- Go: a Complete Introduction to the Game (Beginner and Elementary Go Books)

The book is a great introduction but the copy I recieved was a Xerox copy of the orignal book sold to me by Repro books.I paid 1800 rupees and felt so cheated . How are they still doing this even today?

Wonderful book incorporating both the introductory fundamentals of Go, as well as fascinating insights to its impact on history.

If you are interested in Go, this is a good read! amazon shipped this book to me in 3 days.

Cho Chikun's little book is an excellent introduction to this game. No prior knowledge is assumed, and he takes the reader through the basic concepts of the game, step by step. There are many diagrams, so you can reproduce the moves. The first chapter includes a very simple game on a 9 x 9 board, to give you an idea of how Go "works". Other chapters introduce us to "Capturing Stones", "Eyes and Living Groups", "Linking up Stones", etc. By the way, you can mark off a section of a full-size board, to play a 9 X 9 game, or you can make your own. Chapter Nine takes us through a nine stone handicap game, played by two amateurs. Chapter Eleven takes us through one of the author's professional games, (on a full size board.) His commentary is very instructive. Finally, inbetween each chapter Cho Chikun has inserted a short essay on various aspects of the game. Thus, one is entitled "The Origins of Go." Others include "The Development of Go in Japan," "Go Around the World," "Go Equipment," etc. My book came from a US seller: delivery was very prompt

I have tried several beginner books, some better than others, and some really good, however, this book by Cho Chikun trumps them all. The reason is that it has real clear explanation of the concepts needed to play the game while at the same time giving you enough complexity to challenge you to take that next step towards improving. The author teaches the basics of the game using a real game example. This can be challenging, since I have seen cases when it gets a little too complicated and the beginner may feel overwhelmed. This is the main flaw I have seen in the beginner book Go for Beginners by Iwamoto. The reason why it works better in Chikun's case is that he starts nice and slow with a 9x9 game that has very little action, so he can focus first on explaining territory without the complexities on fighting, and then little by little he adds the other elements. He blends well the game examples with explanations on capturing, ko, etc. My favorite beginner book before I read this one was Learn to Play Go: A Master's Guide to the Ultimate Game (Volume I) (Learn to Play Go Series) , and the reason why the Chikun's book is better is that even though both have very clear explanations for the beginner, Chikun goes a little farther. He gives us the simple concept and then little by little introduces more complex ones. Always making sure not to go over the top like Iwamoto does. In between chapters dealing with aspects of the game, the author spends some time to talk about the origins of Go, the status of the game in different countries and continents and other interesting tidbits. These are truly great, even though the parts that have to do with specific professional players are outdated since the book was published in 1997. I really think that this is the best option for beginners out there and that it gives the readers the best bang for the buck. If you are interested in learning to play this wonderful game you can't go wrong with this book.

This book is a fantastic introduction to Go. I especially love the history chapters put between lesson chapters. They provide interesting background while giving the brain a short break before the next “lesson”. There are also useful book suggestions for further studies. I can’t recommend this enough.