How many of you play(ed) Go/WeiQi/Baduk?

Hi, I am just curious about this because many users of this site are from different parts of the world. I am curious whether you know about the game Go, which is WeiQi in Chinese, and Baduk in Korean.
Here in United States Go is a kind of known game that is popular to some extent in some parts of the country. Mostly at universities and metropolitan areas. Perhaps also because we have Asian Americans that this game is more accessible here.

But, if you are from another part of the globe, have you ever had a chance to see, and learn Go?

Reason I posted this is because when I learned to play Go it was because I knew about chess and checkers since childhood, but they often get boring for me. Go is based on entirely different principles, and has simpler rules.
It is pretty fun to play.

Unfortunately in USA there really aren't any clubs or tournaments (for 99% of us), so you have to play online. If you love to play I guess it's not so bad, but I much prefer on a real board with stones... I'm basically beginner level. There have been topics like this on chess.com before. There are people who play that know more than the rules (unlike me).

I learned Go when I was in my twenties. But I quickly saw that it required a time investment as large as chess plus I would have had to seek out an Asian community in which to improve. So I left it alone.

A few years ago I read about an American, Michael Redmond, who reached the 9-dan level of Go -- roughly equivalent to grandmaster. I would like to know more about how he managed that.

http://senseis.xmp.net/?MichaelRedmond

Few Americans have any idea how big a game Go is, if they've heard of it at all.

Yes, lack of clubs where people play Go in person is unfortunate. In my case I am just lucky that in my city there is a Go club in Japan Town. But I've never visited it. I signed up for the free to play KGS server. There are always low rank players to play against, and there are rooms where you can practice against computer.

I am also the very beginner level. For me it is difficult to learn to understand it on intuitive level like Chess, which I was taught in early childhood. But what I do like is that there are about 80 thousand of recorded Go matches that are generally available to the public depending where you look. For example I downloaded a Go app for my ipad, and since I got the paid app, I get access to these 80k matches.

I will probably still spend more time with International Chess, just because I understand it more. But what's good about Go is that the computer isn't as advanced at playing it well as the chess software. Basically there is still room for improvisation and experimentation in play.

I really like the idea and I tried to learn it, but apart from learning the basic rules, I just have no idea how to actually play.
I guess westerners just have a completely different mindset and it takes a lot more time and effort for them to actually listen and focus on it.
I even have a board because I thought that I'd play with my dad, but since we've no idea how to judge positions and calculate the end score, we're just placing stones like idiots and somehow agree about who wins.

I thought that at first, but I have to tell you that it is absolutely not true. There is no particular cultural mindset required for either Chess or Go. For historical reasons Go(Japanese name)Baduk(Korean name)WeiQi(Chinese name) has not been introduced to most of the western world like Chess was due to colonization and emphasis on trade by Europeans in general.

In Asia, and particularly three countries mentioned above, Go is very accessible since early childhood due to the fact that everyone knows how to play it and it is a game that is old enough that each country can claim some history with Go. In modern times there are schools dedicated to teaching kids to play Go to possibly get them to play well enough to become competitive players and possibly champions. It is a big part of culture and a business there as well. It is because parents take their kids to Go school since early age , just like parents do with kids for chess in the rest of the world.

That's not to suggest that in China in particular Chess isn't popular. But they have Chinese Chess XiangQi, which I learned, and which is also a very excellent form of chess.

I don't know about European countries, but in US we have the American GO Association and American born Go champions. So that's another example of the ability not being dependent on the cultural mindset.

In my case, I bought an introductory Go book and I teaching videos on youtube.

Um, Go has been around since about the 4th century BC (earliest written reference of the game ). How much more time in the future do you think it will need ..... maybe another couple of centuries?

I have played/studied Go for about 3 decades, but there is really no interest in America.

I notice there are very few free go apps for iphone

Anyone have a website to learn? And after learning maybe a fre place to play online?

I wanna give this a shot

pilotk9 wrote:

I notice there are very few free go apps for iphone

Anyone have a website to learn? And after learning maybe a fre place to play online?

I wanna give this a shot

http://bit.ly/xzOObs

I was first introduced to Go by a Korean friend of mine at the University some 10 years ago (when I was in the US).The game looked strange to me at the time...to say the least.I remember playing a couple of live games on yahoo,I didn't know what I was doing and lost badly lol.

I've recently started reading Janice Kim's Learn to play Go series and started up some correspondence games over at OGS since.It's a fascinating game.I've played some blitz games as well but I find it hard to play this game in short time controls because the average Go game is much longer than chess (over 100 moves).

As much as Go is rare in the US...here in Greece it's practically non-existant.Everybody plays backgammon and poker lol.

I don't think I'll be spending any significant time studying Go though,as I'm investing much of my time already improving my chess.Can't get good at 2 games in one lifetime. I'll just be playing casual games for fun.

I've played it, but as no one around me was interested in it, I didn't go further than playing it just for...well... ''being different''.

If you're really interested in Chess like theme, I suggest Shogi too.

There are lot of chess alike games in Asian countries, but Chess, Go and Shogi are the ones who have survived wheel of time.

I really love both, Backgammon and Poker. Often people get a misconception that those games are less intellectual or that they are easy. Even playing poker online without the human interaction is a skill.
I like both games particularly because of their logic depth and chance/statistics side. I would also say they are better analogies of "real life" due to chance.

Unfortunately, here in the US online poker with real money has been prohibited in the entire country some time in 2008, so its online popularity and on TV has went down significantly. (if you are from US yourself, you probably already know this). I had fun playing it with friends at college.

About your commend about Go being cerebral. It is probably true. But regarding metaphors for society and wars, Go actually is supposed to represent war. I read about the terminology used in the game in Asia and they refer to each stone as representation of a person, and surrounding as "capturing the enemy". Plus the territory measured in the end apparently is supposed to represent a hypothetical real land.
What's interesting is that the Japanese rules count only territory, and not the stones that surround this territory, but in China they count territory plus the surrounding stones.

I wonder would anyone be interested in starting a sort of "online Go study group" since no one around us is very interested?

I think it would help keep each other motivated to play Go, we could set established books to study and then get together via Skype, etc. This might make us more motivated to actually read our Go books lol.

Maybe even join an online Go school together like "Guo Juan's internet Go school", and we could Skype to go over the lessons together and have a group that we can play games with via KGS, IGS, etc.

http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/ this is a really great place to learn the basics. it explains the rules well, as well as some introductory puzzles.

https://online-go.com/

this is a good palce to play online. I can also give some help, I am about 4 kyu at go and will hopefully hit Dan soon.

That is indeed a very good site. I have been playing on there almost couple years now. There are the more populated websites where Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese play, but online-go has many  more options for lower ranked or generally inexperienced players.

Another good one is what's called KGS , but it needs to install a small size client. That client is very safe and does not cause problems though. There are many more players who are outside of asia and many more different bots to play against. Very friendly player atmosphere.

I've learned weiqi/Go/baduk in 1969, in Ann Arbor, under name GO. It did so in the common room of the Mathematics Department of UofM.

There are some other clubs here. There is 

https://www.chess.com/club/checkers-draughts-chess

One of the sites I play checkers in has GO and GO clubs.  And Asian chess.  

I would find it interesting to know whether Chess and GO develop different parts of the brain or if both games develop more or less the same areas, in my case for example I've reached 3k in kiseido go server, but barely reached 1300 here, what does that mean from neurological point of view, does it mean my brain finds certain types of thinking ( those related to GO) easier than others ( those related to chess ) ?or are the levels I've reached to low to have had any impact in the brain ?

From various literature I have read throughout the years I never seen anybody claim that proficiency in one board game or mental activity can simultaneously improve skill or knowledge in unrelated activities. The way I see things like Chess and Go, and perhaps even Chess and other variants of Chess, is that they are not similar. Despite being games that are played on the board the rules are entirely different so it would not make sense that the same neural passages would be used for different things. 

Alternatively I read something else on some site that discussed the claims whether playing chess actually has any benefit to a person's overall intelligence. Apparently there is absolutely no such evidence, particularly not for children and kids. BUT, there was a claim that it helps , or "should help" people in older age to preserve their mental sharpness. The argument was that since the people in old age begin losing neural connections due to age, playing things such as, but not exclusively, chess, helps refresh those connections and that they could be reused or recycled by other brain processes. It did not go into deep detail about this, so I cannot tell if it was proven or not.

Personally I tend to believe that Chess or any similar mental game activity does not help people of young or middle age become more intelligent, more smart, or in any way sharper. There are just too many examples of people who are good at chess but who are otherwise dim witted. 

What I do think, without anything to back it up with, is that chess should help people develop better mental self discipline and reduce impulsivity in general. If you imagine any person you know who is good at chess, you usually can observe that despite having many other mental problems, they are not very impulsive, and they can usually focus well.

By the way, I was looking up information to find out what mental and physical activity is most mentally consuming for the brain, and I found out that it was reading and comprehending complex non-fiction texts such as legal documents, law related stuff.