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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 Go 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).


MtnViewMark: When I was about 11 or 12 a friend of my parents had a Go set in his living room. He taught me some and we played a few games now and then. Later, when I was 13 I found some Go books and a set in a study at a house where I was baby sitting. I would play through games when the kids went to bed. I then asked my parents for a Go set as a present. My mom tells this funny story of her trudging through Chinatown in New York trying to by a Go set. I still have it.


Bignose: My chronology goes roughly as follows:

  • become involved with computers and bulletin-board sites (that's right kids, before the Internet was available to regular schmucks)
  • encounter scattered references to Go as being an interesting board game
  • play an early version of GnuGo without reading instructions, get beaten, don't understand why
  • get first glimpse of the real thing in the fascinating movie "Pi" by Darren Aronofsky, become intrigued by mystique of this cool-looking game
  • during slack period at work, research the game on the Web
  • encounter rules of "Go Moku" and realise this is just some silly five-in-a-row game
  • during fortunate extension of slack period at work, continue research and discover that Go Moku is not Go
  • print out The Way To Go and am finally hooked
  • seek out local club, discover it meets within a five-minute drive of my place
  • finally play my first game in August 1999 at the MelbourneGoClub
  • switch jobs to work with a lot of other geeky people
  • take a couple of Go sets to work, play through games and problems at work to get people to approach me if interested
  • teach about a dozen people to play before leaving 18 months later

Lessons learned:

  • It seems to take a lot of preparation for someone to take to Go as a permanent occupation. In my case I'd heard about the game as background noise for many years; most people I speak to who are enthusiastic about the game have encountered references to it many years before they first started playing.
  • It can be difficult to get information to people in the right context and in the right light. Past a certain age people, on the whole, are very reluctant to learn new things, and there is a definite stigma in many Western cultures against pursuits that appear to be "smart". People would much prefer passive entertainment, it seems.
  • The difficulty and challenge of the game must be framed precisely. Of course one of the major attractions that keep people enthusiastic about the game is that there is so much to know, and you never stop learning. However, this works strongly against the game when teaching it to adults -- they want reassurance that they will be able to feel rewarded almost immediately, just like with a computer game. Go too far with this, though, and you risk people discarding the game because they "see" that there isn't much to the game (like five-in-a-row).
  • 9 out of 10 people will make two comments, in order: "Wow, they look like mints, can you eat them, ha ha ha ha"; "Is this like Othello?". The ones who make neither of these comments are often those who've seen the game before and will be much more receptive.

Goran Siska

  • How did you become interested in Go?

I found the rules in an old book that had rules to various games (card games, board games, tricks, outdoor games etc..), so I got only the most basic information on the game (the one game that was shown was on an 11x11 board featuring two beginners playing next to random moves, so that wasn't much of a help :) )

  • Why did you decide to start pursuing it more seriously?

I made myself a set (no you cannot buy a go set in Slovenia even if your life depended on it!) out of Mechano set (nuts&bolts for w&b) and a printed diagram (on an old printer paper with perforations on sides :) ). Played a game with myself and fell in love.

  • Before you started playing Go, having only heard about it, what did you think about it?

Some 7-8 years passed till I became a student and got access to the internet. I stopped playing chess and other board games and was on a lookout for a go club. I knew the game was something special but I couldn't find anyone with more information. The second time I logged on to the internet I found a unix version of ManyFacesOfGo? (with no restrictions on board size :) ) and the IGS server. But before I had the nerve to log on to IGS I trained with MF and so you could say my first real teacher was MF-sensei :). In our fourth or fifth game MF made a bamboo joint connection - looked kinda weird so I started thinking about it till I realised it was a great move (I'm still fond of bamboo's :) ). I realised that in this game, you can play beautiful shapes and there's meaning behind them and that I will never stop playing it.

  • Did it turn out to be anything like you expected it to?

No. It turned out to be better :)

Goran (playing for almost 10 years now and still learning, still losing and still loving every minute...)


-- JanDeWit: I bumped into Go when I was about 15, tried to read 'Go for beginners' in Dutch by Iwamoto Kaoru, failed at doing that.

Fastforward to the near present (10 yrs later): when I was forced to be at home due to a broken ankle, I happened across some Go links. The rest, as they say, is history... I'm not a serious player (anymore?) in any case but I like to burn a few spare brain cycles on Go.

Most of my Go experiences come from playing the computer programs IgoWin, TurboGo and after a longish period of inactivity my own creation HaGo.


Scartol - My neighbors down the street had a Go set stashed in with their other board games (Sorry, Risk, etc), and when we gathered there growing up, I was interested, but never cared enough to pursue it. Then, this autumn, I decided I was going to learn how to play, for crying out loud. The simple mystery of the game really appealed to me, and I decided I'd at least find out how it worked.

Well, from the first few pages, I was hooked. I think that like anything, Go has to presented in an enticing way, with neophytes given just enough at first to whet their appetites, and drawn in more and more with time..



My father used to be the president of his college Go club, and had several boards lying around the house. So when I was very small, he taught me the rules and tried to interest me in the game. I loved the concept of the game while growing up, but for many years I was more interested in other things (mainly books), and did not have time to actually learn the game. Also, I had no one around to play but my father, who never in his life let anyone win at anything. It's hard to retain ongoing interest in a game where you always lose. So as a kid, I played until I knew early in the game that I was going to lose and why, and then I stopped.

Only several months ago, last August, did I finally make an IGS account and start playing seriously. A month later, returning to school, I joined our Go club. Since doing all that, I've fallen in love with the game all over again.

It turned out better than I expected, too. I've barely started actually playing, and there's still this moment in each game where I realize that I can actually focus all my attention on it and submerge myself in it, and I fall into the patterns unfolding. I'm well on my way to forming a life-long obsession.

Actually, I've found it easier to convince people to begin playing after they've seen a few episodes of the anime HikaruNoGo, nowadays. And the main difficulty I've had in teaching new people is that there is no beginner mode.. and they, like I did as a child, become frustrated easily. The idea of teaching two people at once definitely sounds like a clever one.

People who know me know that I play, and would be delighted to teach. And every time the Go club on campus has a demonstration, they ask to learn. Every time they go to the Sakura Matsuri and see the Go table, they ask to learn. Every time there is a reference in the media (eg. in Pi, on one episode of Andromeda, in anime, etc.), they ask to learn. Sometimes even when I tell a really bad Go joke, they ask to learn.

--Regyt



I recently went home for Spring Break, and played three games with my father. I won all three times, by over 30 moku in two of the games, and by resignation after forty or so moves in the third.

Since I started playing because of a need to beat him at his own game, I felt this was worth mentioning here.

This leads me to wonder - subjectively, how does it feel to improve at Go?

--Regyt



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.