Welcome to my go blog

Despite rapidly approaching 40, I am a comics and manga fan, and it was through the excellent Hikaru No Go manga that I was first introduced to the game of go (also known as weiqi in China, baduk in Korea, igo in Japan).

In the summer of 2009, I began to learn the rules and tried playing against the computer. At the same time, I signed up to KGS and IGS, online go servers that allow you to play against other addicts.

Initial games were played on a 9x9 sized board on KGS, popular with beginners because the normal 19x19 board is pretty overwhelming until you attain a certain level.

Apart from generally sucking at games, the largest handicap facing me is my two kids, the youngest of which is under a year old and frequently robs us of sleep. This, coupled with the fact that a full game of go can take an hour and a half to play, leaves me with a problem of finding time to play enough to progress.

Enter OGS, a turn-based/correspondence go server that allows you to play as slow as you like, a move here, a move there. Not as useful to beginners as losing a few dozen realtime games as quickly as possible, but certainly better than nothing.

This is my first completed 19x19 game on OGS. OGS players are from all over the world, but Meic happens to also live in Wales, UK. Perhaps we'll meet at a tournament one day.

In this game, my battle plan was pretty much assume-your-opponent-will-play-poorly. This rarely happens, and is not an advisable strategy. Also on display is a complete failure to read ahead (even 1 move) on my part. Not a pretty game. But completing a 19x19 game is an achievement in itself for a beginner. At a couple of stages I did ask my opponent whether I should resign there and then, but the question was never answered, presumably missed.