Talk Talk
There are two worlds in baduk. There is the Asian world, and the 'Western' world (aka everyone else), and they are completely different. A language and cultural barrier exists between these worlds, and the only information that flows from one to another is carrier by a few souls who do so for, frankly, a piddly amount of cash. Ex-inseis from the West write about their experience learning baduk in Asia, because its interesting to us that are so far away. Instead, I'd like to write about learning baduk in the United States. This is not a complaint, just simply my experience. I do hope it can give better insight to our world, and why we run things the way they are run (sometimes really inefficiently!)
My Beginning
I began playing by chance. Completely by accident I downloaded a game from a BBS called NEMESIS. NEMESIS is a computer baduk game written in 1991. I downloaded it in 2006. It was horribly out of date. The AI still beat me every single time on the easiest difficulty level, I really had no idea what I was doing. Initially I assumed the author of the software had pretty much implemented the game by himself, the game unknown to the world outside of his program. I'm sure there was some blurb in the program that talked about baduk originating from the ancient Orient, but that label gets attached to all kinds of things unrelated to Asia as a marketing strategy here. So, I didn't pay any attention or even thought other people played this game! I had never heard of Go, Baduk, or Weiqi before. I played NEMESIS on and off for two or three months, completely unaware. I only ended up being able to beat the '30k' level semi-often. I never read ahead, because there was no one to tell me, "Hey, this game is really complicated." I even switched the difficulty settings around constantly until I was only vaguely aware that '30k' = easy.
The Internet
One day, when baduk wasn't even on my mind, I was on the internet and stumbled face first into a random IGS client. The client was terrible compared to the ones available now, and a lot of the stuff was broken for me because even such a short time ago different language fonts didn't get along together. Buttons and hyperlinks would get scrolled off webpages by marching columns of AAEIEEIEIAIE999E. I managed to make an account, but the connection was iffy and the interface was a mystery. Often I would just open up a blank board by myself and place stones randomly before closing it, because I had no idea how to get to the part where people played games with each other. It wasn't like I was a kid, at the time I was finishing out my undergraduate degree. I can't remember if I ever got a real game going, but if I had it couldn't have been pretty to watch.
During one of the times flailing with the IGS client, I went searching the net to figure out how to use it. I can tell you, that for our world of baduk, the internet is a double edged sword. The pros outweigh the cons by a large margin, but for a long time I was trapped in a dead space. Websites die, they stop getting updated. People stop visiting them. Its just how it is, nobody is at fault. It was these types of sites that I was visiting. I saw discussions, but the dates showed they were years old. A lot of links just led to '404: Not Found'. Even today, there are many pages at 'Sensei's Library' that haven't been edited for years. They link to sites that last updated in 2005, and look like they were designed in 1995. None of the links from those sites work. Its understandable: baduk enthusiasts would rather play baduk than purge a wiki.
During one of these searches I found KGS, which has a much larger active English community than IGS. I was let down that despite my 'hard' training with NEMESIS that I was losing to people ranked 30k (In the CGoban2 days.) I found out this was the lowest rank. Without me asking, a guy started reviewing all my games with me. He encouraged me to do tsumego, which I hadn't heard of. I started actually learning baduk. After a few months, my mystery teacher disappeared like he arrived. So, I bought tsumego books, knew a few study buddies, and kept on going. I got to 7k on KGS by 2007.
Real Life
I found out that Go Clubs existed in the US through Sensei's Library. To my amazement, there was one nearby. 'Nearby' in the sense that it was only a 2 hour drive one way, in a city I had never been in before. Because of the four hour driving commitment, I just looked at their club schedule on the club website for a long time. One day, I emailed the club, to make sure people would be there, and I went.
My first game that I ever touched a stone, was with a 2-dan AGA and a 6-stone handicap. I was absolutely destroyed. I had trouble connecting the shapes up from this new view. The board was made out of particle board and was dark, so the lines didn't stand out very much. I tried hard to stretch my body to see from the top-down, like on the computer. I tried hard to place the stones the 'proper' way, since I had read about it before. But it wasn't good, I kept shooting them across the room. I finally gave up and placed them with help of my thumb. At the end, I had no idea how to score the game. The dan asked why I played so strangely, and I told him it was my first real life game. He was very surprised that I had gotten to 7k without any real life help. But I am far from a genius or anything. That is just our reality here.
Community
I feel lucky to play baduk in the US. There are many resources available to get strong. Books are available from companies located in the US, and many former pros and strong amateurs live here and are active in the community. Some countries send double digit kyus to the WAGC because there is nobody else to send. I feel like they have an insurmountable challenge. Here, its possible to be a very strong amateur even keeping to yourself. But I am glad that most people reach out and form the community. Sometimes I feel like strong Asian players find it strange that beginners here will pay a lot of money to play in important tournaments like at the Go Congress. However, its necessary for us to survive. There is a critical mass needed otherwise everyone will lose interest in organizing events. If only 5 people show up for a local tournament, how many more will come back next year? So, I am glad they come, and I am glad that people use their valuable time to set up events, and that strong players from abroad come over to help for small fees or even for free. I hope that we can find common ground outside of baduk as well, so that we can strengthen our bonds.
Conclusion
The KBA recently came to agreement with the AGA to establish a professional system in the US. I am unsure of the details so I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, sending local players to international tournaments will create excitement in the community. On the other hand, supporting players to go to tournaments will be a burden the AGA will be responsible for, and even news about the large international tournaments is difficult to come by right now. Pre-qualifying and qualifying rules for almost all the tournaments is a mystery in our baduk world. There are few precious sources for this information, and often the websites to get it from disappear and reappear elsewhere. Even fewer people give regular commentary on professional games, which runs thin due to the nature of two or three people covering every single tournament in Asia. It is even more difficult for new players, not only can't they find the answers, they don't even know what question to ask. Every few months a baduk related project dies, and we pack our bags and move on to the next newly announced exciting place to promise us baduk information, like knowledge nomads.
I've written a lot, maybe some of it gives some insight into the baduk experience here. I hope the curator of Star Baduk doesn't mind that I've placed it here. I'm not calling out any specific person out to help our cause or anything, and I hope that people who are working hard on delivering baduk here don't think that I find their effort lacking. In fact, I am amazed so much effort is given to a community so small. I can also understand the point of view of the professional player. The personal drive and dedication to become a professional baduk player is really enormous. This credible skill can be applied to much more lucrative and less stressful career paths. Therefore, it would be difficult to live your life completely within the baduk world. If you agree or disagree, let me know, this is only one person's opinion.
My Beginning
I began playing by chance. Completely by accident I downloaded a game from a BBS called NEMESIS. NEMESIS is a computer baduk game written in 1991. I downloaded it in 2006. It was horribly out of date. The AI still beat me every single time on the easiest difficulty level, I really had no idea what I was doing. Initially I assumed the author of the software had pretty much implemented the game by himself, the game unknown to the world outside of his program. I'm sure there was some blurb in the program that talked about baduk originating from the ancient Orient, but that label gets attached to all kinds of things unrelated to Asia as a marketing strategy here. So, I didn't pay any attention or even thought other people played this game! I had never heard of Go, Baduk, or Weiqi before. I played NEMESIS on and off for two or three months, completely unaware. I only ended up being able to beat the '30k' level semi-often. I never read ahead, because there was no one to tell me, "Hey, this game is really complicated." I even switched the difficulty settings around constantly until I was only vaguely aware that '30k' = easy.
The Internet
One day, when baduk wasn't even on my mind, I was on the internet and stumbled face first into a random IGS client. The client was terrible compared to the ones available now, and a lot of the stuff was broken for me because even such a short time ago different language fonts didn't get along together. Buttons and hyperlinks would get scrolled off webpages by marching columns of AAEIEEIEIAIE999E. I managed to make an account, but the connection was iffy and the interface was a mystery. Often I would just open up a blank board by myself and place stones randomly before closing it, because I had no idea how to get to the part where people played games with each other. It wasn't like I was a kid, at the time I was finishing out my undergraduate degree. I can't remember if I ever got a real game going, but if I had it couldn't have been pretty to watch.
During one of the times flailing with the IGS client, I went searching the net to figure out how to use it. I can tell you, that for our world of baduk, the internet is a double edged sword. The pros outweigh the cons by a large margin, but for a long time I was trapped in a dead space. Websites die, they stop getting updated. People stop visiting them. Its just how it is, nobody is at fault. It was these types of sites that I was visiting. I saw discussions, but the dates showed they were years old. A lot of links just led to '404: Not Found'. Even today, there are many pages at 'Sensei's Library' that haven't been edited for years. They link to sites that last updated in 2005, and look like they were designed in 1995. None of the links from those sites work. Its understandable: baduk enthusiasts would rather play baduk than purge a wiki.
During one of these searches I found KGS, which has a much larger active English community than IGS. I was let down that despite my 'hard' training with NEMESIS that I was losing to people ranked 30k (In the CGoban2 days.) I found out this was the lowest rank. Without me asking, a guy started reviewing all my games with me. He encouraged me to do tsumego, which I hadn't heard of. I started actually learning baduk. After a few months, my mystery teacher disappeared like he arrived. So, I bought tsumego books, knew a few study buddies, and kept on going. I got to 7k on KGS by 2007.
Real Life
I found out that Go Clubs existed in the US through Sensei's Library. To my amazement, there was one nearby. 'Nearby' in the sense that it was only a 2 hour drive one way, in a city I had never been in before. Because of the four hour driving commitment, I just looked at their club schedule on the club website for a long time. One day, I emailed the club, to make sure people would be there, and I went.
My first game that I ever touched a stone, was with a 2-dan AGA and a 6-stone handicap. I was absolutely destroyed. I had trouble connecting the shapes up from this new view. The board was made out of particle board and was dark, so the lines didn't stand out very much. I tried hard to stretch my body to see from the top-down, like on the computer. I tried hard to place the stones the 'proper' way, since I had read about it before. But it wasn't good, I kept shooting them across the room. I finally gave up and placed them with help of my thumb. At the end, I had no idea how to score the game. The dan asked why I played so strangely, and I told him it was my first real life game. He was very surprised that I had gotten to 7k without any real life help. But I am far from a genius or anything. That is just our reality here.
Community
I feel lucky to play baduk in the US. There are many resources available to get strong. Books are available from companies located in the US, and many former pros and strong amateurs live here and are active in the community. Some countries send double digit kyus to the WAGC because there is nobody else to send. I feel like they have an insurmountable challenge. Here, its possible to be a very strong amateur even keeping to yourself. But I am glad that most people reach out and form the community. Sometimes I feel like strong Asian players find it strange that beginners here will pay a lot of money to play in important tournaments like at the Go Congress. However, its necessary for us to survive. There is a critical mass needed otherwise everyone will lose interest in organizing events. If only 5 people show up for a local tournament, how many more will come back next year? So, I am glad they come, and I am glad that people use their valuable time to set up events, and that strong players from abroad come over to help for small fees or even for free. I hope that we can find common ground outside of baduk as well, so that we can strengthen our bonds.
Conclusion
The KBA recently came to agreement with the AGA to establish a professional system in the US. I am unsure of the details so I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, sending local players to international tournaments will create excitement in the community. On the other hand, supporting players to go to tournaments will be a burden the AGA will be responsible for, and even news about the large international tournaments is difficult to come by right now. Pre-qualifying and qualifying rules for almost all the tournaments is a mystery in our baduk world. There are few precious sources for this information, and often the websites to get it from disappear and reappear elsewhere. Even fewer people give regular commentary on professional games, which runs thin due to the nature of two or three people covering every single tournament in Asia. It is even more difficult for new players, not only can't they find the answers, they don't even know what question to ask. Every few months a baduk related project dies, and we pack our bags and move on to the next newly announced exciting place to promise us baduk information, like knowledge nomads.
I've written a lot, maybe some of it gives some insight into the baduk experience here. I hope the curator of Star Baduk doesn't mind that I've placed it here. I'm not calling out any specific person out to help our cause or anything, and I hope that people who are working hard on delivering baduk here don't think that I find their effort lacking. In fact, I am amazed so much effort is given to a community so small. I can also understand the point of view of the professional player. The personal drive and dedication to become a professional baduk player is really enormous. This credible skill can be applied to much more lucrative and less stressful career paths. Therefore, it would be difficult to live your life completely within the baduk world. If you agree or disagree, let me know, this is only one person's opinion.
Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences here! It was very interesting to read your story. I am also curious to see the game "Nemesis." By the way, I like the title a lot! ;)