He sounds like a very wise person. Respect.

I know Go since April 2009 and yeah... due to "Hikaru no Go" =D And studying on a regular basis for about two months.

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My "guide" to become stronger in Go

I read Edward Lasker's (pretty mediocre) Go and Go-Moku when I was a kid in the 1970s and thought the game looked really cool.

In the late 1980s I started picking up the Elementary Go Series, and played a couple of games at the college go club.

I guess I started playing for real in the early 90s on IGS and then NNGS.

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.

First learned the game from a roommate in the late 70's; played a fair bit up through the 80's. What I don't like about all that is that I never got past SDK!

You talk as if there's no time left to still do so. With that much experience, you're sure to be one tough opponent. You might even be surprised at what additional study might do for your strength.

I started in 90 at school in lunchbreak with a friend. We only had the game and a very short introductionary piece of paper. I dont remember if we played right back then, but i remember counting took a long time
Then with many long breaks i played occasionally again and again over the years and started seriosly about 1 1/2 years ago.

While I learned the game back in High School (bought a kit with a cardboard "board" and plastic stones), I only played roughly 25 games or so between then and 2007. In April 2007, I discovered KGS. Thanks, wms!

Anyways, I've recently dug that old cardboard "board" and plastic stones out and am using it to teach a couple of my younger cousins the game. They may not become fanatics about it like I am, but I'll at least get to finally play more people in real life.

I really need to find a Go Club I can go to regularly.

I was at this course thing in 2007, it was just boring stuff, didn't really listen to it, so the guy sitting next to me asked if I had ever heard of a game called Go? I said no I hadn't and he took out some paper and pencils and started explaining it. I didn't pay much attention to that either, but afterwards he asked me to come find him on gokgs.com and he'd explain more. I felt intrigued enough to go check it out, and voilá, here I am. I probably wouldn't have gone if he hadn't mentioned that computers are no good at it. It's what made me want to find out more, since I had been a chess player when I was younger and computers slapped me silly with just mere seconds thinking time in that

It was in late 2003. Thx to the "Beautiful mind". Next year, my country (Poland) held European Go Congress and from that time I'm Baduk Player, Baduk Teacher, Baduk Blogger and Baduk Evangelist :]

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http://akademiago.pl - Polish Go Website

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.

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My plan to become an SDK is here.

I wonder what's with the small spike with the 1989-1992 bin. I started learning go in 1989, so I belong to that bin.

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My homepages: http://senseis.xmp.net/?Unkx80 and http://yeefan.sg/.

IGS started in 1992, so that's when I played my first real games. I dunno if anyone else here started playing for real because of that.

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.

August 2009. Good times! Looks like I won't make it to 1d in a year though, unless I can pull 2 ranks by the end of July.

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TucsonGo.org - Play Go in Tucson
We meet twice a week, visit us!

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.

Welcome, noble being from far future.
Have any advice on lottery numbers?

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

You must be a reincarnation of myself. Didn't know it was possible to have two instances at the same time

2005-2006

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.