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This article reads like a commercial without any scientific background w.r.t. the algorithms used. They even state it does not perform as well as other available programs.

Still, interested giving the game a try? It is really simple.

Start here to learn the rules: http://playgo.to/iwtg/

Like the problem solving, this is a good site for problems: http://goproblems.com/ Note, 30kyu problems are the easiest, then 25kyu etc. Hardest are the dan problems. (Believe me, they are really difficult)

Want to play against the computer? GnuGo is your friend> http://www.gnu.org/software/gnugo/gnugo.html

Playing against real oponents on the web, there are 2 options: Turn-based (the slow progress variant) or real-time. I can recommend for the turn-based variant Dragon Go Server and Online Go Server: http://www.dragongoserver.net/ http://www.online-go.com/

Personally, I'm not into real-time, but KGS is an alternative: http://www.gokgs.com/ Note, people might not always be in the mood for chatting here.

Getting hooked, try to find a local club or check for players in your neighbourhood: http://igolocal.net/

Have fun.

Fun is learning â" fun games are those which are easy to learn, but hard to master, with a long and smooth learning curve.

That's true, and it's why Go is the most fun of all games.

Go is very different from Othello. In Go your goal is to surround empty points on the board. Because your stones stay on the board unless captured every previous move counts. It's hard to actually compare it to other games

here is an interactive introduction to go. Towards the end there are a few simple game examples explained.

Go.

Seriously. I suggest it for anyone/everyone for multiple reasons.

For a quick read on why a child should learn the game:
http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/ChildGo.html

Go will make them think on multiple "levels" using both right and left brain.
Go teaches pattern recognition and spatial skills.
Go is scalable down to reasonable sizes (smaller boards) for children.
Go can be taught to a 5yo in an afternoon. (takes a lifetime to master)
Go is played online by people from around the world. (Exposure to different cultures.)
Go can be played in 20 mins (small board, or fast playing) so it is not a timesink (your ~5 hrs/week) Go has a simple handicap system - so weaker players can play stronger without complication.


If your children are gifted, Go can be even more useful:
http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/Gifted.html

Because it is so simple to implement, any old PC can run the software.
(example, java client here: http://www.gokgs.com/ )

Since it is based on a board game, it can also be played in the physical during "family time," trips, or whatnot.

And, though I hate to say this -- there is a popular anime called "Hiraku no Go" that has introduced many many people to the world's oldest continued played board game. ( basic premise: A child (named Hikaru) finds an old goban (the board) that's possessed by the ghost of an ancient Go player. The ghost teaches Hikaru to play the game.) So perhaps you could rent the DVDs and the kids would become interested in the game. (Personally, I've never seen a single episode.)

Some other links that might interest you:
More about the game: http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/
Quick learn-to-play guide: http://playgo.to/interactive/

If they enjoy the game, it'll be something that they will play for the rest of their lives!
(And it also seems to help the elderly.)

Seriously -- Go

Maybe also take a look at an interactive tutorial here http://playgo.to/interactive/
and a place where you can play without installing programs, just with a java plugin here http://www.gokgs.com/

Since Go always comes up in these discussions, I'll take this opportunity to point those curious about the game to some places to learn more about it:

http://playgo.to/interactive/, learn how to play the game in an interactive fashion.

http://361points.com/atarigo/, play "capture" Go against a simple computer opponent.

http://www.gokgs.com/, after you've learned the rules, play against others online worldwide.

http://www.godiscussions.com/, have more questions about the game? Ask them on this discussion board devoted to the game.

Learning Go takes 15 minutes. Mastering it takes far longer than one's lifetime. Visit this interactive site to learn Go if you are interested. A great place to play at is Kiseido Go Server, known for its great software and friendly userbase. Click "Play Go Now" to open up an external applet through your browser, or navigate through the site to download and install the client on your computer.

That's part of the road to mastery. Actually learning how to play the game is very easy. Here is an interactive site for learning Go that everybody who has come into contact with swears by.

All you need to do to get better in Go is to play more games. A large part of its allure is that playing more games increases your strength, starting from the very first game you play right up until you've played for 60 or 70 years straight. You always get stronger at Go with each passing game, and even this generation's top professionals are much stronger than last generation's.

(To respond to the two examples the parent gave above: As far as learning when regions are alive and dead, you should learn as part of your initial instruction into the rules exactly what makes a group alive or dead. A group with at least two 'eyes' is alive. Although you will know that definition, it takes a reasonable number of games for that to be internalized, as do many of its other niceties.

And as far as knowing when the game is over, that is something else that takes time to fully grasp. Within two months of playing, you will probably be able to say for certain, without any outside help, when the game is over. Of course that statement is a bit simplified, as lower-ranked players will miss certain plays that could gain them some points in the end-game, but the point is that true beginners often feel like they do not know when the game should be ended, whereas somebody who has play for one to two months semi-regularly would have a very good idea when to end it.)

I'm going to have to disagree with that statement.
While I do love Chess (And everyone and their brother should learn to play Go.) I really don't see the intrinsic intellectual value of Sudoku. Sudoku is quite similar to the children's game with the various shaped pegs that you have to fit into the corresponding holes on a board. It can be challenging, but ultimately it comes down to a process of elimination and time will solve just about any problem as long as you keep track of what you've tried.

I'll grant that your average FPS, MMORPG, and Platform game do almost nothing to improve your intellect and really they only improve response times. There is something to be said for a good quality RTS, Turn based strategy game, or the all but dead adventure game which forces you to think critically. And to a lesser extent even the classic "falling object puzzle" games. Certainly far more than watching movies and television.

Like any and all hobbies, moderation is the key.

This page introduces the rules of Go, http://playgo.to/interactive/ and this page gives background information about it: http://senseis.xmp.net/?WhatIsGo
The second site mentioned contains a Wiki with lots of Go-related information.

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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.

At some point you should probably buy some books. There is a very complete Go Bibliography that will help you pick out books to start with. I suggest the Learn to Play Go series along with the Graded Go Problems for Beginners series.

From the Sensei's Library you can get links to find Go playing programs and also Go servers that will let you play go on the internet with people from around to globe.

At some point you should probably buy some books. There is a very complete Go Bibliography that will help you pick out books to start with. I suggest the Learn to Play Go series along with the Graded Go Problems for Beginners series.

From the Sensei's Library you can get links to find Go playing programs and also Go servers that will let you play go on the internet with people from around to globe.

Can't recommend a good place to read the rules

Requires Java, but with a relatively small investment of time, you can learn the rules fairly easily here, along with a nice assortment of problems to solve at the end of the tutorial:

http://playgo.to/interactive/

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.

On the flip side, it's actually easier to teach than chess (fewer rules, no difference in the pieces)...

As someone who has casually played Chess for years and has spent the last month or so learning Go, I'm less certain about this.

In terms of learning the rules, Go is certainly simplier, but it's jarring to many people. While Chess requires memorizing a bunch of arbitrary moves, the core ideas are obvious to people: pieces move from space to space, you kill (capture) other pieces, you're trying to get the leader (king), you're on one side the other guy is on the other now charge. In Go you play on intersections, you surround territory (and have to learn to recognize when surrounded territory is still in play), you rarely remove pieces. As The Interactive Way to Go puts it, "Go is sharing game." That's a weird idea for most western game players.

Similarlly, basic Chess strategy is relatively obvious; you get surprisingly far with just rough ordering of the value of the pieces (pawn < knight or bishop < rook < queen < king) and a few simple strategies (claim the middle, threaten as much space as possible). This based on my own experiences. I know I suck and my strategies are childish at best, yet I stomp most people I play. It's rare to have a "wouldn't it be fun to play" with someone who plays seriously. Of course, against a serious player I'd be crushed flat.

Go strategy, the on other hand, is harder to understand. You're confronted with a huge number of possible moves (I'm only just becoming comfortable with 9x9 boards; full 19x19 boards scare me). The early game tends to look confused and scattered; you're looking for general patterns. At first you'll be spending your time fretting over forming eyes and seeing ladders. I'm starting to grasp that I'll often need to ignore opportunities to capture or block my opponent's advance because I know I can block them later and can make an offensive move instead. (This is also true in Chess to an extent, but I'm finding I need to track many more "keep an eye on now, but do nothing now" positions, again on the small 9x9 board.)

I'm enjoying the heck out of Go, but I'm not convinced it's necessarily easier that Chess for a new player. To make a crude generalization, I suspect most "Western" minds more easily mesh with a small pile of rules and straightforward strategy than simple rules but holistic strategy.

That said, I encourage everyone to take some time to learn Go. The Interactive Way to Go is a great gentle introduction with lots of Java boards to practice concepts on.

On the flip side, it's actually easier to teach than chess (fewer rules, no difference in the pieces)...

As someone who has casually played Chess for years and has spent the last month or so learning Go, I'm less certain about this.

In terms of learning the rules, Go is certainly simplier, but it's jarring to many people. While Chess requires memorizing a bunch of arbitrary moves, the core ideas are obvious to people: pieces move from space to space, you kill (capture) other pieces, you're trying to get the leader (king), you're on one side the other guy is on the other now charge. In Go you play on intersections, you surround territory (and have to learn to recognize when surrounded territory is still in play), you rarely remove pieces. As The Interactive Way to Go puts it, "Go is sharing game." That's a weird idea for most western game players.

Similarlly, basic Chess strategy is relatively obvious; you get surprisingly far with just rough ordering of the value of the pieces (pawn < knight or bishop < rook < queen < king) and a few simple strategies (claim the middle, threaten as much space as possible). This based on my own experiences. I know I suck and my strategies are childish at best, yet I stomp most people I play. It's rare to have a "wouldn't it be fun to play" with someone who plays seriously. Of course, against a serious player I'd be crushed flat.

Go strategy, the on other hand, is harder to understand. You're confronted with a huge number of possible moves (I'm only just becoming comfortable with 9x9 boards; full 19x19 boards scare me). The early game tends to look confused and scattered; you're looking for general patterns. At first you'll be spending your time fretting over forming eyes and seeing ladders. I'm starting to grasp that I'll often need to ignore opportunities to capture or block my opponent's advance because I know I can block them later and can make an offensive move instead. (This is also true in Chess to an extent, but I'm finding I need to track many more "keep an eye on now, but do nothing now" positions, again on the small 9x9 board.)

I'm enjoying the heck out of Go, but I'm not convinced it's necessarily easier that Chess for a new player. To make a crude generalization, I suspect most "Western" minds more easily mesh with a small pile of rules and straightforward strategy than simple rules but holistic strategy.

That said, I encourage everyone to take some time to learn Go. The Interactive Way to Go is a great gentle introduction with lots of Java boards to practice concepts on.

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.

The first result at google for "learn go" was the one I always considered best for getting the basics down, and a small start into intermediate:

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

is the Interactive Way To Go. It's where I learned. I'm far from any mastery, but I'm quite comfortable playing now.

It's easy to spread out over several sessions, and actually teaches what things are (properly) and what to do about them, instead of simply referring to past games or showing pictures.

Good luck!

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.

With all due respect to Backgammon, Chess and Id, the best game I've ever played is Go. It's easy to learn but takes a lifetime to master. As well, it's deep enough to force a player to actual think all most all of the time. With it's handicap system, even beginners can offer masters a challenging game enjoyable to both.

American Go Association
http://www.usgo.org/index.asp

International Go Federation
http://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/igf/index.htm

The Interactive Way To Go
(excellent tutorial)
http://playgo.to/interactive/

Tips for Learning Go
http://go.kestrel.nu/

Interestingly enough, it remains the one game that cannot be won by brute force number crunching. Even an average player can beat the best Go programs. As such, I conisder it to be a useful tool in the search for meaningingful computing.

Go is a whole new challenge
http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/go.html\

If you don't Go, you'll never get anywhere! ;~)

Online Go has been around for a while. Check out the Internet Go Server for one. I recommend Cgoban as a client. apt-get or emerge should get it for you. If you don't know how to play, the The Interactive Way to Go is highly recommended as a tutorial.

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.