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Hoshi = 4,4 star point. Push from behind = you push to match, rather than to surpass; the following move can extend past you, so you're not in control. Power is applicable influence: if you approach a huge fucking wall, I can throw a stone behind yours and, even though that stone is easy to attack, because of the wall I can respond to attacks by trying to cut off your stone. This is bad, and so if you just earnestly attack my stone you'll put me in a good position; if you try to protect the stone I attacked, I can chase and make the stone I attacked with stronger, impossible to attack while you flounder for a good position. That's power: your approach has only allowed me to become stronger. With power like that I can wantonly stage ridiculous attacks, because there's a huge army backing me up.

And honestly, read K50 and K10-K15, and play on KGS for a while.

Hoshi = 4,4 star point. Push from behind = you push to match, rather than to surpass; the following move can extend past you, so you're not in control. Power is applicable influence: if you approach a huge fucking wall, I can throw a stone behind yours and, even though that stone is easy to attack, because of the wall I can respond to attacks by trying to cut off your stone. This is bad, and so if you just earnestly attack my stone you'll put me in a good position; if you try to protect the stone I attacked, I can chase and make the stone I attacked with stronger, impossible to attack while you flounder for a good position. That's power: your approach has only allowed me to become stronger. With power like that I can wantonly stage ridiculous attacks, because there's a huge army backing me up.

And honestly, read K50 and K10-K15, and play on KGS for a while.

An arms race is not inherently wrong, or unavoidable. The question is, however, what does it mean to be well armed? I can carry 75 knives and a few clubs, but I can't hand-to-hand with a ninja trained in 18 different forms of Japanese martial arts unless I'm pretty well trained to use the weapons I have. I can carry a machine gun and a rocket launcher, sure; but this will cause collateral damage that to me is unacceptable for use in my home, and to others is unacceptable anywhere else (which means then everyone is mad at me and shit doesn't end well either).

I routinely play 9 stone handicap games with 1dan players. You can't win: black starts with a 120 point lead, and has so much influence you cannot get entrenched anywhere. Every move white plays is by definition a bad move, dropping a weak stone in around strong stones. White can invade my corners in Gote, giving me a strong wall and an extra move to protect one edge or the other or (even better) another corner, in the end losing by a lot. I still lose, because the 1dan player is better at infighting than I am, and I completely fail to use my initial advantage to stop them from dominating the board and destroying my groups.

By the same token, a 6dan will play a 1dan even and win. No handicap, a decent enough opening, yet this person who soundly beat me when I was overarmed with control of the entire board manages to lose in a fair game. Even if we give the 1dan 4 stones, the game is uneven and he will likely lose by around 20 points--even though he is well trained and better armed.

I don't think building more and bigger bombs is the answer. I think we do need self-defense; I think we need a war machine, but I think it's all in the implementation. Self-defense is not competitive, not even on the international level; Japan has an army because some misguidedly ballsy fellow might decide to invade Japan (or Switzerland, or Russia), but Japan's constitution explicitly forbids them to declare war. The core of self-defense is not to put up the shields, either; if that's all I have to deal with, I'll just keep hitting you with bigger shit until something gives. The way to end a fight is to hit the other guy back until he stops wanting to be hit; level of force and end goal (knock-out, kill) depends on the attack you're receiving and its severity (idiot bar fight, person trying to kill you ... are they strong or weak? Why bother laying all out on the weak?).

I think you may enjoy reading this essay: http://kiseido.com/three.htm . It is more abstract than the sources you quote; but you can think of games as a reflection of society, and the games we play reflect our mentality as a people. I can validate that about Go and Chess, too: I always feel like I'm playing a chess player when I play chess, trying to beat them; but when I play Go, I forget the other guy is there and spend most of my time trying to identify the best moves. Poker (in video games) I find somewhat strategic, but I'm always hoping/praying; craps and especially slot machines I hate because I have no control over them and feel like I'm not playing anything.

I think it is the same in said societies. Western societies see themselves as kings, as heroes, with hierarchical societies that you can't escape. A pawn attempting to promote usually dies in chess; often when a chess player sees he cannot prevent a pawn from promoting... he resigns. That's how big a deal escaping your fixed class is. We just don't see how a poor person can become middle class or rich, either; not that it can't happen, or that it can happen in all cases, but it does happen and it's possible. There are other societies that see this only as fortune (luck), karma, or divine right; they have the added sickness that they believe all things are rightly theirs if they come to them, and they are not responsible for any atrocities they commit-- ESPECIALLY if someone else is standing between them and what is rightly t

Can be played online: http://kgs.kiseido.com/ is a friendly place to start.

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see http://kgs.kiseido.com/ and http://www.playgo.to/interactive for more information

I play on KGS under this same username if you want to look me up.

games.yahoo.com is pretty good, and unless things have changed significantly in the past year most of the site is free.

I've heard things about zone.msn.com also, though I haven't tried it.

Orisinal doesn't have multiple players at once, but they have some of the most original, relaxing games I've ever played.

And, of course, for the hardcore there is the Kiseido Go Server.

There are a lot of game collection sites out there. What is it you're looking for?

See here. To save you the time, here's a list of stuff I found from that story, games that sounded interesting or worth checking out.

First, I decided I should really get into Go. Some links from that Slashdot story: here, The Second Book of Go here, here, here, here, and here.

Other games:
Apples to Apples - got this for my cousin, they liked it.
Settlers of Catan - got this for myself, very nice game, try a local hobby shop or here or try Amazon.com

Others: Puerto Rico (Similar to Settlers of Catan), Lord of the Rings board game was mentioned, Kill Dr. Lucky, Deadwood, Give me the Brain, Lightspeed Games, Fluxx is fun, very random and quirky.

There's more! Mind Trap
Munchkin , Heroscape, Ticket to Ride, Mystery of the Abbey, Memoir '44, Queen's Necklace at Days of Wonder, Bang!, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Articulate
Killer Bunnies (and Quest for the Magic Carrot), Illuminati , Acquire .

Some other reviews/top game lists here:
here
here
here

Happy gaming!

You're thinking of Gomoku, which is very different. They use the same board and pieces, but in Go, the object is to capture as much territory of the board as possible. In the process, you may threaten, and take pieces from your opponent. Can't recommend a good place to read the rules, but I can recommend Kiseido Go Server if you want to play. They're good about teaching newbz to play, and often, players will go back through a game afterward and give advice on how to improve your game. They do have a section on how to play, but I haven't read it, I learned at school.

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.

He can still play the best game ever created (IMHO): Go. And there are several severs where you can play online. IGS and KGS being the most popular

I've lost several YEARS of my life to go, but I would do it all again...

You'll learn so much about yourself, its unbelievable.

And real Go can be played at KGS.

Go is a very nice choice of game, but a go board is not square!
To appear square when you look at them they are actually made a little longer then they are wide. (usually 454.5 mm by 424.2 mm)

Also the black stones are a tiny bit larger then the white ones because the white ones would appear as bigger otherwise :)
Look at http://senseis.xmp.net/?EquipmentDimensions for more info, and come play Gathers on KGS!

Avoid Yahoo, KGS and DGS are good places to start with internet Go.

http://kgs.kiseido.com/, download their full-featured Java client and play alone (with a book full of exercices) or online for free on their server.

There is a local GO club here in Berkeley and there are parks where you can "pick up" a game in San Francisco. I was turned on to go about a year ago watching four people play in a restaurant in Santa Cruz. I was fascinated and they noticed me and invited me to play. I was walked through my first game right then and there. I too have tried every possible method of learning the game. Having others teach you is definitely the way to go. The GO club is an amazing resource. Smart, talented players who are very happy to help you figure out the game and teach you good tactics until you can have a better understanding about what makes good strategy. Like all obscure and geeky things, most people who play are just excited to meet someone who is interested. I have yet to run into someone here, whom upon hearing I was learning, didn't offer their expertise or advice.

I will second the suggestion of Kiseido GO site

I found their online tutorial far exceeded the others. This was of immense help when I was first figuring everything out. It is written in plain language and lets you do the simplest things over and over again, until you get them, which for me was a the only way to get over that first big hump.

Good Luck!
Welcome to the Club

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.

This game is so fun I am still a beginner though. Some good recources: http://kiseido.com/ The Go mecha The American Go assoctiation This has everything, might as well make this your homepage. The Kiseido Go server The best Go server out there, very use friendly. My username is "Elad" -oos

This game is so fun I am still a beginner though. Some good recources: http://kiseido.com/ The Go mecha The American Go assoctiation This has everything, might as well make this your homepage. The Kiseido Go server The best Go server out there, very use friendly. My username is "Elad" -oos

I play online on KGS, which has as its client CGoban2 - it's written in Java, is a really nice client, runs under mac/linux just fine.

Alternately, find a game between equal level players a bit higher than you (10 ranks maybe - a new player starts at rank 30k and goes to 1k, so look for a game between high teen kyu players) and just watch what they do. Save the game when you're done and then use CGoban to edit it and play through. The suggestions I've seen say to first guess where you think they will play (hard at beginning, but not too difficult once the fighting gets heavy) and then, whether right or wrong, try to understand why they played there. Then find a game between some dan level players, watch that, and repeat.

Most of all though, the best way is to play against people your own skill, and KGS (and others such as IGS) do automatic rankings so it's pretty easy to find a game most of the time.

Once you get around 25-20 kyu, then start looking more at the theory. I recommend Kogo's Joseki Dictionary - a dictionary of openings that you can load up in CGoban (among other clients).

Play on KGS. It's way better than yahoo software wise, and the people are friendlier typically.

It's for all computer players, I guess you could offset it a bit by playing different computer opponents since they have slightly different weak points. However, if you want to improve there is no other way than playing human opponents.

Playing on KGS is a good idea, since the software includes a 'review' mode and in general the players there are slightly more interested in teaching beginners than on the other go servers. However, online go is mainly (perhaps because of the ratings?) a competitive environment and the best way to learn the game is definitly to go to a club if one exists in your vicinity.

KGS, the Kiseido Go Server, is a wonderful way for new and experienced players to enjoy the game of Go. It has a great user interface including the best support for teaching and reviewing games. The programmer, Bill Shubert, is a genius.

At times there are over a thousand users and hundreds of games on the server. There are many rooms. One of the most popular is the Beginner's room (in the Lessons group of rooms). Ask for it. KGS runs tournaments every so often. Some championship games are broadcast live. Professional players give lessons for hire and many strong amateurs will play you a teaching game. There are sometimes free pro lessons.

There are many tips and much discussion about KGS on Sensei's Library.

It runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows. It is free of charge (no charge for users from Japan or anywhere else).

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).

I guess you should read about it or ask someone to teach you.

If you are interested in playing Go online, I would recommend Kiseido Go Server, is it is the best there is and its java so it can run on almost any platform.

• Kiseido Go Server: for real-time play, teaching and learning.
• Dragon Go Server: for turn-based play and good karma.

Sure... try playing go at kgs or at the Dragon Go Server. You can also play go on Yahoo games. If you want to play go against your computer, try gnugo.

The only two games that can keep my attention these are Nethack and Go.

The Go World already has readily accepted the idea of playing Go on oddly shaped boards, and considers it to be a completely valid, if a little silly, form of Go. I was chatting on KGS the other day and someone was talking about a 9x9x9 board where each stone has 24 liberties, and everyone seemed to accept that it was Go, even if it was a completely absurd form. Anyway, even in the standardized form of Go, there are a few different kinds of board, anyway. 5x5 is very different from 9x9, which is very different from 19x19, which is very different from 38x38. This merely makes experimentation much easier.

You play KGS too? Say hi if you see me, my nick there is khan. Maybe we can get a game in sometime.

I haven't been playing a lot lately, so my rank is a bit inflated, just so you know.

It's a game with black and white stones on a 19x19 board. And the aim is to make the largest territory. Seems pretty dull? Well... It's the most fascinating game I've ever come across!!! The rules are really simple and yet there are so many possibilities, strategies, etc...

Besides its interest as a game, I've found this game interesting in two other ways: it has some philosophical aspects (being too greedy is bad, etc...) and also playing it with someone shows quite a bit of the personality of your opponent. Hmmm and the "Go" community is also great (so many friendly people to teach you the game, etc...).

One last thing... If you like anime, I highly recommend "Hikaru no Go" (I got to know the game and started to play it just because of this anime).

For more information (and possibly play online), I recommend: KGS.

...eventually you will move up to the real go servers like Kiseido or Panda, both located in Japan.

But on this Go v. Chess topic, let me add that I read an article a while back (don't have the URL, sorry, may have even been a print article) that examined stroke victims. Strong Go players who suffered brain damage to one of their hemispheres but not the other would play a worse game, but the nature of the loss of playing skill would be very different depending on whether the stroke hit the one half of the brain than the other; one side (don't remember whether left or right) would lose their tactical/fighting ability in the game, the other side would lose their ability to work with large abstract territories. The article pointed out that chess players would lose basically all their chess ability when the damage was to one side of the brain (the one that matched tactics in go), and would lose very little ability when they suffered damage to the other side.

Anyway, it indicates that one of the ways that go is very different from chess is that it needs skills associated with the abstract/intuitive side of your brain and skills associated with the logical part of your brain, while chess needs primarily skills associated with the logical part. Perhaps this is why some people prefer one game over the other? If you love chess for its tactical reading, then you might not care for the abstract parts of go, which you would find boring. Meanwhile, a player who enjoys all of the game of go might find chess interesting but "lacking something."

Anyway, I'm not going to argue which game is better, just play what you like and let other people play what they like, no need to criticize either group.

Chess has proved the value of a brute force approach--even without a lot of AI routines, simply searching the game tree and adding up the value of the men left on the board is a workable algorithm. Good chess programs improve on that significantly with rules to prune the tree search, and further rules to score a board position. That doesn't work so well in Go: There are 361 points on a Go board, with a typical game lasting some 200 moves--an unimaginably large number of game combinations. Worse, there's no easy way to assign a value to a board position once you've brute forced your way through the combinations. The combination of these two factors is one reason why there are no really good Go playing programs, as there are in Chess.

Go is a great game to play on the Internet. You can order all the books you need to get you started, and then you can play on the 'net. There's not bad Go implementations at Yahoo Games, etc., but eventually you will move up to the real go servers like Kiseido or Panda, both located in Japan.

Pandanet and IGS are okay, but if you really want to play Go with people who aren't assholes, try KGS - chad

yes, you can download all his kgs games there.

OK so now when I go to Japan on that god-awful 11 and a half hour flight I get to play go constantly on the kiseido internet go server ?

I would pay for that.

I'd have to be careful not to start a game that meant I'd still be playing when they switched the service off for landing though...

graspee

Chess is still basically able to be brute forced by the large super machines, which is an intruiging feat, but I don't really concider it AI. Now, if we were able to get a computer that is able to match wits against the best Go players, I would be very impressed. Go is a very simple game to learn, but very difficult to master. There is more depth and complexity in Go than there would be in chess, therefore I concider that more of a challenge for AI.

For those of you interested in learning more about Go, here's some links to resources I've found helpful since starting to play 3 weeks ago.

k5 had an article about go which is what initially piqued my interest and got me started in the game.

Kiseido Go Server is my favorite place to play online, and very newbie friendly.

Some great introductions are available from Kiseido The Interactive Way to Go and Tel's Go Notes

Uligo and Goproblems.com are great places for learning how to play in common situations.

If you prefer a phyiscal board and stones check out Samarkand and Kiseido

Also, anyone in the Chicago area should check out the Evanston Go Club

A word of caution, if you decide to learn go, expect to lose most of your first 50-100 games. It's a long road, but once you start making progress, you'll grow quickly. I know I sure have. Anyone who's up for a game look for 'jjarmoc' on KGS.

For those of you interested in learning more about Go, here's some links to resources I've found helpful since starting to play 3 weeks ago.

k5 had an article about go which is what initially piqued my interest and got me started in the game.

Kiseido Go Server is my favorite place to play online, and very newbie friendly.

Some great introductions are available from Kiseido The Interactive Way to Go and Tel's Go Notes

Uligo and Goproblems.com are great places for learning how to play in common situations.

If you prefer a phyiscal board and stones check out Samarkand and Kiseido

Also, anyone in the Chicago area should check out the Evanston Go Club

A word of caution, if you decide to learn go, expect to lose most of your first 50-100 games. It's a long road, but once you start making progress, you'll grow quickly. I know I sure have. Anyone who's up for a game look for 'jjarmoc' on KGS.

For those of you interested in learning more about Go, here's some links to resources I've found helpful since starting to play 3 weeks ago.

k5 had an article about go which is what initially piqued my interest and got me started in the game.

Kiseido Go Server is my favorite place to play online, and very newbie friendly.

Some great introductions are available from Kiseido The Interactive Way to Go and Tel's Go Notes

Uligo and Goproblems.com are great places for learning how to play in common situations.

If you prefer a phyiscal board and stones check out Samarkand and Kiseido

Also, anyone in the Chicago area should check out the Evanston Go Club

A word of caution, if you decide to learn go, expect to lose most of your first 50-100 games. It's a long road, but once you start making progress, you'll grow quickly. I know I sure have. Anyone who's up for a game look for 'jjarmoc' on KGS.

There was a really good article about Go on kuro5hin maybe three weeks ago. In fact, it caused me to start playing again and it still is much fun. :-)

Just try it. There are lots of free Go servers online. I prefer the KGS server. All you need is to download the client or just play it online in your browser with others (Java required). There are usually ~100 people online in the English room (yes, chat included).

It's a wonderful game.

It seems to me that the open source community has not learned this lesson -- possibly because we are so unstructured. Like it or not, open source has not generally produced fundamentally new technologies at the rate Microsoft has. The one exception would lie in the Internet server market (and it is not coincidental that that is the main market where OSS is successful). We tend to spend all our time catching up in other areas.

For example, Microsoft has had a component based desktop for years, and we are just now starting to get workable ones. Microsoft has had easy GUI design for trivial apps (VB) since the early 90's -- and we are just starting to get it (QT Designer, Kylix). Microsoft still has us totally slaughtered in the groupware arena because we can't seem to really understand that groupware and email are not quite the same thing.

When Microsoft *does* miss a beat -- as with the Internet -- they follow up quickly. Once again, this is like Go. If your opponent gets you in an awkward strategic situation, you can often play through it tactically. Essentially, you end up playing just to stay in the game until your opponent makes a mistake. Then you strike out ahead and hopefully recover your strategic error. This is Microsoft's well known practice of always being the second-best product on the market until the competition screws up.

Anyway, one wonders if Bill Gates plays Go. It's relatively popular on the west coast thanks to the large oriental population. It's truly an awesome game -- the Japanese maintain that it teaches character and strategic thinking for real life. And, I think they're right. It penalizes both cowardice and foolhardiness equally, encourages you to think ahead, and has rules simple enough to teach my three-year-old with permutations complex enough to take a lifetime to understand.

&lt/Ramble&gt

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