Araban wrote:I've had people assume I just naturally knew the game from my parents or what not because of my nationality. In fact, this is not the case although my dad did later admit he knew of the game but didn't introduce it to me early in my life because he assumed I wouldn't be interested in it.
Anyways, I picked the game up as I was weaning off of Warcraft 3 (now weaning into SC2 ) from 2002 - 2003. This was thanks to a friend of mine who had happened to leave his DVD collection in my room. One bored Sunday morning I picked it up and sifted through it to find anything interesting I might find. "Oh, Hikaru no Go sounds interesting."...and it all went downhill from there.
This actually makes me feel better. It shows that anyone can pick up the game and get to Araban's level with the right study plan.
I started playing in 2009 but it was almost 2010. I played my first game around the beginning of December but only a couple 9x9 games. Around Christmas and my Winter break from school I started playing more and improving.
I started playing go in 2005 after seeing HNG on "Toonami Jetstream." When I saw that there was a cool looking game that I couldn't understand my interest was sparked. Ive been playing sporadically since then.
I first learned of the game in 20008 walking by a board game kiosk in the local mall and perusing the selection. All the "run of the mill" games were there and none caught my interest. As I was about to move on, I saw the John Hansen version of Go on a shelf. One of the best things I've done in my life was to pick that box up and read the back. Although I didn't buy the game immediately (thankfully, as I found better quality YMI sets), when I got home I began to research the game. Just reading the rules was enough to grasp me. I guess that was my "You had me at hello" moment.
I was truly naive enough to believe that everyone I talked to about the game would instantly fall in love with it's beauty and complexity. I was a bit disappointed once reality set in. None of my friends have anything more than a remote interest and my wife hates the game. My kids are beginning to come around though.
Cloud E Head wrote:I first learned of the game in 20008 ... None of my friends have anything more than a remote interest and my wife hates the game. My kids are beginning to come around though.
You must be a reincarnation of myself. Didn't know it was possible to have two instances at the same time
For me, it seems like I was somehow destined to eventually learn go. The first time I encountered go was way back when I read a book about intelligence/logic where one chapter discuseed go and its simplicity/complexity. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time though. I think that was somewhere around 1992-1993.
A couple of years later (1995), I was on a language summer school trip in germany and there I bought a go playing set from a toy shop (plastic pieces and paper board). However, it never did get any use (well, at least not until I found it again after I started playing).
Around 2000 I started to get into downloading and watching anime and eventually I encountered Hikaru no Go. Again, I didn't pay too much attention to it, except of course that it was a very good anime.
What finally triggered me starting to play was that I had just rewatched Hikaru no Go, and then an article about it (regarding AI research) got onto Slashdot. And so, finally my curiosity got the better of me, and here I am a few years later and many hours of time spent.
In 1998 a coworker was playing online after work and I was working late. I went over to talk and saw him play. So I started to ask questions about the game and he described and I was intrigued. Later he taught me the rules and how to play on a 9x9 board. Then he gave me a copy of igowin.exe and I played thousands of games on 9x9 and learned the hard way by trial and error. With Gnu Go I learned to handle a 19x19 board. Later I found NNGS and was able to play against humans. In 2003 I found my first tournament as 15 kyu and I was hooked. Since then I've been playing a couple of tournaments each year.
Cloud E Head wrote:I first learned of the game in 20008
Welcome, noble being from far future. Have any advice on lottery numbers?
Yes I am from the future. Thankfully I didn't use a Hot Tub Time Machine to get here. There are now about 20 billion humans living on earth, mostly in underground cities. Although world peace still does not exist, wars are now fought by robots under command of human generals.
They still cannot defeat the best human Go players.
I'm here purely to observe so I can't give you any lottery numbers. Good luck though!
) from 2002 - 2003. This was thanks to a friend of mine who had happened to leave his DVD collection in my room. One bored Sunday morning I picked it up and sifted through it to find anything interesting I might find. "Oh, Hikaru no Go sounds interesting."...and it all went downhill from there.
