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by Adam Marquis
April 26, 2004
To hear of an influx of young go players far away
in Japan is one thing, but to experience it is
another thing altogether. I used to worry whether
Hikaru no Go's popularity would prove a boon or a
curse for the go community. Logging into KGS to
find people with names like "Hikaru8392" spamming
the main room with "NE1 TEACH ME NOW?" gave me
serious doubts about a youthful crowd coming in.
Recent experience, however, has dispelled these
doubts entirely.
At a "Learn to Play Go!" panel in a cavernous
workshop room at Anime Boston 2004 on April 10,
co-presenter David Dawidowitz and I worried we'd
gotten too large a space for the small number we
expected to show up. We targeted those who had
heard about the game but not yet played and they
trickled in at first, filling the front rows of the
room. At half capacity I began to worry, at nearly
full I had to send for more chairs. In the end the
workshop was packed, standing room only. When I
asked how many had played a game of go before,
several hands raised, but when I asked how many had
seen Hikaru no Go; the room became an uncountable
sea of hands.
I'd expected a small number of people with a
passing interest in the game, and I initially
thought I'd merely gotten a larger turnout of that
crowd. But the intent faces in the audience, the
salient, thoughtful questions, and even some who
were taking notes or videotaping all convinced me
that what I was looking at was really a treasure
trove: dozens and dozens of people eager to learn
and play go. So heartened were we by the response
that David and I offered to return for teaching
games the next evening and following morning.
There, the enthusiasm of new players would continue
to surprise me.
The way these new players dealt with their mistakes
shamed this "experience" player. Errors were met,
not with embarrassment or anger, but with the joy
of adding a new trick to one's repertoire. They
learned from the mistake and played elsewhere,
continuing the game calmly. Players set against one
other were respectful of their opponents, from
youngest to eldest. I realized that many of these
people were already go players in manner;
apparently Hikaru no Go communicates the culture of
the game quite well.
(Marquis is a 4-kyu who plays at the Western
Massachusetts Go Club. )
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