Go

/Playing

playing go online. Although playing any kind of game over Wiki is probably rather painful, I can conceivably see myself doing it (since there is a proxy firewall at work so I can't use the public Go servers or [Yahoo Go]).

/Theory

talking about theory somewhere other than /SenseisLibrary where there's lots of really scary people who actually know how to play and have ranks and stuff staring over your shoulder.

/SandBox

for playing with the Go markup and making pretty pictures...

 @---@---@---@
 |\ /     \ /|
 | @       @ |          
 |/ \     / \|
 @   @---@   @ 
 |   |\ /|   |
 |   | @ |   |
 |   |/ \|   |
 @   @---@   @
 |\ /     \ /|
 | @       @ |
 |/ \     / \|
 @---@---@---@

That looks intriguing.  I assume one can't play in the blank white spaces.  Can a piece be played at, for example, the precise middle of the top line?  Such a piece would have precisely two liberties, one to its left and one to its right.  Or does one only play on intersections from where three-or-more lines leave?  --AlexChurchill, preparing to create a Wiki Go-playable version of that board

Presumably you allow play on the half-way marks...  Finding eye-space will be hard enough without removing those --Kazuhiko

No - just the intersections, as with standard go.  As regards eye space, although standard eyes are hard to make, /DoubleHeadedDragons are a lot easier to create than in standard go.  For example, the following group is live:

 @---@--- ---@
 |\ /     \ /|
 |         @ |          
 |/ \     / \|
 @   @---@     
 |   |\ /|   |
 |   |   |   |
 |   |/ \|   |
      ---    
 |\ /     \ /|
 |           |
 |/ \     / \|
  --- --- ---

Yes, but with so few spaces, I can't help thinking that forming eyes would come more from luck than judgement. --Kazuhiko

After about 20 games of it, I remain unbeaten.  It's clearly in my interests to assert that it is a deep game of skill ;)  --Angoel

Yes, it is.  They're friendly, and will happily ensure that you get an appropriate levelled game, and informed how you can improve if you so desire.  If you're unsure, just turn up to a meeting or two, and see whether you like it. --Angoel

MoonShadow has never attended, but has played people that do attend and can very much second what Vitenka said :)

What does the verb "worth" mean in that sentence? - a confused MoonShadow

I think you meant "Is the Cambridge Go Society worth joining?", Colin.  That's the confusion. --M-A

In "does (x) (y)", the (y) has a very different function to "is (x) (y)" - in the former, it's a verb - a word describing an action (x) can be performing; in the latter, it's an adjective or a noun - a word describing a property of (x). For the other sense of "what difference does it make?", it makes the wiki easier to read. - MoonShadow

In other words, "Does the Cambridge Go Society worth joining?" isn't a real sentence in English... --M-A

Well - if you assume the speaker isn't very good at English, the sentence could mean something like, for instance, "Does the Cambridge Go Society cost anything to join?" - "worth" is pretty much the first thing you come across when you look up the Russian word you'd use to say that in a dictionary. Hence confusion - you can't be sure what the other person is trying to say. - MoonShadow

According to /ChoChikun? (in /TheMagicOfGo?), the standard dimensions of a goban are 454mm in length by 424mm in width (in order to create the illusion of it being square when seen from an angle, I believe). Black stones are 21mm in diameter, white stones 20mm (again, in order to compensate for the optical illusion that makes the white stones seem larger). He's unclear on precisely how the grid should be spaced, though.... - tjm

A couple of hundred of each, I believe. I've never counted, or run out. Can do, if you really want to know. -- TI

Do you mean [Igowin]? - MoonShadow, who's rather taken to GNU Go these days..