Learn to play Go will make you smarter, concentrate longer, doing better in school, and become more competitive in the work force. Taking Go lesson from strong Go player is the key to fast improvement.
Why learn to play Go?
Go is the oldest (5000 years) and most popular strategic board game in the world. Go is rapidly gaining popularity throughout the world due to the publication of Hikaru no Go, a Go animation.
Go takes 30 minutes to learn, but life time to master. The game is simple and beautiful, yet the complexity is enormous. With 361 positions to play, there are 10400 possible outcomes for a typical game. The first player, taking black, will have 361 positions to play, whereas the second player, taking white, will have 360 positions to play. The two players then alternate until the end of the game, which typically takes around 250 moves. By times all the positions for each move together, we arrive at such an astronomical number!
Surprisingly, the board game is the final frontier where human still dominate over computer. Apparently, Go's complexity is still a big hurdle for even a super computer to overcome. Yet, a human Go player who takes Go lesson from strong Go teachers will be able to beat the super computer easily. This brings up an interesting point, "One who learns to play Go well is smarter than even the most powerful super computer of the day!"
Go teaches one strategic thinking. One learns to apply many strategies such as "Losing a few battles to win the war", "Feint to the east, attack to the west", "Lure the tiger out of the mountains", "Play the fool", and "Let the enemy makes the first move". These strategies are applicable across many fields such as warfare, business, work relation, competitions, and finance.
For example, both the ancient Chinese military training and modern USA military training involved playing a game of Go! The generals are required to see the overall strategy as well as carrying out local warfare plan. A typical Go game involve both type of strategies. On one hand, one must be very detail oriented and careful when it comes to scenario planning and contingency plans; however, equally if not more important is the ability to keep the overall big picture in mind while executing the plan. At any point of the game, one may suddenly decide to abandon the previous plan and focus the resource in another area of the board. The ability to adapt and formulate new plans quickly while keeping the overall objective in tact is what set the winner apart from the losers in Go as well as in warfare.
As a Go teacher and a top Go player in USA, I have seemed strong correlation between Go playing and strong math skills. Children who learn to play Go are far less likely to get in trouble and typically become better scholastic students. Many of my former Go students headed to Berkeley and Stanford, chose computer science major, and became software engineer. At the minimal, Go will calm a person down and teaches him/her to concentrate for a long period of time.
It is very important to learn the proper way of thinking early, before bad habits are developed. One's habit will determine one's achievement later on in life. Anyone wishing to play Go, will greatly benefit by taking some Go lessons from a strong player. Getting that instruction will make the game far more fun and interesting.
http://www.egogames.com
