GO (Dutch Magazine)

GO is the magazine of the Dutch Go Association (Nederlandse Go Bond: NGoB). A.P.H. Schilp founded the NGoB in 1959. He edited the first issue of GO near the end of 1960, after the European Go Congress had been held in Holland first time ever - in Oud Poelgeest near Leiden. Initial frequency of 4 per year dropped after 3 years to one per year. When Schilp became president of the European Go Federation, GO paused for three years, until Jan van Frankenhuyzen took over at the end of 1969. Publication frequency rose to 5 per year and later to six and it became a bimonthly. After three years he followed in the footsteps of Schilp for administrative positions in international go. Robert Rehm and graphic designer Erik van Grieken led GO for many years. Content became richer. Illustrated go-proverbs by Ger Hungerink, also author of many go-related puzzles, were even quoted by Go Weekly.

Major changes came during the 80-ies, when Jan van der Steen first wrote Liberty, a program for entering games on Atari-ST. Soon, all GO was type-set on computer. In those days, his feature "Suji" covered many pages of game-analysis of classics from 19th century Japan, provided by Ronald Schlemper during Central Training sessions. In May 1988, issue 25-2 celebrated the jubilee with an historical overview. In the same month a son was born: Go Moon, a journal by senior editor Peter Dijkema. Soon a core team from GO, with Rob Kok, Jaap Schiethart and Dijkema also took up publishing Grand-Prix Newsletters, which reported about major European tournaments.

In 1994 the printing format became a bit larger than the old A5 and the cover a bit more solid, while the concept continued: (inter)national news and reports, game-analyses, life-and-death and a kid's corner. In 2007, frequency dropped to 5 issues per year, as some content was deemed more suitable for the web page of the NGoB. Another historical issue, due in 2010, looks back at 50 years history of NGoB. Current editor-in-chief Henk Mourik called for his successor early in 2010. He aims to step back before Summer.