Cats and Go

[Inkwolf]

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Does anyone else have a cat? And does that cat insist on sitting on the go board whenever you're studying? I've posted the picture of Ripley before, but now I have taken in one of my sister's superfluous cats, and sure enough, he saw me playing out games out of a book and his butt was magnetically attracted to my magnetic go board.

Admittedly, they are even more pesky in the face of jigsaw puzzles, but still...

[Buri]

Greetings,
oh yes.I see we use the same folding board. Could there be a connection？Or maybe the stones help him reminisce on his deat departed gonads
Cheers,
Buri

[hyperpape]

As I said at the time, immediately responding to a 3-4 with a 5-4 on an empty board conveys an aggressive attitude that you will not let your opponent follow his own plans, which is confirmed by sitting on the board.

[BaghwanB]

I'm convinced that my cat just scoffs at any moves she sees played in our house. It looks like she is batting at the stones but is actually trying to correct our moves and jumps on the board in disgust at poor play in the middle of the games. I've offered to play her but she either thinks I'm completely beneath her or is waiting for me to put 15 handicap stones on the board.


Bruce "No Pictures Please" Young

[Laman]

haha, just in case that there is someone not familiar with the Empty Triangle comic, i'll link the relevant strip: #044 feline fuseki

[TMark]

Since I do everything on the computer these days, the neighbour's cats just decided to take over my desk, instead.

[Loons]

I was discussing influence strategies with a friend, we had a stone on 5-4. His cat was watching, and swatted the stone from 5-4 to tengen. Pretty classy.

[Buri]

Greetings,
Surprised at you guys surprise. In the classic Chinese Go texts there are many references to 'moggie moyo.'
Cheers,
Buri

[Inkwolf]

A new board falls victim to the furry peril.

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[EdLee]

Since I do everything on the computer these days, the neighbour's cats just decided to take over my desk, instead.

A new board falls victim to the furry peril.

Inkwolf, I'm curious -- you may not have the time to go into such trouble, but...
could you do a control experiment to determine whether the Go board was relevant at all?
In other words, keep everything else identical: time of day, the bowls, the stones, the Go book you're studying with,
any other distractions at home (visitors, neighbor's loud music, etc.), etc...
Keep everything else identical, but remove the Go board.
So you do exactly the same studying with your book, you even play your stones down
on your (now empty) desk exactly the same way. See if your kitties still sit in front of you between you and your stones.

[Inkwolf]

Since I do everything on the computer these days, the neighbour's cats just decided to take over my desk, instead.

A new board falls victim to the furry peril.

Inkwolf, I'm curious -- you may not have the time to go into such trouble, but...
could you do a control experiment to determine whether the Go board was relevant at all?
In other words, keep everything else identical: time of day, the bowls, the stones, the Go book you're studying with,
any other distractions at home (visitors, neighbor's loud music, etc.), etc...
Keep everything else identical, but remove the Go board.
So you do exactly the same studying with your book, you even play your stones down
on your (now empty) desk exactly the same way. See if your kitties still sit in front of you between you and your stones.

Anything for you, Ed!

Okay, I just played the first 50 moves of a Go Seigen/Kitani Minoru game (second game in Kamakura) on a bare tabletop with no feline interest. I checked, and at least one cat was relaxing on a windowsill in easy hearing distance.

Switching back to board.....

Honestly, at move 22, Ripley (the black cat) came meowing for attention. However, to be fair, she was content with a little head scratching and did not actually enter the game this time.

I think cats must have some sort of sincerity detectors, and the game wasn't worth interrupting until I was taking it seriously.

EDIT: Experiment continued. At move 100, Zelda* appeared and jumped on the go board. I put down my book to grab my camera, and he jumped off and lay down on the book instead.


* (Zelda is not named after Waya's screen name, if anyone's wondering. He was named by my video-game player nephew.)

[EdLee]

I think cats must have some sort of sincerity detectors, and the game wasn't worth interrupting until I was taking it seriously.

Thanks! Even your sincerity must be identical for the experiment to work.

[Inkwolf]

...And the moment I went back to the table after posting the last message....

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Today's study session, ended by cat.

[BaghwanB]

In my case it is definitely an attention thing.

"Whatcha doin'?" "Look at me!"

Esp. if it is an actual game: "You are both looking at that thing? I gotta get in on this!"

Bruce "Cat House" Young

[schultz]

Not go/go board related, but reminds me of a time my aunt and uncle's cat decided she wanted to disturb my Sunday comics reading (I was laying down on the floor). Sat down right in the middle of the comics.

Solution:
Turned and stared at some of the Sunday ads, waited for a little bit, cat got up and plopped down right on the ads. Back to comics reading!