http://www.mcelhearn.com Writings about more than just Macs, by Kirk McElhearn Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:46:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://www.mcelhearn.com/2009/04/19/the-most-interesting-go-book-ive-ever-read/ http://www.mcelhearn.com/2009/04/19/the-most-interesting-go-book-ive-ever-read/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:44:59 +0000 kirk http://www.mcelhearn.com/?p=609 http://www.mcelhearn.com/2009/04/19/the-most-interesting-go-book-ive-ever-read/feed/ 2 http://www.mcelhearn.com/2009/03/31/do-you-want-to-play-go-on-your-mac/ http://www.mcelhearn.com/2009/03/31/do-you-want-to-play-go-on-your-mac/#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:02:52 +0000 kirk http://www.mcelhearn.com/?p=584 http://www.mcelhearn.com/2009/03/31/do-you-want-to-play-go-on-your-mac/feed/ 0 http://www.mcelhearn.com/2008/03/04/my-new-go-set/ http://www.mcelhearn.com/2008/03/04/my-new-go-set/#comments Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:55:00 +0000 kirk http://www.mcelhearn.com/wordpress/?p=322

I like to play go. It's a board game, originally from Asia, that is played on a board with 19 x 19 lines. You take turns placing stones (one player gets white, the other black) on the intersections of the lines. The goal is to create a territory; space delimited by your stones. At the end of the game, you count up the points (intersections) in your territory, and add any stones you have captured (you can capture stones by surrounding them). The person with the highest score wins.

That was a very, very succinct description of the game of go (or baduk, in Korean, or weiqi in Chinese). While the rules are simple, it does get more complicated than that. The game is played professionally, mostly in Japan, Korea and China, and has developed a long tradition of strategy and tactics. You could say that the depth of study is similar to that of chess, though the game's logic is totally different: while you can kill stones, the goal is to make territory, unlike in chess where the only goal is to kill pieces.

Another difference between go and chess is the ability of computer programs to successfully play the game. While software can beat chess grandmasters, no go software comes anywhere near the level of professionals (though people are trying hard). This is, in part, due to the number of possible moves at any time (at the first move, there are 361 points where one can play, though the first few moves are usually only played on one of a couple of dozen points), but also to the number of moves in a game (games range from 200 to 300 moves).

I've been playing go for many years, casually at first, then, in the early days of the Internet I started playing on the now defunct NNGS (No-Name Go Server), a server that connected people around the world. I now play on KGS, where my screen name is Dogen. Unfortunately, I live in an area devoid of go players or clubs, but with KGS I can play at any time of the day or night, and I get to play people from many different countries and styles.

So, for years I had wanted to get a nice go set. I had a cheap folding board with glass stones; fine to play the game, but not aesthetically pleasing. I finally made the investment in a nice set, ordered from Kuroki Goishi Ten in Japan, a manufacturer of go stones, boards and bowls. As you can see in the picture above, those are the three elements of a go set: a board, black and white stones, and bowls to hold the stones. ]]> http://www.mcelhearn.com/2008/03/04/my-new-go-set/feed/ 1