What Are the Benefits of Replaying Go Game Records? A Beginner’s Guide + Recommended Players

What Are the Benefits of Replaying Go Game Records? A Beginner’s Guide + Recommended Players

“If you want to get stronger, you should replay game records.”

Many people have probably been advised like this by a Go class teacher or a stronger player.

But when you actually try it, you often end up just placing stones without understanding the meaning of the moves.

Everyone has likely experienced losing focus partway through and quitting.

Kifu replay can become a study method that even beginners can stick with, just by tweaking the approach a little.

In this article, we’ll cover the following in order:

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What Is Kifu Replay in Go?

Kifu replay is a study method where you look at a record of a game played by a pro (or other strong player) and reproduce the same sequence on your own board.

It’s a classic training method that many players have used for a long time.

On the other hand, you may also hear people say “kifu replay is pointless.”

Let’s first整理 the basics of kifu replay and why negative opinions come up.

Kifu replay is a study method that reproduces pro games on a board

In kifu replay, you place stones from move 1 onward while looking at the record, recreating the game.

A kifu is a record that logs the move order as “which move number was played where.”

There are two main ways to replay:

Either way, the substance of the study doesn’t change.

If you have a board at home, use it; if you’re commuting or have spare moments, use your phone—switching between them is also an option.

Why kifu replay is sometimes said to be “pointless”

Kifu replay is called “pointless” because it easily turns into a mindless task of tracing the moves.

If you’re only placing stones exactly as written, you can keep going with hardly any thinking.

If you replay all the way to the end without considering the intent behind the moves, you often finish with nothing retained.

Also, if you choose a record that’s far above your level, you won’t even be able to guess why a move was played.

If you keep replaying without understanding, it’s hard to enjoy—and you won’t stick with it.

Another reason is that the results of kifu replay are hard to see.

With tsumego, you immediately know right or wrong, but even if you replay many games, you may not feel stronger right away.

Conversely, if you replay records that fit you and think about the meaning of the moves, it can be very effective.

In the next section, we’ll look at the specific skills that improve through kifu replay.

Benefits You Can Get from Replaying Go Game Records

The main benefits of kifu replay are learning how to play the opening, developing a sense for stone shape, and understanding the flow of a full game.

Its unique strength is that it fills gaps that are hard to learn from tsumego or joseki books.

Let’s go through each benefit.

You internalize opening and joseki flow

If you keep replaying kifu, you’ll start to see how openings and joseki are actually used in real games.

In joseki books, the focus is often on memorizing fixed corner sequences.

But in real games, the joseki you choose changes depending on surrounding stones, and what you do after the joseki also differs by position.

Pro records naturally include these kinds of decisions.

As you replay more games, you’ll gain clues for choosing your next move in your own games.

You can grasp good vs. bad shape by feel

By repeatedly seeing pro stone shapes, you’ll start to distinguish good shape from bad shape intuitively.

Go has proverbs like “empty triangle is bad shape” and “don’t play on the second line head—hane instead.”

Memorizing proverbs as knowledge matters, but to judge instantly in real play, you need to be familiar with good shapes.

Pros move stones in efficient shapes with little waste.

Move by move, they choose natural shapes—connecting with few moves, or playing to exploit the opponent’s weaknesses.

If you repeatedly encounter these shapes through kifu replay, you should be able to notice “something feels off” when you’re about to play a bad shape yourself.

You can grasp the flow of a full game (opening–middlegame–endgame)

Another major benefit of kifu replay is understanding the flow of an entire game.

Many study methods isolate a part of the game—tsumego for life-and-death, joseki for corner sequences, and so on.

With kifu replay, you experience the opening fuseki, the middlegame fighting, and the endgame yose as one continuous whole.

That sense of connection across the whole game is something you only truly feel by replaying from start to finish.

It’s also recommended to focus on moments where the advantage swings.

If you look for where the leading side let the gap close, you’ll gradually start to see how to judge key turning points.

For Beginners: How to Replay Go Game Records

If you’re a beginner starting kifu replay, it’s best to prepare the tools, choose annotated records, and begin with a short number of moves.

If you try to replay an entire pro game right away, you may get tired halfway through.

Here are four steps to keep it sustainable.

What you need (board, kifu, apps)

What you need for kifu replay is a board and stones, plus the kifu itself.

If you don’t have a board, use an app or website that can replay kifu.

You can step forward and back one move at a time on screen, so it’s easy to start.

It also helps to get used to kifu notation.

In books, kifu are commonly shown as board diagrams with numbered stones.

If you place stones in numerical order, you can recreate the game.

If a point where stones were captured is later played again, there will be a note under the diagram.

Start with whatever tools you have on hand.

Buying a board can wait until kifu replay becomes a habit.

Start with a short number of moves

You don’t need to replay an entire game from the start.

At first, try replaying in an easy chunk—like up to move 50.

Pro games can exceed 200 moves.

If a beginner tries to replay every move, it takes a long time, and by the time you reach the endgame your concentration will likely be gone.

With around 50 moves, you can replay from fuseki into the early fighting in a short time.

The opening contains fundamentals in every game, so you can learn a lot even from a short segment.

As you get used to it, gradually increase to 100 moves, 150 moves, and so on.

Once you can replay a full game to the end, you can learn the middlegame fighting and endgame yose as one continuous experience.

It’s also effective to try predicting the next move while replaying.

The moves you get wrong are exactly where the difference between your thinking and a pro’s shows up—pause and think about why.

Replay the same kifu repeatedly

Kifu replay becomes more effective the more times you replay the same record.

Even if the first time you can barely keep up with the sequence, by the second and third time the flow should gradually sink in.

Once you start remembering the sequence, you’ll have more mental room to notice the meaning of each move and whether the shapes are good or bad.

After you’ve replayed it a few times, try replaying without looking at the kifu.

Where you get stuck is the part you don’t understand yet.

If you check the kifu again just for that section, it will stick much more firmly.

There’s no fixed number of repetitions.

As a guideline, once you can replay the first several dozen moves without looking, it’s a good time to move on to the next record.

Rather than replaying many games shallowly, understanding one game deeply increases the number of shapes you can actually use in your own play.

Choose annotated kifu

If you’re a beginner choosing kifu, it’s better to pick ones with commentary.

Unannotated kifu only show the sequence.

A pro’s intent is hard for beginners to read.

With commentary, you can replay while confirming the general aims.

However, you don’t need to read every bit of commentary.

If you try to understand difficult variation diagrams and detailed reading explanations, it can take hours just to replay one game.

“I kind of get what this move is aiming at.”

“This shape seems usable for me too.”

It’s enough to incorporate only the parts that feel applicable to your own Go.

Skip commentary you don’t understand, and reread it after you improve—you may notice meanings you couldn’t see before.

How to Choose Recommended Players for Kifu Replay

If you’re unsure whose games to replay, try choosing from these four perspectives:

  1. A player you like
  2. A player with a style similar to yours
  3. Modern professional players
  4. Edo-period players such as Honinbo Shusaku

There’s no single correct answer, so starting with someone you’re interested in is the key to sticking with it.

Here’s how each approach works.

A player you like

If you’re unsure, start by replaying the games of a player you like.

It can be anyone—your favorite titleholder, or a player you admired from a broadcast.

As you replay more games, you’ll start to see what kind of Go your favorite player plays.

Once you can recognize each player’s characteristics, both kifu replay and watching games become even more enjoyable.

In this way, choosing games from a player you like makes it easier to stay motivated about Go, and kifu replay should naturally become easier to continue.

A player with a style similar to yours

If you choose a player whose style is close to yours, it becomes easier to apply what you learn from kifu replay in real games.

“Style” refers to the characteristic way someone plays.

Some people like actively attacking the opponent’s stones, while others prefer solid play and taking territory.

If you replay the games of a player whose approach resembles yours, it’s easier to understand the intent and imitate it directly.

If you like attacking, choose a player with lots of fighting; if you like taking territory, choose a player known for thick, solid play.

If you don’t know your style yet, try replaying the first several dozen moves from a few different players and compare.

When you find a player whose moves feel “good” to you, it’s recommended to focus on replaying that player’s games.

Modern professional players

If you want to learn how Go is played today, replay the games of modern pros.

Since the rise of Go AI, opening play has changed dramatically.

New AI-influenced approaches have spread, such as the “direct 3-3 invasion” into a star point.

Modern pro records reflect this post-AI thinking.

For beginners, collections where the player comments on their own games are especially recommended.

Because you can learn what the person who played the moves was thinking, it’s easier to understand the intent.

Edo-period players such as Honinbo Shusaku

If you’re interested, it’s also recommended to replay the games of players who were active in the Edo period.

A name that often comes up as kifu replay material is Honinbo Shusaku from the Edo period.

Shusaku was active in the late Edo period and is sometimes called the strongest player.

He is highly regarded for beautiful shape and accurate positional judgment.

For beginners who want to learn good shape, he can be an easy model to follow.

However, since the thinking behind fuseki and joseki differs greatly from modern play, you should keep that in mind.

Can You Get Stronger with Only Kifu Replay?

In conclusion, it’s difficult to get stronger with only kifu replay.

Kifu replay is well-suited to developing opening play and a sense for shape.

On the other hand, your ability to read out variations and make decisions in real games needs to be trained through other practice.

Let’s look at kifu replay’s weak points and how to combine it with other study methods.

Kifu replay alone doesn’t build reading strength easily

What’s hard to develop through kifu replay is your own reading ability.

In kifu replay, the next move is written in the record.

It’s not ideal practice for reading out whether stones will be captured or whether you can win a capturing race.

In real games, however, life-and-death and capturing-race reading can heavily decide the outcome.

If you want to train reading, tsumego is best.

In tsumego, you think through the correct sequence yourself within a limited area, which builds accuracy in reading.

You can also train reading within kifu replay.

In fighting positions, stop looking at the kifu and think for yourself—“Can this group live?” “Where should I play next to capture?”—then continue.

But since that takes time, it’s usually easier to keep training reading with tsumego and use kifu replay to focus on grasping flow.

Improve by combining kifu replay, tsumego, and playing

The fastest path to improvement is combining three things: kifu replay, tsumego, and playing games.

For example, if you split the roles like this, each type of study will connect:

If you try an opening you learned from kifu replay in your own games, you’ll find situations where it works and where it doesn’t.

If you then fill in what didn’t work with more kifu replay or tsumego, repeating that cycle will turn knowledge into practical strength.

Summary

Kifu replay is a study method that’s easy to continue—and more likely to produce results—if you choose annotated records and repeatedly replay short segments.

Let’s review the key points from this article:

First, pick one game record from a player you like and start by replaying up to move 50.

Once you understand the fun of kifu replay, Go will become even more interesting.