Go positions and game records are a shared human heritage — they should be open to everyone. This is a hand-curated library of the best freely available material for studying Go (囲碁) · Baduk (바둑) · Weiqi (围棋) — sorted by topic and by strength, so you always know what to study next.
New material is exciting, but studying the wrong thing for your level is the classic way to stall. Find your row, lean into its column — and cheerfully defer the rest until later.
| Stage | You are… | 🟢 Lean into | 🟠 Not yet — defer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🌱 Beginner | ~30k–18k · just learned the rules | Rules & basics · very easy tsumego · lots of 9×9 / 13×13 · a few proverbs | Joseki memorization, fuseki theory, endgame, pro-game study — all just noise right now |
| 🌿 DDK | ~18k–10k · groups mostly live | daily graded tsumego · basic tesuji · opening principles (04) · move to 19×19 · review your losses | Joseki dictionaries · deep counting · positional judgment |
| 🍃 SDK | ~9k–1k · chasing dan | harder tsumego + tesuji daily · a few joseki with the ideas · endgame · whole games played fast · fighting · shape | grinding full joseki dictionaries · Mathematical Go · hyper-precise counting |
| 🌳 Dan | 1d and up | special shapes · positional judgment · AI-era games + study with AI · deep endgame & joseki choice | nothing's off-limits — just chase your measured weak spots over hoarding more material |
Ranges are loose on purpose — jump ahead when you're curious, drop back when you're stuck. The one habit that works at every level: a little life & death every day. Full daily routines → study-paths.md.
Folders are numbered as a rough progression — but dip in anywhere. Each has its own guide.
| # | Topic | For | # | Topic | For | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Rules & Basics | Beg | 08 | Endgame / Yose | SDK+ | |
| 02 | Life & Death ⭐ | all | 09 | Positional Judgment | Dan | |
| 03 | Tesuji | DDK+ | 10 | Whole Games ⭐ | all | |
| 04 | Opening / Fuseki | DDK+ | 11 | Handicap | DDK+ | |
| 05 | Joseki | SDK+ | 12 | Proverbs | all | |
| 06 | Shape | SDK+ | 13 | AI & Tools | all | |
| 07 | Middlegame & Fighting | SDK+ | 14 | Reference | all |
📚 books/ free & public-domain books · 🗂️ CATALOG.md everything indexed · 🧭 docs/ study paths · glossary · provenance
Housekeeping: _todo/ (e.g. tsumego photos awaiting SGF) · _inbox/ (new, unsorted drops).
⭐ Don't-miss: 422 graded problems with solutions · Kogo's Joseki Dictionary · Shape Up! · the classic masters & AlphaGo games · Cho's shape-organized life & death.
Expand the full directory map
baduk-study-material/
├─ 01-rules-basics/
├─ 02-life-and-death/ ⭐ the engine room — do a little every day
│ ├─ graded/ gogameguru-weekly (422, with solutions) · drills-pdf
│ ├─ special-shapes/ L/J-group · carpenter's square · from-joseki
│ └─ collections/ importable classic SGF · scanned books · problem-books-pdf
├─ 03-tesuji/ + booklets-pdf (Great Tesuji Encyclopedia, Segoe…)
├─ 04-opening-fuseki/
├─ 05-joseki/ Kogo's Joseki Dictionary ⭐
├─ 06-shape/ Shape Up! ⭐
├─ 07-middlegame-fighting/ invasions + fighting booklets
├─ 08-endgame-yose/ endgame booklets (Go Seigen, Sakata, Nie Weiping…)
├─ 09-positional-judgment/
├─ 10-whole-games/ ⭐ classic/ · modern/ · ai-era/ · by-tournament/ · collections/
├─ 11-handicap/
├─ 12-proverbs-principles/
├─ 13-ai-and-tools/ KataGo · KaTrain · Lizzie · how to study with AI
├─ 14-reference/ ranks · rules · glossary
├─ books/ free & public-domain (Arthur Smith 1908, Relentless…)
├─ docs/ CATALOG · study-paths · glossary · provenance
├─ _inbox/ unsorted drops
└─ _todo/ e.g. tsumego photos → SGF
| I want to… | Go to |
|---|---|
| Read deeper / stop misreading | 02 Life & Death + 03 Tesuji, a little every day |
| Fix aimless openings | 04 Fuseki + play through Shusaku |
| Stop losing won games | 08 Endgame — the most underrated points on the board |
| Survive fights | 07 Fighting + capturing-race practice |
| Make efficient shape | 06 Shape — read Shape Up! once, cover to cover |
| Understand what AI changed | 10 AI-era games + 13 study with AI |
.sgf(games & problems) — free viewers: online OGS, EidoGo · desktop Sabaki, CGoban, Drago. To analyze with AI, see 13 · AI & Tools..pdfany reader ·.tgz/.7zgame archives — extract with any unzip tool (7-Zip,tar).
Contributions are welcome — even "here's a link to a great free resource" counts; see CONTRIBUTING.md. Game records are facts and freely shared; a few community-shared items are grey and flagged ⚠ in docs/provenance.md. Hold rights to something here and want it gone? Open an issue — see LICENSE.md.
Built for everyone who loves this game. Free & open — now pull up a board and get stronger. ● ○