When did you start playing go?

[Stefany93]

All my 3 siblings are chess players, but I barely know the rules which has always made me feel a little '' not smart '' compared to them. But since I am the best who is dealing with computers at home, one day I opened their site to play chess and I saw a ad '' click here to play go ''

Since then I play go all the time

[TMark]

I first started playing in 1966, pre computers, pre HNG, pre the last ice age.

Best wishes.

[DrStraw]

I first started playing in 1966, pre computers, pre HNG, pre the last ice age.

Best wishes.

I remember, back in about 1976 or 1977 I guess, that the AGA celebrated reaching 100 dan. That is not 100 players of dan rank. It is a combined 100 dan for all those players who were officially ranked dan players. I was at the bottom of the heap at 1 dan and I don't remember many others except for the top 3 or 4. But I do remember you for some reason. You had been 2 dan since I started playing and, even though only a few years older than me, you seemed like one of the elder statesmen of the game in the UK. I don't think there were too many players on the list aged over 30.

[mayweed]

Euh...2010, one brother-in-law was playing on KGS end-december 2009. I asked: "What the hell are you doing? It's Christmas!!", he answered: "In front of Go, Christ could wait a little bit"
After that he learnt me the rules. Was not very convinced at first, but by April/May 2010 I started to play on a regular basis.I was very bad, and am always, but it's fun so...I keep playing

[zinger]

I hope a lot of people vote. I'd like to see the distribution of this.

(i voted 2005-2006)

The buckets are not the same size so it would not be very useful.

I don't entirely agree. From a strictly mathematical standpoint, you have a point. But pyschologically, there is little difference between starting in 1975 or 1972 - either way, it's a longish time ago. Whereas, starting in 2009 versus 2006 seems like a significant difference. So for this poll, I have no problem with the sort of slow logarithmic increasing bin size.

[Hushfield]

"In front of Go, Christ could wait a little bit"

He sounds like a very wise person. Respect.

[SoDesuNe]

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

[dfan]

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.

[Solomon]

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.

[GoCat]

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!

[Hushfield]

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.

[tsitua]

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.

[Marcus]

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.

[Mike]

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

[nexik]

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 :]