Live and let's learn

Meeting the Chess Kid

I met a kid at a bar the other night, early twenties and full of chess theory. He noticed the Go board on my phone and told me he’d tried to learn Go once, but couldn’t find a platform that made sense. Everything felt too open, too abstract, too empty. He said he gave up because he couldn’t “see” anything on the board.

Two Types of Learners

I understood exactly what he meant. There are people who can look at a Go board and instantly see shape, influence, and direction. And then there are people like me — the tenacious ones, the “I am not stupid, I will master this” types. Or the “take a look, it’s in a book; I will Reading Rainbow the shit out of the myth that you can only drive in the lane you have been assigned.” That genius is genetic like witchcraft or a widow’s peak.

Chess is Gambit?

I saw in this young man a potential opponent, and I was desperate to play a human. I casually mentioned that I played chess to get better at Go. How crazy is that? Go is simple, but chess has horses and kings and is European. He looked at me like I’d just claimed that history was never about some Great man wielding a magic phallus to discover the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

Influence in life, like in Go, isn’t about making people do what you want; it’s about letting them do what they want and not getting in the way of the consequences.

Chess vs. Go

Chess is built on fixed values and fixed movement. The king must be protected. The pawn is the pawn, unless it reaches the end and becomes something else entirely. Go doesn’t work like that. In Go, every stone is equal. Every stone can become powerful. The “king” is the whole board because influence matters more than capture. Space matters more than material. And the masters win by half a point.

The Pawn and the King

I told him that what draws me to chess is that it’s trying to evolve — no longer a game where royalty confers safety and pawns are sacrificed to protect the powerful. Modern chess has become a little more like Go, where the only advantage is going first and that’s why white starts the game with 6.5 points.

Showing Him Go Through Play

Finally a face to face human opponent! I promised to go easy on him and to use it as a way to explain the basics. We played a quick 9×9 game right there at the bar. I explained my moves as I played them — why a stone belonged here, why another didn’t matter, why influence sometimes outweighs territory. Later, I checked the game in SmartGo, and my live analysis matched almost exactly what the AI confirmed.

Our Bar Game (SGF Viewer)

It’s not a fluke I have truly leveled up. I made sure to win but only by 4 points; humiliating new players is not my goal. That doesn’t mean I won’t unleash my PETTy when provoked.

Example Game One: The Overconfident Capture

He snapped up two dead stones early and then had the audacity to type “Have a good game,” which in BadukGo is basically code for “I’m dominating.” But on a 9×9, that kind of tiny capture isn’t dominance — it’s a confession.

Early moves are oxygen. You don’t waste them taking stones that were already dead, especially when the capture doesn’t give you eyes, doesn’t expand your territory, and doesn’t fix a weakness. All it did was reveal the truth: he didn’t understand the position, and he didn’t understand me.

BadukGo’s AI still can’t rate me properly because I don’t play by its checklist. I’m an intuitive player — repetition taught me to see shape, feel pressure, and read the future of the board without naming it. Go isn’t about grabbing crumbs. It’s about structure, influence, inevitability.

And the upper‑left collapse? That was the masterpiece. Black thought they were invading. They didn’t realize the space was open because I didn’t need to waste stones on a foundation. The shape was already mine. The moment they stepped in, the whole thing folded — clean, geometric, inevitable. Twenty‑four points of inevitability.

So yes. “Have a good game.” I did.

Example Game Two: The Stronger Opponent

This one felt even better. Not because it was dramatic — it wasn’t — but because it was correct. Black should lead early in a 9×9. That’s normal. But the midgame is where Go reveals itself. Influence thickens. Shapes mature. Weaknesses appear. And the evaluation flips not because of a blunder, but because the board finally tells the truth.

Realizing I Can Finally Explain

I’ve finally reached a point where I can break down Go—not just the rules, but the mindset behind it. I can show why influence counts, why empty space isn’t a weakness, why overextending is a disaster, and why Go flows where chess feels stiff. And I can do it for someone who’s never even glanced at the board before. It looks like chaos but once you see it, your perspective shifts.

The Long Way In

Some people see Go instantly. They count, they calculate, they march straight toward victory like it’s a spreadsheet with liberties. And honestly, that’s a perfectly valid way to play — numbers are finite, predictable, comforting. But the sequence of possible moves in Go is too vast for anyone to truly control. That’s where I came in from the side.

I had to tenuki my way into understanding this game.

(Quick vocab for the uninitiated: Joseki are the classic sequences that usually favor the initiator. Fuseki is choosing the right place to begin. Tenuki is leaving a half‑settled area to play somewhere more important — the art of trusting the future more than the present.)

I didn’t learn Go the prodigy way. I didn’t memorize patterns and emerge fully formed. I learned the long way — the stubborn way — the human way. Repetition taught me to see shape. Mistakes taught me to feel influence. Time taught me that Go isn’t about controlling everything; it’s about knowing what doesn’t need to be controlled.

And now, finally, I can explain the game I love not as someone who was born gifted, but as someone who fought for the right to pursue something most people would assume is outside of the lane I should be comfortable driving in.

Advice for New Players

If you’re new to Go, or if you tried once and gave up, don’t. Just play. You don’t need to “see” everything at first. You don’t need to understand influence immediately. You don’t need to be a natural. You don’t need to win your early games. You don’t need to memorize anything. You just need to place stones, make mistakes, and stay curious. Go rewards patience, not perfection. Tenacity counts more than talent. And the board will teach you, if you give it time.

My newfound mastery only extends to 9×9, and SmartGo is still busy destroying me in 13×13. It may be another two years before I master the larger grid, but I will—because learning is a lifelong game, and I’m here to play it.

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