Two cool things this week:
First off, I got to play my first handicap game. Go is completely unlike chess in this aspect. Go actually has very clearly thought out rules for handicap play in order to even the playing field for players of different strengths. That really would have been handy when learning to play chess. My opponent started with an extra 8 stones on the board and I can tell you that it is a bit of a shock to see even when you know it ahead of time. You have to play MUCH more aggressively and hope to capitalize on as many mistakes as possible. Overall very cool and something I need to practice at.
Secondly, Janice Kim(author of the Learn to Play Go series of books) has started up a Go blog over at http://www.samarkand.net/learn-go-blog/ . So far it looks like its going to be a very promising resource to learn from and tries to keep explanations simple for newer players. I’ll add it up to our list of Go resources in the links section.
–John
