I grew up playing chess, but in my late teens I found Go(45 now), and I could never go back to playing chess. Go feels vastly more complex to me with every single game I play feeling unique.
One major selling point of Go for me is how decisive every game is and also how versitile games can be even at top level. At top level in chess, draw is the most common result, and if one side gains a significant advantage, the game is often pretty much over. But in Go, 99.99% of the time, the game is decisive, and a seemingly lost game can be turned around pretty frequently. In my opinion, this aspect of Go adds more excitement and fun than chess.
Yeah, saw that in New York Central Park this summer. My friend is a hobbyist chess player and can always play someone in the park. Wish I had that with Go
When I was young I played chess, until I discovered GO a few years ago. What I really love about Go is the enormous amount of strategies and tactics that can be implemented. That's something you don't find in any other board game. Perhaps only with computer games like Civilizations can you have such a complex experience. An example of this is the book called “The 36 Stratagems Applied To Go” which applies the same principles of the famous book The 36 Chinese Strategies, but entirely with GO examples.
Well done! That was the first time I saw someone trying to compare the games. I played chess through all my teenage years and didn't find GO until I was 27. Sure, Chess is a great game, but it can't really compare to GO. I have always said after that that GO is the king of all games. Today I play mostly modern boardgames but I watch GO-videos daily. One thing that you maybe could have mentioned is the pretty accurate handicap system. That works so well! You can gain even more from GO: I got a second home country (Japan) and a whole family!
Thank you so much for sharing your story! It’s awesome to hear how Go has become such a big part of your life, even giving you a second home and family in Japan-what an incredible journey!
@@GoMagic Now as Christer Lindstedt again - after that russellbyrd reply! (Russell Byrd was the secret name of one of the biggest songwriters in the early 60s btw - one of my heroes as a songwriter) Maybe I already said it elsewhere, and in that case I will repeat it now :), that your series of lessons is the best beginner's introduction I have ever seen. It doesn't get any easier and clearer than that. It's a step by step procedure that everyone needs to get into the game. So, yes, you really do need someone who helps you get into the game. I know a person who played by himself for a year until he met someone who could play. He always started in the middle of the board! :) And then the story about that guy Lasker (not the chess champion) who also had learnt the game with his friends. A pro player passed by his city and gave him a 9 stone hcp. Lasker said "But we have played for more than a year so we know the game!" He was of course crushed and then realized how deep GO really was.
Go Magic's professional video production and engaging presentation of the game reignited my interest in Go after I'd stepped away, busy with the demands of fatherhood, marriage, and life in general. I didn't even mind starting all over and sort of re-learning the great game of Go. Thank you, Vadim and team!
Great video! Go is my favorite game, but I feel like we tend to understate the weaknesses of the game. Although the basic rules can be learned quickly, Go is less accessible than Chess. I think that it takes most people longer to reach the point where the games are fun. Also, different rule sets and edge cases can be super confusing for casual players: bent four :(
Thank you for your comment. You bring up a great point-Go does have its quirks, but we both agree and disagree with you here! Chess has its share of 'hard' things to learn too, like en passant or the complexities of the Grünfeld Defense. In both games, how quickly someone finds enjoyment really depends on how deep they want to dive. Whether it’s mastering bent four in Go or navigating Avalanche Fuseki, or tackling tricky openings in Chess, there’s always something challenging and rewarding waiting ahead! At the same time, many players never encounter a different ruleset in Go or feel a need to use sophisticated opening in chess.
So amazing to see this video, I was taught Chess as a kid, but never did take to it in much depth never seemed to click for me. But I go interested in Go when watching a History Channel documentary about the ultimate strategist Sun Tzu. They talked about the American war in Vietnam and explained how the US used a very chess like strategy and the Vietnamese used a Go like strategy. This along with many other things lead to the withdrawal of US troops in North Vietnam.
Yeah, it is amazing how Go’s philosophy can be applied to so many areas of life, including military strategy. Glad to hear that it sparked your interest!
@GoMagic there is an idea for a video, the principles of Sun Tzu's Art of War translated to Go strategy. But you need to find the answer to the question did Sun Tzu play Go?
I've played chess all my life and have been getting into Go over the past couple of months and I feel like everything I've loved about chess I get even more of in Go. But wow is this game hard lol
That’s awesome to hear you're diving into Go! As a chess player, you’re already used to strategic thinking, and Go just expands that in ways that can feel limitless. But yeah, it can definitely be challenging-there’s so much to discover! 🤩
I love your channel and share it as often as I can! I learned about go while playing chess at work one day (I worked at a gym). We had a chessboard set up and would play with members. One day an old man told me about a game called “go” and the rest is history. I really hope you can continue to spread the popularity of the game in the western world with your channel and become Go’s version of “Gotham chess” Love your videos!
Thank you so much for your support and kind words! Spreading the love for Go in the West is our mission, and hearing encouragement like this motivates us even more. 😊
Go's simplicity and beauty has such irresistible appeal to me, but once came up against the absolute wall of "life & death" and how to determine whether an entire region is lost or worth fighting for, I stopped. I need to jump in and try again. So many commercial hobby board games, like the ones mentioned, are complex for the sake of complexity.
Those commercial board games often are not complex, but complicated. I.e. they have a lot of rules, material, etc. while lacking the same amount of depth like the abstract (and very complex) classics like Go and Chess...
Go’s simplicity is part of its magic, but that L&D concept can feel like a huge wall at first. It’s tricky, but once you start to recognize those patterns, it becomes one of the most rewarding parts of the game. And yeah, some modern board games really do seem to add complexity just for the sake of it, whereas Go and Chess manage to stay elegant and profound with just a few rules.
As the first commenter said, those games have complex rules, but not depth to the actual core mechanical gameplay as in, once you learn the rules you are left with a very shallow simplistic "solved" experience.
I always imagine Chess as an intense battle, pieces are constantly fighting and pinning each other like on a battlefield; whereas Go as a more laid-back game, like strategists planning in a tent before going to a battle, in which the planning determines much the outcome. Oh, and don’t forget Othello, such a great game as well!
To me, the most arbitrary thing about Go is the board shape and dimensions (19x19 is a tad arbitrary, and I kinda wish that we could play on a triangular board sometimes: where each stone has 6 liberties, except one the edge where they have 4 and the corner with 2. Or maybe play on a square board with holes that take away liberties from some points in the center or the board, or maybe a star-shaped board that's a square in the middle, but has triangles protruding from the sides where many different liberty counts occur on different parts of the board.) The other thing I don't like about certain versions of Go is when the scoring requires theoretical play. (e.g. with Japanese scoring, they need to declare bent-4 in the corner dead, because if the player took time to capture them at the end of the game while the opponent passed, that player would lose points. However, other rulesets such as Chinese, AGA, or my favorite of the bunch, New Zealand scoring rules allow players to play out these positions without losing points if it is unclear what will happen.)
I play both Chess and Go and enjoyed this video very much. There is one thing that I would have to disagree with a little. Go is a bit longer of a game than chess, but not that much more. In chess 2 moves would go like this. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 - that is 2 moves (or 4 ply) in Go this would have been counted as 4 moves. This makes it look like Go games are at least twice as long. A 100 move game in chess is 200 ply (equal to a 200 move game in Go)
@@kylemassey4060 The longest chess game is 269 (538 ply) moves between Ivan Nikolic vs. Goran Arsovic, Belgrade, 1989. The game ended in a draw. The game lasted over 20 hours. - this is rare though. most games go 40-60 moves (80-120 ply)
When I first discovered GO, I quit chess, for 10 years. But one day I opened a chess book with 3,000 puzzles and rediscovered the beauty of chess. So now I play both. I am a much better chess player, as I fully understand Chess. I will never be a master, but I understand the game. After playing Go for some 30 years now, I barely understand the game, but starting to. I taught or showed the game to a dozen chess players. None of them liked it. For some reason I enjoy it.
It sounds like you have a deep appreciation for both games, and that’s really special. It’s cool that you’ve found beauty in both, even if they bring out different parts of your thinking 😊
As a chess player who knows very little about go, I feel like calculation is more important in chess than in Go whereas Go is more strategic. But then shogi is far more calculation based than chess and chess is more strategic than shogi. Strong shogi players can often become strong chess players very quickly purely relying on calculation but then they struggle when they get to the endgame because it's new to them. To the Go players, how important is calculation in Go?
I can't really speak to which is more strategic (I can't really parse what that means in this case). But calculation is really important, especially if you want to get very good. You'll hear a lot about 'reading' (calculation), variations (lines, I think they're called in chess, of which you'll have many just from a single stone being placed somewhere, and can be dozens and dozens of mov long sometimes to understand why they're significant on the board), etc. If you want a feel for how much calculation can be involved, I'd take a look at game recaps by Michael Redmond, a grandmaster (to borrow the chess term), over on the American Go Association youtube channel. It goes deep. If you want your brain to really explode, I'd suggest their series covering the AlphaGo games.
I'm an intermediate go player, maybe 11 kyu and I agree with you. Chess is in some 90% tactical game and in 10% stategic game, whereas in go it's more like 50-50. Maybe even strategy is more important than tatctics.
@@plrc4593 that's true but that usually depends on how advanced the players are and what openings they play. Some openings like the catalan are incredibly slow and positional at advanced level. So you usually won't see that much tactics in it.
@@Tajjwar Yes. In chess importance of strategy increases with your level. At very high level it's very important. But even if you're Carlsen Stock Fish will beat you with just its brutal computential performance and some very clever tactics.
@@plrc4593 nah i think stockfish is the king of strategy. Go watch some stockfish vs stockfish games. Their moves make no sense until like 30 moves later. Which is nuts
@@GoMagic Yes, it has influenced my thinking about those games. I prefer to play Go a bit. Still, I have reached a lot in chess (>2200 Elo). And I still love it.
I actually found out about go when i was asking ai if there were any harder games than chess and it came up with go as an example, stating that even computers struggle with it. Youre an excellent storyteller, thanks
I played a lot bridge, chess and go and bridge is extremly playable, perhaps the most playable game ever devised. But puting bridge aside go is much, much better than chess. Chess is in a huge part about memorization. Memorization concrete positions, especially in openings. What you gonna do if this piece is here, and what if it's there. And very frequenty a slight change in position completly changes tactics. Chess is kind of like memorization of digits of pi number. In go there is much, much less such memorization I think. There is a lot of theory in go of course but much less fequently it needs memorization of concrete positions. And if it does, like in joseki, it's much less important than opening theory in chess, I think. Maybe I'm wrong. For that reason I prefer go much more.
If that is your feeling about chess, then either your chess rating is very low or you are a Grandmaster (at which point opening variation memorization indeed becomes excessive).
Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts! It’s really interesting to hear from someone who’s played all three games. And it's awesome to hear that Go resonates with you in this way! Every game has its own charm, but we’re glad to know Go stands out for you as much as it does for us.
Right now I would pick quitting Go I just don’t fully grasp some of the concepts etc yet so it’d be easier to let go of than chess but trying to stick with both of course!
@@MohamedWaheedAtef im just used to most games having a capture all the pieces last one standing mentality where this its more of an agreed upon endgame of where how i would naturally play is capture all the pieces and lay down as many stones on mine as i can to fill up the board but i know that’s not the right way of playing i know the basic move rule set its more the natural progression of the game and endgame i dont get
@@rpelletier2771 well, in that case I think it is more important to continue with go now, it will help balance your thought process between the constructive and destructive ways. When the paradigm shift clicks in your mind, you will realize that focusing on captures as a goal is not what the game is about, and your end game questions will disappear. How long have you been playing?
@@rpelletier2771 Yes you will 💪🏻, my advise to you, move away from the 9x9 as fast as possible (if you haven't already). I've been away from the game online for a while and I am a beginner myself but we can play on OGS if you would like to, look for mWaheed
We can increase variation in chess by making the board 10×10 and add two extra materials to it . Two extra new pieces should be added also like elephant or horses.
Idk much about go as a chess player but do you (or anyone reading this who's at advanced level in both games) find it harder to understand najdorf scicilians or the most complicated openings (or whatever you call them) in go? Like if i were to sit you down on a chess board and make you play the najdorf mainline and the go opening i mentioned before, which one would be harder for you to understand and play?
Go has some opening patterns of historical significance, but for the most part they're not required knowledge. Go opening skill is more about identifying how to advantageously connect multiple smaller patterns together into something cohesive on the full board. It's not exactly comparable? At nearly any point during nearly every Go opening you can say "if you don't feel like continuing here you can just pick a good move somewhere else on the board" and it'll likely be fine. In chess that kind of general advice is gonna get you mated or cost you material because the openings revolve around precise tactical ideas. Put another way, if someone tries to play some tactically complicated, dangerous thing in Go: I can just say "no thanks, you win here", let them take all of it, and play somewhere completely different.
You have an enormous amount of flexibility in the opening stages of a go game. It's a very important part of the game, you are positioning yourself for the fighting which characterizes the middle game, but as long as you adhere to some basic principals you can play unconventional and unorthodox moves and still be in good shape. Against an opponent who relies too much on memorization of conventional opening patterns and doesn't understand the deeper principals underlying them you may even start the middle game with an advantage because you threw them off their game and they failed to adapt. I know a very strong player who annoys other strong players with his unconventional openings. His opponents are all like, "We're only on the first few moves of the game and you're already making me think?!"
@@badatbaduk this can kinda be seen too in chess. Like for example you can sometimes completely ignore the queenside attack in the kings indian defense and just launch a kingside attack yourself.
@@studentofsmith this can happen in chess as well and they're either called sidelines or novelties. Sidelines are still theory based, meaning the engine or masters have explored those lines however they aren't the mainline and people usually don't study them. Like the english attack in the najdorf. Or there's the novelties. Basically lines that haven't been explored by masters or engines. They can be good moves, bad moves or okay moves. Usually they're either bad or okay. Personally i'm sometimes a huge fan of unorthodox reponses that are uncomfortable to play if you don't know the ideas. Like for example i like to play the sämisch against the kings indian defense. 9.9 times out of 10 the opponent just doesn't know how to respond to it cause the plans are very very different from normal kings indian positions.
@@Tajjwar Sure! I just wanted to point out the difference, which you also acknowledged: in chess, it's possible to ignore stuff. Sometimes. And it may end up being bad! It's unusual, situational, unorthodox, etc. In Go, ignoring your opponent's threats in the opening and playing elsewhere is so common it has a name, tenuki, and is nearly always a fine thing to do (even AI analysis agrees). We even have an ancient proverb along the lines of "you can always tenuki".
I like both games and I really like about your video that you managed to stay pretty neutral on that topic. Way too many Go enthusiasts have some weird and almost aggressive (and mostly unwarranted) superiority complex, similar to what many chess players have towards checkers. As for chess players, often those who didn't concern themselves with the depth of checkers and don't understand the game have the most biased opinions, and this might be true for Go as well. It helped this video that you have an expert rating in chess, so that you have an understanding of and appreciation for chess and don't fall into that trap as easily as those who don't actually know a thing about chess.
Just a detail in the video but I'm a bit curious about how one could argue that go is "3000 years old at least" when the earliest mention is from c. -550 and the oldest discovered goban far more recent than that. As far as I understand, go is probably at least 2500 years old. It may be older but no way to know.
Different sources estimate Go’s age differently-some say 2,500 years, others go as far as 3,000 or more. The truth is, we don’t know the exact origins, and a lot of it is based on legends rather than concrete evidence.
I never agreed with that idea that if intelligent aliens exist they play Go. If this was the case, wouldn't we see other cultures around the world inventing Go-like games?
@@myboy_I think the original idea from Lasker meant that if a more sophisticated life( more sophisticated then humans) exist, they likely play go. Like chess is a natural invention for humans but go is supernatural. So the idea about different cultures not inventing go doesnt work. Under the logic of the phrase they are not meant to.
I have played both. My highest chess rating was around 2300 and now software rates me 2350. Highest Go rank was 1k on KGS. From my perspective both games are astonishing. Chess has a special piece, King, that should be protected and that creates the interest. But Go has more variety in it. You can choose any direction, any area any known or unorthodox pattern, and various areas of game connect to each other in mysterious ways. That's the beauty of Go. Go looks natural, Chess looks royal (and not aristocratic. Recent European usage of the word is very incorrect. Aristocracy has nothing to do with monarchy. So please don't use this extremely disgusting word in conjunction with chess, I find it insulting).
How has monarchy nothing to do with aristocracy? And if it didn't, that wouldn't be bad for aristocracy, but rather shine a bad light on that monarchy. And how is 'aristocracy' an insulting word?
@@lukastux3024 In case you are seriously asking: Aristocracy comes from Socrates and Plato. It is based on the famous "shipwreck" allegory by comrade Socrates who believed folks are bunch of dumb and should be led by the "wise". These wise of course is not a monarchy, though it can be that too, but it usually implemented as a politburo of gang of comrades deciding lives of other people. Ancient implementation is government of comrade Plato and the ilk in ancient Greece and Mao, Hitler and Stalin in more recent years. Khomeini's theories about "Ayatollah should rule over the dumb" also based on Plato and Socrates and is a form of Aristocracy. Did you know that Plato is taught in Islamic academies?
Wow, it’s amazing that you’ve reached such high levels in both chess and Go! 😲 Both games are astonishing, as you said, and it’s fascinating how each one brings something completely different to the table. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! 🥰
@deveshkumar5628 Thank you for pointing that out! We strive to avoid any mistakes or inaccuracies in our visuals, so we’ll make sure the map is properly represented in future content. We really appreciate your feedback!
I grew up playing chess, but in my late teens I found Go(45 now), and I could never go back to playing chess. Go feels vastly more complex to me with every single game I play feeling unique.
For me, a game of chess seems like a strategy battle, whereas a game of go feels like a creative effort.
This is so true!
One major selling point of Go for me is how decisive every game is and also how versitile games can be even at top level.
At top level in chess, draw is the most common result, and if one side gains a significant advantage, the game is often pretty much over.
But in Go, 99.99% of the time, the game is decisive, and a seemingly lost game can be turned around pretty frequently.
In my opinion, this aspect of Go adds more excitement and fun than chess.
Yeah, it’s one of the things that makes Go so dynamic and challenging.
The only thing I envy to chess is that is more popular and you can sometimes find player randomly and start a game in a bar/pub/hostel..
Yeah, saw that in New York Central Park this summer. My friend is a hobbyist chess player and can always play someone in the park. Wish I had that with Go
Yeah , chess is everywhere.
Let’s make Go the next “pub game” craze! 😉
When I was young I played chess, until I discovered GO a few years ago.
What I really love about Go is the enormous amount of strategies and tactics that can be implemented.
That's something you don't find in any other board game. Perhaps only with computer games like Civilizations can you have such a complex experience.
An example of this is the book called “The 36 Stratagems Applied To Go” which applies the same principles of the famous book The 36 Chinese Strategies, but entirely with GO examples.
There’s always something new to learn or a new way to look at the board, which is what keeps people hooked for a lifetime!
Well done! That was the first time I saw someone trying to compare the games. I played chess through all my teenage years and didn't find GO until I was 27. Sure, Chess is a great game, but it can't really compare to GO. I have always said after that that GO is the king of all games. Today I play mostly modern boardgames but I watch GO-videos daily.
One thing that you maybe could have mentioned is the pretty accurate handicap system. That works so well!
You can gain even more from GO: I got a second home country (Japan) and a whole family!
Thank you so much for sharing your story! It’s awesome to hear how Go has become such a big part of your life, even giving you a second home and family in Japan-what an incredible journey!
@@GoMagic Now as Christer Lindstedt again - after that russellbyrd reply! (Russell Byrd was the secret name of one of the biggest songwriters in the early 60s btw - one of my heroes as a songwriter) Maybe I already said it elsewhere, and in that case I will repeat it now :), that your series of lessons is the best beginner's introduction I have ever seen. It doesn't get any easier and clearer than that. It's a step by step procedure that everyone needs to get into the game. So, yes, you really do need someone who helps you get into the game. I know a person who played by himself for a year until he met someone who could play. He always started in the middle of the board! :)
And then the story about that guy Lasker (not the chess champion) who also had learnt the game with his friends. A pro player passed by his city and gave him a 9 stone hcp. Lasker said "But we have played for more than a year so we know the game!" He was of course crushed and then realized how deep GO really was.
This Video is one i always wanted, and that he doesnt is saying that on is better. That motivated to play more GO again. Thank you for this videos
Go Magic's professional video production and engaging presentation of the game reignited my interest in Go after I'd stepped away, busy with the demands of fatherhood, marriage, and life in general. I didn't even mind starting all over and sort of re-learning the great game of Go. Thank you, Vadim and team!
We’re so glad to hear we brought you back to the board!
Great video! Go is my favorite game, but I feel like we tend to understate the weaknesses of the game. Although the basic rules can be learned quickly, Go is less accessible than Chess. I think that it takes most people longer to reach the point where the games are fun. Also, different rule sets and edge cases can be super confusing for casual players: bent four :(
Thank you for your comment. You bring up a great point-Go does have its quirks, but we both agree and disagree with you here! Chess has its share of 'hard' things to learn too, like en passant or the complexities of the Grünfeld Defense.
In both games, how quickly someone finds enjoyment really depends on how deep they want to dive. Whether it’s mastering bent four in Go or navigating Avalanche Fuseki, or tackling tricky openings in Chess, there’s always something challenging and rewarding waiting ahead!
At the same time, many players never encounter a different ruleset in Go or feel a need to use sophisticated opening in chess.
So amazing to see this video, I was taught Chess as a kid, but never did take to it in much depth never seemed to click for me. But I go interested in Go when watching a History Channel documentary about the ultimate strategist Sun Tzu. They talked about the American war in Vietnam and explained how the US used a very chess like strategy and the Vietnamese used a Go like strategy. This along with many other things lead to the withdrawal of US troops in North Vietnam.
Yeah, it is amazing how Go’s philosophy can be applied to so many areas of life, including military strategy. Glad to hear that it sparked your interest!
@GoMagic there is an idea for a video, the principles of Sun Tzu's Art of War translated to Go strategy. But you need to find the answer to the question did Sun Tzu play Go?
I've played chess all my life and have been getting into Go over the past couple of months and I feel like everything I've loved about chess I get even more of in Go. But wow is this game hard lol
That’s awesome to hear you're diving into Go! As a chess player, you’re already used to strategic thinking, and Go just expands that in ways that can feel limitless. But yeah, it can definitely be challenging-there’s so much to discover! 🤩
I love your channel and share it as often as I can! I learned about go while playing chess at work one day (I worked at a gym). We had a chessboard set up and would play with members. One day an old man told me about a game called “go” and the rest is history.
I really hope you can continue to spread the popularity of the game in the western world with your channel and become Go’s version of “Gotham chess”
Love your videos!
Thank you so much for your support and kind words! Spreading the love for Go in the West is our mission, and hearing encouragement like this motivates us even more. 😊
Go's simplicity and beauty has such irresistible appeal to me, but once came up against the absolute wall of "life & death" and how to determine whether an entire region is lost or worth fighting for, I stopped. I need to jump in and try again. So many commercial hobby board games, like the ones mentioned, are complex for the sake of complexity.
Those commercial board games often are not complex, but complicated. I.e. they have a lot of rules, material, etc. while lacking the same amount of depth like the abstract (and very complex) classics like Go and Chess...
Go’s simplicity is part of its magic, but that L&D concept can feel like a huge wall at first. It’s tricky, but once you start to recognize those patterns, it becomes one of the most rewarding parts of the game. And yeah, some modern board games really do seem to add complexity just for the sake of it, whereas Go and Chess manage to stay elegant and profound with just a few rules.
As the first commenter said, those games have complex rules, but not depth to the actual core mechanical gameplay as in, once you learn the rules you are left with a very shallow simplistic "solved" experience.
I always imagine Chess as an intense battle, pieces are constantly fighting and pinning each other like on a battlefield; whereas Go as a more laid-back game, like strategists planning in a tent before going to a battle, in which the planning determines much the outcome.
Oh, and don’t forget Othello, such a great game as well!
Yeah, Othello is a fantastic game! While it may not receive as much attention as Go or chess, it offers an impressive balance of simplicity and depth.
To me, the most arbitrary thing about Go is the board shape and dimensions (19x19 is a tad arbitrary, and I kinda wish that we could play on a triangular board sometimes: where each stone has 6 liberties, except one the edge where they have 4 and the corner with 2. Or maybe play on a square board with holes that take away liberties from some points in the center or the board, or maybe a star-shaped board that's a square in the middle, but has triangles protruding from the sides where many different liberty counts occur on different parts of the board.)
The other thing I don't like about certain versions of Go is when the scoring requires theoretical play. (e.g. with Japanese scoring, they need to declare bent-4 in the corner dead, because if the player took time to capture them at the end of the game while the opponent passed, that player would lose points. However, other rulesets such as Chinese, AGA, or my favorite of the bunch, New Zealand scoring rules allow players to play out these positions without losing points if it is unclear what will happen.)
I play both Chess and Go and enjoyed this video very much. There is one thing that I would have to disagree with a little. Go is a bit longer of a game than chess, but not that much more. In chess 2 moves would go like this. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 - that is 2 moves (or 4 ply) in Go this would have been counted as 4 moves. This makes it look like Go games are at least twice as long. A 100 move game in chess is 200 ply (equal to a 200 move game in Go)
i think he accounted for that when he showed 80-100 moves referring to 40-50 moves in chess
Chess games can go on that long???
@@kylemassey4060 The longest chess game is 269 (538 ply) moves between Ivan Nikolic vs. Goran Arsovic, Belgrade, 1989. The game ended in a draw. The game lasted over 20 hours. - this is rare though. most games go 40-60 moves (80-120 ply)
Great video, you guys are awesome!
Thank you so much! We’re really glad you enjoyed the video 😊
Rare Stratego Mention!
When I first discovered GO, I quit chess, for 10 years. But one day I opened a chess book with 3,000 puzzles and rediscovered the beauty of chess. So now I play both. I am a much better chess player, as I fully understand Chess. I will never be a master, but I understand the game. After playing Go for some 30 years now, I barely understand the game, but starting to. I taught or showed the game to a dozen chess players. None of them liked it. For some reason I enjoy it.
It sounds like you have a deep appreciation for both games, and that’s really special. It’s cool that you’ve found beauty in both, even if they bring out different parts of your thinking 😊
As a chess player who knows very little about go, I feel like calculation is more important in chess than in Go whereas Go is more strategic. But then shogi is far more calculation based than chess and chess is more strategic than shogi. Strong shogi players can often become strong chess players very quickly purely relying on calculation but then they struggle when they get to the endgame because it's new to them.
To the Go players, how important is calculation in Go?
I can't really speak to which is more strategic (I can't really parse what that means in this case). But calculation is really important, especially if you want to get very good. You'll hear a lot about 'reading' (calculation), variations (lines, I think they're called in chess, of which you'll have many just from a single stone being placed somewhere, and can be dozens and dozens of mov long sometimes to understand why they're significant on the board), etc.
If you want a feel for how much calculation can be involved, I'd take a look at game recaps by Michael Redmond, a grandmaster (to borrow the chess term), over on the American Go Association youtube channel. It goes deep. If you want your brain to really explode, I'd suggest their series covering the AlphaGo games.
I'm an intermediate go player, maybe 11 kyu and I agree with you. Chess is in some 90% tactical game and in 10% stategic game, whereas in go it's more like 50-50. Maybe even strategy is more important than tatctics.
@@plrc4593 that's true but that usually depends on how advanced the players are and what openings they play. Some openings like the catalan are incredibly slow and positional at advanced level. So you usually won't see that much tactics in it.
@@Tajjwar Yes. In chess importance of strategy increases with your level. At very high level it's very important. But even if you're Carlsen Stock Fish will beat you with just its brutal computential performance and some very clever tactics.
@@plrc4593 nah i think stockfish is the king of strategy. Go watch some stockfish vs stockfish games. Their moves make no sense until like 30 moves later. Which is nuts
I still love both games. Both are a lot of fun.
👍 Do you feel that one has influenced how you play or think about the other?
@@GoMagic Yes, it has influenced my thinking about those games. I prefer to play Go a bit. Still, I have reached a lot in chess (>2200 Elo). And I still love it.
I actually found out about go when i was asking ai if there were any harder games than chess and it came up with go as an example, stating that even computers struggle with it. Youre an excellent storyteller, thanks
That’s awesome! Glad you’re enjoying the storytelling-welcome to the Go community!
I played a lot bridge, chess and go and bridge is extremly playable, perhaps the most playable game ever devised. But puting bridge aside go is much, much better than chess. Chess is in a huge part about memorization. Memorization concrete positions, especially in openings. What you gonna do if this piece is here, and what if it's there. And very frequenty a slight change in position completly changes tactics. Chess is kind of like memorization of digits of pi number. In go there is much, much less such memorization I think.
There is a lot of theory in go of course but much less fequently it needs memorization of concrete positions. And if it does, like in joseki, it's much less important than opening theory in chess, I think. Maybe I'm wrong. For that reason I prefer go much more.
Is josski better games😢
If that is your feeling about chess, then either your chess rating is very low or you are a Grandmaster (at which point opening variation memorization indeed becomes excessive).
@@lukastux3024 Nope. Watching chess youtubers suffice to know it.
Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts! It’s really interesting to hear from someone who’s played all three games. And it's awesome to hear that Go resonates with you in this way! Every game has its own charm, but we’re glad to know Go stands out for you as much as it does for us.
I preferred Go because it is strategic but creative in the way moves or play style can evolve
That’s one of the best things about Go-there’s so much room for creativity 👍
Right now I would pick quitting Go I just don’t fully grasp some of the concepts etc yet so it’d be easier to let go of than chess but trying to stick with both of course!
Keep at it 💪🏻, I also struggled at the beginning, are you learning alone? Can I help you somehow?
@@MohamedWaheedAtef im just used to most games having a capture all the pieces last one standing mentality where this its more of an agreed upon endgame of where how i would naturally play is capture all the pieces and lay down as many stones on mine as i can to fill up the board but i know that’s not the right way of playing i know the basic move rule set its more the natural progression of the game and endgame i dont get
@@rpelletier2771 well, in that case I think it is more important to continue with go now, it will help balance your thought process between the constructive and destructive ways. When the paradigm shift clicks in your mind, you will realize that focusing on captures as a goal is not what the game is about, and your end game questions will disappear. How long have you been playing?
@@MohamedWaheedAtef still fairly new dabbling with it for 6 months or so anyway so still pretty fresh but im sure ill get it eventually
@@rpelletier2771 Yes you will 💪🏻, my advise to you, move away from the 9x9 as fast as possible (if you haven't already). I've been away from the game online for a while and I am a beginner myself but we can play on OGS if you would like to, look for mWaheed
I enjoyed the video dude. You forgot to mention Othello the game!😆
Maybe we’ll have to do a comparison of Go and Othello next time 😀
I wanted to hear more about Go😕
You’ll be happy to know that 99% of our videos are actually about Go, so feel free to browse our channel. 😊
The video editor is very passionate about this video
Thank you for the kind words! The video actually took dozens of hours to create and it’s great to know that the effort paid off and you enjoyed it!
I am new to the game of Go. Learned chess first, then Shogi, and now Go.
2:05 chess board should have white square at bottom right. "light on the right"
We can increase variation in chess by making the board 10×10 and add two extra materials to it . Two extra new pieces should be added also like elephant or horses.
But that would change the essence of classic chess.
You might be interested in Grand Chess by Christian Freeling. it is playable on pychess; I think it is one of the best chess variants
for gamers:
Chess is search & destroy.
GO is domination.
Idk much about go as a chess player but do you (or anyone reading this who's at advanced level in both games) find it harder to understand najdorf scicilians or the most complicated openings (or whatever you call them) in go? Like if i were to sit you down on a chess board and make you play the najdorf mainline and the go opening i mentioned before, which one would be harder for you to understand and play?
Go has some opening patterns of historical significance, but for the most part they're not required knowledge. Go opening skill is more about identifying how to advantageously connect multiple smaller patterns together into something cohesive on the full board. It's not exactly comparable? At nearly any point during nearly every Go opening you can say "if you don't feel like continuing here you can just pick a good move somewhere else on the board" and it'll likely be fine. In chess that kind of general advice is gonna get you mated or cost you material because the openings revolve around precise tactical ideas.
Put another way, if someone tries to play some tactically complicated, dangerous thing in Go: I can just say "no thanks, you win here", let them take all of it, and play somewhere completely different.
You have an enormous amount of flexibility in the opening stages of a go game. It's a very important part of the game, you are positioning yourself for the fighting which characterizes the middle game, but as long as you adhere to some basic principals you can play unconventional and unorthodox moves and still be in good shape. Against an opponent who relies too much on memorization of conventional opening patterns and doesn't understand the deeper principals underlying them you may even start the middle game with an advantage because you threw them off their game and they failed to adapt. I know a very strong player who annoys other strong players with his unconventional openings. His opponents are all like, "We're only on the first few moves of the game and you're already making me think?!"
@@badatbaduk this can kinda be seen too in chess. Like for example you can sometimes completely ignore the queenside attack in the kings indian defense and just launch a kingside attack yourself.
@@studentofsmith this can happen in chess as well and they're either called sidelines or novelties. Sidelines are still theory based, meaning the engine or masters have explored those lines however they aren't the mainline and people usually don't study them. Like the english attack in the najdorf. Or there's the novelties. Basically lines that haven't been explored by masters or engines. They can be good moves, bad moves or okay moves. Usually they're either bad or okay. Personally i'm sometimes a huge fan of unorthodox reponses that are uncomfortable to play if you don't know the ideas. Like for example i like to play the sämisch against the kings indian defense. 9.9 times out of 10 the opponent just doesn't know how to respond to it cause the plans are very very different from normal kings indian positions.
@@Tajjwar Sure! I just wanted to point out the difference, which you also acknowledged: in chess, it's possible to ignore stuff. Sometimes. And it may end up being bad! It's unusual, situational, unorthodox, etc.
In Go, ignoring your opponent's threats in the opening and playing elsewhere is so common it has a name, tenuki, and is nearly always a fine thing to do (even AI analysis agrees). We even have an ancient proverb along the lines of "you can always tenuki".
I like both games and I really like about your video that you managed to stay pretty neutral on that topic. Way too many Go enthusiasts have some weird and almost aggressive (and mostly unwarranted) superiority complex, similar to what many chess players have towards checkers. As for chess players, often those who didn't concern themselves with the depth of checkers and don't understand the game have the most biased opinions, and this might be true for Go as well. It helped this video that you have an expert rating in chess, so that you have an understanding of and appreciation for chess and don't fall into that trap as easily as those who don't actually know a thing about chess.
Thank you for the kind words! Both games have so much depth, and it’s important to respect what each one brings to the table. Thanks for watching.
Just a detail in the video but I'm a bit curious about how one could argue that go is "3000 years old at least" when the earliest mention is from c. -550 and the oldest discovered goban far more recent than that. As far as I understand, go is probably at least 2500 years old. It may be older but no way to know.
Different sources estimate Go’s age differently-some say 2,500 years, others go as far as 3,000 or more. The truth is, we don’t know the exact origins, and a lot of it is based on legends rather than concrete evidence.
Chess has insanely huge skill gap.
Somehow go has 10,000x more skill gap. Nuts.
I would like to bring to the table and nominate, “boxing Go” as coup to title of “worlds most difficult game.”
Now that’s a sport we’d pay to see! 😁
About to start teaching children chess in my township, go will follow later.
That's great!
@GoMagic does your organization have any programs for sponsoring young chess and go players????
@universalunity6099 We do support Go Clubs and Tournament Organizers. Please check this page: gomagic.org/for-go-clubs/
Красота!
Всем приятных партий в Покорения Марса :)
😁
@@GoMagic ^_^
I love Chess but I think Go is the perfect game.
Chess and Go are both incredible in their own ways, but there’s something truly timeless about Go. 🤗
I thought go was discovered by the aliens and taught to the Chinese humans because the rules were simple enough. Or something.
I never agreed with that idea that if intelligent aliens exist they play Go. If this was the case, wouldn't we see other cultures around the world inventing Go-like games?
@@myboy_ Totaly agree. The hypotheiss was falisfied. Maya and Aztecs didn't invent go.
Bro this is LITERALLY my theory 😱
@@domd6789 u forreal?
@@myboy_I think the original idea from Lasker meant that if a more sophisticated life( more sophisticated then humans) exist, they likely play go.
Like chess is a natural invention for humans but go is supernatural.
So the idea about different cultures not inventing go doesnt work. Under the logic of the phrase they are not meant to.
what about checkers? :P
Not today 😉
Why is there a need to say which is better? That simply a subjective thing. Both are great games. Which is better Red or Blue?
We still need to compare them, as this will provide us with more insights into both.
I have played both. My highest chess rating was around 2300 and now software rates me 2350. Highest Go rank was 1k on KGS. From my perspective both games are astonishing. Chess has a special piece, King, that should be protected and that creates the interest. But Go has more variety in it. You can choose any direction, any area any known or unorthodox pattern, and various areas of game connect to each other in mysterious ways. That's the beauty of Go. Go looks natural, Chess looks royal (and not aristocratic. Recent European usage of the word is very incorrect. Aristocracy has nothing to do with monarchy. So please don't use this extremely disgusting word in conjunction with chess, I find it insulting).
How has monarchy nothing to do with aristocracy? And if it didn't, that wouldn't be bad for aristocracy, but rather shine a bad light on that monarchy. And how is 'aristocracy' an insulting word?
@@lukastux3024 In case you are seriously asking: Aristocracy comes from Socrates and Plato. It is based on the famous "shipwreck" allegory by comrade Socrates who believed folks are bunch of dumb and should be led by the "wise". These wise of course is not a monarchy, though it can be that too, but it usually implemented as a politburo of gang of comrades deciding lives of other people. Ancient implementation is government of comrade Plato and the ilk in ancient Greece and Mao, Hitler and Stalin in more recent years. Khomeini's theories about "Ayatollah should rule over the dumb" also based on Plato and Socrates and is a form of Aristocracy. Did you know that Plato is taught in Islamic academies?
Wow, it’s amazing that you’ve reached such high levels in both chess and Go! 😲
Both games are astonishing, as you said, and it’s fascinating how each one brings something completely different to the table. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! 🥰
@@sassanxersi1849 thanks for your explanation
This ist complete bull
How is shogi more complex than go . I thought shogi is like chess 😮😮
Shogi and Go are both incredible games, but they’re complex in very different ways.
shogi has a 'drop' mechanic; when you capture a piece, you can 'drop' it on the board later, which increases its game tree a lot
@@dabadaba5847Thanks for the info, I'll have to check it out
Shogi > go > chess.
48 comments? wow :D
Even more now =)
Please use the correct image of India.
Could you clarify which part of the image was incorrect?
Jammu & kashmir is the part of India. But in your map you have incorrectly depicted part of kashmir in the Pakistan map.
@deveshkumar5628 Thank you for pointing that out! We strive to avoid any mistakes or inaccuracies in our visuals, so we’ll make sure the map is properly represented in future content. We really appreciate your feedback!
@@GoMagic thank you for your understanding.
Bro play liên quân moblie in vietnam severs 😅
Vadim đang ở Việt Nam đó bạn
😁