It’s called Igo and it was invented in Korea. It has less unique pieces than compared to chess, yet is more complex than chess by a higher order of magnitude.
The claim that it was invented in China is actually from baseless speculation from a flawed study published back in 1993 from a Chinese university tied to a government propaganda campaign and regurgitated in an essay posted in 2004 that someone cited on Wikipedia in 2014.
You’re both wrong. Given it’s combined age and complexity, there is only one rational explanation…
Do you have a source for that? I can’t find any information on it and every Go site lists China including the British Go Association
I mean, if you’re going to say that the name isn’t “go” (which is certainly a common English term for the game) AND that it was invented in Korea, then surely the name should be Baduk, the Korean term for it. Igo is the Japanese name. (and for what it’s worth, weiqi is the Chinese term.) Admittedly English-speakers mostly use Japanese terms for the game, like “atari,” “joseki,” “hane,” etc., but that’s more a historical accident than anything else.
I think it’s neat that it was supposedly the hardest board game to get AI to understand and play effectively.
It wasn’t until 2015 that the top Go player lost to an Ai while chess lost in 1997. It’s wild how big that gap is when you think about how much tech had to improve to make it possible.
And didn’t people still find holes in the Go AI’s algorithm and proceed to dunk on it afterward?
This is actually more impressive about AI. People used to think Go AI wouldn’t be able to beat a human player until like 2050. I certainly thought that when I learned it in like 2010. Back then the strongest AI was like 1 Dan (amateur) at most. (9 Dan is the highest rank and professional 9 Dan which you need to play professional games to get to are much stronger than an amateur 9 Dan which is like 9 Dan from an online website. Also the games rankings go from 30 kyu which is the lowest rank to 1 kyu which is the highest “amateur ranking”. After 1 kyu is the Dan ranks ranging from 1 to 9)
It is entirely unlike Go the programming language in that it is, in fact, a strategic board game, However, it may be possible to write a simple progam in ternary-encoded binary with the game pieces and board.
Newbies are often afraid or insulted to use “handicap” pieces, but the few free pieces given to a lower-rank player are actually quite effective at adjusting the balance with unevenly ranked players. It’s not a huge advantage and doesn’t fundamentally change the play of the game.
Using different sizes of board is also neat. I’m very fond of a short game using only a 9x9 board. Plays a lot faster, but trades strategy for a more tactical game.
Newbies are often afraid or insulted to use “handicap” pieces
I made this mistake! I started learning Go years and years ago, and it turned out the company where I was working at that time had a former 7-dan amateur player. When he found out I was learning he offered to play me, which I eagerly accepted. I didn’t know this at the time, but 7-dan amatuer is the highest Go ranking one can achieve in Japan without playing professionally (there are separate 1-dan through 9-dan ranks for pros). For our first game, he offered to give me the full 9-stone handicap since I was just starting out. I thought that sounded excessive and suggested a 6-stone handicap instead, so that’s what we did. He fucking destroyed me that game. It was not even remotely close. For the rematch, I humbly accepted the full 9-stone handicap.
Well, he still won that second game but the outcome wasn’t as lopsided. It definitely made the game more interesting for both of us.
I personally don’t like the experience of playing with more than 3-4 handicap stones. For the weaker player, every move it’s like “What is my opponent up to now? I am still ahead, I should just play safe.” and for the stronger player it’s like “How can I force my opponent to make mistakes?”. These thoughts are sometimes part of an even game but not as frequently.
What app should I download (on Android) if I want to try Go? There are a lot of them, and I have no idea where most of the playerbase is.
I was hoping someone would comment on this actually. Every android app I’ve tried has been riddled with ads to the point of being impossible to play.
If someone has a good one PLEASE let us both know!
Yes please! This was the obstacle that kept me from trying it a couple of weeks ago. Ideally I’d love to find the equivalent to chess.com (or lichess), but for Go.
online-go.com is the closest I know of.
Just adding a reply here to direct you to my other comment, which summarizes some of the options.
https://kbin.social/m/comicstrips@lemmy.world/t/791813/-/comment/4808661
Just go to online-go.com in your preferred browser. It works great on mobile. There’s a large collection of puzzles to do. Those are user submitted, which means the quality varies, but some people have put together some pretty good sets that work as tutorials for beginners.
OGS is the most popular server outside of Asia, and has a nice social side with chat rooms and… clubs? I don’t remember their name for it, but you can join groups for finding teaching games, groups for people in your geographic region, etc.
I don’t log on often these days, but I love teaching new players. Feel free to add me as a friend there (and maybe dm me here so I know to look). My name there is nomadfarmer.
I used to use KGS, but that was mostly on the computer, though I know they also have an Android app. That was several years ago, though. My friend who still plays does so mostly on Pandanet via Android.
Those are both for multiplayer, of course. For single player, a while back I used Gridmaster along with a build of LeelaZero, and there are various apps that offer Go problems, including one my friend likes, but I have forgotten what he told me it was. I think it might be Tsumego Pro, but I’ll have to ask him again next time we talk.
Edit: Dragon Go Server probably deserves a mention as well. That’s a site for, basically, postal games via email, and can be accessed entirely via a web interface. It’s not as popular as the sites with faster time controls, but it’s kinda nice for playing a leisurely game with a busy friend.
I use “Sente - Online Go” and really like it. It shows as early access but I haven’t found any issues with it. It connects to the OGS server so you can play against bots of varying difficulty or normal online matches.
Aha, this might be what I was looking for! Is OGS the main platform for online Go?
I used to use gobandroid off f-droid, but these days I use crazystone: I like its ai for casual play (and I usually only play casual!). It does seem to have a deep love for talking home with no explanation when it starts up though, so on Lineage I just disable its internet permission.
Online-go is good but I haven’t really gotten into playing against strangers on the internet: I feel I should take it more seriously when I’m against a real person!
Wish I had people offline to play with sometimes though.