It’s very difficult to get a game on KGS if you have a “?” rating. I was at 11 kyu, but then didn’t play for a long while, so that my account was deleted and I was back with a ? rating. Even though I said in my challenge that I was around 11 kyu, I got no takers—until this morning. And when I challenged others about my rank, they declined the challenge.

But finally a very nice 10-kyu (one kyu stronger than 11 kyu) accepted my invitation to a game, and we just finished playing. I did lose, but only by 2.5 points (taking the komi into account). Nice game and we were both happy—though I think both of us looked at several missed opportunities. Still, I now have a rank, though it still has a ? attached: “12k?”. So perhaps I’ll have an easier time getting games.

Ben notes that he’s been playing against the 9×9 Go program igowin. Igowin is free and offers a quick game for a break, but 9×9 is a strange game. There are in fact 9×9 tournaments (usually a section in a regular tournament), but that format has some disadvantages—it’s almost like a single large corner.

13×13 gives a much better feel for Go, though this format lacks sides—when you back out of one corner, you find that your advancing already into the other corner. But at least you can play a more Go-like game. (Go itself is played on a 19×19 board.)

The best program—most lifelike, making the fewest seemingly random moves—that I’ve found is Go++. The latest version is version 7, and it’s just US$40. Well worth it if you want to increase your playing strength.

You can adjust the program’s playing strength, set a handicap, and choose which color the computer plays. Quite nice.

Of course, playing against other players (for example, on Kiseido Go Server) is probably best, but it’s quite understandable that one wants to practice enough to present a good showing, and Go++ is probably the best way to do it.

Ben, in the comments, reminds me of The Interactive Way to Go, a very nice instructional program. Requires Java, which you can download for free (and if you’re using a good browser, you probably already have it).

Fight dementia: learn Go. (Good bumper sticker, eh?)

And timely news from a Go vendor:

Slate & Shell has just acquired the new printing of Teach Yourself Go, by Charles Matthews, which has been unavailable in the US for awhile. This is an excellent general book about the game that also functions as an introductory book. However, it is much more thorough and covers more issues about tactics and strategy than normal intro books, so it is useful to virtually any kyu player. It also has information about the history and culture of the game.

You keep your mind agile and able by learning new things, and Go is a great candidate. Learn now, practice through the next few weeks, and over the Thanksgiving break play several games a day. It will, I promise, change the way you look at things.

Yellow Mountain Imports is having a sale on Go equipment. I have grown to like the single convex Go stones: flat one side, the better to snap them down as you make your move, convex on the other. They also help in playing a variation: as you begin the variation, place the stones flat-side up. When you’re finished, you know exactly the stones to remove to return to the original position.

The fall season is on us, and the nights will soon be longer than the day. Time to learn a new game, or to return to an old favorite. They also have Shogi, for Chess fans: the pieces you capture can return to the struggle, only fighting on your side. And Chinese Chess, with the river running across the board.

Engage your mind.

The Older Grandson is getting good tournament experience: a large tournament last weekend, a smaller tournament this weekend. Both tournaments are rated, so his AGA rating will be established.

One learns a lot in a tournament. First you focus on the game with an unusual intensity and then, after the game, you generally adjourn to another room and review the game with your opponent—at exactly the time when your mind is most open to learning from your (and his) mistakes. A few tournaments, combined with some study, can greatly deepen one’s understanding of the game.

Just got a call. The Older Grandson is at his first Go tournament ever. Top players there are 8-dans (very strong), but there’s a good range. Since this is his first tournament, his rating is provisional, but he’s definitely still in the early stages of learning Go. Still: he lost his first game, but won his second. Very exciting for all of us, as you can guess.

Thanks to a reader in the Netherlands, an article on playing Go—in the Moscow Times, no less. But in English, thankfully.

For the first time in quite a while, I played a real-time game of Go on Kiseido Go Server, using their excellent CGoban 3 client. I was well ahead, and then blundered—twice. :sigh: I am kicking myself repeatedly. It’s a little like a car accident in that you keep going over it in your mind and trying to make it not have happened. Only no physical injuries or insurance claims, of course. I suppose I should start playing regularly and see if I can restore my Go powers.

The guys painting the apartment are Korean, and one saw my Go board through the dining room window as he was painting. He just introduced himself, and we’re going to get together to play some Baduk. (Korean for “Go.”)

For those who want to augment their cognitive reserve by exercising their mind, learning and playing Go is an attractive option. So, asked a sometime correspondent, how does one go about learning Go?

Possibly the best way is to show up at the local Go club and ask for instruction. But many places lack a local Go club, so let me set out an alternative.

First, this site has interactive instructions via a java engine. (The site is reached through this nice collection of links for the beginning Go player.)

The basic rules, though, hardly hint at how to actually play. I recall the experience of first learning programming: you learn the various op codes and what they do, but when you sit down to put those instructions into a program, you don’t even know where to start.

So, once you know the rules, what’s next? Two things:

Thing 1: Observe some games being played. Just watch and follow the moves. This you can do on your computer: download and install CGoban 3. It’s free, and with this client you can sign on to the Kiseido Go Server (also free) and double-click games in play to observe them.

A quick guide to ratings of strength: At the top levels are the dans: 1-dan (aka shodan) to 9-dan, with 9-dan the strongest. Below the dans are the kyu rankings: 35-kyu to 1-kyu, with 1-kyu the strongest. A beginner is around 35-kyu, though everyone on KGS starts with a rating of “?”. Still, when you decide to seek a game, it is good to indicate that you are just starting to play. In the ratings you’ll see on KGS, dan is abbreviated as “d” and kyu as “k”.

Thing 2: Dragoon someone you know into playing Go with you. Your first games will be confusing—in particular, you probably will have a hard time knowing when the game has ended. So it’s good to start playing on a 13×13 board instead of the regular 19×19 board: the games go more quickly.

To play in person with someone else comfortably, you won’t want to play at the computer, so you’ll need equipment. This inexpensive starter set will get you Go-ing. This set uses single-convex stones (made of glass): traditional Chinese style. They are played flat-side down, and can be placed with a satisfying “snap.” When playing out a variation, the stones in the variation are placed flat-side up—so when you finish the variation, you know which stones to remove to get back to the main line.

The board is 9×9 on one side, 13×13 on the other. 9×9 is really too small to get much of a Go feel, but it’s an interesting game in its own right.

Other: Look at the Go links at the right. Quite a bit of information there, especially in Sensei’s Library. You may want to get a book, especially if you’re book-oriented. For a beginner, the 5-volume set by Janice Kim, available from Samarkand.net, provides a comprehensive introduction.

Once you feel that you understand enough to, say, know when the game is over, start playing on Kiseido Go Server (assuming you don’t have access to a local Go club). At first it will take a while for people to answer a challenge—the “?” scares people off. But if you add a little note that you’re just starting to play, you’ll eventually get an opponent. You learn a lot by actual play.

I’m sure other Go players will chime in with their thoughts on how best to begin, so I’ll turn the floor over to them.

Here’s Swiss Sophie, hustling Go. She will lose the first game, batting stones to the floor to see them fall with that false “uh-oh!” expression cats wear for that. Then, the second, she’ll purr, “And what about a little side bet to make it interesting? Say, a mark a point?” Don’t take her up on it!

I got an email from someone asking how to learn Go. This site (scroll down to “Learn the Basics”) has some excellent links that should be helpful. Note the interactive Go tutorial (requires Java).

Most game-recording forms are 19×19 grids where you write on the intersections—not very nice. At the Go Congress, xed_over had a game recording form that was a 19×19 array of blank Go stones, so you can write the move number in the Go stone: much, much nicer. And you can even draw an outline around a stone to denote it as black. You can download a .PDF of the form. (The form is titled as being from the Uppsala Go Club, but you can edit that with a .PDF editor—Google “pdf edit program” and take your pick.)

Sakata Eio (or Eio Sakata, depending on which convention you follow) is one of my Go heroes. He was a terrifically strong player in his heyday–and is no slouch today. This photo is from a tournament around 1962 or ‘63. Note the threatening gleam of his tooth. His nickname was “The Razor.”

The photo above is a reduction from the fully detailed photo (10.9 MB file), and you can download that here.

I took The Older Grandson Hikaru and Akira keychains, and he immediately created a little Go board and set them up at play. He said they were good at Go because their heads were so large relative to their body.

The Wife sent him a collection of figures from Hikaru No Go, and he later put those in a diorama as well. Here are the figures:

The Go Congress had a board in the shape of North Carolina, and quite a few people played Go on it—including one pro-pro game on the board. I read in the Go Discussion Forum that the pros were fascinated about it and spent a lot of time talking about what would be the best opening move.

I won two games of the six I played in the Open, though I had a solid chance of a win in two other games—and, since one tends to learn more from a loss than a victory, it was a great learning experience. I also had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know other Go players, including one who recognized me from my blog. :blush:

One of the needless losses went like this: I invaded my opponent’s moyo (sketched-out territory) at two places along the side. One place had plenty of room for me to live, and that went fine. The other place was too small, but I struggled—and after I had put enough stones into the group, I had to make it live: losing it would totally tip the game.

He had to decide early whether to attack my weak group and make territory while it struggled to live, or to try to kill it outright. He chose the latter course, and we had a terrific struggle. Finally I managed to squeak out through an opening and make a couple of one-point jumps to connect to a live group, which meant that my stones would live. Read the rest of this entry »

Wei-qi is the Chinese name for Go—or, perhaps more properly, is the Chinese version of Go. The differences are not great: the Chinese often use stones flat on one side, somewhat like a small cookie, whereas the Japanese favor biconvex stones; and the Chinese scoring system is slightly different. First, the stones:

The Chinese stones are on the left, Japanese stones on the right. This particular set of Chinese stones I bought from Yutopian when I was at the Go Congress; the Japanese stones come from Kuroki Goishi Co. Chinese flat-sided Go stones are also available from Yellow Mountain Imports.

Initially, I didn’t like the idea of the Chinese stones, but I listened to a guy talk about them at the Congress: how you can sort of snap them down (they are played flat side down, as shown) and how, when replaying a game, you can play out a variation placing the stones upside down—so that when you’ve played through the variation, you know exactly which stones to remove.

Moreover, the stones don’t tremble and they’re very slightly smaller than the Japanese stones, which are sized so that they are just a tiny bit too large, making the lines of stones not quite straight. Read the rest of this entry »

The Wife mentioned that I had played a couple of kids while at the Go Congress. These were casual games, not tournament play. The boy, 8, is a 9 kyu: he gave me a three-stone handicap and beat me soundly. The girl, 6, is an 18 kyu, though her rating is highly variable since she’s still learning a lot. I gave her a four-stone handicap and managed to win. I will say that she was deadly in the corners: she knew the corner josekis (play at the 3-3 point under a 4-4 stone) cold.

Both kids were extremely endearing. Their Go future looks extremely bright.