A tie is actually a pretty standard occurrence in high-level Go competition. Except at that level, a handicap is given to the person who goes first (.5 point or 1.5 point or some other amount that would break the tie), since that's seen as an advantage. Nope, I'm not an avid Go player like crossover. Everything I learned about Go, I got from watching the anime, Hikaru No Go which focuses on the game. The show is pretty funny. They portray the game as being tensely dramatic with every move fraught with meaning and intensity (see video below). I still liked the show, even if it was a bit over the top, though the non-ending was kind of a disappointment. I guess the manga writer just got burned out and ended the comic abruptly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_no_go <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NKzFmAgaIYw&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NKzFmAgaIYw&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Ludo I have destroyed more players in this game than any deathmatch of Counterstike or UT I have played in my life and I am addicted to PC games BTW. Play me and you will cry, I call out me number everytime on the dice roll before I kill you.
Great call on Strat-o-matic! Awesome games. My brother and I spent many an hour enmeshed in both the baseball and football games. We filled up many a spiral notebook with box scores and stats. To this day I can recite tons of player stats from the 1969 seasons after playing those games. Pete Rose hit .348, Hank Aaron had 44 HR's, great memories...yeh, I know, I'm old.
I did most of my playing from 1969 (when I read the book, found a Go game in Houston, not easy at the time, and roped a few friends into learning how to play) through the 1970's and never, during all that time, ran into someone I didn't know who knew how to play. Pretty freaky! So we knew nothing about ties, there being no internet, so handy to look into such things. We were a group of hippies turned on by an amazing game dropped "out of the blue," as it were, because of that line in A Child's Garden of Grass. What I learned about Go, as talked about by crossover in his excellent posts, and freemaniam, was much later. All I can say is that we had very intense, very exciting games, playing for hours on end, well into the night. I'd certainly go along with the line, "tensely dramatic with every move fraught with meaning and intensity." It was that way for us. There is a real beauty to the game that I can't explain. Probably because I'm not that good a player (not any longer, at any rate) and, like Scribo, haven't played much in years. People should try it, especially chess players.
Here's my awards for games. Greatest Strategy Game: Chess Most Widely Played Game: Chess Most Famous and Popular: Chess Ok, so let's move on from that now. Greatest capitalist game or game involving money: Monopoly Messiest Game: Slime Monster Game Game most dependent on luck: Chutes and Ladders Greatest War Game: Axis and Allies Greatest game that combines Strategy and Negotiation: Diplomacy Some other great games: Best game to play with strangers or relatives: Pictionary Best game for a rainy day: Trivial Pursuit Best game to play with kids: Hungry hungry hippos Best game under the influence: Operation Best game for Materialistic Girls: LIFE
The tutorial link is lively and very useful. Wish we have one in Chinese too. One of the reasons "Go" the game not being popular in China is because the teaching materials for beginners suck so bad. They often compiled by the Senior Professional players and they are difficult to digest. Recently a lot of Japanese-compiled beginner guides are translated into Chinese language and it is obvious that their materials are more "children" or "novice" friendly hence they are more fun and easier to catch up. The cartoon/anime mentioned by m_cable is another example of how great a job the Japanese has done to preserve this ancient game. Deckard, perhaps someday we could play online but let me catch up the game first.
Right, so in actuality, a tie is very very rare. Because points are counted in whole numbers and the initial advantage of playing first (black) is given a x.5 (x being 6-8 usually) value, a finished game will always result in one side winning. Some newer Western Go associations and their rule-sets add a whole number to white's score and therefore tie games happen with decent frequency. However, almost every standard of professional Go uses an Asian standard of counting, so there is only one way a no-result can really occur. This no-result is the triple ko and is extremely rare. Most amateurs that believe they have an authentic triple ko are usually mistaken, because of incorrect reading/counting. Hah, of course I have bias here, but every single person I know who has claimed to be an accomplished Chess player struggles and fails at becoming an accomplished Go player. By depth of strategy, Go is definitely a greater strategy game. The most widely played board game by sheer head count is actually Chinese Chess... but for sure, that is like saying Yao is the most deserving All-Star by sheer number of votes. China and Korea actually have the most/best texts for learning Go [imo]. Japanese texts are usually porous and lacking thorough understanding of positions or development of reading skills. Japan has a steadily decreasing Go playing demographic even with the success of Hikaru No Go anime. In international events, it is rare for more than one Japanese professional to break a top eight seat, and even more rare for one to secure an international title - Korea firstly and China secondly have been dominating the Go scene. I frequent China and WeiQi clubs and would say the reason it is not gaining popularity is simply because Go is a tedious, time-consuming game and that China is in a transitional upward mobility phase. An average tournament game is anywhere between 2 to 6 hours. My last two in-person games were 6 hours each. If you are uneducated in China, you probably wont bother with Go, and if you are educated, you're in the rat race to solidify a middle class position or better. On the other hand, you will see Chinese Chess and Big-2 played pretty much everywhere, which both produce results faster both in the sense of ending the game and reaching a skill level of decent playability. Korea is actually doing the best job of promoting Go, due to how ingrained gaming is in their culture. I think they have 1 or 2 dedicated tv channels just for Go (Baduk)... but then again they also have a couple tv channels just dedicated to StarCraft.
Solar Quest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarquest Basically a Monopoly clone, but helped me remember by planets and moons.
Funny that this thread came up. I got the entire 'Vintage Wood Book Edition' board game set for my birthday last month (there are 8 total). All of the pieces are top quality for this day and age, and of course, the boxes all look like a book and are wood. I don't know how much my wife paid for them but they're around $20 each at Target, and well worth it IMO.
