Reading Hikaru No Go will make you play this game
Go is a startegy boardgame where two people using white or black stones fight for territory on a 19 by 19 board. As simple as my explanation sounds, Go can be best explained by Wikipedia:
Although rules of Go can be written so that they are very simple, the game strategy is extremely complex. Go is a perfect information, deterministic, strategy game, putting it in the same class as chess, checkers (draughts), and reversi (othello). It greatly exceeds draughts and reversi in depth and complexity, and transcends even the complexity of chess. Its large board and lack of restrictions allows great scope in strategy. Decisions in one part of the board may be influenced by an apparently unrelated situation in a distant part of the board. Plays made early in the game can shape the nature of conflict a hundred moves later.
Go, to say the least is not just a stupid chess clone. In fact, computer chess AI is easier to make than Go AI. This means that GO software are not super-strong against veteran Go players. That suits me fine because I'm not really very good at Go since I'm pretty much a noob.
So I found this Go Game Machine, a cool Go software that is just a 9 by 9 grid. It's a trainer for children to learn Go but it's also great for noobs like me. The game features 3 difficulty settings, versus human (hotseat), and versus CPU.
Try this great little game if you want to learn some Go.
