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Why Did You Start Go
    Keywords: Question
  • How did you become interested in Go?
  • Why did you decide to start pursuing it more seriously?
  • Before you started playing Go, having only heard about it, what did you think about it?
  • Did it turn out to be anything like you expected it to?


A related idea:

Since many of us would like Go to have more status and more followers in the West, the question to ask is: What can we do about it?

Maybe the reasons that people give for learning and playing Go can give some suggestions on how to create more players.

-- PekkaKarjalainen


TakeNGive (10k): I first heard of Go in a novel (Shibumi, by Trevanian) when i was about 15. It seemed interesting, appealing to my juvenile elitism (a very bad novel, in retrospect, but i liked it then), but i found no more information on it for years. When i was 18 or 19, in a cafe where go players congregated, i did not recognize the game. I found the players standoffish and rude, and the noise of the stones distracting. A few years later, a chance encounter with a bored mathematician finally taught me the rules of go. I found it instantly fascinating, of course, and read the books i could find, and played with everyone i could (back in that cafe).

Go turned out to be much as descibed in Shibumi: wood, shell, slate; engrossing, beautiful; deep, subtle, easily misunderstood. It also is different: playing Go in no way indicates superiority as a person.

What i find puzzling is the people who don't fall in love with Go when they are shown it. When i work out life & death problems in a cafe, people often inquire; but it seems only people who already have heard of the game and already want to learn will actually sit and listen to me explain about liberties etc. (Maybe it's my deodorant?)

What to do about it (enticing more go players) -- well, the movie Pi has helped some; i get more glances of recognition and willing learners now than a few years ago. So a tentative suggestion -- infiltrate mass media with more (and more intriguing) images of go? I have no idea how to do that, since i'm not a Hollywood scriptwriter... Meanwhile, i'll be at the cafe looking glamorous, and teaching the rules to kids at the local school.
- TakeNGive


About a year ago when I was 14, I found a go set my brother had bought. He had never really played it but it cam with an instruction booket and I read it, following along by playing peices on the board. Soon I took to the computer.

Discovering that Yahoo! had java go, I started to learn the points I didn't understand. It was really hard because the instruction booklet was vague and there aren't many helpful players on yahoo. Eventually I found someone willing ot spend time teaching me fine points of the game. I slowly learned all of the rules and some very basic technique.

Soon I taught all of my friends and I got way into go. I started looking for clubs in my area and I was lucky enough to find one meeting at the university which was not far from my house. I started play people there from about 12kyu-3dan and got a little bit better. It took a long time to get in the hang of it. I also got friends to join me at the go club, and we still play a lot.

Now that I have started playing better players, I have become very interested in go, and it is one of my biggest hobbies.

-- IronChefSakai



DieterVerhofstadt: Just like TakeNGive, my life as a Go player started with the novel Shibumi by Trevanian. All credits go to StefanVerstraeten however, who gave me the book, taught me the game and asked me if I wanted to marry his sister. (One of these is not true).



This is a copy of the living page "Why Did You Start Go" at Sensei's Library.
(C) the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.