags your biggest slips

- SGF import/export & kifu recording

🎁 Free month for the U.S. Go Congress

To celebrate the Congress (Boston, Jul 25–Aug 1), here's a code for 1 month free:

Code: USGOEU2026

Redeem: https://apps.apple.com/redeem?ctx=offercodes&id=6760015698&code=USGOEU2026

(Expires Aug 10 — not available in Japan. Just open the link on your iPhone or iPad, and the offer will be applied automatically in the App Store.)

📲 Download on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6760015698

A note on availability 🙏

Not on Android or in the EU yet — Android is in active development, and I'm still sorting out the EU's publishing rules (they'd expose my home address, so I'm holding off for now). Please hang in there — it's coming, and I think you'll really like it!

Thanks for taking a look! 🙏

Also what are japanese, chinese, new zealand etc countries rules like why isn't there a standard rulebook and can someone differentiate between the rules of every country thank you very much. Edit: i am aware that they give the same result approximately, but i asked because i saw players online favoring chinese rules so i wondered what was that about

I just realized how great ogs is and I'm having a lot of fun! If you wanna join me i go by the same username on ogs, thelastnetizen.

fans of tetris will love it!

My 3 1/2 year old granddaughter is coming to stay with us for a week. I would like to begin to introduce her to Go. This question is for anyone who has taught very young kids. Do you have any suggestions for first steps. Where to begin? What to teach and when? And how to make the experience fun from the outset?

My basic initial thought is to start with just placing stones on a nine by nine board, maybe making patterns. Then taking turns. Then looking at liberties. Then letting different colored stones touch. Is this a good plan? How much can a bright child absorb?

Thanks in advance for any tips.

Finally two things I love combined. If you fold an orizuru from the game record of game 4, then move 78 appears on its back ^^

For the Go players: if you fold enough origami cranes (tsuru), you can get a wish fulfilled, not for yourself, but for someone else. My wish is that you may all find much joy in the game of Go.

For the Origami people: move 78 of game 4 is the world famous, brilliant move with which Lee Sedol won the probably last game a human grandmaster ever will have won against AI (in this case AlphaGo). The game was played in 2016. This tsuru is folded from that game record.

I was trying to play peacefully here and never ask too much, kind of like in the anime Hikaru no Go. They say Go is supposed to be a peaceful game. But before I knew it the game had turned so violent. What happened and how can I avoid this in the future? Also, why does this keep happening?

https://online-go.com/game/88986992

That game happened in the post-AI era, I think after 2019, and I was pretty sure the players were Xie Erhao 9p and Gu Zihao 9p, but I'm not sure now, I cannot seem to find it. And Go4Go is down again, so it's even more challenging to find that sort of thing.

It was a pretty iconic game for the post-AI era due to one of the sides living super small on the second line in a moyo while the whole thing being even, the sort of sequence people wouldn't think about before AI.

I don’t understand it. I regularly get caught in ladders and traps. I don’t know what territory and influence mean. I don’t know anything other than capturing. I have won 2 even games in those 5 years and I’m fairly certain one of them was someone letting me win. I really don’t know what to do from here.

https://online-go.com/game/88987116

I was reading a post here the other day about how great Chinese rules are, and I do really prefer them for 9x9. But how do you count them on a 13 or 19 board? It seems like it’s difficult to keep track of?

My wife and I have just started playing Go, and this is the end state of our first game, limiting ourselves to a 9 by 9 area.

Did we miss anything by ending here?

Good day guys

I love using this app for games.

But does anyone know of a way I can use it in English and if there is an English version of it?

Thank u all!

Hey r/baduk!

I had a thought in this increasingly LLM dominated world to get a tattoo of move 78 from Lee Sedol vs AlphaGo in game 4 of their series. I wanted to solicit opinions about how to represent it. Getting the whole board seems like it would be too large and cumbersome to be effective as a tattoo, so I am considering zooming in on the 5x5 or 7x7 region of the move.

Has anyone on the subreddit gotten a particular move as a tattoo before, and what did you consider when designing it?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Right now I casually play with Just Go on Steam (I know OGS exists, it's just intimidating and I don't get a lot of uninterrupted time for a game) and Just Go labels me as 15kyu, for context.

I understand the basic rules and Ko, but I am struggling to figure out how to "improve casually".
Go, in what media I've been able to find, as a similar problem that RTS games do. It's only shown at the higher levels of play and the analysis/concepts discussed can feel like minutiae to newer players.

So what are your suggestions for getting better without resorting to studying Tesuji or other things that take heavy time and devotion investment?

(I know this might seem silly. I do eventually want to get to that level, it just feels like skipping steps for where I'm at now and can't find anything aimed at my skill level)