I like almost everything about go. Differences in rule sets sometimes come up and it is frustrating to think that those will probably never converge. It would be nice to be able to make an unqualified claim to newcomers that Go has simple rules but with the current state of affairs that's not possible.

You have to be careful what you wish for. Sometimes I wish it was considered cooler to play go. It would be fun to be able to walk into a bar and strike up conversation about go the way some people can with other sports. But if that really happened, then so many people would be playing that maybe I wouldn't be as interested in it any more. Still, I wouldn't mind getting some good coverage in English on TV.

So you play go because it's obscure?

A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

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A good system naturally covers all corner cases without further effort.

That's part of the allure, I guess, but not the only thing...

The only thing I dislike about Go are rules dispute, especially those involving Robert Jasiek





I just wake up ! What's the problem with batoo ?

I can't say I hate something about go itself. But;
1. i dont't like the situations when my wireless stops in the middle of the game. When i run in the kitchen, where the conection is much better, the opponent is usually gone.
2. Hate boring openings. I really don't like opponents that always play two-star-strategy, or always play the same. I mean, it's boring. Ok, in tournaments, i too mostly play the same opening (kobayashi), which i know best, but in KGS, i try to play with some "imagination".
3.I hate losing streaks. I feel so stupid, and when i'm winning all the game, through the very begining, and i don't see atari in filling neutral points, I want to hang myself .
And sorry for the bad english. Not my first language.

It's indeed much easier to list what I like about Go, but here goes:

1) The "carrot dangling": No matter how much you study and play, there is always the feeling that you're "so close" to "getting" another aspect of the game, that you're on the doorsteps of a greater understanding, just to learn very quickly that even you somewhat grasp a new concept, your overall knowledge is of the game is still very limited. Differently worded, it's not enjoyable to pretty much always chase after something you know you'll never attain. And even if you "get" some pieces, putting it all together is an entirely different issue.

2) The time it takes to get "really good" at the game. With most other games (especially newer ones), you can reach a level of competence within a few months of dedication, and you can "compete"; you won't feel hopelessly behind. In Go, unless you started learning when you were six, or at least fairly early in your life (and then ideally in a nurturing environment), you can't ever hope to be "good". This is particularly frustrating if you start learning in the second half of your 30s, as I did. Similarly, seeing teens picking up the game and progressing to dan level within literally a few months inevitably causes me to feel "hopeless" and "too old".

3) Go fosters this very feeling of being "hopeless", "dumb" and "too old" way too often in me. On an intellectual level, I realise that such feelings are silly and that they hint at deeper issues, e.g. partially low self-esteem, wrong priorities, too much comparing to what others do while only focusing on their strengths rather than considering that there are many things I'm pretty darn good at (but naturally I hinge it all on Go), and all of this could be worked on, but is it worth the effort? Therapy might be cheaper and faster!

Seriously, though, Go seems to inevitably uncover and expose one's shortcomings and I wonder if there is really much benefit in it. There are numerous other games I could play that still teach me new "things" without making me feel useless and "too damn old" half the time I spend time with them. From a mental health perspective, getting decent at ten or twenty different games is likely to be more beneficial than becoming an expert at one specific game. At the brink of 40, do I really need more things in my life that make me feel old? The discovery of individual grey hairs and the back pain when getting up on rainy mornings already does plenty enough! Why not engage in activities that produce more moments of success than moments of failure and despair?

4) The time investment: Go takes up too much time if you're not blessed with "talent", "young age" or are genuinely satisfied with your current level of ability. Playing games is fine, reviewing them in earnest is already a time sink. Studying is too, and while I occasionally like book study and have way more Go books than I care to admit, I have to honestly say that most of them are completely and utterly boring and mind-numbing. This is especially true for all these 1970 and 1980 works that are all likely to put me to sleep (with just a couple of exceptions). It almost feels like physical labour to get through some of them, and it feels unnatural and difficult to feed my mind with them. I almost always feel strong resistance when trying to go through them. I learn much better from less dull (and less dense) textbooks, but unfortunately very few of those exist in the Go world. Books can be fun. Go books usually aren't anything but.

5) I don't like the competitive aspect at all. I know all the rationalizations about how Go is a game of two partners, and that winning or losing doesn't matter. But honestly? I think it's bull. Sure, I delude myself with those thoughts too, but at the end of the day you have a winner and a loser, and if you're the loser, you can tell yourself as much as you want that you're the "actual winner" because you learned more than your victorious opponent, but you still lost the battle and making up reasons why you "didn't really lose" feels like ego stroking and sugar-coating more than anything. I don't like competing with others in my recreation time. I'm much happier to compete with myself, and that's why I prefer doing tsumego. Or other solitary activities, like replaying pro games. And psuedo and actual social stuff, like kibitzing, hanging out here on the forums, etc. It's odd, but as much as I love many aspects of Go, I don't particularly enjoy playing the game. The time/enjoyment ratio with some iPad/iPhone games is much higher than my time/enjoyment ratio when it comes to Go, and my brain benefits just the same, (This whole paragraph nay be related with the "fear of feeling dumb" mentioned above, however.)

And now, now I am wondering why I actually play Go, and if this isn't just a really unproductive, frustrating and self-harming way of spending one's time if taking it beyond a very casual, "just for fun" level.

I've been reading through this thread and trying to come up with my own list ... it's hard, though, because my relationship with the game has been evolving and is still evolving ... but here goes:

1) Dedicated Time Requirements

To really enjoy Go, I need to be able to take the time to slow down and not have to worry about other commitments. I just don't have the time to do so, lately, and sometimes I find the sheer amount of time I would need to dedicate to enjoy myself to be frustrating. As such, I play a lot more turn-based games lately.

2) Competitive Drive vs Meditative Tool

When I shed my competitiveness, I find Go becomes much more enjoyable. My mind clears and I enjoy the flow of the game, regardless of where the game flow takes me (win or lose). I'd love to feel this way about every game ... but I have a rather deep competitive streak and I hold this crazy belief that I should be able to play better than I currently do.

I've gotten much better at controlling my competitive urges, though it's very difficult. I feel there's a good balance that can be achieved that will allow me to keep pushing myself to be stronger while still hitting that inner calm I'm feeling more and more in my games. If I can find that balance, I'll have nothing left on this list ... my Go will be everything I want it to be.

The only thing I dislike about go involves how certain mentalities towards the game.

(1)I strongly dislike that people care so much about their rank
(2)I dislike how this makes every game difficult to approach in a fun manner. Even if its ranked, you should be having fun competing and stop worrying.
(3)I dislike how America won't adopt their own cultural influence on the game but would rather glorify Japan's. And don't take that the wrong way - I love Japan, I love the history of go, but we have no true identity with this game and don't seem to care to make one. Some people would play go if they could just learn the board game and not have to learn a second language. It will always hold the game back.
(4)I dislike that people treat this game like something to feel smart about. It gives rise to atmospheres that are way too restrictive and elitist. Once again, this is a mentality that is holding go back from being something the general public might approach.

In contrast to other people, I love that go does not let me ever feel smart. It's seriously one of my favorite things about the game. It doesn't allow me to have an ego for even a second and instead teaches me the ways that I am wrong, if I care enough to let go of my pride and listen. It is an endearing, instructive kind of stupid feeling, not a punishing one. But if you get too caught up in these types of mentalities, you not only stop having fun, you also stop making any significant improvements. The funny thing is that for the majority, the weaker a player one is, the more prevalent these seem to be. I like to think I will reach 1 dan when I fully grasp just how bad I am at the game, and I look forward to that day

It's not so much what I hate about Go, as what I hate about the way I play Go.

Go itself is not at fault. It is what it is.

I want to play it well. I've tried. I can't seem to get the hang of it. Part of it is that I haven't played enough, and I know it. But when I do play, I get somewhere into the middle game, and something weird happens: it all stops making sense. The entire board, in a split second, turns from a structure I understand into a bunch of white and black blobs in a random arrangement, and I can't get them to resolve.

At that point, I'm utterly lost. I can't see any strategy whatsoever. No move looks better than any other. I get stuck in a spiral of picking a move and reading, reading, reading...then picking another and reading it out again, trying to find something that makes sense again. Meanwhile, the moves are taking longer and longer and longer. A timed game? Forget it. I lose because the clock runs out. I forget the clock is there. It ticks off my opponent, because he sees it as me wasting his time, and I am, but it's not on purpose.

I try studying tsumego. I try studying joseki. Sometimes I can figure them out. Most of the time, tsumego just look like a jumble to me. I have no idea what the point is, and most sites and books don't come out and say what you're supposed to DO with a problem half the time. It seems you're supposed to guess whether it's black to live or white to live, or divine it from context. Well, I can't, and I don't know if it's because I'm just not getting it, or if I missed some forehead-smacker rule along the way that'd make it easy, like "if it doesn't say, it's always black to live". But is it? I don't know. I do know that studying them isn't making my middle game any easier.

I can't count the current status of the board worth a damn. That bugs me. And I still can't figure out when the game is OVER, and God help me if I actually do finish it and have to figure out the winner. I'm at the mercy of my opponent most of the time, I have a...imperfect command of how to count up the score.

These are all BEGINNER PROBLEMS and they tick me off that I still have them. It ruins the game for me. They make me self-conscious and make me not want to play at all, and of course without practice I can't possibly get better.

And it doesn't help that most of the players on places like KGS intimidate the hell out of me.

Been there. Play more. Lots of that goes away.

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Patience, grasshopper.

I'm starting to think that some of the problems I have with go are not really things that have to do with go. Go just displays them to me.

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be immersed

That's not a bad thing, that's a good thing. It means you can use go as a testing ground for making changes irl.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Play 9x9 games. The way you feel is pretty normal and it'll eventually "click" and you'll "see" live and dead groups. I get the impression from your post that you are overloading yourself. Don't study joseki. Do problems that you understand. If they look like a jumbled mess to you, you're trying to solve problems that are not currently in your range.

Just play 9x9 games for a while. If you can't find other beginners, play a bot that adjusts to your strength dynamically. Igowin does that for example, and while it's flawed in some ways, it's free and just fine for your purposes.

Its easier for me to list the things I love about Go, but I can say a few things I dislike. Although, like most people, I hate the way I play Go or the way I think about it.

1) As with most, Go makes me feel incredibly dumb, and I can never tell if I have learned anything new (or if I have what exactly it was I learned).
2) Until recently, there was no one around me who played (and I have tried to teach friends, but they don't seem to like the game as much as I do).
3) The time investment is really high and although I actually enjoy reading about Go, reviewing games, etc. I rarely have time to invest in it.
4) I rarely feel I have played well, and I don't think I can honestly tell when I have made a good move or a bad one. And to be honest, on IGS rarely does anyone say anything or review games it seems... . I think the nervousness would go away if I played more, but until recently I haven't had the time (and the nervousness doesn't help ). My competitive streak probably contributes to alot of my nervousness because I want to play well, but never feel that I do.

That being said, I also love the fact that Go isn't a game I can fully grasp all its parts in a few weeks or even months (or in my case probably years ). The game seems to be constantly evolving, and its pretty awesome there is always something new to learn. And to be honest, its nice to have a game that requires a good deal of thought, generally has a very friendly community, and tends to show me my own faults quite often .

-Boyce
PS If anyone else feels similarly and wants to play some games, I'm more than happy to. IGS/KGS handles are Boyce.

~~~~TOP 3 REASONS WHY GO SUX!!!~~~~

3. too much calculating
2. what the heck is a joseki???
1. halo is better

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IN VICTORY, MALICE. IN DEFEAT, REVENGE. DON'T GET MAD, GET BAD

I think there should be a "mildly amusing" button in addition to the normal "like" button.

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be immersed

The first time I heard "joseki" mentioned, I thought it was a reference to Kzinti slaves, but then I remembered that was Jotoki.

1. i hate having an horrible opening

2. when a player doesnt know when to resign

3. losing

4. losing streaks

5. getting into trouble and i dont know how to stop getting into more trouble

6. that in our part of the world GO isnt well known

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si no puedes triunfar, muere gloriosamente