Why do ppl say gg before the game has even started?
“gg” is generally the contraction of “good game”.
In most games, this “good game” itself means “It was a good game”.
In go, though, it means “Have a good game”.
So basically in go saying “gg” means you hope your opponent to enjoy the game.
At the end, you’ll usually see “Thanks” or “Thx”, which means “Thank you for the game.”
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Imagine this in real life. Your opponent makes “gg” sound (“g” like in good) that would be silly.
If you cant write “have a good game” then why even bother. it’s better to write nothing and just make your move.
g g…g g g …
i agree that it’s lazy and I’m guilty of that as well. But hey, it’s as long as hi and shares the same purpose of showing a little bit of acknowledgement that the other guy is a live being taking part in the mutual act of mental wanking.
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Good one. 
It’s an honorary statement, like bowing before and after a sparring match. etiquette
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Yes, I’ve been wondering about that as well but I just respond with the same way or a similar way to my opponent. XD Thing is, sometimes when I say “Hi” or say to “Have a good game”, the party doesn’t even reply. 
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Etiquette is a funny thing.
In most online video games, gg is what you say at the end of a game. [That was a] good game. It would be considered very rude to say it at the beginning of a game: it’d be read as, “I am so good that the game is already over.”
I don’t play Starcraft, but I understand that in that game, even saying “gg” at the end of a game you won is rude. You have to wait for the other person to say “gg”, and only then can you respond. I guess it’s seen as presumptuous.
But in online Go it’s taken on a completely different meaning; it’s just a greeting. Etiquette is a funny thing.
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I mostly play correspondence games, now, and I find people are more inclined to chat when you are making a few moves each day. I can understand it when you play Blitz or even the shorter live games, using abbreviations, but it seems odd when you have five days to make your move.
Still, if the person is being friendly, why not reciprocate? When there is just nothing there I wonder if I’m playing a Bot.
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People obviously can write “have a good game”, but gg is shorter. Natural languages tend to simplify over time. And people wouldn’t say g.g.gg.g in real life, because the tendency for simplification affects spoken language in a way, and written language in another way.
But the tendency for simplification is countered by a tendency to preserve meaning.The other person certainly thought you’d understand what they meant. If you had asked them what they meant by that, they’d think twice before greeting a person like that again.
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Bozo, I wish everyone was as smart as you … aww
gg, is simply wishing a good game. I tend to use it in blitz. In longer games I am making the attempt to write out Have fun, or something similar. Yes it is a formality, but a nice one. Like saying thank you when someone holds the door for you. Politeness makes the world a better place.
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best reply is: ß ä ö õ ü 
Ăź
I have it now in my Notes
How strict are these rules? I know that saying gg in the beginning is a thing here, but I don’t do that myself. I generally say “Hi hf gl” in the beginning and “gg” in the end. Am I doing it wrong?
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well, if you want to be really polite, you should say:
ht iagycjmftgog phfagl
Not only here, AFAIK (as far as I know) it’s one of the traditions on most (if not all) English-speaking Go servers.
And IMX (in my experience) wishing the opponent a good game by typing “gg” is about as popular there as elsewhere on the ’net “ty” is for “thank you”, LOL for “laughing our loud”, etc. <shrug>, and ;) which is short for ;-) which is the emoticon (i.e. also short) for “wink” 
Some, of course, write “Onegaishimasu”. Maybe we should introduce a new shortcut for this … like … “ogs” 
Nope, there are no real rules, it’s just common courtesy, I’d think.
Although … I’ve always perceived “gl” to be somewhat, uhm, don’t know how to put it, to me it sounds as it my opponent means that I’d NEED luck to win and then I think to myself, “let’s see who needs the luck, I’ll just play best I can”.
Sometimes, when playing a stronger player, I have said: “Let’s have a good game, please teach me.”
(And no, I don’t always explain the acronyms I use )
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I view it differently - “good luck” really means “don’t have bad luck”. In other words, it means “let’s have an interesting game where we’re both at our peak and the best man will win, rather than the game being decided by a silly error or some RL outside circumstance”. Sounds appropriate to me.
In Hebrew we don’t have that problem since the equivalent phrase literally means “with success”, which does not imply that luck is needed.
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Ah, “mazel tov” seems to be a perfect greeting for the beginning of a game
Also, totally d’accord with your other explanations.
I don’t think you’re wrong. Saying “gg” at the end might puzzle some people but they will probably understand what you mean by that
That sounds like something really disgusting.