C.S. Graves
An acquaintance and I once tried to start a go club in my hometown of Saint John, Canada. Unfortunately, interest was hard to drum up, and that endeavour sadly expired due to lack of attendance.
I used to play on KGS occasionally under my own name. In spite of the potential for improvement on such Go servers, I grew to dislike playing over the internet when I had real equipment collecting dust. The tactile and social aesthetics of the game were missing from the cold computerized experience.
In addition to go, I also enjoy several chess variants, especially Makruk and Xiangqi.
As of 2005/09/19, I noticed that Nanoc has reached KGS 2 dan. Most impressive! I consider myself lucky to have played him back when he was 22 kyu. I wish I could improve so much, but such is life...
Some of my favourite SL pages:
- Graded Go Problems For Beginners - Kano Yoshinori's excellent four-volume series.
- Korean Go Terms - the Japanese did the most to popularize the game in the west, but the Koreans are now a force to be reckoned with. I figure I may as well take a look at their terms for a change.
- Ear Reddening Move - (cue tense Hikaru no Go music here)
- Blood-vomiting game - talk about a game taking its toll! Yikes!
- If Life Were Like Hikaru No Go - outsiders won't get it, cherish the humour, Go fans!
- BadukMadeFunAndEasy - In spite of some of the diagrams being too tiny or marred by JPEG compression to make out, this series of articles in the Korea Times is especially informative for beginners such as I.
- PagesForBeginners - even if you know the basic rules, you may find some useful information here.
- Basic Instinct - because it's nice to know some of the ideas behind the most fundamental of moves.
- Tesuji - clever tactics often useful enough to deserve individual names. I for one wish I could remember more of them!
- TeTsuki - the traditional Japanese way to place stones. Not necessary, it just looks neat. Be sure to follow the link to HowToHoldAndPlayAGoStone. The external Nihon Ki-in page listed there includes photos.
- Deathstar Formation and Skywalker Tesuji - the only thing funnier than the formation and tesuji themselves are the people who don't get it.
Some SL pages that I have contributed to:
- Go Players Who Also Play Chess - apples and oranges, I say.
- Favourite Character In Hikaru No Go - "He's nearly a pro." "uh-WWWOOOOOOWWWWW!!!"
- Movies - because there's more out there than Pi and A Beautiful Mind.
- Movies/Discussion - perhaps not deserving of a page of its own, but I enjoy Tun Fei Mou's Hei Tai Yang 731: Man Behind the Sun nonetheless. And there is go equipment in a few scenes if you watch closely.
Update: due to the controversy surrounding Hei Tai Yang 731 and the historical events upon which it is based, this page has been deleted, with Movies/WARNING put up in its stead, though it too may be deleted. Not sure where I stand on this. I grew to like tderz's original Movies/Discussion page, but not sure that deletion of it and/or the warning page warrants deletion of any mention of the film from the Movies page. I only wanted to make the list of movies more comprehensive, describing the scenes involving go equipment/play. Those interested could very well have investigated themselves through other websites. And while tderz's Hei Tai Yang pages may not be strictly go-related, I wouldn't have objected if they had remained.
In an attempt to lighten the issue with some admittedly dark humour, I find this cartoon eerily relevant.