Baduk or Go or Weiqi, is an abstract board game originating from Ancient China that's still being played today. Two players take turns placing stones on a 19x19 grid to capture territory or capture stones. The player with the most captures + territory wins. The rules are simple but it leads to interesting and deep strategy.
Back in high school for Grade 11 programming there was a final project component and on the list of sample ideas was a Go AI. That was when I first learned about the game. I was a Chess player (a pretty mediocore one) so I liked those 2 player abstract games. It was only when I saw the AlphaGo games where I got hooked. I would stay up late with my dad watching the English commentary by Michael Redmond on the 5 game bout. I thought how cool it would be to understand and maybe even be good at this game.
First I would try to play against my Dad who learned when he was in Korea, where Go (or more commonly known as Baduk) is a much more popular game. Next I downloaded a program called Many Faces of Go where I would play 9x9 games against the easiest bot. After that I downloaded GoPanda, a application where you can play against other humans. There I hovered around 12 kyu before giving up the game. Why did I stop playing? Probably due to a lack other players, most of my friends were already occupied with Chess. And even when I played on GoPanda I would be matched with bots who would play out every single move (invading every single one of my points!) which is part of a reason why one of my friends stopped playing (Looking at you Seth).
It was only in my 3rd year of University where I found people to play with (and who really knew how to play). In the Pure Math Club I met Henry and with him and Melissa we revived the UW Go Club. I met a lot of people and learned a lot about Go. We hosted a tournament, we went to club fairs and we played a lot of Go. There I jumped from 11 kyu to maybe 8-7 kyu. Now I live in Toronto and you can catch me at the Toronto Go Club,the UofT Go Club, and occasionally the Lawrence Park Club.
If you want to play a game with me feel free to send me a message on OGS