If your looking for a thread about a new game with great graphics but poor game play you might want to take a hike. Go is pretty old and the origins of it are still up for debate, but what is for certain is that it is insanely popular in the eastern cultures.
[excerpt (1) possible origin]Some legends trace the origin of the game to legendary Chinese emperor Yao (2337–2258 BC), who had his counselor Shun design it for his son, Danzhu—supposedly an unruly sort—to teach him discipline, concentration, and balance. + Show Spoiler +
This game has been starting to get a good grasp of the western culture as it can be seen in movies such as A Beautiful Mind and Pi.
If your the anime type, there is a Japanese anime based completely on the game of go called Hikaru No Go
The premise of the game and rules may seem simple when first looked at, but as you delve deeper you'll start to understand the complexity of this deviously, strategical game.
Now if your ready to try this game out there are great software programs that will save you the trouble of buying an $8,000 kaya board (=.
Now when you get into these servers you'll realize k's and d's. For the time being just assume that the letter d means death. In short though both servers are home to great players who will go the extra mile to help out rookies and those seeking to become stronger.
ahhh it's time for the annual Go thread already? well anyways if anyone wants a game or tips from a fairly inactive 8-12k (seriously, probably anywhere in that range at any given day) hit me up on a PM or shymon on kgs.
To play on IGS you need to download glGo (available from the site I linked) and register an account, IGS has quite a lot of users but the average level is pretty high (for a beginner). Still, you can find enough beginners there
To play KGS, you just go to the site and click play go. It's java, and you can play as a guest or register an account.
There's many, many other servers (search go servers on senseis.xmp.net for a list and description) - chinese, korean, japanese, but these two should be enough (IGS is international/japanese and KGS international).
1 apm in go is about right. People tend to play speed games at like 6 apm, at which pace the game kind of crumbles, but it does bring out and show your thought train.
I wonder how strong TL go is. If anyone wants a game, I'm available these days on weekends about 8 hours from this time to about 12 hours from this time, whatever that makes it for your time zone. Give me a pm
Go is freaking nuts!! One of my uni mates was explaining to me the process to attaining 'pro' status in Korea and it blew my mind. In comparison, even pro Starcraft doesn't seem as hardcore.
On July 10 2008 03:19 evanthebouncy! wrote: Dad always mock me for playing starcraft instead of go... saying its inferior. T_T
Your dad is right ^_^. you should learn weiqi and then suprise him one day.
BTW my nick on kgs is asrai, add me if you want. im willing to help out those that are weaker than me.
A big thing that helped me improve 9ish stones in a month was playing through professional games. i reccomend watch lee chang ho as he is known for playing simple moves (his endgame and reading are absolutely fucking ferocious though, a absolute monster.) he turns very complicated situations into completely harmonious ones.
Go seigen is also godly, basically the best player in the history of go. makes shusaku look like a hack (jking but i would pick seigen over shusaku). A cool thing would be if we could all get together as a group and have zalfor review a game with us, and we can chime in on what we would play and why we would play it, and if it's grossly wrong the dan player can advise why its bad i guess.
On July 17 2008 02:27 Lord_of_Chaos wrote: I'm alone in TeamLiquid with a 5d... I'm scared!
I'm there now don't worry you can feel at ease. Oh crap I was wrong, I'm rated 21k :D
you're around my rank. we should play sometime
Since I posted that I'm 20kyu now :p
Well, that's just for playing Pellucidity who's new so I can't really take credit for it. Sure we can play. For starters you can pm me if you are going to be available between like 8pm and 2am Eastern USA Time.
Longtime Lurker Kinda funny that this is what brought me out... I used to play Go back when I was like 8 and lived in China but pretty much stopped after I moved to the West (it's been almost 10 years), getting back into it now since 1) I'm vacationing in China 2) The college I'm going to has a Go Club I'm probably going to join
I made a KGS the other day: Kupon3ss, I'll be on at random times, I'm probably around 8-10K now but I'm not sure after not having played for so long
Since Batoo is sponsoring the OSL, I figured it's high time to bump this.
Has anyone tried playing Batoo yet? It's really obvious that they're marketing towards the PC Bang crowd now with this new form of go/baduk. I'm not entirely sure on all the differences, but here's a
If you go to the official site and go into the "Videos" section you can see videos of top pros playing each other in a game of Batoo in a very Starcraft-like setting, flashy graphics and even 2 commentators (both very well-known as commentators for Baduk TV; guy on the right is Kim Sung-Lyong 9p) on the game included.
So Batoo is basically the new Badook variant that's been becoming popular in Korea (particularly after Tygem began to get top Korean pros involved). It is VERY different from Badook and what's very interesting about Batoo before I even bring up how gameplay mechanics work is just the site. One thing you may notice is that it has a very MMORPG feel to it and I think that it can perhaps attract more of the gamer and the youth crowd, easier to do in Korea since MMORPGs are very popular there.
So here are the basic jist of the Batoo rules:
*Batoo is played on an 11x11 board.
*There is a scoreboard at the top that keeps score throughout the game (byoyomi is also shown at the top as well). Aside from the obvious where territory gets counted at the end of the game, here are other ways you get points:
1) Make a move, +1. 2) If you lose a byoyomi period, -2. 3) If you occupy a 3-3 point, -5 (4 of them). These are minus zones. 4) If you occupy the 1-6 or 6-1 points, +5 (4 of them). These are plus zones.
* At the beginning of the game you play 3 moves to start the game up. So there's 6 stones already placed to kick things off. You can't see where your opponent's 3 stones are until after both sides have set up their bases fully. This is called "building a base"...*cough* Starcraft /cough.
*There is also "Turn Betting" which occurs before the game starts. I'll try to clarify this later (it's a bit confusing for me), but what the basic jist of it is that both players bet a certain number of points. Whoever bets the higher amount gives that many points to the other player but as compensation gets to go first. There is no "komi" system and Black does not necessarily always go first due to this rule. I anticipate that this is a rule that brings into account the possible starting bases that are built where one side may be in a drastically worse situation than another.
1) If you and your opponent occupy the same point during the base building stage, neither players take that point and instead it becomes a minus zone.
*What's most interesting about Batoo are the "Hidden" and "Scan" features.
1) The Hidden feature speaks for itself, you play a move that your opponent cannot see. It remains invisible throughout the game (until it gets captured, you end up playing on it, or you play a move that captures something else that couldn't be done without the hidden stone. You can only use the hidden feature once, and it takes up a turn. If you bump into your opponent's hidden stone, you don't lose your turn.
2) The Scan feature also kind of speaks for itself, you play on an intersection to scan for a hidden stone. This does not take up a turn (so you can play a stone on the same turn you use scan).
On top of that, you can also choose avatar like things that give you benefits, like if you've ever played avatar Magic:TG or whatnot.
Even if you can't read korean (like me) you should check out the website at http://www.batoo.com/ , it looks a lot more interesting to me then clubday (MMO that sponsored the MSL). They also have a signup form for foreigners so it's pretty simple making an account if you can read English.
If any Korean fluent TLers can play that'd be awesome, I have no idea how the perks that each avatar give work at all.
Ive pretty much played every day since the middle of October and am halfway to 11kyu. Even though I've played only for around 3 months I can honestly say that this is a game I believe I will be playing for the rest of my life. It is awesome on so many levels. I started to play right when I had a marketing-course in university (I study international business). The similarities you see between competitive strategy and the strategy of go is just insane. I always thought it was ridiculous how every single thing in business had a stupid name that you had to learn, but Go made me see the important of putting words on patterns, basically using concepts as a way to sort your thoughts.
Ah it's hard to explain in english, but this game teaches you so many things. The value of thinking long-term instead of short-term, it gives philosophy lessons through the proverbs.
Also, it's a board game where computers can't beat humans yet, which is a big deal to me. As soon as a computer can beat the best player, the board game loses a lot of it's mystery in my opinion.
Finally the manner is just great. It's easy as hell to request for a better player to review a game. There is even an undo-button you can use if you made an obvious miss-click. The only thing is that the other player decides if they accept your undo or not. I have never in any of my games (around 250) been rejected for using the undo-button (unless the game maker clearly stated before the game that no undos are allowed).
It's so different from the childish flamewars on battle.net or the sore losers in the poker rooms.
Play Go, it is awesome and the ultimate game according to me. If you study in university a subject which has some sort of strategy involved I guarantee Go will help you in your studies.
On December 26 2008 16:52 mistapooh wrote: The girl I broke up with a few days ago plays a lot of Go. She said that if I could beat her in Go, I can do whatever I want to her. Oh well.
Too bad there are no cheeses in GO.
I think, I'm not too good at the game but I do enjoy playing it =).
Since this thread was bumped up anyway, The Batoo version has an invitational tournament running on OGN at the moment. I would imagine they invited a lot of korean pros to play. Not sure where you can find VODs.
Batoo has all their vods on their site, so you can't find them on youtube. You also have to install their custom flash player which is internet explorer only (like the actual game) and for some reason that player crashes my computer after 7 seconds -__-. It doesn't have as much strategic depth as regular baduk but it has some perks that make it easier to spectate. The ogn commentators are a nice touch as well.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/87/badukbv6.jpg)
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