The Chinese Game of Go

Many, many years ago The Husband and I decided we wanted to learn how to play the ancient game of Go. We bought a board game set somewhere, brought it home, read the rules and... well, got stuck there. We tried to play, but we could make no sense at all of the rules booklet, we knew nobody who played... It was a totally frustrating experience. We pitched the game into the back of the closet, packed it up with the other games and took it with us at every move to a new place, but never got back to it.

Skip forward a few decades and we have The Younger Son wanting to learn to play. The Parental Units are useless, because we can't make heads or tales of it. The Younger Son studied the rule book and researched the game online and discovered a small local group that meets weekly. They welcome players of all ages and skill levels. He's been going regularly for some time now and has started teaching The Daughter and me to play. I've discovered a new saying:

If at first you don't succeed, wait until you have a child old enough to teach you!

It's working for us.

Wikipedia's rules are here. Another explanation is here.

There are sites where you can play online. There are Facebook applications here and here and here, but I don't know how good they are.

The photo of the Go game at the top of the post is from DJOtaku's Flickr stream.