It seems many ESR users have an appreciation for strategically complex games. So this may be a good forum to introduce Go.
Go is a board game of Chinese origin that is old as dirt. It has simple rules but rich in depth and is difficult to be good at.
The general idea is to control more of the board than your opponent by trying to place your stones so they will not be captured while mapping out territories your opponent cannot invade without being captured.
You are captured when there are no empty adjacent spaces (diagonals do not count) by your stone or group of stones because you've been surrounded by the opponent.
Placing stones closer tends to allow them to support each other and avoid capture, placing stones farther apart creates more influence across areas of the board. During play you try to meet both defensive and offensive purposes and choose between tactical urgency and strategic plans. Part of the difficulty and fun of Go is finding the right balance between such conflicting interests.
I learned to play Go four months ago by doing the KGS tutorial.
http://www.gokgs.com/tutorial/1.html
KGS is one of the biggest Go servers online and their average player rank is lower than other big servers so it's a good place for learning.
After taking the tutorial, I recommend starting with 9x9 or 13x13 games, play a handful and after you lose (or win) go back through and try and figure out where you went wrong. If you don't know ask me or another experienced player in the Beginners' Room to help. People are very friendly and most like teaching.
Do not spend too much time on 9x9 or even 13x13 as the transition to 19x19 can be a little overwhelming. You will lose pretty often your first few days playing 19x19 until you begin to form sound tactics and better play. If you play enough ranked 19x19 games the server will calculate your skill which should make the amount of handicap more accurate and your games closer.
Because beginners improve pretty quickly there are not swaths of them to play but almost always there are players on who have just learned Go or someone on willing to teach you.
After you've played a few days a longer tutorial to try will teach additional things and review some of what you should already know. It's here:
http://playgo.to/interactive/Once you've taken a tutorial it's best to start playing. Playing offline against computers is a pretty bad way to learn. Computers don't play Go like humans and they frankly suck at it too. The server I recommend is KGS.
They have their own client called CGoban3.
http://files.gokgs.com/javaBin/cgoban.jnlp You can also just click play Go from their website which downloads the same thing but isn't as convenient as having the program on your desktop.
To login, type the name you want to use and click 'Guest'. I recommend registering your account for a few reasons:
-People are more willing to play you.
-Your games are saved so you can review them at a later time.
-You can play ranked games and get a ranking.
-No one can steal your name.
To register click 'User' and then 'register,' it'll send something to your e-mail. You can change your password through User > 'Edit personal information'.
One last thing I recommend doing before playing is in the CGoban: Main Window hitting Configure, then a few options worth note:
-Save client password if you don't want to type every time.
-Byo-Yomi Warning Level: 4 seconds (I've played alot of blitz this is good)
-Warn by: Both (this will give you a beep as you're running out of time so you don't have to watch the timer.)
-Don't use the anti-slip mouse option
-Unchecking textured graphics makes the stones and board solid colors. (you'll probably like this if you use simple items in cpma)
In KGS there are rooms where you can chat but also create games in and open previous games for review. The most useful rooms for you right now are probably the 'Beginners' Room' and 'KGS Teaching Ladder'. They both can be found under Rooms, Room list, Lessons. If you create a game, or load a previously played game in either of these and ask for a teaching game or a review in the chat people usually come.
I wouldn't spend all my time getting lessons and games reviewed. It's often like Math class where things are very clear when the teacher is explaining but much harder alone on test when it's just you.
There are 3 ways:
Automatch:
http://www.gokgs.com/help/automatch.html
You can estimate your rank if you've never played a ranked game before, put something 26-30k as your estimate. Automatch games are skill matched in the sense you can set the opponent range. (but keep it at 6 or more)
Making your own game:
Click 'Custom Game' from inside any room (The room you're in when you click it is the one where you host the game.)
The new game window pops up,
http://www.gokgs.com/help/newGameWin.html and you can set the settings for example board size, handicap, Komi (points added to white's score to prevent ties and make up for black's slight advantage in even games.) and then timer settings. The game will not appear in any lists until you click OK.
Joining somebody's game:
Click the 'Open games' tab, scroll down as that is where unrated and weaker ranked players are, find someone around your skill or if they are [?] rated join their game and ask them if they are new also. Click OK to challenge them if you agree with the settings. Games with R in front of the person's name mean ranked, because of the rating and handicap system there is no reason you shouldn't play your games as ranked.
The fastest solution is using all three at once. Some notes about games, the stronger ranked player is white, black plays first, in handicap games black gets the handicap but then white plays first.
When you play regularly the system on KGS is excellent. The rankings in Go are specifically spaced so each rank is equal to one handicap stone. So a 12k can play an 18k and with the weaker black player having 6 handicap they will have an even game. Here is the explanation of it:
http://www.gokgs.com/help/rank.html?helpLocale=en_US
The only weakness is if you take a break from Go and the people you have played improved while you were gone your rank wrongly inflates. Here is the math behind the system:
http://www.gokgs.com/help/rmath.html?helpLocale=en_US
The system will keep track of your rank and keep a graph of it, here is mine:
http://www.gokgs.com/graphPage.jsp?user=Ant1gen
I started out at 28kyu.
Add me as a buddy on KGS I play as ant1gen and am often on and like teaching.
![shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann](/files/avatars/2007/51852-shaftwhore.gif "shaftwhores only by [EXE]dann"){kind=small}
Someone should use this game in a movie.
