The difference between areas that have an active IRL go scene and those that don’t is mostly population density. If you really want to participate in an IRL go club, your best bet is to move to an area that has one. If you rule that out, your second-best bet is to find the existing go players in your area and figure out what incentives you can give them to meet up in person more regularly.
In America the AGA has been growing at a rate of around 1% per year. That’s certainly not nothing, but let’s say through your heroic efforts you double that rate for five years. Now your county has about 10% more players than it did before. So if before you couldn’t have a real go club because there were only 3 go players in your county, now you have 3.3 go players in your county.
The county seat is the Town of Bath also known as Berkeley Springs. There is an ancient mineral hot springs here that produces hundreds of gallons of water per minute. It is loaded with magnesium and very healthful. You can drink this water and bathe in it.
Now, am I really the only Go player here? Well maybe still the only serious one (that I know of) but I have already taught ten adults and children how to play and I’m building up momentum for a Go Club that will have monthly meetings in Berkeley Springs.
It’s a rural area with all that entails yet the town itself does have a tinge of cosmopolitanism, with a music scene and an outstanding local theater. There is a promising venue that can host the club, and maybe more than one location that will work.
Someone proposed that it be a ‘Chess and Go’ club since lots of people play chess and this would help to drive attendance at first. Then I will expose the chess players to go and they (some?) will naturally see the light of its superiority. I think this would probably work but it seems impure to me. I’m on the fence about it and open to ideas.
Ultimately as has been said the key to expanding the player base in 20 years is to teach children, which is fun, and once you get them going they can play each other and learn very fast. There are a lot of homeschooling families here and I am hoping to offer this in a way that can be part of the homeschool curriculum for some families.
If we can do this even a little bit I think it will put them ahead of most of us adults who taught ourselves here and there, in our spare time.
Of course I tell everyone how great I think the game is (every chance I get) and sometimes give a spiel of how they can be on the cutting edge of history in bringing Go to the West and, specifically, to West Virginia!
As you probably realize, there is a danger of the chess people swamping your club and taking over. I suggest, when promoting the game, that you emphasize that go is the world’s oldest board game.
I love West Virginia, and once spent a day in and around Berkeley Springs, where I visited the “Berkeley Castle.” It can be done in a day trip, so if you get the club going, I’ll try to come to a meeting and play a game.
The Mr. Polgar method of speaking about a theory to do with learning the game, find a single woman who is convinced of your theory, convince her to marry you to test the theory, and teach your children the game?
Well, I was assuming they’d convince some others to play. I’m sure the Polgar sisters have been the impetus for far more than 18 people getting into chess, though I don’t have any statistics to support that
Just the other day, during our family union dinner for the Chinese New Year’s Eve, I asked my nephew, who is now in elementary school, how many games and what games he had played with his friends, he said only played with one classmate, who he met in Go school before (who is also a lot stronger than him, my nephew wasn’t very gifted sadly). And he said most his classmates (in normal school) would play chess or Chinese chess, or poker games, which are more popular (they played a variation called 大老二, which is very popular here).
When I asked why he didn’t teach his classmates to play Go, and he said he can easily destroy anyone with simple ladders (young kids are generally not good at “teaching games”, and just want to win), and he already lost like dozens of stones for the Go set I gave him, when he brought them to school. I’d say, the initial cost and the step needed for kids to teach each other is quite difficult without a teacher (or existing Go club already).
great repore with others in this series of posts plus great pictures - love to visit that part for your country when well when you know who is gone. i think if i have time left i will make that on my bucket list - i can hear the ancestors in that shot of the mountains as far as go goes – it might hard slouge but you sound like the person to at least start it
