Congrats! Good effort.

At the University of Waterloo Go Club, we've had between 7-10 people each week for the past month. Right now we're in spring semester, which has less people enrolled in the University overall, but our attendance doesn't seem lower than on average. That's a positive sign .

As for rank distribution, we have about 3-4 dan players per week, 3-4 1-2ks and the rest are double digit kyus and beginners. This semester at least we seem to have a big gap in the SDK strength range. I'm not sure if that gap existed last semester or what to think of it.

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We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

Both statements are accurate and yes some of us are still kyus.

I find our posters have really helped. Also I have a weekly notice in the newspaper. As an update we have a core group of 4 -5 regulars and a few sporadic players. We sometimes get 10 people playing.

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Walla Walla GO Club -(on FB)

We play because we enjoy the beauty of the game, the snap and feel of real stones, and meeting interesting people. Hope to see ya there! お願いします!

Anthony

At the Seattle Go Center, we usually have 30 - 40 players in the course of the day/evening on Tuesdays, our biggest day. Last Tuesday, we had 55, including 12 children. We have new beginners almost every week, and players up to 4 dan amateur on regular basis. We have a couple of 6 dans with with children who come by on Tuesdays about half the time. The kids are DDK players. Of course, we have the advantage of having our own building, in a good location near the University of Washington.

Our Thursday meet-up on the Eastside of the Seattle Metro area, at the Crossroads Bellevue Shopping Mall (about 12 miles from the Go Center), is probably better for comparison with other clubs. We average 12 players, about half of them dan level. One of our regulars is Sonny Cho, a 6d who also teaches on the Eastside. Everybody seems to be able to find a game, but we don't have complete beginners at this event. Here's more info: http://www.usgo.org/news/2014/05/not-finished-seattle-go-center-looks-east/

A shout out to Yukontodd -- I learned Go in Fairbanks, Alaska.

I play at the Somerville (near Boston) meetup each Thursday. It's an informal get together at a local coffee shop. When I first started going, last October, it was maybe 4-6 people. But lately it's blossomed to maybe 8-15 throughout the evening!

I'd guess there are roughly a third ~15k, a third ~7k and a third ~2k. There are a few dan players who come by sometimes.

And last month a local 6d started teaching absolute beginners at the meetups, so we're getting some 20k's around.

One of these days I will make it over there!!!

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Walla Walla GO Club -(on FB)

We play because we enjoy the beauty of the game, the snap and feel of real stones, and meeting interesting people. Hope to see ya there! お願いします!

Anthony

Who is not jealous of Seattle?

I've always felt that kyu players are really the ones who keep a go club alive, and it seems to be the case after seeing a few of these responses. Of course, most people struggle to reach dan, so perhaps this is a false conclusion.

Less than 20% of players make it to dan level, so you would expect the bulk of most clubs to be kyu players.

And what fun would an all-dan club be? From what I've seen, clubs are kept going by people who love playing the game, esp. when they can see and talk about a board in front of them instead of clicking a mouse. Many of these folks can become dan level but most of the people that I've seen run and support clubs for years are SDK but still enjoy playing for the joys of the game itself, not for reaching "black belt" status.

Bruce "6k of Fury" Young

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Currently reading: Plutarch, Cerebus, and D&Q 25th Anniversary

In Ghent, we started the club as absolute beginners and drew in a few 6 kyu players. We really worshipped these guys!
After a couple of years we overcame our teachers and moved up the low dan ranks. Later, we left and younger players took over the club.
In my experience, the club is almost never run by the strongest players, even if they ran it before they became strong. There seems to be some kind of trade between administrative service to the club and accepting to play against weaker players all the time.

I must say that I remain baffled by the number of players that reach the SDK ranks fairly soon and then settle for that level for the rest of their career. Of course one must settle one day but I've always felt that if you do invest all that social time, you could as well spend it wisely and improve. And a lifetime of deliberate practice should get any player somewhere at the 4d-5d rank. As a community we must indeed be grateful they don't disappear as soon as progress stalls.

(I must admit me too I keep lurking around the internet and should spend my time more wisely, if I want to remain true to abovementioned bafflement.)

It seems to me you're saying that dan players don't love the game and would actually be bored in a club with themselves.

It takes all kinds of people and ranks for a club to be successful.

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Walla Walla GO Club -(on FB)

We play because we enjoy the beauty of the game, the snap and feel of real stones, and meeting interesting people. Hope to see ya there! お願いします!

Anthony

That wasn't my intention. I think an all-dan club (by either intent or randomness) would end up being terribly intimidating for entry-level players and in most metro areas would max out at a weekly turnout of 3-4 people playing each other.

Also, I couldn't play there myself...

Bruce "Book 'em" Young

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Currently reading: Plutarch, Cerebus, and D&Q 25th Anniversary

Well, that's true, but the point was it being a "dan-only" club. Of course if you're a typical kyu it woudln't be fitting, but then again, you completely defeat the purpose of that particular club by being there.

At the Seattle Go Center, we have a hard time organizing events specifically for the high dan players. They come to the big tournaments, and Sonny Cho was successful in organizing a monthly "Top Go Player" round robin event, which lasted about 9 months. But we don't seem to attract many high dan players to lectures or workshops with pros, or to separate times for strong players. Simultaneous games with pros will bring in some strong players. Interestingly, high dan players do show up on days advertised as "good for beginners", especially Tuesdays, and sometimes Saturdays. For some strong players this is because their kids are ddk players. Others are very willing to play teaching games. Perhaps others just like being at a good sized event where their advanced skills are understood and appreciated. Some Go players are rock stars in Asia, but not yet in the U.S.

Chicago Go Club: We've got about two dozen "regulars." On any given Tuesday night, we'll see around a dozen of them show up, with another half-dozen or so "semi-regulars" or new players show up.

So an average of 20 people through the course of an evening, though this fluctuates with the seasons and weather. Our ranks range from around 20 kyu to 1 dan, with large clusters around 6-9 kyu and 14-16 kyu.

Our group has been around in one form or another for around 10 years or so - but I've found that in the last year, we've finally hit the "critical mass" point, at which the membership numbers have become self-sustaining. i.e., when a new player shows up, they see that there are enough members at the club to justify their return on the next week. Without that, it was a struggle to keep attendance numbers consistent (much less growing!), since people are reluctant to come when they don't think there will be many other players, but now it's begun feeding back on itself.

I have also seen this "critical mass" effect play out in the gender balance. For a long time, only one of the "regulars" was a girl - now there are many; one night a few weeks ago, we had more girls than guys show up for the first time ever.

More girls than guys now that would be a problem most clubs would love. It is hard to get women interested. We have about 3, I wish we had more. My theory is if the girls come the guys will follow.

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Walla Walla GO Club -(on FB)

We play because we enjoy the beauty of the game, the snap and feel of real stones, and meeting interesting people. Hope to see ya there! お願いします!

Anthony

A decade ago our club had about 20 players in club evening. Since that there new playing evenings of other clubs have emerged. Nowadays we have 6 - 12 players in our club, from 5 dan to DDK players.