The Best Part About Go

This is a page where everybody can enter what they like best about Go.

Pete?: I love Go because it's a game that rewards harmony. If you play to live, rather than play to attack, if you are neither greedy nor lazy, and if you listen to the stones rather than listening to your desire, you win. Otherwise, you lose. So Go helps our species to evolve.

Unkx80: The best part about Go is that players are free to play almost anywhere on the board. =)

(Sebastian:) There are so many good parts - hard to say what's the best part! Maybe it is that it appeals to my sense of shape, which raises it above a mere strategy game.

Brent: One of the things I like best about Go is its aesthetic nature. Of course the game itself -- its strategy, tactics, etc. -- is beautiful, but I am also referring simply to the arrangement of stones on the goban. Someone who knows absolutely nothing about Go, happening upon a game in progress, is quite likely to exclaim, "Wow! That looks really amazing!", or simply to stop and stare. (=

Bildstein: That it is an art, in that it takes time and patience to learn, that there is no limit, and that we can not even understand in ourselves what makes us good at it. If everyone, whether they had never played or had played for a lifetime, could play with the same skill, it would have a lot less appeal for me.

TimK: The fact that all of the interesting things in go come from emergent behavior - they are not specified in the rules. +++

absorbed?: the moment when you realise the solution to a difficult problem in or out of a game.

HandOfPaper: I am a very weak player, but there is one aspect of the game that has been nice to me on both sides (losing and winning this kind of fight) recently. In go, there are things which link local aspects of the game to global ones. However, the one I have in mind can link the smallest local situation to some of the largest global ones and so can be considered a very extreme example of this. It is also such an important part of the game that there is a proverb advising players who don't like it to simply ditch the game entirely. It twists sente so completely and inimitably that the game forever marked by its importance. It provides a most ambiguous and interesting end to some tsumego problems, like those leading to RectangularSixInTheCorner, the BentFourInTheCorner, and the Carpenter's Square. And all this comes out of the only one of Go's rules which (superficially) looks the least bit artificial, though this rule arises from the necessity of avoiding an easily encountered infinite loop in gameplay. I am, of course, talking about ko.

I think this can be thought of as a specific case of TimK's point -- Karl Knechtel

What I like most about a good game of go is the excitement. Yeah just having fun playing... (Even if I don't play too much..:) Reuven

Malweth: That there is always something new to learn and there is always a higher level of understanding to reach. The fact that there are two ways of learning, intellectually and intuitively, that must be used in tandem. The process of learning is the reason I like go.

Thurisaz: Aside from the good stuff already listed above, I would like to add a little "fun fact" from my personal experience... at the first Go playing evening I visited (one week ago) I almost stumbled over and old friend of mine I had long lost contact with. Hey, you never know how many of the people you lost track of will one day greet you from across the Goban...

QWerner:Go is addicting, but in contrast the most other drugs, its healthy for the brain:o)

P7A77: They are all the best part. Something that attracts me is the elegant complexity arising from an incredibly simple premise.

Similarly here.

iopq: A 6-dan amateur that visits to the go club I frequent almost quit the game because he realized he would never understand it. On the other hand, chess is perfectly understood and superior tactical reading wins every time.

Gringo: What I like about go that it is complex in it's own form. There are only a few rules to learn, yet there are about infinite ways to end a game.

Hicham: For me it is the part of the thinking process where I suddenly get a deeper understanding of what is going on. For just a second I can read deep and quick. For just that moment I feel really smart. Unluckily that feeling is only there for half a second and then i feel lost again;) It is the moment in which you can see all the variations unfolding in your mindseye. For me this is moment of serene understanding is like a drug, that is the reason why I play.

Vincent: I can sum up what I find most appealing about Go in one word: Balance.

Arden Chan: The best part is that GO is a metaphor for life. It teaches many life lessons: Don't be too greedy. Look for the biggest point. Urgent moves before big moves. Be balanced. Don't pick a fight, if you're ahead. Look for a tenuki. (There are MANY more.) +

Peter Just? : I love the way the absolute simplicity of the board, pieces, and rules yields a complexity so deep that great intelligences, both human and artificial, are humbled by it.

And here. Is a WME in order?

anonymous: I love the nerve-racking moments that cause your heart rate to skyrocket.

Vorlondel?: I enjoy exploring Go, that sense of satisfaction that I find when I uncover something new. Like a better opening move or a clever response in Joseki. The joy of seeing others learn the same things I’ve discovered…

BentFranklin?: I like how you have to keep the forest *and* the trees in your mind at the same time. That's not trivial - rather it is a hallmark of consciousness.

Christine: The best part of Go is playing it.You play new people,learn how they play and soon surpass that.But i only played Online Go,never in real life with a real board.I've been playing for 9 months now and im only 8k xD