I even created an account on a go server again. And then I reinstalled my old version of The Many Faces of Go and started playing the computer, despite remembering how badly it humiliated me in the past. And then I picked up this silly manga series, Hikaru no Go, and as I read it, I broke out my go books. So, go is one of those things I've always wanted to be good at without spending the time necessary to become good. (In Japan, Korea, and China, there are schools for young go prodigies, whose lives pretty much revolve around becoming professional go players.) It's not study alone, either, though it's certainly true that no one becomes a go champion without spending many years of serious study. It's not genius by itself, because there are plenty of geniuses who play go and never reach the top ranks. Of course, not every kid can do this - only those who have that indefinable, precocious talent that makes someone a go champion. As portrayed in Hikaru no Go, kids who've only been playing for a couple of years have been known to surpass adults who've been playing their entire lives. Like chess, becoming a true go master requires both intensive study and natural talent. And for those of you who fear the coming robot apocalypse, it is comforting to know that while the chess app on your smart phone can beat anyone but a grand master, and even grand masters can no longer beat supercomputers, the very best go computer still can't play at a professional level. The rules are actually simpler than those for chess, but it's mathematically more complex and has more strategic depth than chess by an order of magnitude. But the fact is, I never played more than a few dozen real games, certainly never became formally ranked, and my chances of becoming a professional go player at this point are about the same as my chances of becoming an MMA prize fighter. Off and on over the years, like many of my hobbies and other interests both athletic and intellectual, I have dabbled in it, told myself I was going to get serious about it one of these days, and even acquired a shelf full of go books that were mostly just skimmed. I was black the computer was playing at the 12-kyu level. One of my better recent games against MFOG.
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