Go takes too long to play, making every game a serious commitment. This is why people hate escapers so much. It also makes losing hurt more.

None of my friends play it.

Any attempt on their part to learn the game ends in failure, because it takes too long to understand what's going on (I mean the concept of territories and a basic idea of what should be done to secure them with live groups).

Even if they managed to learn go, they wouldn't be able to play with me for half a year or so, except teaching games where even with a 9-stone handicap I have an advantage. And I'm not even a dan player.

Some tactical stuff is kinda boring.

The thing I don’t like about Go:

Meeting someone through a shared interest in Go can really complicate a friendship. On the board we fight to the death – no mercy. Off the board, can we transition back to amicable behavior? Will my friend take the results of this match personally? If I win, can I do so gracefully? If I lose, can I endure another round of gloating?

Will rivalry ever foster true friendship?

Yep. When you first meet someone, the game is bigger than the friendship. However, eventually, the friendship can be bigger than the game.

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

1. I wanted go to make me smarter, instead it makes me feel more stupid.

2. Playing go is more interesting than doing something productive.

3. When I win it's because I got lucky, when I lose it's because I suck.

4. It's a sport where you get beaten by children and nerds.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I'm glad I am not the only one who feels this way. It makes me feel less neurotic.

I don't like the atmosphere I feel from many people that there are all these negative things everywhere in the world including playing a game of Go.

I don't like the fact the the outcome of such a fun, challenging and engaging activity has to end with a "winner" and a "loser". This can change a fun, family, friendly thing into an outright competition with hurt feelings and all sorts of issues.

I know that's what makes this a game and not a hobby but compared to all the good things about go, it can be a real sticking point.

Bruce "Rule 1 of pair go is never gripe at your partner (not kidding this time)" Young

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Currently reading: Plutarch, Cerebus, and D&Q 25th Anniversary

The second rule of pair go is that you do NOT gripe at your PARTNER.

Edit: you gripe about them to others, afterwards, of course!

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That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
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My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com

The thing I hate most about go is that I can't combine it with drinking. I can play most games while drunk (soccer, various card games, board games, rolleplaying games, drinking games, ect) depending on the game I might even get better at it (read: I'm having more fun)

But go is almost as unforgiving as math. If I'm playing a random board game I can take several pints before anything effects my decision making process. Whereas in go I lose around 2 stones per beer

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While I was teaching the game to a friend of mine, my mother from the other room:
"Cutting? Killing? Poking out eyes? What the hell are you playing?"

This is true for every other deterministic board game as well. In some sense, you can't be good at go; you can only be bad. A simple argument is to imagine that your opponent can play perfectly. No matter how good you are, you will not be able to win. So the only way you can win is getting lucky - your opponent made a mistake. Similarly, the only way for the opponent to win is when you make a mistake - you suck.

Of course perfect play is not achievable, but that doesn't make this argument academic. A review will highlight the mistakes you made. Reviews of pro games usually point out the move(s) that lost one of the players the game. The victory is never an accomplishment of the winner - it's the loser's fault.

This perspective makes go absolutely worthless as a self-esteem booster. If you win a lot, you are still awful; people you play against are just slightly more awful.

Couldn't the same argument be turned the other way, except instead of using perfect play as our standard for "good" play (which, as a side note, is a rather high standard), we use a computer that fills up the first line, followed by the second line, etc. as our standard of "bad" play. Your win is guaranteed to come from being better. As well, reviews of pro games often also point out the "winning" move for the winner. I could say "the loss is never the fault of the loser, the other player just did something brilliant."

In reality, I don't think that's the case, but neither do I think the game is never an accomplishment of the winner either. You played better than your opponent, and therefore you won. Where's the lack of accomplishment in that?

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We don't know who we are; we don't know where we are.
Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.

I too feel like when I win, there's nothing to be impressed with, when I lose it's because I played terribly.

On the other hand, the four most famous moves I can think of are The Ear Reddening Move and Jowa's ghosts, not Fujisawa Shuko's blunders.

P.S. Then there's this monster which also came to mind when I thought of the most famous moves I know: http://senseis.xmp.net/?29thMeijinGame3Move31

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Occupy Babel!

I don't like Go in the sense that it laid bare all my shortcomings like laziness, impulsivity, eagerness, greed and so on. It's a game in which your true personality reflected so much.

As if the goban was just a mirror of your own soul. And that could be quite disturbing sometimes, especially when you like pretending you're the one you're not...

Well yes, that is a necessary function of any team game

But friends, please take this to heart. If you ever want to make someone STOP playing go, criticize (verbally or non) their pair-go play with you during a game. It's the fastest way to turn someone off of this game forever.

Bruce "That move was... novel" Young

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Currently reading: Plutarch, Cerebus, and D&Q 25th Anniversary

This times 100. It's so infuriating to blow a won game at the end, and this happens to me constantly.

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

I'm not sure I follow this thought. It seems that a lot of people share the bias that a cause which immediately precedes the outcome of interest is qualitatively different than more remote causes... What's the difference between screwing up a corner on move 20 rather than move 200? What's the difference between losing 5 points in oyose versus losing 5 points in yose?

Actually, there's a quantitative difference too.

Screwing up one corner at the very beginning of the game, unless it's SUPER horrendous, is not yet 100% resignable (unless you're playing a 6d+, of course) as you just have to buckle down, make the game complicated, and outfight your opponent on the rest of the board. You've only lost totally 10-15% of the board; there's still another 85% left to contest.

In mathematical go terms (at least, if I understand them correctly) the way to win after a big loss is to raise the global temperature above the amount of points you lost in that corner, preferably for an extended period of time, as it would allow more chance for you to make the decisive high-value move before the game cools off again.

As the game progresses, there is less and less chance for complication, therefore fewer opportunities for extended temperature-raising. A 5 point mistake in the oyose from an even position is bad, but still playable (except against a pro) as there's a bit of opportunity left to set up extended sente sequences and such. A 5 point mistake in the late yose from an even position is time to resign if you're strong enough to be certain that you were at an even position before the mistake.

OMG OMG OMG. I love Batoo and I lost half my soul when it shut down. Those stones had orange inscriptions which I did not see when I played that game. Is it back?! If so where can I download, how do I sign up etc. etc. Please respond to this.

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"shinigami" IGS server, "Entautista" Tygem Server

What I have about Go: It is not Batoo.

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"shinigami" IGS server, "Entautista" Tygem Server