I'm Revilo, 36 years old, from Frankfurt and I learned the rules of Go six years ago, mostly just out of curiosity.
In my former, and still sort of current life, I'm a lifelong chess player and enjoyed my competitive peak in my mid twenties when I managed to exceed ELO 2300 to snatch the FIDE Master title.
At times chess just bore me out and then I would delve into other games of strategy. Since my early twenties I play backgammon and at times it served me well in supporting my university tuition.
I've always been more fond of deterministic perfect information games, though. I played Xiang Qi and Shogi but when the AlphaGo appeared on the horizon, I got redirected to Go. The fascination was twofold - beside seeking a new challenge while being bored from playing chess for just another time, I was also extremely fascinated by the progress in AI put forth by Deepmind - I had once developed a chess engine myself and was always keeping an eye on new algorithmic developments.
And second I always felt the appeal and elegance of Go. So I gave it a try again, this time with the goal in my mind to become a decent player.
I'm planning to create a study journal to track my progress. Up until now, I've made it to 14 kyu on Pandanet after 150-ish games (79-65), starting from the bottom. I've also begun to attend the local go circle. Results here are like 10-12 kyu.
Anyway, that has been quite a long introduction. Let's see where the journey will lead to
)