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How to Beat Anyone At Go
    Keywords: Humour

Warning: This method can result in severe loss of honor if used against players known to be weaker than you. Only do this if they are stronger! Also, I cannot be held responsible for any injuries exacted by your victim.

If you want to be able to beat anyone at go, you must be willing to go through numerous steps to butter them up for the game.

The Challenge

All you have to do is challenge this person to an early morning game on a Saturday. That's the most important part. It ""must"" be a morning game on a Saturday. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart. Then ask if they would like to come to a "party" you are holding the day before, but be sure you can invite some of your friends to come. Tell your friends before-hand that the party will also be used as a front for you to defeat your opponent.

Preliminary Self-Bashing (if applicable)

Only do this one if you are sure your opponent doesn't know how skilled you are. After he/she gets to your house, complain about how you weren't sure about this match anyway. Use phrases like "I get beat all the time on the internet servers" or "I only stand a chance in the Yahoo kids server, even though I always win". If your opponent says it's OK if you don't want a match, say that you want to go ahead with the match anyway because you'll review it later. For even more effect, go find a simple ladder problem (they are abundant on [ext] Go Problems.com).

Buttering Up

It should be getting late by now, so prepare your victim for the next step. If you (and your friends) are legally allowed to drink alcohol (by no means am I condoning the consumption of alcohol), make it a point that you want to drink a lot. Offer to pour some for your opponent and your friends, and go somewhere where you can't be seen. Give you and your friends non-alcoholic beer, but give your opponent alcoholic beer. If you can't drink alcohol, make sure you have a lot of Sprite lying around (as well as a caffeinated equivalent like Storm), and do the step just as if you were dealing with beer. Eventually the party will have died down, and everyone will go home. Before your friends go home, thank them in secret for all their help. Now comes the final step.

The Game

If you drank beer in the last step, your opponent will have a splitting hangover. If you drank soda, they will at least be really tired. Call up your friend around 6:00 AM and complain about how you have a hangover / are really tired. Yet, nonetheless, you want to go ahead with the match. Ask if they could drive over to your house to play. If they try to reschedule it, refuse to do so, saying that you have a big game coming up. If they have any sense of decency, they will think this: "What the heck, he invited me over to his party. The least I can do is drive over to his house and whoop him in go." When he comes, say that to keep things reasonable (and to make things easier to accurately review), you will agree to no handicap if at one point during the game, you get to pick your opponent's move. Your opponent will likely agree. If not, skip down to the Backup Plan below. Your opponent is also likely to allow you to be black. If not or if he insists on using nigiri and you're not black for some reason, skip down to If You're White. So, starting off, put down your stone in some reasonable position like hoshi or tengen. But when your opponent prepares to put down their stone, stop them, saying you want to choose their move. When they relent, say that you want to make their move a pass. Realization will likely dawn on your opponent, and when you pass yourself, you will have won by over 350 points. Congratulations.

If You're White

If you're white, you will pretty much be following the exact same steps as shown above, except your victory won't be nearly as impressive. So let your opponent play their first stone, then mirror that move unless it's tengen, at which point you should play at hoshi. Then, stop your opponent from playing their second move, saying you want to pick it. Make it a pass, then pass yourself. Every space on the board will be dame, and you will have won by whatever komi you decided on.

Back-up Plan

If that doesn't work, than just tell / remind them that you're still unsure, and that you should be able to set up your handicap however you want. For added measure, offer that they lie down on your couch while you think of your handicap. This is under the pretext that they can try and forget that they have a hangover / are really tired. If in the rare case that they turn this down, go to What To Do If All Else Fails. While they're lying there, quickly set up a 180 stone handicap for yourself (while making as little noise as possible) in a checker pattern like this:

[Diagram]
One corner of the winning handicap

You will have totally surrounded every space on the board. When you wake your opponent up and show them the board, they will feel worse than they did before.


If it looks really desparate, glue the stones to the board.

What To Do If All Else Fails: Two words. Nuclear Tesuji.



This is a copy of the living page "How to Beat Anyone At Go" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.