mrpulp

I am also a beginner player. But the thing I have started to realize is that the game isn't about capturing individual stones or groups, or close fighting. It's much more about building the wider framework that will (in theory) support you when you eventually get into a fight. I.e. placing a stone in another place across the board helps you in fights somewhere that doesn't seem apparent at the get go.

In this it is fascinating because it really is equivalent to military strategy, where you don't just want to win a battle but create an environment which enables wider victory.

I have a question that is fairly subjective but an important one, about the accessibility of Go to new players: I've been interested in Go for a while, but never really got around to learning until the AlphaGo matches. In part I was motivated to learn because I wanted to understand what was going on - and Michael Redmond's commentary was incredibly lucid and clear. However I want to ask about why Go may be hard for new players to grasp, and if it is any more difficult than games it is often compared to, like Chess.

I've played Chess since I was a kid, but I have always felt when trying to learn Go that it is much more difficult. Is it inherently a more difficult game to learn than Chess? My sense is that it is - if only because it is more abstract and it's harder to tell why your bad move is a mistake. For instance, in Chess you can see that you put your Queen in danger, which is clearly your most powerful piece. There are force moves and sequences in Chess too, but in Go I've found that it's hard to see what's coming when playing against a stronger player - I keep making "mistake" moves, which are tough to see are mistakes until 4-5 moves later.

Does this make Go a less accessible game for new players? How can this be mitigated?

What are good opportunities for people to play go when there aren't a lot of local players? I.e. if you don't live in Seattle. Is the best option just to play online?

So how do feel about not being added as a "Great Musician" in Civ V? I think it's deserved...

Sorry but Nazi Germang was not a "kill or be killed" situation. Totalitarianism wasn't about the evil government putting a gun to your head and say 'follow orders.' Many people did things out of their own volition. It's easy to overlook how sophisticated the Nazi propaganda machine was. It makes Fox News look like Child's play by comparison. This isn't to say that Germans were brainwashed - they were surrounded by propaganda.