The Game of Go

I've recently started studying Go. It's a really interesting game, and I've read that Emmanuel Lasker was a fan of this game. From a mathematical and computational stand point, the number of possible games on a 19x19 grid are about 10^761. The number of atoms in the universe is about 10^80. Go shares some similarities with chess in that in Go you can make sacrifices to better your position and create a capture. You can not repeat a position forever if the result is just an eternal capture and recapture by your opponent, which in Japenese is calld Ko, which means eternity. This is similar to the three move repetition rule in chess. If you want to take a break from chess, but still want to play a really challenging strategy game, check out Go. By the way, Go has professional tournaments and players, just like chess. 

I suck at Go

I've played Go a few times, and though the rules are simple, I've found playing very challenging. If I play enough, I'll probably get better. I am more interested in the strategic/mathematical aspect of Go than actually playing it.

Exactly, lol.

I love go! I'm still learning the finer points of strategy though. I agree, it's more complicated than at first glance.

Go is very complicated. I have an app on my android and I'm playing on a 9x9 board on easy and it's still hard. 

V smart ....!!

Fun fact about Go is that the computer programs in chess are superier to human players by raw calculation power (and understand of the position) but in Go an average human player can beat the best Go-program.

Rules are simple but it is very complicated game and the positions are hard to valuate

I am also learning GO and find it interesting.  Like most board games, there are the common elements of Time, Space, and Material.  Yet, if you have more than an intermediate knowledge of chess, learning GO is a comparative process that can get in way instead of helping.  In other words, if you know nothing and start with a blank slate, that can be easier.  But GO has a great reputation for its sublety and elegance.  In my naivety as a beginner, I tend to look at GO as the old game of Bridge-it, but obviously I have a lot to learn.  Now, Backgammon (with the cube, for money) that is really exciting.  Pity it has fallen out of style.

Go is pure strategy, I believe, and chess obviously relies on a lot of strategy, but I think games like backgammon and bridge do have a significant luck factor that determines their outcomes.

Nice to hear from you, awesomechess, but I think you mis-read my comparison of GO as "Bridge"  when I typed "Bridge-it" which is an old Milton-Bradley game where you build walls and gain territory very similar to GO.  Cards games such as poker, bridge, and hearts are not the point of my comment.  OK.  It is a VERY common mispreception that Backgammon involves chance because of dice and I agree, without THE CUBE, a person might as well play Parchessi.  If you understand the strategy of when to offer, when to take, and when to decline THE CUBE you will understand that Backgammon rivals Chess and GO in its complexity.  Almost like billards, Backgammon depends upon taking high percentage or low percentage shots and a thorough knowledge of statistics much more so than Chess.  In a Backgammon tournament, as in Chess, the good players win over and over again and that is not because they are lucky.  So, returning to GO, it is strategy but very deceptive to me still because of the simplicity of the rules.  On a 9 x9 board, the third "rank?" is important for building walls and it is optimum to make moves that both defend and attack as in chess.  But in a way, in my limited understanding and experience, it is not unlike the game Othello because once you secure the iniative it is easy to steamroll over your opponent.  I am just a student.