Website Review: The Interactive Way to Go

Rating: 5 / 5 Ponnuki

Synopsis:

• Presents information in a simple and easy to understand method for brand new players.
• Utilizes interactive diagrams to help reinforce what you’re learning.
• Available in 30+ languages.
• It’s FREE!!!!
• The best online tutorial available online for players!

Detailed Review:

Prior to discovering The Interactive Way to Go by Hiroki Mori, I had attempted to read various articles on the rules of go here and there; but none of them ever really made sense to me and this inevitably delayed my discovery of how incredible this game is. Fortunately for me, I eventually stumbled upon this treasure trove that allowed me to finally jump head first into the world of go.

To start, the website’s strength is in its simplicity. The technological requirements are minimal and do not require any fancy computer hardware in order to use it. As a result, one should not expect an extremely flashy website with fancy animations everywhere. In addition, it has a simple user interface that makes it easily accessible to practically any user.

In regards to its content, this is the best aspect of this site because it takes you to the ABSOLUTE basics. It takes a step-by-step approach to teach you the concepts and does a fantastic job simplifying a majority of go terminology into concise sentences that are easy to understand. In case you are not aware, the lowest go rank is considered to be 30 kyu. This rank assumes that you already have an idea of basic concepts like atari, ladders, and so forth. With this tutorial, you start out as a mere 50 kyu, so one can deduce that this tutorial spares no effort in catching you up to speed! Another aspect that I really appreciate about this website is its step-by-step approach.

Like any other good tutorial, this site does not hesitate to utilize diagrams to further illustrate its concepts. However, what makes this tutorial truly shine are the interactive problems. As if the explanations and diagrams were not already sufficient, these interactive problems are embedded into the lesson so that to further illustrate his point and reinforce what you are learning.

While it may be frustrating at times since the answers are not given, I assure you that the solutions actually exist. Whenever you get stuck, I would recommend going over the written explanation and diagrams again before using trial and error to figure out the solution.

Bottom line: The Interactive Way to Go is a top notch tutorial that every player who even has a remote interest in learning go should check out!

Last updated December 6th, 2012 (Rank: 6 kyu)