Life In 19x19

We have a small club in town. Anywhere from 2-10 show up. Three of us are there weekly, the rest intermittently.
We have one strong player who recently joined who had not played for 20 years and is excited to be playing again. He was 1 kyu at that time. I guess he's about 5 kyu now. We have several newbies in the 20k and up range. And a few of us 18k-13k as a guess.

My goal besides spreading the word and introducing new players to GO. Is to get a solid core group of 4-6 players who show up weekly in the 15kyu range. The number of newbies means we are often introducing the game and not playing interesting games.

I spread some fliers around town and am happy to say we have gotten at least 4 regular players from them.

Whitehorse Go Club has been in existence since I declared it existed just this past October; we currently have between four and eight players show up, I'd estimate our ranks at three 6-9 kyu, a couple 14-17 kyu, and two or three 20-25 kyu. We also get a newbie or two show up every few weeks who may or may not come back occasionally. There's a 2 dan player who apparently hasn't played much lately on the horizon who might drop by at some point.

Occasionally, it's just me and one other player, though this is becoming more and more rare as time goes on.

Currently, I have one folding board I bring with some double convex Yunzis I got from YMI a couple years ago, a few 9x9's I bought for the club with a split up set of glass stones in lock 'n locks, and two others bring magnetic travel sets. If pressed I have another full sized set, but the board is Chinesee sized, so it really eats up real estate on tiny cafe tables. I'm hoping to pick something up to expand our equipment collection at the Canadian Open in June...

Anyhow, such is the basic state of the Whitehorse Go Club.

My local go club, the Middle TN Go Club used to have about 7 or so regular attendees when I first started coming in September of 2011. Since then, 3 of those people have moved away, and by summertime next year myself and 2 other people will have also moved away, leaving only one regular attendee. However, we do have a few irregulars who show up from time to time (usually about 2-3) and a 1p Chinese professional who shows up if we agree to pay her for teaching games ahead of time.

My club is in a small town in the midwest. At the moment, I am the only one almost certain to turn up at meetings! Our biggest attendance was 16. At this time it's usually one, two, or occasionally three, though I hope summer will improve things. As for rank, I am somewhere around 13-11k, and have to give everyone else large handicaps. Most of them are beginners who only learned to play here at the library.

StlenVlr wrote:I envy how many clubs described here seem to have kyu players. I really haven't seen that big of an influx of new players anywhere I've went. Like, once or twice a year you get a new player in all of the 5 or so clubs I frequent.

Yes, new players are rare, and among those who stay are rarer, still.
It takes a tremendous amount of effort to do advertising,
marketing, and recruiting.
Also, "kyu" and "new" are not synonymous: we have kyu members (2k - 8k)
who have been playing for over 40 years.

Inkwolf wrote:At the moment, I am the only one almost certain to turn up at meetings!

Congrats! Good effort.

At the University of Waterloo Go Club, we've had between 7-10 people each week for the past month. Right now we're in spring semester, which has less people enrolled in the University overall, but our attendance doesn't seem lower than on average. That's a positive sign .

As for rank distribution, we have about 3-4 dan players per week, 3-4 1-2ks and the rest are double digit kyus and beginners. This semester at least we seem to have a big gap in the SDK strength range. I'm not sure if that gap existed last semester or what to think of it.

EdLee wrote:

StlenVlr wrote:I envy how many clubs described here seem to have kyu players. I really haven't seen that big of an influx of new players anywhere I've went. Like, once or twice a year you get a new player in all of the 5 or so clubs I frequent.

Yes, new players are rare, and among those who stay are rarer, still.
It takes a tremendous amount of effort to do advertising,
marketing, and recruiting.
Also, "kyu" and "new" are not synonymous: we have kyu members (2k - 8k)
who have been playing for over 40 years.

Both statements are accurate and yes some of us are still kyus.

I find our posters have really helped. Also I have a weekly notice in the newspaper. As an update we have a core group of 4 -5 regulars and a few sporadic players. We sometimes get 10 people playing.

At the Seattle Go Center, we usually have 30 - 40 players in the course of the day/evening on Tuesdays, our biggest day. Last Tuesday, we had 55, including 12 children. We have new beginners almost every week, and players up to 4 dan amateur on regular basis. We have a couple of 6 dans with with children who come by on Tuesdays about half the time. The kids are DDK players. Of course, we have the advantage of having our own building, in a good location near the University of Washington.

Our Thursday meet-up on the Eastside of the Seattle Metro area, at the Crossroads Bellevue Shopping Mall (about 12 miles from the Go Center), is probably better for comparison with other clubs. We average 12 players, about half of them dan level. One of our regulars is Sonny Cho, a 6d who also teaches on the Eastside. Everybody seems to be able to find a game, but we don't have complete beginners at this event. Here's more info: http://www.usgo.org/news/2014/05/not-finished-seattle-go-center-looks-east/

A shout out to Yukontodd -- I learned Go in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Tanana wrote:At the Seattle Go Center, we usually have 30 - 40 players in the course of the day/evening on Tuesdays, our biggest day.
Last Tuesday, we had 55, including 12 children.

I play at the Somerville (near Boston) meetup each Thursday. It's an informal get together at a local coffee shop. When I first started going, last October, it was maybe 4-6 people. But lately it's blossomed to maybe 8-15 throughout the evening!

I'd guess there are roughly a third ~15k, a third ~7k and a third ~2k. There are a few dan players who come by sometimes.

And last month a local 6d started teaching absolute beginners at the meetups, so we're getting some 20k's around.

Tanana wrote:At the Seattle Go Center, we usually have 30 - 40 players in the course of the day/evening on Tuesdays, our biggest day. Last Tuesday, we had 55, including 12 children. We have new beginners almost every week, and players up to 4 dan amateur on regular basis. We have a couple of 6 dans with with children who come by on Tuesdays about half the time. The kids are DDK players. Of course, we have the advantage of having our own building, in a good location near the University of Washington.

Our Thursday meet-up on the Eastside of the Seattle Metro area, at the Crossroads Bellevue Shopping Mall (about 12 miles from the Go Center), is probably better for comparison with other clubs. We average 12 players, about half of them dan level. One of our regulars is Sonny Cho, a 6d who also teaches on the Eastside. Everybody seems to be able to find a game, but we don't have complete beginners at this event. Here's more info: http://www.usgo.org/news/2014/05/not-finished-seattle-go-center-looks-east/

A shout out to Yukontodd -- I learned Go in Fairbanks, Alaska.

One of these days I will make it over there!!!

Who is not jealous of Seattle?

I've always felt that kyu players are really the ones who keep a go club alive, and it seems to be the case after seeing a few of these responses. Of course, most people struggle to reach dan, so perhaps this is a false conclusion.

often wrote:I've always felt that kyu players are really the ones who keep a go club alive, and it seems to be the case after seeing a few of these responses. Of course, most people struggle to reach dan, so perhaps this is a false conclusion.

Less than 20% of players make it to dan level, so you would expect the bulk of most clubs to be kyu players.