A visiting go player

(Dear Moderators, If there's an introductions forum, I didn't see it. Move this if it needs to be moved)

I'm a go player (Don't worry, I'm not contagious) and poster over at lifein19x19 and Godiscussions.com.

I got to thinking that I wanted to visit some of the Chess discussion sites after
GM Alex Yermolinsky said some hurtful things about our game not too long ago (We don't mind, the game has lasted 3-4000 years, even Confucius took potshots at it). 

I was one of the US go representatives to the World Mindsports games in 2008 and I got a great chance to hang with the US chess representatives. I'd like to see more of that. So I thought I'd come over, not to prosyletize, but to hang out occasionally and make some friends.

I'm sure some rowdy go players occasionally visit and talk smack about chess (It could happen, we're not all socially awkward, theoretically). But I'm not going to do that, because I happen to love the game. Admittedly, I like go a bit more, but chess was my first interaction with strategy and tactics, and I still play occasionally in Dupont Circle in DC. 

Used to be a borderline A-player before I stopped studying, so I'm interested in the analysis too. I've seen enough of my chess tactics help my go to know that some concepts can carry over, I'm interested in learning what I can.
Cheers to all, looking forward to the interaction.

Welcome! As a player who messes around with Go for a couple of months each year (I've come to think of it as my "Asian mistress"), I salute your diplomatic approach.

For my part, I'm surprised there aren't more chess players who explore Go (or Shogi, or Bridge, or whatever). Or perhaps there are, and there's a fear to expose oneself to ridicule. And as you know, there's the occasional thread on GoDiscussions talking about all the ways Go is superior to chess. I think we should celebrate the games of the mind, no matter in what form we choose to play them.

Thanks for the welcome!

I think chess players end up trying Shogi and Xiangqi more often than go... it's so close that, to paraphrase a very bad joke, "It's not cheating if it's not the same area code".

I remember the first time I tried out go, I felt like I was cheating on chess. I told her I was just going out to buy cigarettes, and then never came back.

Well, perhaps that's an over-dramatization. :)

And on further examination, Go has a very steep learning curve at the beginning, it's very easy to get "lost", and to see most moves as arbitrary. Players end up playing right next to each other, people start capturing and counter-capturing in what can only be described as an enormous mess.

In chess, this phase disappears pretty quickly, even a pair of novices will very quickly see the problems in overextending and attacking without development (this is not to say that these players immediately recognize how to fix these flaws).

In go though, you don't suddenly lose all your pieces and get checkmated, you could be losing horrendously on the board, and unless you had a certain degree of experience with the game it would be impossible to tell, furthermore, there's no forced win condition, like checkmate. So what happens is that people keep playing the same basic attachments and tactics over and over again and assume that's all there is. (Alex Yermolinsky said as much, he said something of the fact that "go is a poor game, there are no tactics".)

As a tactical chess player (and go player), this hurt :). I fell in love with the games of Tal, Shirov, Polgar. Fighters. And it's why I love the games of Go Seigen, Lee SeDol, and Rui Naiwei (Who are pretty close analogs in go).

Unfortunately for the spread of go, go requires a teacher. You have to have someone introduce you to the flow the game. The rules are simple, but there are additional "rules", that make the game much more interesting. These "rules" are simply emergent behavior, but they're very difficult to spot without being told about them.

P.S. I know on Godiscussions people would occasionally get down on chess, I have staunchly defended chess, but it's a common trap that people justify their enjoyment of the game as the "best strategy game". I think this can be solved with dialogue, which is, again, why I'm here!

You should have answered my thread asking about go.

Well, sorry for the extremely late reply...
and...
can you suggest a place like chess.com but for go? i want to learn to play go also... despite it is not contagious xD

thanks for any suggestion

:) 

KGS go server is quite nice. used to play there a ways in the past. =)

That's awesome.  What dan are you?  I recently watched Hikaru No Go and it really made me want to play Go.  Not sure if I need another game like chess in my life though. 

I am now entering in KGS, i heard of another server, bigger than KGS and the japanese server; but i don't have the links...

http://www.dragongoserver.net/index.php

That hikaru no go is one dangerous series.. :D

it was what got me curious about go too.

#looks at his books on the shelf next to his chess magazines..Dictionary of basic fuseki by rin kaiho and invincible - The games of shusaku#

houh.. those were the days, when one had the energy to both play chess and go. ;D

It's a fine series with great values. I liked it a lot.

Perhaps the gravest danger is getting drawn into Go and finding that one can spend a great deal of money on decent gear. Of course one can go cheap and still be fine but the top end of gear goes way, way beyond what chess does.

Also problematic is finding a rich and lively tournament scene, at least in the West. As constrained as chess is, Go is much worse off. I guess online play is always there but is that really a substitute for a live opponent and the culture that goes along with it?

Naturally the biggest servers are asian but it may not be so easy for westerner to play or even register in these and most westerners play in KGS. WBaduk is a huge asian server (actually it consists of several different servers like Japan, Korea1, Korea2,..., China1 etc...) that especially tries to reach western players and offers english client and website. Unfortunately some features may only work with IE but I haven't checked this for a long time.  Besides KGS IGS is another server well-known in the west.

Here's a list of go servers from Sensei's library: http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoServers.

You may also find the Sensei's library interesting in itself: http://senseis.xmp.net/