Ask Go players about Go (come play Go with us)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask Go players about Go (come play Go with us)

sensual donkey punching: Mar 13, 2004; =); Nap Ghost

Hi everybody, there are a group of go players here on SA who like to post a thread once in a while to try to get fresh blood. Here is the newest iteration of that thread!!

GO is a cool game of strategy which a lot of people compare to chess but really there's no point in doing that they are both cool but completely different. The rules are exceptionally simple but the game itself is immensely complex. I would write them here but the wikipedia article on the game has done an excellent job summarizing them as well as including a nice history of the game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28board_game%29

We all play on KGS, the best Go server. You can find the client at http://www.gokgs.com. We meet in room ITGO, found in the social room category. You will have to post in this thread with your KGS username to get access to the room. There are usually a few of us on at any time, so please drop by and we will be glad to play a game with you, whether you are already an experienced player or just starting. If you have any questions about the game or just want to discuss it we'll also be happy to talk about Go here in this thread!

There is an irc thing here:
irc://irc.synirc.net/itgo
https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.synirc.net/itgo

EDIT: the irc is gone. maybe this discord chat will be good: https://discord.gg/3bKXUzb

Want to hear the stones in KGS client but no stone sound? Try this post for the stone sound.

A BETTER POST FROM THE PRESENT

oiseaux morts 1994 posted:

I'm gonna post this in here for archival purposes since the old thread is gonna die.

Go

Two players exchanging handshakes after a friendly game.

WHAT??

Welcome to a thread about the most venerable and ancient art of igo or just go, also known as weiqi in Chinese, and baduk in Korean. Go is an ancient (~2000 years) Chinese two-player board game which has simple, elegant rules but a vast, unfathomable complexity. It is also about crushing your opponents whilst retaining the calm demeanour of a placid lake in springtime. Go enjoys great status in Japan, Korea and China but lives in the shadow of Chess in the west, which is a shame. It's a deeply aesthetically pleasing game.

A nice thick goban (playing board) makes a great clacking noise when you slam the stones down to let your opponent know who's boss.

Wow, this game sounds cool. Tell me more!

I will not give the rules here in any detail; as you follow through this thread you will see links that explain it far better than I could. But here is a rough summary: A typical game of go consists of a board with a 19x19 grid drawn on it (a goban). The players take turns to place stones at the intersections of the gridlines, with the aim to surround more empty space (territory) than their opponent. Once a stone has been placed, it does not move- unless it is captured. Stones are captured when you totally surround your opponent's stones. Essentially, players gain territory by capturing their opponents stones and stopping their stones from being captured.

Black must play a stone at A or he will be totally surrounded if he lets white put a stone there. Not cool.

But go is more than just trying to capture stones. It's essentially a game about balance; trading positions on the board in a struggle to get ahead, like an elaborate swordfight. When we play, we talk about concepts like "beautiful shape" and the "flow of the stones" on the board. The players trade, fight and defend for their standing on the board until there are no more moves to play. When both players cannot find another move, they will both decide to pass, which signals the end of the game. They then count the number of points on the grid that their stones surround; the person with the most points wins. This is the essence of go. This explanation is a little vague, but the game is incredibly simple- just see the following link:

--> Players unfamiliar with the rules of the game should start here <--

The above link is an essential interactive tutorial on the fundamentals. Try going through it a couple of times. If you're happy with that, try also following lovely's amazing guide here, which will guide you further along the path to becoming a solid, merciless Go player.

A typical scene from the end-game of go. Note the opponent trampled underfoot won, but fell victim to the nuclear tesuji.

TRY WARMING UP WITH SOME AI

If you're feeling brave at this point, skip to the next section about playing online as it's the best way to learn. However, if you're feeling timid you may want to study the rules and familiarise yourself with certain basic concepts in the link above, you'll probably want to have a go at a real game. My suggestion then would be to try a computer player so you can experiment with undo moves and generally taking your time, etc. There are many different clients for playing computer go, but probably the quickest way to get set up is to do the following:

1) Download the glGo client.
2) Download the GNUGo engine on the same page and put it in a folder somewhere (glGo install directory is fine).
3) Select "Play GNU Go" from the PANDA-glGo main menu; at some point the client will ask you to point to the GNUGo engine you downloaded in step 2.
4) Tweak your game settings. You might want to try a game on a smaller board, like 9x9. The komi setting is explained below.
5) Play and get a feel for the game! Remember to use the link above if you're still unsure of the rules.

Go is, from a computational standpoint, a complete nightmare and unlike Chess, where computer AI has managed to beat some of the greatest players in the history of the game, the most advanced Go AI could probably not beat a dan-level amateur, let alone a professional. Advances are always being made, but the point here is that Go AI is no substitute for a real player. It is, however, quite useful for a total beginner.

Playing go can be a very peaceful, spiritual experience. Respect for your opponent is a must at all times.

PLAYING ONLINE and JOINING A CLUB

Just to re-iterate the point that once you're fairly happy about the rules, you can stop playing bots. They are no substitute for the real thing. You'll want to play actual people who can give you advice and make delightful chat with you in the process. The best way to do this is join your fellow SomethingAwful go players on KGS (Kisedo Go Server). Note that there are other servers, but KGS is generally considered the best for English-speaking players, as well as the client being the most user-friendly.

How to get online:

1) Visit the KGS website. Here you can launch the KGS client in your web browser, or download it to your computer.
2) Register an account.
3) Log in, choose the following menu option: Rooms -> Room List
4) Under the "Social" tab, find the room "SA" and double click. This is our public room, but it's not where we usually hang out.
5) Ask for permission to join "ITGO", our private room.
6) Once permission has been granted, you can join by going Rooms -> Room List, and double clicking ITGO under the "Social" tab.

Don't worry if you don't get an immediate response, someone should notice your request eventually. Try again at another time (evenings is best) if there's still nothing happening, or ask in the Ask/Tell Go thread.

There are also real-life Go clubs in a lot of places; most cities will have at least one but again it's dependent on geography. One of the best resources for finding local players is IGOLocal, which is a map-based directory. Also, a Google search will help, and most national association websites may also have a club directory. Playing go in real life is a very different experience to playing online and I encourage anyone with an interest in the game to seek out their local club.

Go clubs are the cool places to hang out. You can find most of the cool people there. At Go club you can just chill and do whatever and totally relax. "Take it easy" is the Go motto, for example, that's how laid back it is there. Show up if you want to have a good time. Another good reason to show up is if you want to hang out with friends.

ITGO LEAGUES and TOURNAMENTS

http://itgoleague.wikia.com/

We currently have a league running for all levels of ability, so now more than ever is the best time to get online and get playing. Each game played comes with a complimentary review, so even if you're a player who feels out of their depth compared to others, there is much to be learned from participating.

RANKINGS AND HOW TO LEVEL UP

Player ranks are split into two groups: kyu and dan. Kyu-level players are considered beginners and intermediates, whereas dan-level players are considered masters. The ranks are split up as so:
code:
Double-digit kyu: 30 to 20 kyu                       Beginner
Double-digit kyu: 19 to 10 kyu                       Casual player
Single-digit kyu: 9 to 1 kyu                         Intermediate amateur
Amateur dan:      1�7d (where 8d is special title)   Advanced amateur
Professional dan: 1�9p (where 10p is special title)  Professional Player
Go is pretty merciless at first. You will start around 30k. There is a well known proverb: "Lose 100 games quickly". This means that the best way to improve is just to play, and accept defeat. Get playing games, lose them, and study your losses until you achieve your first victory. The members of ITGO are always on hand to review games and offer suggestions on how to improve.

When I first started, I consistently struggled to win games or even understand what the hell I was doing. I think on the third day I played, I did something insane like 20 games, of which I won 2. I started at 28 kyu in March 2010. By next March I had a ranking of 8 kyu. That's not even that fast! My secret is just to play, play, play. Some people like to study books and play a few select, thoughtful games; others like to just play lots and lots of games and develop an instinct through losing and winning. Either way, Go accomodates all kinds of approaches, it's just a matter of finding one that suits you.

GO BOOKS AND PROBLEMS

Books are an excellent way to improve. My reccomendation would be to start with "The Second Book of Go" by Richard Bozulich, which is designed for people who know the rules but still have no idea what to do next. That book will take you quite far if you study all of it, but after that you might want to start dipping into the Elementary Go Series, which should take you all the way to 1k and maybe beyond. Another book you will see mentioned a lot is Kageyama's "Lessons In The Fundamentals of Go" which is a book that can begun to be read at 15k, and one you will find yourself re-reading on your road to 1-dan.

Doing problems are another great way to improve your skills, and you can find a set of beginner, intermediate and advanced puzzles and problems here.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

The Ask/Tell Go thread. This is where most Go discussion happens, as this thread is really just a recruitment thread. Get in there and get chatting.
A really, really good introduction on how to improve at Go, written by lovely on KGS
A solid overview on what this game is all about, from Wikipedia.
Sensei's Library. The de-facto Go wiki, full of loads of information about getting started and improving your game.
KGS, the best English-speaking Go server.
KGS Analytics, will give you statistics on your KGS games!
Life in 19x19, a popular Go forum.
IGOLocal club directory for real life games 'n poo poo.
SmartGo, an excellent app for mobiles.

Go.... (gently caress yourself??)

MISC GO TRIVIA AND PERSON(S)

Read lovely's Guide to Professional Go to learn more about the professional world of Go.

GO GLOSSARY

A lot of terms for this game are in Japanese and if you don't speak the language it can be hard to remember what they are. Here are some commonly used terms, but note that a quick Google search will give you more in depth results if there's nothing mentioned here:

aji - where dead stones come to life to haunt the opponent
atari - a situation where one or more stones are a move away from capture
fuseki - the opening moves of a game
hane - a cut (through your opponents stones to break them up)
joseki - a well-known series of moves that benefit both players
goban - a board on which go is played
komi - points given to white at the end of the game to make up for the fact that black goes first
sente - a move that forces your opponent to respond (players who "keep sente", that is, continue to play sente moves, are usually dominating play)
gote - a move that does not require your opponent to respond (i.e. they have the chance of playing a sente move)
tesuji - local play, usually where stones are fighting to capture each other
tenuki - playing elsewhere on the board

FINAL NOTES

Feel free to ask any questions in this thread or the Ask/Tell thread. If any existing Go players have anything they'd like to add or correct in the OP just say so.

secret bonus link~

Edited discord invite to be fresh in 2020 still here dang

sensual donkey punching fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Aug 24, 2020

# ? Jul 2, 2008 08:25

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 15:30

Whistling Asshole: Nov 18, 2005

Don't bother trying to get into it if you don't like to lose though. There's a Go proverb that's something like "you have to lose 100 games before you're even a beginner."

It is a difficult game to get into but very rewarding.

# ? Jul 2, 2008 11:44

Ashenai: Oct 5, 2005; You taught me language;
and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse.

I used to play a little Go, and really enjoyed it. The worst bit, though, was when I played a game with someone around 15 ranks above me (I was 23 kyu, he was 8,) and not only did he beat me effortlessly, he couldn't even explain what I was doing wrong in a way that I could understand.

Like, I'd place a stone, and he'd say "no, not there! Can't you see how bad the form is?"

Well, no, I couldn't see how bad the form was. And unfortunately, he couldn't express it in a less arcane way. That's the really frustrating (and also cool) thing about Go: it's really difficult to explain good play principles. Everyone kind of has to experience them for themselves, I guess.

# ? Jul 2, 2008 12:18

Garfie: Jan 4, 2005; I emplore you to reconsider

He should have been able to explain it to you, although 23ks are very beginner. Once you get to 15k or so things become more easily explained. Read web tutorials until things begin making sense.

# ? Jul 2, 2008 13:22

Boxman: Sep 27, 2004; Big fan of

I love Go, but I am absolutely terrible at it; I get crushed by people that also are just learning the game. It's very :smith:

inducing. Do some of you older players have any good web resources for moving your game forward from "I know how the rules"?

# ? Jul 2, 2008 14:32

Tommah: Mar 29, 2003

It's a fun game - I recently bought a board and started playing. I'm not good by any metric, but I noticed it took about five-six games to start even seeing when my pieces were going to be captured.

So if anyone starts playing because of this thread, don't give up just because you get constantly captured - you'll start seeing them eventually!

# ? Jul 2, 2008 14:34

Lyon: Apr 17, 2003

I play on KGS as Scatter 3d and am completely willing to play some teaching games with beginners or lower ranked players. The OP is a really great teacher and is a 2d, so hit him up. There are a number of 4 kyuish players who I'm sure would also be willing to play.

So stop by and play a game of go.

Also as this is an Ask/Tell feel free to ask questions about anything like tournaments, experiences with the game, etc. Some of us are in the American Go Association (or the Canadian or European) and have played at big tournaments etc. I myself have never played in a tournament or anything but I have made several trips to a dedicated go club where every member is a 40 year old+ Korean, very few of whom speak English.

# ? Jul 2, 2008 15:54

Coca Koala: Nov 28, 2005; ongoing nowhere; College Slice

Sweet! I used to play Go back in high school, but I haven't really played a game for a couple years.

I'm definitely gonna get in on this!

# ? Jul 2, 2008 16:22

Blahblahblah hate: Nov 28, 2004

http://playgo.to/interactive/ Here's the best introduction to the game and

http://senseis.xmp.net/?BeginnerStudySection read through some of this once you start to play

# ? Jul 2, 2008 19:06

McNerd: Aug 28, 2007

Let's suppose I don't want to kidnap Melinda Gates for the ransom. How do I afford a decent set? I don't suppose anyone has the secret black market cheap import hookup?

McNerd fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jul 2, 2008

# ? Jul 2, 2008 22:45

sensual donkey punching: Mar 13, 2004; =); Nap Ghost

http://www.ymimports.com/

This store offers cheap and decent sets. There are cheaper places out there (especially ebay) but I can't vouch for the quality of their products.

# ? Jul 2, 2008 23:18

Commander Quack: Jul 23, 2003; quack quack quack

sensual donkey punching posted:

http://www.ymimports.com/

Vouching for this site. I have a set from here, and it's quite nice, and was very affordable.

Also, getting in on joining this. I'm gsage on KGS, and about 15k.

Commander Quack fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Jul 3, 2008

# ? Jul 2, 2008 23:45

Delta-Wye: Sep 29, 2005

It's been a while since I've played, I ought to get in on this. Go is an incredibly ~~frustrating~~ interesting game.

Kinda hijacking the thread a bit, but what do you guy's think of my mypic32 contest entry, from an end-user's point of view? It's been a few years since I've played, but I think it would be a cool application if I can 1) get it to work right and 2) make the board look good/presentable. I know its not traditional, but this is the 21st century, amirite?

I can't help but feel like I'm missing some features or abilities that would be useful.

# ? Jul 3, 2008 00:14

Nice Van My Man: Jan 1, 2008

I've been trying to learn Go with my friends using a chessboard and checkers pieces. Not an ideal setup. I'm happy to see other people here interested in it, and I'll be bugging people on the SA Go server to teach me how to play whenever I have some free time.

I have no advice for other beginners, because I'm a newbie myself, but it really is an amazingly deep game.

# ? Jul 3, 2008 00:31

sensual donkey punching: Mar 13, 2004; =); Nap Ghost

Delta-Wye posted:

It's been a while since I've played, I ought to get in on this. Go is an incredibly ~~frustrating~~ interesting game.

Kinda hijacking the thread a bit, but what do you guy's think of my mypic32 contest entry, from an end-user's point of view? It's been a few years since I've played, but I think it would be a cool application if I can 1) get it to work right and 2) make the board look good/presentable. I know its not traditional, but this is the 21st century, amirite?

I can't help but feel like I'm missing some features or abilities that would be useful.

maybe throw in a network stack and write an IGS client for it and you've got a very cool piece of hardware

# ? Jul 3, 2008 01:10

Gimpy Joe: Jul 25, 2004; In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A Stately Pleasure Dome Decree

quote:

In 2 player mode, the PIC32 simply stores the game state, applies life/death rules, and tracks captured stones. This mode should be relatively easy to code.

The life/death rules are surprisingly difficult to code and shouldn't be part of your project if you aren't programming the bot either. I think your project would be a cool set up if I could use it as an input for kgs or some other online play but otherwise it is only moderately interesting.

I've been playing go for about 7 years and I'm one of the semi-regular players on KGS. My rank has been 4k for the past year or two but one of these days I'm going to study and get better or something. Go is a really fun game.

# ? Jul 3, 2008 02:13

Delta-Wye: Sep 29, 2005

sensual donkey punching posted:

maybe throw in a network stack and write an IGS client for it and you've got a very cool piece of hardware

That would be loving pimp, and at this point I'm looking for more of a 'dream sheet' than a list of functions. I'll probably write this up and add it.

Gimpy Joe posted:

The life/death rules are surprisingly difficult to code and shouldn't be part of your project if you aren't programming the bot either. I think your project would be a cool set up if I could use it as an input for kgs or some other online play but otherwise it is only moderately interesting.

I haven't written the code yet, but honestly it doesn't seem like it will be that hard. I'll keep your comment in mind though 'cause there is nothing worse than being blindsided by a hard part of a project that you expected to be easy.

Thanks for the feedback guys! The KGS idea is pretty good.

# ? Jul 3, 2008 02:52

sensual donkey punching: Mar 13, 2004; =); Nap Ghost

delta, solutions of life & death problems is something in the region of NP-complete (http://www.springerlink.com/content/vh10b97tyvxtf1wr/ supposedly proves this for a restricted sort of L&D problem). it's best to leave marking dead & live groups during scoring to a human, if that's what you meant in your spec (which isn't clear). in any case, i hope you make a new thread about it if you ever build this, and maybe post about it on godiscussions.com too. i'm sure most go players would be interested in seeing a high-tech goban, you might even be approached for a commission

# ? Jul 3, 2008 03:26

Delta-Wye: Sep 29, 2005

sensual donkey punching posted:

delta, solutions of life & death problems is something in the region of NP-complete (http://www.springerlink.com/content/vh10b97tyvxtf1wr/ supposedly proves this for a restricted sort of L&D problem). it's best to leave marking dead & live groups during scoring to a human, if that's what you meant in your spec (which isn't clear). in any case, i hope you make a new thread about it if you ever build this, and maybe post about it on godiscussions.com too. i'm sure most go players would be interested in seeing a high-tech goban, you might even be approached for a commission

When I say life/death rules, I mean checking liberties and acting appropriately. From a bookkeeping standpoint - you play a piece, it parses the board looking for situations where pieces need to be removed (aka, you make a capture). That should be easy.

As far as counting the score at the end, I didn't even think of that as a hard job. It's embarrassingly been a couple years since I played, but I thought it was as simple as looking to see if an unplayed intersection is surrounded by one color or between two different colors, and tallying appropriately. This also shouldn't be hard, assuming I haven't missed anything.

Actually playing the game (deciding if a group is alive or dead, and if it can be killed, how to do it, etc) is way beyond what I want to accomplish - hence my desire to port GNU Go to make the job possible. If porting that gets out of hand, that feature will more likely be dropped than implemented by me.

# ? Jul 3, 2008 05:01

One Space Jump: Oct 18, 2005; Rupture-er of Spleens

How convenient! I played Go a bit in high school, mainly against people I knew at the time shortly after I taught them the rules. It's been several years and I hadn't played at all until recently when I decided to get back into it. I'm on KGS under the name "ryanodine", but with only four games total played on the server (three against bots, I'm a 21k? right now). Haven't checked out the SA room yet but maybe I will sometime.

I can also vouch for Yellow Mountain Imports. I just recently ordered a complete game set from them and everything went smoothly. Their customer service is amazing and fast: they sent me more stones when my set was a few short (less than an hour after I e-mailed about it) and when my board arrived with some minor manufacturing defects, they mailed me a new one and told me to keep the first. (I suppose I'll have to buy a second set of stones and bowls to go with it.) They also have an e-bay page where you can buy superficially damaged merchandise at very low prices.

Glad to see a thread about this go up. I'd been doubtful about the presence of a SA Go community.

# ? Jul 3, 2008 05:35

Gimpy Joe: Jul 25, 2004; In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A Stately Pleasure Dome Decree

There have been several mentions of bots in this thread but I really feel like it is more fun and better for learning to play against humans of any rank. I've been playing for quite a while and at some point I played bots pretty exclusively but I didn't really get any better because they don't know how to play and the games weren't very complicated or interesting. Anyway - go rules and you should play it against people.

# ? Jul 3, 2008 06:21

Whistling Asshole: Nov 18, 2005

I'm pretty bored and always willing to try and recruit people to the world of Go so if you're interested I'd be happy to try and show you the ropes. Join the SA room!

# ? Jul 3, 2008 09:46

BeefofAges: Jun 5, 2004; Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the cows of war.

Delta-Wye posted:

It's been a while since I've played, I ought to get in on this. Go is an incredibly ~~frustrating~~ interesting game.

Kinda hijacking the thread a bit, but what do you guy's think of my mypic32 contest entry, from an end-user's point of view? It's been a few years since I've played, but I think it would be a cool application if I can 1) get it to work right and 2) make the board look good/presentable. I know its not traditional, but this is the 21st century, amirite?

I can't help but feel like I'm missing some features or abilities that would be useful.

I have a feeling that a microcontroller is going to have serious issues running a Go AI. I wrote one a few years ago. I started with simple minimax, and eventually wrote an alpha-beta pruning algorithm. Even with as much optimization as I managed, a Pentium 4 would take as long as a minute to choose a move if it was looking seven moves into the future. There are several really good Go AIs online, and some are open source. Maybe you can port one to the PIC.

Edit: I just read your website again and noticed that you already chose an AI to port. Oh well. I still think you're not going to be able to look more than a handful of moves into the future in a reasonable amount of time, which will make for a pretty weak AI. Good luck, though!

# ? Jul 3, 2008 10:33

Komisar: Mar 31, 2008

Awesome, I'll have to check this out. Really have no idea how good I am, since I just play with friends, but I guess I'll find out. (Expectation: not very good)
Do any of you guys play training games, or give lessons? That would be awesome.

Edit: I'm jkomisarof on KGS

Komisar fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Jul 3, 2008

# ? Jul 3, 2008 15:58

sensual donkey punching: Mar 13, 2004; =); Nap Ghost

yes, we're happy to play and review games

# ? Jul 3, 2008 17:06

Ser Liam: Jul 27, 2007; I WISH TO HAVE SEX WITH THIS MAN.

I have always wanted to play Go after watching all of Hikaru no Go. I've tried a couple of times, I just don't understand how the game works at all. Maybe this thread will invigorate me.

# ? Jul 3, 2008 19:36

Fron Bolster: Apr 22, 2006; Options?

I tried to get into this last time there was a Go thread, but I fell out of it. Looks like a good time to give it another try.

# ? Jul 3, 2008 20:47

sensual donkey punching: Mar 13, 2004; =); Nap Ghost

Baelfael posted:

I love Go, but I am absolutely terrible at it; I get crushed by people that also are just learning the game. It's very inducing. Do some of you older players have any good web resources for moving your game forward from "I know how the rules"?

i just noticed this post was pretty much skipped over. besides coming to kgs and getting some teaching from whoever is on, http://senseis.xmp.net/ is a good wiki about go. it's seen better years, but all the old pages are still full of good content. your main problem might be finding pages suitable for your skill level, since they aren't organized very well that way, but if you enjoy reading there's a lot of stuff there to grab your attention, both about the game and the history of the game

# ? Jul 4, 2008 07:26

empty whippet box: Jun 9, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

Holy crap, go! I used to play this years ago all the time and was something around 11k in AGA. I should start playing again.

# ? Jul 4, 2008 18:41

Walamor: Dec 31, 2006; Fork 'em Devils!

As an update, there is a visible difference in the amount of people online, even at weird times, it's pretty easy to find a game and everyone, even the pubbies, are fairly welcoming. Come play Go!

# ? Jul 7, 2008 02:02

Nodrog: Apr 17, 2002; by angerbeet

Baelfael posted:

I love Go, but I am absolutely terrible at it; I get crushed by people that also are just learning the game. It's very inducing. Do some of you older players have any good web resources for moving your game forward from "I know how the rules"?

I think the most invaluable resource is the Go Teaching Ladder. Download and read the reviews that have been done on the games of people around your strength - chances are, youll be making the same mistakes that theyre making. You can also submit your own games to be reviewed.

http://gtl.xmp.net/

Guo Juan's 1 Euro Go lectures seem pretty good too, although if youre below 15k then youre probably better off just reading GTL, sensei's, and some maybe basic books. Do problems too, thats quite important.

http://www.audiogolessons.com/

# ? Jul 7, 2008 03:11

Two Percent: Aug 26, 2005

As I understand it, the absurd amount of possible plays is the reason there's no Go AI, is this right? Because I'd like to have a computer opponent to train on every once in a while but it seems we'll have to wait for quantum computers for that.

# ? Jul 7, 2008 03:50

Ashenai: Oct 5, 2005; You taught me language;
and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse.

Two Percent posted:

As I understand it, the absurd amount of possible plays is the reason there's no Go AI, is this right? Because I'd like to have a computer opponent to train on every once in a while but it seems we'll have to wait for quantum computers for that.

There are Go AIs. They are far, far worse comparitively than chess AIs; the best one is 4 kyu, if I remember correctly, which is well shy of Master status. It's still infinitely better than most of us will ever be, though.

# ? Jul 7, 2008 04:08

adante: Sep 18, 2003

some interesting reading about the state of (and predictions for) go ai http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5552

# ? Jul 7, 2008 05:10

Last Days of Crisco: Dec 3, 2005; by Peatpot

A year ago I played my way to around 15-12k and regularly played against some dan players in a nearby cafe. It's quite true what they say, impossible to win unless they have a very high handicap.

Also had the luck to play (and learn from) against Chizu Kobayashi (professional japanese player), she was very nice and supportive while she won every single game by a landslide. I remember the entire go club teaming up against her with a max handicap, they all still lost.

I stopped playing since then though. Can't concentrate enough to play.

Also go AI are far weaker than some people in this thread make it out to be, after 1-2 months of play you can easily consistently win against all of them.

# ? Jul 7, 2008 11:29

sensual donkey punching: Mar 13, 2004; =); Nap Ghost

some really, really recent developments in go ai have given mogobot, which actually plays around 3 - 2 kyu on kgs. of course every bot has its achilles heel, but mogobot plays in a global way far in advancement of any other bot

# ? Jul 7, 2008 11:33

Oneday for Life: Feb 2, 2004; Shoe. Explode?!

Yo woss, just letting you know I am still reading your books and didn't give up on Go.

# ? Jul 7, 2008 18:51

Garfie: Jan 4, 2005; I emplore you to reconsider

I personally expect Go to be solved by impossible bots within our lifetime. Computing power is one of the main items holding it back. Once Chess is mastered by AI, people will turn their sights to Go for a challenge in computing.

# ? Jul 7, 2008 18:57

belt: May 12, 2001; by Nyc_Tattoo

How long does the typical game last?

# ? Jul 7, 2008 19:04

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 15:30

Oneday for Life: Feb 2, 2004; Shoe. Explode?!

belt posted:

How long does the typical game last?

Anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours. It depends on how long you like to think to be honest. I prefer 30 minutes on each side with 5 30 second countdowns (byo-yomis). Others like 5 minutes a side with 5 second byo-yomis. I'd say 20 minutes per side is about average, which equals to about 45 minutes total for a good thinking game. The time flies by too.

# ? Jul 7, 2008 20:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask Go players about Go (come play Go with us)

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