What is Go?
Written by the author of this site — a Chinese amateur 4-dan and a certified referee of the Chinese Go Association, playing since the age of four, though not studying the game seriously since school. This page is my own background on the game. It is not information from Canberra Go Club, I have never visited the club, and the club has not reviewed or endorsed any of this.
The game itself
Two players take turns placing black and white stones on the intersections of a 19×19 grid. Stones do not move once placed. Surround an area and it is your territory; surround your opponent's stones completely and they come off the board. Whoever holds more territory at the end has won.
The rules take about five minutes to explain, which is the whole appeal — the difficulty is not in learning what you may do, it is in judging which of the hundreds of legal moves is any good.
How strength is measured
Amateur players are ranked in kyu and dan grades. Kyu grades count downwards as you improve, so 20 kyu is a near-beginner and 1 kyu is strong. Above that, dan grades count upwards. One grade of difference is roughly one free move.
Why a beginner can play a strong player
This is the part I would most want a newcomer to know. Go has a handicap system that actually works: the weaker player begins with extra stones already on the board, one for roughly each grade between the two players. Both sides then play seriously, and either can win. A game between a beginner and a much stronger player is a real game rather than a demonstration — which is unusual, and is a large part of why the game travels so well between people of different strength.
What a club afternoon is generally like
General background, not a description of this club — I have not been to this one. "A Go club afternoon" is hard to picture if you have never seen one, so here is the shape one usually takes, at Go clubs broadly. For what happens at this one, the authorities are the club's own page and its Discord, not me.
It is usually less organised than people expect, and that is rather the point. There tends to be no programme: people arrive, find somebody who is free, agree a game and play it. Strength gets sorted out at the start rather than tiptoed around — the two players compare ranks, settle on a handicap, and get a properly contested game instead of a polite mismatch.
Beginners are often started on a smaller board, 9×9 or 13×13 rather than the full 19×19. A small board gives you capturing and fighting within a few minutes, which is the part that makes somebody want a second game. The full board can wait.
The habit most worth knowing about is the review. When a game finishes, the two players will often put the stones back on the board and play it through again, arguing about where it turned. A beginner who sits in on a strong pair's review tends to learn faster than one who only plays their own games — and watching somebody else's game in progress is normal at a Go club, not rude.
Playing between Saturdays
Go is widely played online, and OGS is one of the better-known places to do it. Playing online is a reasonable way to learn the shape of the game, though it is a poor substitute for sitting across a board from someone who can tell you what you just did.