Go - Life & Death

A brief intro to the rules of Go. To learn more about Go please check out these other Udacity videos:

[greenfootprint]

Before video: "I would love to play Go"
After video: "yeah nah"

[TuNguyen-kucq]

I use to play in high school, stopped at about 6k on kgs and 7k on aga. I'm extremely happy there's a renew interested in the game after alphago and hope this continues.

[WombatSteve]

You guys shouldn't be thrown off by this video! It shows a few scenarios and one special rule. If the first video was understood then it's alright.

[kush_altaccount]

As a beginner this is very confusing. But it's ok

[sethmiller]

Ah I remember sitting down on a pillow in the central room on a weekend morning playing this with my Dad. Of course I was younger then and had no idea what I was doing but no I can look back with pleasure knowing he taught me all I know about this ancient game

[hananokuni]

Life & death is an emergent property of the rule of liberties & capture. Life & death is simply determining whether a group of stones can be captured or not and determine the best line of play to achieve the desired result, in the event that the status of the stone group is undecided. If a group of stones is subject to capture at any time, it is considered to be dead. If it is immune to capture, that is, there is no legal way to capture, then it is considered to be alive.

Which is why I believe capture Go is a good way for beginners to acquaint themselves with the bare bones of Go. Some will say that capture Go is useless as a teaching tool, but one should remember that to make territory on the board, your stone groups have to be immune to capture, or the opponent will simply capture them and make into his territory that part of the board where your stones used to be. And how can you make any territory if your stones always get captured? The concept of territory is usually hard for novices to understand, but the idea of capturing stones and protecting one's own stones from capture often comes naturally and one should know how to protect groups in order to be able to play regular Go well.

[bloodmüne]

What was helpful for me was realizing 2 things: 1) all touching same-colored pieces share liberties, no matter how far away the open spaces are to the individual piece, 2) there’s an order to the resolution of playing a piece. First check if your piece eliminates its own liberties/can resolve without being captured. If it can resolve, then you check if it being placed does anything else (capture territory, etc.)

[dusaprukiyathan]

So basically, if you aren't good at the game, you won't know who wins?

[mcbrite]

If this were in Chinese, I'd have understood the exact same amount... Nothing...

[trondordoesstuff]

This video has a surprisingly low number of comments and likes. I don't really have anything to add to the conversation, just thought I'd make note of that.

[caionascimento]

Extremely obscure explanation for beginners. Could say I didn’t understand anything. Chess player here.

[reismw]

So cool, thanks!
QUESTION - on 1:23, let's supose the game ends there, who makes 3 points? Black, for surround 3 territory? Or White? For surrounding a group surrounding 3 territories?

[mejustme]

I use to play 6 grade but have forgotten so much I’m getting a board tomorrow. This video helped alot

[learner]

outstanding introduction to the game, you have explained it really well, congratulations!

[stefanleo]

It's like super a sophisticated Reversi, still playing on a 9x9 board yet can't win the basic AI

[anthonymmeek]

I would suggest redoing this video and visually explaining the hypothetical moves you mentioned (through completion/capture), then reseting everything fresh to express new examples. Good first video though

[oopsisteppedinpoo]

I think I'll stick with Cones of Dunshire.

[anniemiller]

How does this explain your philosophy of life like the AlphaGo movie says?

[Lolobobo]

This is actually really easy thank you

[DerNesor]

@2:41 is there a trick to quickly see what is "dead?