Terve is a Finnish greeting. It literally means "healthy", which I hope you get to be in 2011 and many more years to come.

I started playing go in 1997. I took an interest in the game in the wake of Deep Blue vs. Kasparov match, because I read how it is much harder for computers to play go than chess. I have since played on and off, but not very much for the past five or so years. I was in my 20s when I started to play, so I'm in my 30s now having failed to invent a working time machine.

And it happens that I find myself again somewhat interested in the game. This is partially because computer go has progressed in interesting ways, but it still remains quite hard indeed to even beat amateur dan players like John Tromp. It was a good show by him in the London match. I was actually hoping the computer team to play a little better, but what can you do. Go AI programmers have their work cut out for them.

Another reason for liking go is that I haven't apparently completely forgotten how to play it during the past few years, which have almost completely wiped out some other games I used to know from my memory. I still recognize old familiar patterns and ideas. I guess my brain is wired more for go than most of the other games. I'm also too lazy to learn any new games deeply these days, so go is the logical choice if I am to play any competitive board game anymore. In fact, I look forward to being not terribly bad all the time after putting in just little effort to refresh my playing, which won't be happening with those other games!

So, I'm planning to start playing at my local club by the end of this month, here in Oulu. I'll also see about local tournaments when they hold some. I don't know yet how much I will get to play on-line or when. I guess I'll be mostly lurking until I have become a more active player again.

This seems like a good forum. I've been reading it for a while already.

Tervetuloa / Welcome!

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Terve! Is that right, on its own, or is there a conjugation that I should know? Let us know how games go at club! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Otherwise, welcome!

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

It's right, on its own, as a greeting. As Pekka mentioned, it means literally "healthy" or "well" (as in "Oletko terve?" - "Are you healthy?"/"How is your health?"/"Are you well?"; "Olen terve" - "I'm healthy"/"I'm well"), but it is used as a single word as a greeting meaning more or less "hello".

"Tervetuloa" OTOH translates to "welcome"; "tuloa" is a derivative of the verb "tulla" - "to come" so "terve_tuloa" can be understood as a more or less direct translation of "well_come".

(There are more words with the same beginning, e.g. "terveisiä/terveisin" is equivalent to "greetings" etc)

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