Go, Baduk, Weiqi, basic rules and fundamentals

Explore go, also called baduk or weiqi, a four-thousand-year-old game originated in ancient china and popularized by Buddhist monks for cultivating virtues such as overcoming fear, greed, and anger.

Learn how to place stones on Go intersections, count liberties, and assess move strength to capture stones through liberty control; practice linking stones to save them and master atari concepts.

Explore capture go through practical examples that teach counting liberties, handling attachments, hammer and atari ideas, and the Romeo Juliet split to attack or defend weak groups.

Explore territory in go by surrounding empty intersections to gain points, with corners offering the most efficiency, then sides, then center, while capturing requires more turns.

Explore how to count territory in go through three full games, analyzing territorial frameworks, walls, and captures, and comparing builder and fighter styles.

Learn the six basic go shapes—extension, one jump, two jump, diagonal, night move, and large knight move—that keep stones connected, boost liberties, and build opening framework.

Learn life and death in Go by analyzing unsettled three, bulky five, and the pyramid formations, and discover how players create two eyes to live and prevent suicide.

Explore the ko rule, how a capture creates a one-turn delay to prevent endless cycles, and how threats decide moves to save or kill groups in go.

Explore seki, the dual life rule in Go, where two groups share liberties and neither can kill the other, leaving neutral points at game end.

Master basic go capture techniques by studying the star capture (ponnuki), the tiger's mouth pattern, the ladder, and the net, then learn ladder breakers and peep to secure groups.