Slashdot Mirror

9x9 Go (basically the same size as a chessboard) is still fun enough to play that it's an interesting game for professionals:
http://gobase.org/9x9/

The rules themselves are what provide the vast majority of the complexity of Go. The size of the board makes it much more difficult for computers, but for humans, 9x9 and 19x19 are very, very similar games.

In my opinion you should try to improve your game and knowledge of the game and then teach/instruct your daughter the way you think is proper. I don't recommend pushing kids into computers to perform tasks they could perform with other kids or with their parents. I'm sure she will be much happier spending her chess time with her father than with a chess computer software.

That said, I also recommend you to try Go with your daughter. I've read it is used in elementary schools in Japan, China and Korea to stimulate the children's mind.

This website should explain it better than I can:
http://gobase.org/games/mobile/

Hi,

try to be able to count liberties (remember you are sitting on the stone with your bicycle and only can leave it along the lines). Then finding out what a group is and when it has 0 liberties should be doable. After that you are basically set and can play.

There is, however, one "confusing" additional rule, the ko-rule, which basically states that I can not do a move so that the whole board (meaning every spot of it!) looks the same like two moves ahead. If there would be no ko-rule a (ko-)fight over one important spot would go on forever. (One would take out a stone, the other back, etc.).

People will want to explain you about Josekis, Empty triangle (DO NOT PLAY THEM!), Influence, Aggressive, Defensive play, Ladders etc. Listen (to be polite) but don't worry about not understanding.

Keep on playing your game by counting liberties and trying to figure out your personal strategy. It is proven, that all the other "rule-sets" can be discovered naturally. (Better start playing on a 9x9 board!)

Well, the previous said, I have to speak about he rule set as how to decide, who won the game. On a 19x19 board the one moving first (black) has an advantage, with makes a komi (points added to whites score at the end,6.5 is a good value). The amount of komi differs in the different countries rules, so does if only the empty spaces or also the stones itself are counted. BTW in 99% the cases neither difference matters for your (beginner) games - the same person would win. By the time it matters you will understand it easily ;)

The opligatory link: http://gobase.org/

Try it. The game is very, very challenging, way beyond chess in it's complexity. It should be possible to play with a headmouse too with long enough time settings. Basically it's a game of territory where both players, black and white, place stones in the crossings of a 19x19 grid. For more information:

An interactive tutorial
Kiseido Go Server - An Internet go server with an easy to use GUI and lot's of helpful people online.
Sensei's libarary - A good resource site in form of a wiki.
Goproblems.com - A Nice selection of Life & Death problems.
Gobase.org - Rumblings in the go world.

http://gobase.org/studying/rules/?id=2&ln=uk

I am one of the people on slashdot who actually plays the game. It is quite a simple game, black and white stones, placed on intersections. Although quite simple, it is hard to master.

The Daily Yomiuri - A Japanese Daily Newspaper that includes a go collumn, has frequent discussions about pro matches, contains joseki, and best of all contains an archive of previous go collumns that teaches go to beginners. I greatly enjoy reading this site, but of late have not had the time.

GoBase.org, who could forget this essential site (actually I almost did) not only for beginners but for experienced players, contains many, many problems, classic games, wonderfull resource.

The American Go Association - Contains many resources for those who are interested in learning about playing go.

The Korean Baduk Association might be most helpfull for you, however I do not know how much help they can be to english speeking people.

IGS (Internet Go Server), synonymous with online and go, will provide you with many resources about go, and even have an online client that you can play people throughout the world.

KGS is another online go server, apparently it has lectures every week.

The Interactive Way To Go is a link my brother just gave me, it contains some go problems, hope it helps.

Well, I hope to see you on igs soon. Please enjoy the resources that I dug up from you from my personal link folder, they will be invaluable in your progress in learning go.

Once you've done all the exercises there, phase 2 of your education should be the igowin demo, which uses a 9x9 board. You get to reinforce what you've learned by playing actual games on a small board. The game AI starts out at (what it considers) 20 or 30 kyu, I think, and then gets progressively more difficult. So you'll see how far down you can get... before too long, you should be able to beat the computer without too much trouble. Side note: it's a windows program, but it's a simple executable; I remember being able to run it fine in wine a couple years ago.

Good luck with the Go. And fyi, GoBase is a great site to check out once you know how to play.

http://senseis.xmp.net/
Here's a wiki dedicated to Go. I've found it very useful.

http://playgo.to/interactive/
An interactive tutorial

http://www.britgo.org/cartoons/
comic for beginners

http://www.usgo.org/
the American Go Association

http://www.smart-games.com/igowin.html
demo version of "The Many Faces of Go". I highly recommend the full version, but it's very very expensive. if you get to the point that this demo is no longer challenging, you should probably purchase it...

http://gobase.org/software/editors/
SGF editor

http://gobase.org/software/clients/
play go online with other ppl

http://go-club.1up.com/
a club I started on 1up

http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/09/24/1742243.s html?tid=202&tid=106
like knoppix, but for go players

ok, that's all for now =P

http://senseis.xmp.net/
Here's a wiki dedicated to Go. I've found it very useful.

http://playgo.to/interactive/
An interactive tutorial

http://www.britgo.org/cartoons/
comic for beginners

http://www.usgo.org/
the American Go Association

http://www.smart-games.com/igowin.html
demo version of "The Many Faces of Go". I highly recommend the full version, but it's very very expensive. if you get to the point that this demo is no longer challenging, you should probably purchase it...

http://gobase.org/software/editors/
SGF editor

http://gobase.org/software/clients/
play go online with other ppl

http://go-club.1up.com/
a club I started on 1up

http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/09/24/1742243.s html?tid=202&tid=106
like knoppix, but for go players

ok, that's all for now =P

No two games of Go have ever been the same (something that can't be said of chess). After playing almost nothing but Go for the last several years the chessboard feels incredibly cramped to me. Whereas chess is a limited battle, Go is a full scale war.

The best way to learn the basics is to look at The Way To Go. And then download the KGS client so you can play some real people.

It might also be good to start playing 9x9 games until you get the idea of the game (it'll take a few tries till it clicks in your head).

Personally, gentoo is my Go distro... but all the ebuilds are not available...

Anyways, I use Gnugo with gGo which is the interface to pandanet and gnugo. Sometimes I also use kombilo.

http://gobase.org/ is a wonderful website
http://dcs.nac.uci.edu/~strombrg/go-unix.html has many Go related soft.
http://goproblems.com/ The name says it all
http://gtl.jeudego.org/ Is the Go teaching ladder where you are paired with someone stronger than you, to learn go from a stronger human....
http://www.joseki.com/ Again the name says it all...
http://playgo.to/index-e.html is a website that has a nice intro to go.

Go keeps the mind healthy...

Here's some links I collected for my Japanese 101 classmates:
Hanafuda Card Game (Windows)
Hanafuda plugin for Flowersol (multiplatform)
Go Trainer (Windows)
Go SGF Editors (multiplatform)
Online Go IGS Clients (multiplatform) Ask people for a teaching game after learning rules, practising
The Interactive Way to Go Easy to follow online tutorial (requires Java)
Go An introduction Outlines basic rules in easy to understand comic
American Go Association The info hub of American Go players
Shogi Variants (Windows) Japanese Chess, Shogi
Ricoh Shogi's Page Rules of Shogi (harder to learn rules than Go, IMHO)
Online Mahjong on Yahoo! Games Requires Yahoo! account, web-based
Rules of Mahjong this isn't the Shanghai Mahjong you know! Real Mahjong is like poker, not a tile matching game.

Here's some links I collected for my Japanese 101 classmates:
Hanafuda Card Game (Windows)
Hanafuda plugin for Flowersol (multiplatform)
Go Trainer (Windows)
Go SGF Editors (multiplatform)
Online Go IGS Clients (multiplatform) Ask people for a teaching game after learning rules, practising
The Interactive Way to Go Easy to follow online tutorial (requires Java)
Go An introduction Outlines basic rules in easy to understand comic
American Go Association The info hub of American Go players
Shogi Variants (Windows) Japanese Chess, Shogi
Ricoh Shogi's Page Rules of Shogi (harder to learn rules than Go, IMHO)
Online Mahjong on Yahoo! Games Requires Yahoo! account, web-based
Rules of Mahjong this isn't the Shanghai Mahjong you know! Real Mahjong is like poker, not a tile matching game.

Carcassonne is a great game for 2-5 players $20

Lost Cities is a good two player game for $20 (in fact, Kosmos imports a whole line of two player games for $20, including the very good Hera and Zeus)

Mystery Rummy 1: Jack the Ripper and Mystery Rummy 2: Murders in the Rue Morgue are both very good (I prefer Jack the Ripper) and only $10

Set is a great visual perception game for 1-n players (where n is the number of people that can see the cards) $12

Gods is a free download. Print it out and cut out the tiles. 2-4 players. less than $5

Go is a classic game for two players. I made my own board and got glass stones for less than $5.

Yeah, a lot of board games cost more than $30, but there are a number of good options that are less expensive, you just have to look for them.

My nontechnical hobbies tend to be things that have a certain geeky following themselves.

I juggle every week or so with the local club.

I do a lot of origami. There can be a lot of math here, if you want to look for it, but it's not necessary to think about the math to enjoy it. There are also different kinds of origami ranging from unit/modular to traditional models to more modern animals, plants, and other objects. There are lots of good books on the subject published by Dover and Japan Publications.

I play a lot of board games with a local group. Not many of the standard American board games; we usually play German board games like The Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and Ricochet Robot. I also enjoy the game of Go. I think Go is interesting because computers have yet to match good human players.

While we're providing useful links, here's some more:

Go, An Addictive Game A good all around site for Go news and links.

Jago Jago is a Java go client. It's actually really nice. You can set it up to connect to any server, including the major go servers, as well as local servers (e.g., GNU Go) if you want to play against a computer.

Go Problems The parent mentioned this, but I thought a hyperlink and a bit more of a pitch would be good. Go Problems is a site of archived go problems (Joseki, Fuseki, etc.) that you can play through with your browser using Java. People submit scenarios, and you get to play through them. You can sort by difficulty, type of problem, and have the solution displayed in a number of ways. Youc can also post comments on the problems and rate them and the solutions. It's a very fun site if you're looking to improve your game a bit or just play around without getting into a full game. I've had some issues with the problems and the solutions (unrecognized solutions, multiple solutions, etc.) but like the site a lot.

Oh well. I think I've rambled enough about that site. Enjoy!