If I wanted to find people to play chess against, I'd have an easy time, not because I could teach them, but because they'd already know. Making go prosper in the US would mean moving us towards that level of familiarity.

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Occupy Babel!

If I take my personal example provided earlier - having people to play against at work - the situation is exactly the same for chess as it is for go. Indeed, I have a chessboard in my cabinet as well (in fact, the Super Mario collector's edition). Still, nobody there wants to play against me more than once - and I'm not that great of a chess player.

So for me personally, whether go is as popular as chess in the US is irrelevant to my idea of prosperity.

That's because my idea of prosperity is local. Playing games with the people around me is what's needed.

Sure, more people know the rules of chess than they do e rules of go in the US - but it still doesn't mean they want to play me. Local interest is what matters to me personally. Learning the rules of the game is just a technicality.

Case in point: I learned The rules to Magic the Gathering at from people at work, because I was interested in playing the game. If I could get those same people interested in playing go against me, I'd consider that prosperity.

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be immersed

Just sitting around and hoping someone will play you will not produce any results. What have you actively done to encourage your fellow workers to play go?
Probably doesn't help to encourage others by beating up beginner co-workers with H9 and a huge difference in points.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

I haven't done much, yet, actually.

I think that to get something going, it might be effective if I propose something like, "Let's play Magic Monday through Thursday, and then I can show you more about go on Friday." It's something I might try out once my kid gets older and I go to lunch at work more often.

The other small problem is that go is a two player game (though, you can play rengo, of course), and at my job, there are a group of people playing Magic together.

We could try Rengo out, but go is a little more fun as a two player game, in my opinion.

Still, I would say that if it comes to be that we even play rengo on Fridays, for example, I could consider it a success.

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be immersed

I guess prosper for some people means us being similar to Japan or S. Korea, which I think is a bit hard if not impossible. Right now, I think we should focus on getting more kids interested in it and playing it for the long haul. I think there is some room in the culture for a vibrant Go scene centered in cities or larger suburban areas, but the expansiveness of the country does present certain problems. I think getting adults to play a new game that they don't fall in love with right away is problematic, especially since it takes awhile to be really good at Go. From a lot of adult's perspective, if they put that much time in it, they'd better be learning how to conquer the business world

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Nein Mann, ich will noch nicht gehen, ich will noch 'n bisschen tanzen.

I guess the reason it's different for me is that, even if you're in Japan or Korea, the situation isn't necessarily better everywhere you go. I've experienced it before: you're in Japan, and you tell someone that you know go. They'll likely say something like, "sugoi ne!" and they'll know what you mean when you say go. They might even know the rules.

But that doesn't mean that they're interested in playing go with you. There are tons of people that probably know the rules, but that doesn't mean they have an interest to play the game, let alone play it with you.

So even in Japan and Korea, yeah, they know about go more than people in the USA. But is the situation really that great?

The real difference is that you can find a go club easier where there ARE people that are interested in playing, and people that might be around your level.

Well, the same thing can be accomplished in the USA locally if you have the right club. When I lived in Ann Arbor and there were people to play against, it was just as good, if not better, than finding a go club in Sendai where people were interested in playing me.

So I can see that some people want to make the USA like Japan or Korea... But to me that's kind of meaningless if you don't have that local group of people that are going to play against you.

If you can make that local group of people that will play against you, then that's awesome. Who cares if you get a "segoi ne" when you mention go in a country where go is more popular. What matters is that you find people with an interest in playing you, which can be accomplished with local effort.

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be immersed

In our countries there are these additional steps in setting up clubs

1. Advertise new club
2. Some people turn up
3. Spend years teaching them, while some leave after a few weeks, and new people show up, and some leave
4. Have normal club

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North Lecale

The film crew story is the most interesting anecdote I see in the posts. Unfortunately, without more details it's pretty hard to judge whether Mr. Terry's perception of the occurrence is more or less accurate than the perception that the organizer apparently had.

No organizer is going to appreciate an offer of "help" that arrives without warning in the midst of a very busy event. One has to call up the organizer in advance, see if this help is desired or if it conflicts with something else the organizer has planned already (what if he or she already sold the media rights?). Then the organizer will be grateful or at least not terribly annoyed. This is social skills 101.

So, anyway, I can imagine versions of that story where the organizer was being silly, and other versions where Mr. Terry was not being as helpful as he believes.

As for the Ing money, that was basically over before I started paying much attention to things, so no comment.

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

That is why we should focus on children as they have not lost the curiosity and freedom to try things that you can easily lose at and take some time to learn. Even better would be groups of children as they are all start near the same level and can have a lot of fun competing with each other as they learn. Adults in general are too rigid in their thinking to even bother funding any massive public outreach except to capture the attention of their children. Some parents will spend the effort to learn if it helps their children enjoy themselves with the game.

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Michael Dobbins; Dragon: mdobbins, KGS: mgd, AGA#: 4253,
My Website

Kids and groups of kids are good to teach for these reasons, and also because giving them a fun and instructive activity is good in its own right, whether they take up the game long term or not. But outreach to adults is also important for the hobby. Kids have little money, may or may not be able to schedule their own time or travel, are presented with a thousand fun activities and distractions, have little practical experience of life, become interested in academics, hobbies, jobs and dating and change, constantly. We can expect to teach a lot of kids then, five years from now, have champions, organizers, sponsors and die hards. Adults find it harder to progress rapidly, given their sclerotic noggins. But if they like the game, they can focus, spend, work, organize, travel and evangelize. If you find a dozen adults who like the game, you are quite likely to find one or two that a couple of years down the line are struggling to get to SDK, but are organizing tournaments, going to congresses, buying books, helping run a club and teaching others to play.

And, as John Fairbairn is fond of pointing out, to get kids and keep them involved, it helps if their parents think of Go as a worthwhile activity--something more than a silly thing their kids are obsessed with.

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Occupy Babel!

I don't see any great future for go or chess as long as American culture remains so anti-intellectual. The European cultural climate seems much more promising.

I'd say culture is becoming more and more anti-intellectual all over the world. It's not just an American problem.

That said, I don't think that this is such a huge problem for go. I think that marketing go as an intellectual activity is ineffective in the first place. There are many interesting (and popular) games that have a strong intellectual component (Poker, Settlers of Catan, Scrabble, Taboo, etc...). However, not many think of those games as intellectual pursuits. They think of them as fun pursuits.

The moment that go is perceived by people as a game for smart people, losing may feel like proof of intellectual inferiority. Most people do not like being made to feel less intelligent than others. Of course, describing go as an intellectual activity has the effect of elevating the reputations of people who already play it, but it also has the effect of discouraging beginners. This has the effect of attracting primarily people who are confident that their intelligence is superior. This also leads to many of those smart people dropping out because of hurt pride when they get stuck at a particular kyu level. It does not help that there are many people who talk down to weaker players. We most frequently see this in the form of seemingly innocent and harmless "LOL"s in the kibitz when someone is watching/reviewing a game between lower-ranked players. Many people don't realize that laughing at another person's mistakes is impolite. Correcting someone's mistakes is a good and noble deed, but laughing while doing so cheapens the act. Many of these people are otherwise decent. They are not evil. Why do they do it? Well, they probably had that happen to them! These chains are not easy to break.

I really think that we could spread go to more people if we de-emphasized the intellectual aspect and marketed it as a fun activity, period.

Hmm, do people really resent laughter so much? I think it's hard to imagine a group of people having a good time without laughter involved in some way or another. Our choices seem to be: cruel elitists or boring zombies.

I'm not sure that there are facts of the matter about whether a group of 300,000,000 people is intellectual or anti-intellectual, much less a derivatives of that fact with respect to time. At the very least, we would have to be a little more specific about what we meant.

I do agree that there is some element of fragile egos in go's current obscurity. Many people who absolutely refuse to take a handicap in go would think nothing of taking a handicap in golf or playing Canadian doubles.

People don't resent laughter in general. People resent laughter that seems to mock them or is otherwise at their expense.Therefore, this is probably a false dichotomy.You're absolutely right. There's quite a bit of hyperbole and unjustified subjectivity in what I said about the world culture. I suppose what I really wanted to say was the following: "Don't just pick on them poor 'Muricans."Indeed... Given that difference in behavior, one might conjecture that the perception of these activities plays a role.

Right, but there's not a lot to laugh at in go other than the moves you make. Unless you can make, like, a really clever pun on "Honinbo". So the question becomes, if people laugh, does the person who occasioned the laughter assume it's at his expense?

With any group of happy people, there's going to be a lot of laughter. Groups with healthy dynamics make everyone feel like they're part of the joke, other groups less so.

(This is assuming, by the way, that the giggles come during the review rather than the game. If you're interrupting someone, of course that will cause ill-feeling.)


Sure, that's unobjectionable. I mean, pick on me all you like, so long as its incisive critique. Steel sharpens steel, and all that.

You have a point about the importance of marketing and the presentation of go as a fun pastime. That being said, you can't really change the facts. Go is a highly demanding intellectual activity, and you can't keep anyone in the dark for long about that. To compare it with Settlers is ridiculous - Settlers wouldn't be so popular if it weren't so simplistic.

A side note - all the games you mentioned are usually for more than two players. This adds social dynamics, which makes these activities more obviously fun. In my experience, it also often discourages competitiveness. I'm yet to lose to my friends at Carcassonne; I won't be surprised if they just stop playing me.

The point of most popular modern board games seems to be to have as much fun as possible while all the players are simultaneously learning the basics of the game. Once the basic strategies are understood (ie while the players are still DDK in go terms), the game can be tossed away as no longer interesting.

Do we even disagree all that much? I was thinking of scenarios in which it is reasonably (although perhaps not explicitly) clear that a player is laughing at the bad move made by his opponent. If you think that giggles during the game are improper, then our opinions might not be that far apart.

I do find it strange that bad moves can be considered funny in and of themselves to the people observing them. If I see a DDK play a move to die in gote, then I am not sure I find much humor in that fact, especially if that DDK was thinking hard about the move. I don't find it to be a tragedy that deserves solemn treatment, but would my enjoyment of the game somehow be diminished if I did not laugh at that move? Would my enjoyment of the game somehow be enhanced if I laughed at it? Am I the weird one for thinking that bad moves are not intrinsically funny? I suppose that I could be. It wouldn't be the first time that I was found to be out of touch.

There certainly are other reasons to laugh. People might make small talk while playing the game and have a conversation that merits laughter. There might be a move whose cleverness incites laughter. Perhaps a player will laugh at his own silly moves after realizing their silliness. The DDK who played a bad move may laugh in delight after having his bad move pointed out in review. Perhaps the person who pointed it out could then laugh with the player who made the bad move without any fear of offending him. Perhaps a person will laugh upon discovering that a move he previously thought to be bad was actually good. Unexpected tesuji are certainly delightful in the surprise they bring. Also, there is no need to laugh in order to enjoy go. If we play a fun game, then I think that I can get by with a smile of satisfaction.

Guilty as charged - the one time I watched a DDK kill a living group in gote, I was laughing, and so were the other people present. We were watching him on KGS so he wasn't physically there, but we did needle him about it later.

I'm sorry, but it's just funny to watch someone die in gote. We weren't really laughing at his poor play - everyone makes reading mistakes. We were laughing about the ridiculous events on the board.

That player is now winning tournaments at strong SDK level

You make a good point about the social aspects of these games. I do agree with that.

Perhaps you are even right about most modern board games being fun for short period while everyone is learning the rules. That said, I've been playing Settlers longer than I've been playing go and it has never lost its charm. The good games are all about replayability. The fact that most board games fall out of the rotation after a while just says to me that there are a lot of board games with bad mechanics.

Coming back to my main point, I don't intend to pretend that go does not have a deep intellectual aspect to it. I won't even deny that it is more complex than the games I mentioned. However, I think that we can do a better job of introducing the game beginners (especially adults and women) if we emphasize those features of go that make it intellectual rather than the fact that go is an intellectual activity (there is a subtle but meaningful difference between these two ways). We can talk about the infinite number of interesting puzzles in go rather than talking about "the most complex board game", "the only game where computers have not beaten humans", or anything of that ilk. We can talk about the infinite replayability of the game and the mystery of the opening. We can make go a more social activity by selling the handicap system as a desirable feature that increases the pool of potential opponents.