Hello all,

I'm Egyptian and Go game isn't familiar here at all and as far as I know my country doesn't have neither a Go association nor players so a question came across my mind about how I can participate into competitions/championships?

It's kinda frustrated to just play your beloved game online only since no one cares or interested in such a game like Go.

Is there any possibility to find someone to practice with? nationally or internationally?

What does it take to participate in amateur competition in other countries?

I can't really help with finding local players, other than general suggestions for starting a club with posters in cafes or looking for clubs of other similar games and converting them to Go, but as for playing in tournaments in other countries, you generally just need to turn up and pay some small registration fee! So perhaps if you are planning a holiday to Europe you could arrange it to coincide with some local tournaments (e.g. http://www.eurogofed.org/calendar/calendar.htm http://britgo.org/tournaments). In my experience Go players are friendly people and would welcome players from abroad.

P.S. there have been various online player databases/maps but many have died. Ones I can find now have nothing in Egypt: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewe ... oX6SYMwG50

Pretty much any amateur tournament in Europe is open to any comers, so if you're willing to travel there, you can participate.

The perfect event to get lots of go on one trip is the European Go Congress, which is two whole weeks of go with a dozen different events (long games, short games, blitz games, 9x9/13x13 games, you name it). Sadly you just missed this years congress, the next one is next summer in Pisa (27/7/2018 - 12/8/2018, see http://egc2018.it/)

There's an EGF calendar at http://www.eurogofed.org/calendar/calendar.htm but it is very incomplete and most countries have their own tournament calendars with many more events.

To get as much go as possible, you'd want to visit one of the larger 3-4 day events, such as London (28/12/2017 - 31/12/2017, 4 days), Paris (31/3/2018 - 2/4/2018, 3 days), Amsterdam (10/5/2018 - 13/5/2018, 4 days) or Hamburg (18/5/2018 - 20/5/2018, 3 days).

Hello Ahmed,

Thank you for your post.
My suggestion: try to start a club.

Try to make people around you and in your city enthusiastic about go.
Elsewhere on this forum, you can find tips for starting your own club.

By the way: a club is not established easily. But it does not have to be large. Four or five persons is enough, especially for a start.

Enjoy the game.

And I thought I had a hard time finding Go players!

Is Chess popular in Egypt at the moment? How about Backgammon and Checkers? Just curious because I do not know much about that country ^^;

Chess has had a presence in much of the Arab world for over 1000 years since it spread from India and Iran to other countries.

I think Go can find wide acceptance in Islamic countries since it is a game that actually invites one to understand their opponent. It is a game most conducive to the formation of moral character. It is a game in which you must consider the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent. It is a game in which one need not be jealous just because your opponent got some territory; any chance he might have incurred long-term losses for short-term gain? Your neighbor might have more than you, but what did he have to do to get it? Could it also be that you did not take proper precautions to prevent your opponent from getting too much? Finally, it is a game in which success will come only after a long period of constant practice and refinement. When you play against stronger opponents you will see effective moves that appear to be sheer luck, but after gaining knowledge on how to play the game you will find that such moves are actually ordinary.

Best thing to do is find 2 or 3 people with whom to play Go and play regularly. With time and patience new members can be found. If the regular version of Go is too complicated for beginners, Capture Go might be more interesting and easier to understand. It is simply being the first to capture X number of stones to win. Below is an excerpt from the March 1999 issue of the Sacramento Go Club newspaper. Look for the article titled Two Days with Yasuda-sensei.

http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~jdnewmil/go ... 03-31.html

As well, do some life & death and tesuji problems and, probably the most important way to improve your Go when you have no one with whom to play or limited internet access, replay pro games. You can go here if you want game collections to download and print out:

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=10643

If time is scarce and your internet access allows it, you can watch this 60-minute video on YouTube by a German Go player known as Benni3D. Though, this is a subliminal way of learning Go, much like when you learn a foreign language by first listening to hours and hours of conversation. Still good for developing memory power in Go if you watch it over and over again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6yHh-kWU80&t

To learn the basics of the game in a theoretical manner, it is necessary to read books with commented games and watch videos of games with commentary. Here is a PDF of Go on Go, a collection of games by Go Seigen.

https://www.usgo.org/files/pdf/go-seigen-book.pdf

And "GoCommentary", a YT channel with commented games.

https://www.youtube.com/user/gocommentary

Recording your games on paper and reviewing them, especially with a stronger player, is a good practice. Here is a link to a PDF of a game recording paper for printing:

https://cdn.online-go.com/kifu-en-19x19.pdf

Finally, a place where you can download printable PDFs of Go puzzle collections. Without answers, of course. These are good for practicing the analysis of local positions on the board.

https://tsumego.tasuki.org