Why did you start playing Go?

[TheCatLver]

@TheBigH- ah, yes. That often happen to me as well, especially at midnight whilst I tried to procrastinate on an impending deadline. Did you know that penguins have knees?

[DrStraw]

@TheBigH- ah, yes. That often happen to me as well, especially at midnight whilst I tried to procrastinate on an impending deadline. Did you know that penguins have knees?

As far as I am aware, all descendants of dinosaurs have knees.

[TheCatLver]

@DrStraw- what I said was meant as a joke for procrastinating, drunk, and dead tired college students.

[Unusedname]

I call BS. I watched March of the Penguins and not once did they mention knees.

[DrStraw]

I call BS. I watched March of the Penguins and not once did they mention knees.

When you watched the March of the HS Band how many times did you talk about knees?

[joellercoaster]

As far as I am aware, the distinction between modern birds and dinosaurs is arbitrary and perhaps nonexistent. As literal dinosaurs then, penguins certainly have knees.

[tj86430]

So why/ how did you start playing?

I vaguely remember that there was an article in the leading Finnish newspaper 'Helsingin Sanomat' about the (then only Finnish) go club 'Helsingin Go-kerho'. I was immediately interested (I played chess and bridge, and liked all intellectual games), and went to club's weekly meeting.

I still remember that my first game was against Vesa Laatikainen ('Vesa' here) and I was astonished by his ability to replay the game entirely from memory (although I knew that my - now late - father, who used to be a member of the Finnish national bridge team could replay 32 or so bridge hands played during an evening entirely from memory).

This was around 1985.

[Fedya]

@TheBigH- ah, yes. That often happen to me as well, especially at midnight whilst I tried to procrastinate on an impending deadline. Did you know that penguins have knees?

[Abyssinica]

Replace wikipedia with Senseis Library.

[dfunkt]

I first heard about go (weiqi) when I was read Chung Kuo: The Middle Kingdom by David Wingrove. This series of speculative fiction had a brilliant and diabolical character who was also a go master. The references to the game in the book fascinated me and I searched the internet for more info. It was several years before I actually played the game.

[EdLee]

I first heard about go (weiqi) when I was read Chung Kuo: The Middle Kingdom by David Wingrove.

Interesting!

[Thunkd]

they want to know why other real people start playing such an "obscured game"

Me: That is a very interesting question... but wait, you play Chess do you not?

Friend: Yes, I do!

Me: But many more children play Monopoly than Chess. Why did you ever learn the more obscure game?

Friend: Chess isn't really obscure.

Me: But if you were to randomly pick any stranger, they are more likely to be competitive at Monopoly than they are to be at Chess, aren't they?


Friend: Well, yes...

Me: So wouldn't you be better off playing Monopoly?

Friend: Monopoly isn't really a very good or challenging game.

Me: What does that have to do with anything?

Friend: Well.. what's the point of playing a game if it isn't very good?

Me: Ah... I think I see. You believe that it's better to play the better game?

Friend: Exactly!

Me: Then why do you still play Chess instead of Go?

[TheCatLver]

they want to know why other real people start playing such an "obscured game"

Me: Ah... I think I see. You believe that it's better to play the better game?

Friend: Exactly!

Me: Then why do you still play Chess instead of Go?

Boom, pew pew pew. Shot fired.....and yet they're still reluctant to join me down in the rabbit hole

[goTony]

I played Chess when young. I heard of GO from a book on our shelf: "Games of the World" but never played until I looked up a club (years later) in Thousand Oaks, CA. Got interested and have remained so.

Why do I like GO so many reasons:

Aesthetics,
Simplicity of Rules and Complexity of Play
Art in Japan, Sport in China and Korea
Proverbs
The reflection of life
not totally defeated by AI yet..... pending my guess 5-7 years.
reflection and insights into Japanese and Chinese culture
Life lessons from GO ( Wish I knew them when I was 20)
good fun
playing with other people

Why do I like it better than Chess... See above. Chess while having cool and sometimes artsy pieces, just does not have the depth or many facets of GO. My experience is some Chess players are open to it many are not. But as I have said before Chess is a lot of fun especially after playing a few games of GO, bring out the Chess board and the mind has to change gears... Have fun. Oh and by the way I have a Chess and big gaming friend who has tried GO but just does not like it --go figure. He did state they do not have cool pieces just boring stones...

[tapir]

"science" book with corrupted kifu on cover and daring to talk about it inside. (i knew the rules and a little more already at that point.)