Go/Igo/Weiqi/Baduk

[Krill]

I saw the Chess thread and being a Go player on a forum of INTPs, I thought I'd make a thread for Go.

I've played for a number of years and I love it. I'm happy to answer questions or provide resources to anyone interested. If anyone wants to play online, I frequent OGS. My name there is GORDONCOLE. KGS is the current biggest server but until its transition from Java to HTML5 I'm staying away from it.

There's some pretty exciting stuff going on in Go right now: for one, the American Go Association got backing to create a pro system (recognized internationally). The US got our first two pros last year! They teamed up against Korean player Lee Sedol, one of the top players in the world, and were thoroughly thrashed. Oh well, one can always dream.

Speaking of Lee Sedol, he is currently in a 10-game match against Gi Li from China. Gu Li and Lee Sedol have been the most consistently dominant players in the past decade and have a more or less even record against each other. They consider themselves rivals. Earlier in the century it was not uncommon for the top players in Japan (which was then by far the most dominant nation in Go) to have ten-game matches like this. They usually got a lot of coverage and press. It looks like the Chinese sponsors decided to bring that form of contest back. It's one game a month and the winner gets ~$800,000. The loser gets $30,000. Lee won the first game in January.

KGS presented the game with live professional commentary in English. Of course, since each player has 4 hours of thinking time, it's difficult to stick around for all of it. I expect they'll do the same for future games.

[Madrigal]

Thanks, I'll definitely try OGS.

[jigglypuff]

best/preferred go clients? and any recommendations for beginners' resources?

i'm on gopanda2

i used to observe games when i was little, but i was never taught the strategy (other than the most basic) and basically i suck so hard. i wanna get people to play with me in real life. i'm sure there are some local clubs near me and i'm thinking about it.

[Krill]

best/preferred go clients? and any recommendations for beginners' resources?

i used to observe games when i was little, but i was never taught the strategy (other than the most basic) and basically i suck so hard. i wanna get people to play with me in real life. i'm sure there are some local clubs near me and i'm thinking about it.

The best clients right now are OGS or KGS. KGS is great and has tons of people but it requires Java which is sort of a security issue. OGS is the next-best server I know of, though it has more players doing correspondence than live Go games. The next best bet would be Tygem which is a Korean server.

As for Beginner's Resources, I can suggest the following:

Life in 19x19: the only Go message board I know of. Really friendly folks there. They have an index to useful posts for beginners as well.
Then there's Sensei's Library and their Pages for Beginners and a guide for ways to improve.
321go.org used to be an interactive site for beginners, teaching a lot of basics with exercises but it seems to be dead.

I don't know what introductory books might be best for a beginner though here's some advice. I do know that playing and doing go problems are the best ways for a beginner to improve. The former is the most important, really: lose your first 50 games as quickly as possible. After playing some games, picking up Graded Go Problems for Beginners Vol. 1 is a good way to go. There are also apps like Go Grinder to do go problems on your phone or tablet. Doing Go problems from a book is better though. On a tablet/phone/computer you might be tempted to click out variations rather than try to solve them in your head.

Finally, if you like video I can highly recommend Nick Sibicky and dwyrin's lectures. It might be hard to benefit from them until you have a better grasp of the game, but I know sometimes people like to get exposed to something via observation first so they feel a little more comfortable.

[jigglypuff]

^ awesome, thank you! i'm gonna check these out.