Comments | tquid: Ordinary things, like go

tquid

Ordinary things, like go

Apr 23, 2007 19:52

Had a lovely weekend. There was a party for the ref's in the Terminal City Roller Girls roller derby crew, and they're all great people, as well as being stunningly sexy. At the party, there were two other people who also play go/weiqi/baduk and one of them was . . . very, very attractive. (The other one was a nice fellow-geek who is completely not ( Read more... )

Comments 7

anda April 24 2007, 03:41:15 UTC

Interesting. I've been slowly coming to a theory that 9x9 is one of the worst things we can do to teach people, because it's just fighting. Or the transition needs a lot more discussion of how they (9x9 and 19x19) are different and how they need different thinking.

Or maybe you're just a better teacher than I am. :)

tquid April 24 2007, 04:01:27 UTC

I must strongly disagree, though I don't know if that means anything about who is a "better" teacher, a comparison I'd rather avoid ( ... )

anda April 24 2007, 05:34:19 UTC

I think so, but can't recall for sure. I've had much the same experience as iphy, though on the other side.

On the other hand, my time is strapped for picking Go up again. :(

[as I finish this comment an hour later, having been poking around on that site. damn you]

iphy April 24 2007, 04:25:06 UTC

Thanks for the link (in comments). I've learned the basics from the SubG. But, we kind of ran into a problem ( ... )

tquid April 24 2007, 05:24:08 UTC

Pedantry: Othello™ is the trademarked term; Reversi is generic.

If your tactics are good on 9x9, even good enough to stand up when you're giving a big handicap, well, I just can't see that is somehow cheating by "turning 9x9 go into Othello." They really aren't the same, though some skills may transfer. Sounds like you're probably just pretty good at games with strong tactics. I must repeat again, more adamantly: 9x9 go is real go, period. It's a different size and the positional aspect is obviously compressed, but it's a perfectly fine game in itself and has all the same rules as go on a 19x19 board.

OK, rant over. You picked a great beginner's book, it's what I started with. Vol. II is also great, and after that people get to having different opinions. I'm a big fan of Kageyama's Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go but others dislike the chatty style and feel it's not so well-suited for beginners. In general I think Ms. Kim's books take several pages and diagrams to talk about what a typical Kiseido Press book will handle in one. ( ... )

iphy April 24 2007, 15:50:53 UTC

I am surprised to learn that Reversi is not trademarked. I thought there was a game marketed under that name, too.

iphy April 24 2007, 15:51:37 UTC

Also, I was not saying 9x9 was not real Go. We've played small board, 13x13, and full board. With much the same results regardless. Reversi is not real Go.