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Chess Players New To Go
   

This page is meant to be a place where chess players who have just heard about Go, and would like more information, can come for some advice. It is also meant to be somewhere they (or should I say, we?!) can get some tips to improve our play.


Why would I be interested in Go?

There are several reasons:

  • It is a similar game to chess (see Go Players Who Also Play Chess)
  • It is very easy to learn...
  • ...but almost impossible to master
  • You will almost certainly like it
  • You will probably be quite good at it

How is it similar?

  • It is a strategic game, with no random chance
  • It is an abstract wargame
  • You need a logical mind and the ability to look several moves ahead
  • 9x9 go is more like chess than 19x19 (less strategy, one tactical clash settles the game, material more important), and it can even be played on a chess board!

How is it different?

  • Strategy is much more important than in chess...
  • ...because the board is much bigger.
  • You will have to get used to thinking on a much larger scale
  • Focusing too much on tactics will win you one fight, but lose you the game.
  • Taking pieces isn't as important. In chess, a one pawn advantage is decisive at higher levels. In Go, the focus is more on territory and influence.[0]
  • It's possible to compensate for differing skill levels[1], and for the advantage of the first move[2], in a very fine-grained way.[4]
  • Draws are extremely rare.[3]
  • Once a move is made it is always there to stay, so every move is as critical as a pawn move in chess.
  • Go is always dynamic, so you cannot "sit" on a position and press a positional advantage in safety, as you can in chess.
  • You can get much further in go without memorising many openings (though this is no longer true if you want to go beyond shodan level roughly equivalent to 2000 rating).
  • No computers to make years of study and effort seem futile -- in go, you can beat the best programs after a few months.
  • In general, a game of go takes longer than a game of chess and casual club games are usually played without a clock (though "blitz go" is quite popular on internet servers).

Where do I go from here?

Start at the Beginner Study Section. This will tell you the rules of Go, and leads on to a huge amount of other information.

Try some other chess related pages on SL:


[0] The typical territory versus influence exchange in go has an analogy in chess, namely a sacrifice of material for the initiative. The difference is that essentially every go game features such exchanges. ilanpi

[1] The weaker player is given a handicap; he starts with a number of stones already on the board, before the first move.

[2] Points are customarily given to the player taking the white stones. This is called "komi", and is usually 6.5 points.

[3] When komi is given, a fractional point is usually added. This makes it impossible to have an equal result. (Draws are still possible in other ways, but they're very rare.)

[4] I don't agree that this is a big difference between chess and go. In speed chess, there is a handicap system which works extremely well, except that it is time handicap. It allows a similar skill hierarchy. ilanpi

BenjaminGeiger: I disagree. Looking beyond the obvious advantage of go's handicap system (namely, that it works no matter what time system (if any) is in use), and that the time handicap system also works in go, there's another distinction to be made.

Time-based handicaps are not part of the game itself. Instead, they are part of the MetaGame?. Chess itself has only coarse adjustments, by removing pieces before playing.

Not only does time handicap in speed chess give an efficient system, but material handicap also requires similar skills to handicap go. In particular, I recently gave queen odds to a beginner and was amazed to discover that I had known many of the principles of high handicap go (delaying fights, leaving positions unsettled, sealing in your opponent) for years. ilanpi

Time-based handicap is an effective means of handicapping chess. However this is probably the case for any other turn-based game (scrabble, risk, checkers, go, etc..)

Tamsin: I'm not sure time-handicapping is so effective, really. What happens is that when the weaker player does make use of their extra time to think about a move, the stronger player uses that time also. The only way such a handicap could be sure to work would be to give the stronger player such a small allowance that there would be a real danger of losing on time, thereby putting pressure on them. For example, thirty minutes versus ten minutes would not help the weaker player at all, but thirty minutes against three would be another matter.

ilanpi: Tamsin, time handicap are the basis for money games in speed chess and this works extremely well. A typical handicap is 5 minutes versus X minutes, where X = 4, 3, 2, 1. The phenomenon you describe is part of the challenge of playing when given a handicap, that is, should you play faster to give your opponent even less time to think. Roughly speaking, I would say that 5 to 4 is like 2 stones, 5 to 3 like 3 stones or 4, 5 to 2 is like 5 or 6 stones, and 5 to 1 is like 9 stones. For example, when I was 1750 in chess, I played a grandmaster for money with 5 to 1 time odds and ended up behind 6 games after a couple of hours. On the other hand, a time handicap of 30 minutes versus 10 minutes is meaningless, since there is probably not too much deterioration in play between 30 and 10 minutes.

Piece handicaps are effective in chess, however it may be more difficult to gauge the value of the handicap in chess than in go. Go historically has a relationship between the amount of handicap stones and the relative strength difference of the players. Go would also appear to have a more linear scale to piece handicapping - but piece handicapping in chess is still 'handicapping' - and still 'chess'.

I'd draw another similarity in piece handicapping in that it greatly affects the opening of _both_ games. Four stone handicap means white is approaching in all 4 corners rather than placing the first stone into a given corner. As positions become more complex, the value of the handicap may be decreased _or_ increased by optimal play. Joshual000


Discussion

Any other ideas?

Duncan



This is a copy of the living page "Chess Players New To Go" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.