Things you don't like about Go.

[Violence]

I start playing the 1-1 points, then the 1-2 points, etc. I also play dame and see if I can win by only a few points.

Eventually, they resign.

[phillip1882]

top 10 things i hate about GO.
10. i often call it baduk so people can find the game on the internet, but many who know the game look at me funny when i call it that.
9. i can only read about 2-3 moves into a position, unless its something obvious like an easy ladder. i suspect i'll never reach dan level status because of this.
8. while i generally have a good idea of direction of play, i'm never quite sure what qualifies as the biggest move.
7. i often feel i haven't learned anything new. win or lose, my game hasn't improved in a while.
6. i can't play nicely. against begginers, i bully them so much on the board, i fear they may never play again.
5. i often vary my play as much as possible. for example, i'll play 3-4 one day, and 5-5 the next. i do this to confuse the heck out of my opponent, but in truth it confuses me as well.
4. on the smaller boards, i feel the game is less strategic and more like using your dead stones to their max.
3. handicaping in tournament play. this never made much sence to me. if you're a better player you should get the win. if not, then not.
2. escapers! just resign.
1. i am capable of beating myself at a four stone handicap. yeah...

[Numsgil]

Do people really feel that strongly about opponents who don't resign? I tend not to resign unless I'm very far behind, because (i) we're kyus, so seriously, we have no idea what could happen, (ii) I can't count, and (iii) it's still fun.

And likewise, when I win by 30 pts. it doesn't even cross my mind to be upset at my opponent.

I get really bored when someone is far behind and won't resign. So bored, in fact, that I'll lose the game from sheer apathy, as I stop reading anything.

This is weird to me, as when I'm winning by huge margins I like to win by even huger margins. It's not a great strategy, since it complicates the game, but if you're losing won games anyway...

Never resign games against me, as I enjoy nothing more than capturing 60+ stone groups and marking them as dead during counting It provides a nice catharsis/denouement. A resign in the middle of a game always feels like "and then everyone died. The end" in the middle of a story.

[Redundant]

A resign in the middle of a game always feels like "and then everyone died. The end" in the middle of a story.

To me not resigning is like the story reached a climax with a satisfying ending, but then continues for 400 pages talking about the main character's taste in clothing.

[Kirby]

A resign in the middle of a game always feels like "and then everyone died. The end" in the middle of a story.

To me not resigning is like the story reached a climax with a satisfying ending, but then continues for 400 pages talking about the main character's taste in clothing.

I pretty much agree. Though, if you screw up during those 400 pages, your opponent gets a surprise ending...

When I know I have won, I don't particularly mind if the person does not resign, but I try to be careful that the ending is as I expect it to be.

[jts]

I thought of this thread after I finished this game. I lost a large group (not just mostly lost, but "destroyed all the aji thrashing about hoping to live" lost), but I not only won, I think I won rather convincingly. So to the pro-resignation faction: was my behavior unacceptable and irritating? Did I turn this game into a turgid Russian novel? Or am I misjudging the position at move 121?

[deleted]

[Laman]

I thought of this thread after I finished this game. I lost a large group (not just mostly lost, but "destroyed all the aji thrashing about hoping to live" lost), but I not only won, I think I won rather convincingly. So to the pro-resignation faction: was my behavior unacceptable and irritating? Did I turn this game into a turgid Russian novel? Or am I misjudging the position at move 121?

i am usually in the resignation camp, but your game looks ok. your group died and it was really big, but you have strong influence over the rest of the board. w K18 is not even kill, more like a harvest, and when black fails to live with P16 - and living is pretty difficult for him, in such a closed space - you are probably already ahead. some of your moves in the upper side area were severe and perhaps there could be a refutation to some of them, but i see nothing inappropriate

in my opinion, one should resign when he is behind and sees no reasonable chance to turn the game around
(heh, but what chance is reasonable enough and which is not?)

[topazg]

I thought of this thread after I finished this game. I lost a large group (not just mostly lost, but "destroyed all the aji thrashing about hoping to live" lost), but I not only won, I think I won rather convincingly. So to the pro-resignation faction: was my behavior unacceptable and irritating? Did I turn this game into a turgid Russian novel? Or am I misjudging the position at move 121?

I think your play was very sound, and I think you played a very good rest of the game. It's a big important board, he has weak groups, you have some pretty serious influence. He's managed a great result by killing your group, but I wouldn't consider the game over at all.

It's up to him, if he thinks he's a long way ahead, to consolidate everything, count, and then make sure he stays ahead. If there's a lot still up in the air in the game, it's not a won game.

[Marcus]

hmmm ... with my 2/3/4k brain (I have no clue what rank I should claim at this point; some days are better than others) I still have no idea what the score of a game is unless there's a HUGE difference in score (read 50+ points, and even then, it's iffy). I'm going to assume that there are some games where I am likely going to play for much longer than my opponent feels is polite, and finish a number of games where I don't even realize I'm behind by 50 points.

My guess is I need to work on my counting ... it still sucks.

[jjcooper]

I hate that go reveals all my own shortcomings to me in a very blunt and straightforward manner. But then, this is also why I love it

[NousAutres]

1. 361 legal moves at the opening and only two are worth playing. An exaggeration, to be sure, but it is a little disappointing that for such an open-ended game your first move is almost invariable a 4-4 or 3-4 stone.

2. The name. Couldn't we have inherited Go by way of the Chinese or Koreans so it wouldn't be a homonym with one of the hundred most common words in English? Heck, even calling it Igo would be an improvement.

3. The difficulty of cultivating new players. The learning curve is incredibly steep on Go and it's pretty difficult to reliably incorporate new players. I've tried with various friends over the past five years and have rarely succeeded at inspiring more than lukewarm appreciation for the game. It takes a while to get from seeing a random arrangement of stones to understanding what the stones mean, and it's hard to get people to persist through that. Thus, I get precious little face-to-face play, which I consider the most leisurely and pleasurable way to play.

4. Handicap Go. I don't like taking handicaps and I don't like giving handicaps. I find the purest enjoyment of the game in the open board and the chance to build up a unique position of my own.

[hyperpape]

2. The name. Couldn't we have inherited Go by way of the Chinese or Koreans so it wouldn't be a homonym with one of the hundred most common words in English? Heck, even calling it Igo would be an improvement.

A few years ago, I went to the wonderful Japanese food mart near my house with a flyer for the Go club. We had complete and utter confusion until the woman behind the counter finally said "ahh! Igo!"

She thought I wanted to put up a flyer for a golf club. I resolved to always say "Igo" to Japanese folks. Or if I was really smart, I would have had the paper out in front of me.

[malweth]

I would be worried about triple ko, and all complicated tactical situations for that matter, but I'm too busy being worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow.

This comment should have gotten more fanfare. Congrats, you made me laugh (loudly) at work.

Things I hate about Go:

1. The time commitments. The overall time commitment is huge. The time commitment just to play on KGS is also big (a dedicated hour is required to play a game).
   
2. The "fear" of playing... this fear is mostly because of #1 (will I have time to complete the game) and partly because I often don't feel mentally prepared to play when I have time to play (evenings before bed is not my most awake time of day).
   
3. Again back to #1, but the fact that certain priorities end up replacing the game (in my life) rather than reducing the amount of time I have to spend on it. I just finished my thesis (yay) and haven't really played (let alone studied) Go for ~3 years.
   
4. (Edit to add) Counting!!! This is a skill I need to REALLY work on to even get passable at it.

[heather]

The only thing I dislike about go involves how certain mentalities towards the game.

(1)I strongly dislike that people care so much about their rank
(2)I dislike how this makes every game difficult to approach in a fun manner. Even if its ranked, you should be having fun competing and stop worrying.

Agreed. Hey, look what I listed as my rank here. The only time I even think about it is in regards to how many handicap stones might be needed to compete on an equal level with another player.

(3)I dislike how America won't adopt their own cultural influence on the game but would rather glorify Japan's. And don't take that the wrong way - I love Japan, I love the history of go, but we have no true identity with this game and don't seem to care to make one. Some people would play go if they could just learn the board game and not have to learn a second language. It will always hold the game back.

I don't know about this one. Having spent my freshman year of high school in Japan, and I say this without a hint of prejudice or bias, I speak Japanese only with the greatest displeasure. I have immense respect for the Japanese and their culture, and I do appreciate the beauty of their literature, poetry, and music, but I genuinely dislike speaking the language. That said, I found that this posed no stumbling block in learning to play Go. The few Japanese terms that the game uses are just that -- few, and not difficult to learn or remember. Roulette has far more French terms in it than Go does Japanese terms, yet some of the dullest, least multicultural unitedstatesians that I have met, I've met at the Roulette table.

I definitely don't feel like one has to learn a new language in order to learn to play Go. One only need learn a small handful of terms, as one would expect to do upon learning any new game, and all are shorter and not more foreign than standard Roulette terms such as "Voisins du Zéro", "Le tiers du cylindre", or "Rien ne va plus".

At any rate, you probably don't want to see what that bootprint would look like were it allowed to be made. Consider how US casinos have transformed the elegant strategy game Chemin de Fer into EZ MiniBac, a simplified version of Nevada baccarat that plays itself with no input from the "player" other than to place bets. "Players" cannot even touch the cards. I'm not saying that Go With American Characteristics would be a game that would be played without player input; I'm simply pointing out that if a poker-like strategy game can be turned into EZ MiniBac, you don't wanna see what could happen to Go.

(Actually, now that I think about it, this is all moot because it's been done. Go With American Characteristics is called Othello, or Reversi outside of the US, and has had everything interesting about Go removed from it.)

(4)I dislike that people treat this game like something to feel smart about. It gives rise to atmospheres that are way too restrictive and elitist. Once again, this is a mentality that is holding go back from being something the general public might approach.

This I'll agree with entirely. It seems like if somebody knows nothing else about the game, the one thing that they do "know" is that is supposedly incredibly difficult and time-consuming to even learn the game's basic concepts, much less actually be able to play it (let alone even think about doing so competently). There's a definite intimidation factor that probably grows out of misreading well-intended but gushy comments from Go enthusiasts about how many orders of magnitude more complex than chess the game is.

[dfan]

The main issues I have with Go that are unique to the game itself (rather than being applicable to intellectual games of skill in general) are:

1) The game "cools down" at the endgame, and (almost by definition) all life-and-death issues have already been resolved and it's just a question of maximizing points. In chess, in contrast, often the game remains very "hot" in the endgame.

2) Most Western players are introduced to the game using Japanese rules, which are completely perplexing until you already understand the game. Then if I try to fix their confusion by introducing Chinese rules, they get thrown for a loop by the existence of multiple rulesets.

3) Multiple rulesets.

4) The fact that most of the literature and culture is non-Western can be cool in an "I'm learning about something obscure!" way, but it sometimes leaves me feeling like I am perpetually on the outside looking in.