Is GO a popular game among college students?

[Evo]

Turns out my older daughter, Spawn of Evo has become a competitive GO player. There is a coffee house off campus that has a group of people that play GO in the back. She was amazed to learn that I used to have the game and even remembered how to play. She wants me to get up to speed again and come play in their competitions.

Oh my, I haven't played in eons. How popular is GO among the college crowd? I know Humanino plays it. Any elderly players here?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Turns out my older daughter, Spawn of Evo has become a competitive GO player. There is a coffee house off campus that has a group of people that play GO in the back. She was amazed to learn that I used to have the game and even remembered how to play. She wants me to get up to speed again and come play in their competitions.

Oh my, I haven't played in eons. How popular is GO among the college crowd? I know Humanino plays it. Any elderly players here?

I play at a strength of about 7 kyu or so, but don't call me elderly. I'm just ripened.

 

[Pattonias]

What is GO?

 

[Pengwuino]

I have a couple of friends who play Go. With that said, I hope that game gets banned from the country.

 

[Evo]

What is GO?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)

 

[Pattonias]

Interesting, I'll have to keep an eye out when I get back to campus.

 

[D H]

I played quite a bit in college, then again ten years later, and yet again yet another ten years later. It was just too hard to find opponents in the US. The internet changed that, but somewhere along the line I got too busy with real-life. If your daughter wants some serious challenge, she might want to look into PANDANET, http://www.pandanet.co.jp/English/, or some other internet Go server. There are lots of resources on Go on the net. Sensei's library, http://senseis.xmp.net/, is very good and very extensive.

 

[turbo]

I played a bit in college, but fell in love with chess, and got stronger there and had more fun. It was easy to get a pick-up speed chess game between classes.

 

[dlgoff]

Go looks interesting. It would probably be easier to learn by having someone to show you as you play.

Anyone ever play mastermind? I use to play the deluxe game with 8 colors and 5 holes. Not as challenging as chess however.

 

[Evo]

Go looks interesting. It would probably be easier to learn by having someone to show you as you play.

Anyone ever play mastermind? I use to play the deluxe game with 8 colors and 5 holes. Not as challenging as chess however.

Yes, that's how she learned. You've got to play it to learn it. Then an ability to think ahead several moves and an ability to drive your opponents moves to where you want them to go is must. I started by playing Pente. I was awesome at Pente, much simpler, but very similar. And since I prefer winning, I still prefer Pente.

 

[fluidistic]

I used to play Go on the Internet some months ago. I was rated about 10 kyu (not a great rating, but for 1-2 months of playing that's a "good" progress) in KGS, a Go Internet server. I know some chess players leave chess for Go, although the I've never heard of the opposite. It wasn't my case, I was between both games, but I'd always favor chess.

 

[Chi Meson]

When I lived in Portland, mid-90s, we'd frequent Powell's Books and hang out in the coffee shop. Every now and then, the Go players came and set up for a tournament.

Scary, scary...

smelly too.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I used to play with a friend of mine. Most of my friends hated it because they didn't have the patience to learn and hated losing. For a while there was a homeless veteran that came around the coffeehouse I worked at and we played off and on. He was damn good, compared to me anyway. But yeah, I've met a grand total of three other people who played and have not played now in years.

To know that a woman enjoys the game is really nice. I've met few women who had the patience to even learn chess.

 

[glueball8]

Oh I love go. I wanted to make that as a career when I was 9, I had lessons for a 2 years too. Now I suck.

It's a great game. There's so much involved. Thinking, memorization, creating feelings...

 

[humanino]

Computer can beat us at chess by sheer force. There is a lot of emotion and intuition in GO. The best aspect which convinced me chess is a feudal game is that one can win by 1 point out of (potentially) 360. This is much more subtle than simply getting to the king. Most importantly, this allows for players of different strength to really enjoy a game together.

One can reduce the 19x19 board to a much faster game by the way.

 

[glueball8]

Computer can beat us at chess by sheer force. There is a lot of emotion and intuition in GO. The best aspect which convinced me chess is a feudal game is that one can win by 1 point out of (potentially) 360. This is much more subtle than simply getting to the king. Most importantly, this allows for players of different strength to really enjoy a game together.

One can reduce the 19x19 board to a much faster game by the way.

ya some times I get really emotional when playing go, it effects your thinking. And sometimes you see a really tricky move its hard not to smile. :) I think go is the hardest board game.

There's a lot of memorization to it too. Anyone who's good have to memorize hundreds of opening, hundreds of games others played. Thousands of tricks. The amount of information is insane. Feelings are very important to, there no time to think of every possibility, good intuition saves and energy. Plus I don't think there's any other games where you have to think 50-200 moves(in total).

 

[sylas]

I play at about 14 kyu. Which means I am much weaker than jimmysnyder on 7 kyu. It is a brilliant game; the rules are so simple; and the strategies so complex.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[leroyjenkens]

I just tried playing it on yahoo and now I hate it. I went from not knowing what it was to hating it in like 10 minutes.

 

[Evo]

I just tried playing it on yahoo and now I hate it. I went from not knowing what it was to hating it in like 10 minutes.

LOL, it's not a game to play online, a large part of it is watching your opponent, watching which stones he's looking at, gives you a clue as to what moves he might be planning and gives you clues as to which stones he doesn't want you to move.

 

[D H]

LOL, it's not a game to play online, a large part of it is watching your opponent, watching which stones he's looking at, gives you a clue as to what moves he might be planning and gives you clues as to which stones he doesn't want you to move.

I disagree. While Go is just a terrible game to learn online, it is a great game to play online, particularly so if you are from the West. You can play a game against someone who uses old school tactics and then switch gears and find some Korean opponent (very aggressive play).

Besides, if you focus on your opponents eyes you will miss seeing the eyes (or lack thereof) on the board.

 

[Evo]

I disagree. While Go is just a terrible game to learn online, it is a great game to play online, particularly so if you are from the West. You can play a game against someone who uses old school tactics and then switch gears and find some Korean opponent (very aggressive play).

Besides, if you focus on your opponents eyes you will miss seeing the eyes (or lack thereof) on the board.

Good one D H! I remember getting my first Go board and had never played it. I started reading the instructions and had to have an adult beverage.

I think if you're good at it, online would work, but I haven't played in ages, I need to rely on my ability to read my opponents body language.

I think I personally would find it harder to play online. My daughter sent me a link to play Pente online, but it's just not the same for me. I like moving my hand towards a stone and then glancing at my opponent's face to see how they react.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Maybe I should play online. I once lost a game just because my opponent had a tic in his eye.

 

[sylas]

Maybe I should play online. I once lost a game just because my opponent had a tic in his eye.

There are advantages to playing online...

I have a great story about playing online Go. I guy I knew, many years ago, used to play online. He was pretty good too... ranking 2 kyu, I believe.

I didn't actually know he played Go. I knew him because he was active in the creationism/evolution discussions at talk.origins. His name was Tero Sand, and he lived in Finland, so I only knew him online. He was a very good at debating this subject; really knew his stuff. In fact, when the famous talkorigins website started up back in the early 1990s sometime, it start out mostly with files that Tero had collected or written for explaining the subject.

At Go he was well known around the world with online players.

And then, very suddenly, Tero died. It came as a shock to lots of people; both online Go players around the world and the talkorigins people.

It was only at this point that many of us became aware of something about Tero that was not general knowledge; though many of his closer friends were aware. Tero was a quadriplegic, relying on a respirator to breathe. He used a system set up by his father, where he could control a computer with a stick and his mouth; and this was how he lived and communicated with the entire world.

In particular, this was how he could play Go.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[tiny-tim]

Advantages of go over chess …

i] simplicity of rules, which are
a) players play alternately
b) all pieces (stones) are the same, and a play consists of placing one stone on any vacant point
c) a stone or group of stones is removed from the board (captured) if all its adjacent points are occupied by stones of the opponent, at the end of the opponent's move
d) the game ends when neither player wishes to play further, and then the winner is the one with the greater number of vacant points surrounded, minus the number of his stones captured
e) (and there's a rule about forcing a draw by repetition)

ii] the handicap system means that players of fairly widely different ability can have a fair game (in chess, that can only be achieved by eg one player starting a piece down)

iii] it's more strategic, with much less importance attached to "looking several moves ahead" than in chess, and much more importance to "feeling the force" (and so computers are much better at chess than go)

iv] it teaches a few useful life-tricks, such as "if you can see your opponent's best move, then it's often your best move also"

I got as far as 9kyu, and stuck there basically because I couldn't "see the future"

Soooo … is Greg going to give us a go forum, then? ​

 

[fluidistic]

Advantages of go over chess …

i] simplicity of rules, which are
a) players play alternately
b) all pieces (stones) are the same, and a play consists of placing one stone on any vacant point
c) a stone or group of stones is removed from the board (captured) if all its adjacent points are occupied by stones of the opponent, at the end of the opponent's move
d) the game ends when neither player wishes to play further, and then the winner is the one with the greater number of vacant points surrounded, minus the number of his stones captured
e) (and there's a rule about forcing a draw by repetition)

ii] the handicap system means that players of fairly widely different ability can have a fair game (in chess, that can only be achieved by eg one player starting a piece down)

iii] it's more strategic, with much less importance attached to "looking several moves ahead" than in chess, and much more importance to "feeling the force" (and so computers are much better at chess than go)

iv] it teaches a few useful life-tricks, such as "if you can see your opponent's best move, then it's often your best move also"

I got as far as 9kyu, and stuck there basically because I couldn't "see the future"

Soooo … is Greg going to give us a go forum, then? ​

Ahahah for the Go forum.
Dear tiny-tim, I don't see all the points as advantages, rather as differences. The only advantage I see is point ii].
i]Chess rules aren't hard to learn, an "average" 4 years old kid can do it. (The same apply for Go, except maybe for counting at the end... but almost).
ii]I agree, Go here has an advantage.
iii]True about computers. I don't agree with "looking several moves ahead". There are many situations that requires it, if not any situation except maybe the beginning of the game (though in some games it is also required at this stage). In addition I agree with "feeling the force". I'd call it "intuition". Go indeed involves more intuition. I think it's because of its complexity... so many moves to chose from, much more than in chess, in average.
iv]"if you can see your opponent's best move, then it's often your best move also" is maybe more "if you can see your best move, then it's often the best move for your opponent". But I don't see this as an advantage, rather as a difference from chess.Edit: An advantage of Go online VS chess online : You can't use a Go chess engine to help you (cheating) if you are over 1 Dan approximately. Because this is the strength of current engines, approximately.
While in chess you can use many (Rybka, Deep Shredder, Crafty, Hiarcs, etc.) chess engines to beat any human, grand masters included.

 

[Evo]

If you play online, you can't move your opponents stones when they go to the bathroom.

 

[rootX]

But you can hack into their computers :)


I believe I played something similar to GO but not GO. What I played was that if you jump over the opponent stone it is removed. Something like ..

X O empty
If I move X to empty, it will look like (with O removed)
empty empty X

I don't know what that is called but Go seems more complicated then that.

 

[tiny-tim]

it's all go!

I don't know what that is called but Go seems more complicated then that.

No, go is simpler because nothing moves … the board just gets fuller and fuller … like reverse sculpture.

(captured pieces disappear rather than move … though in a good game that doesn't happen much … and that doesn't affect the general shape that's filled out)

This is what I meant about "seeing the future" … you should be able to see how the shapes will expand.

 

[Astronuc]

Paul Dirac and Werner Heisenberg apparently learned to play "Go" while in Japan.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I just tried playing it on yahoo and now I hate it. I went from not knowing what it was to hating it in like 10 minutes.

Go is probably a game best learned playing a real person. One of the main issues I had trying to teach my friends to play the game is that you really need to learn a bit of basic strategy to get started and all they wanted to do was know the rules and jump right in. They figured that since the rules are so simple they should be able to pick up the strategy no problem. The simplicity of the rules belie the complexity and subtlety of the strategy involved however. Even just understanding the concepts of Sente and Gote, active play and responsive play, can be very helpful.

And I do not really like playing on a computer myself anyway. Same with chess. Playing on a computer gives me the urge to just clickity clickity without much thinking. The few times I have played online, even as a semi experienced player, I was making stupid moves left and right. The worst part was that I KNEW I was making bad moves but couldn't help myself just kept "clickity clickity click".

So it may just not be for you but it really is a great game and you may enjoy it more if you played with someone in person and either read up a bit on strategy or had someone explain the basics.

I don't know what that is called but Go seems more complicated then that.

As Tim states it is simpler though only as far as the rules are concerned. Learning to play chess is learning how pieces move. Learning how to play go is learning strategy. You can not play a game of go without some basic understanding of strategy or you will be completely lost.

 

[Andre]

Yes I play it but it's easy to play the old program I have on my computer completely off the board. That's probably too aggressive and it may have learned me the wrong moves and I have no time (actually priority) to do it right.

 

[qedprigmosyno]

I have just started.
Anyone have good sites to recommend with frequent players?

 

[fluidistic]

I have just started.
Anyone have good sites to recommend with frequent players?

Try KGS Go server. You have to download a light interface (in java if I remember well) and there's always many players playing. You can either play of watch games that are being played. There are also a lot of other features... try it.

 

[whome9]

You've gotta' see the movie "Pi".

 

[farful]

I actually played go for the first time in years this earlier this month! (I don't like playing online)

I remember I learned it back in college after reading somewhere that Conway created the surreal numbers to analyze the end game of go...

If anyone is in San Diego and wants to play a game (though I warn you, I'm pretty terrible - somewhere around 5k-15k USGO rating, which I think is a stone or two weaker than KGS ratings), hit me up!