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Comment by samatman | Hacker News Reader

Chess has great historical significance in the West, but Go is a better choice for universal education in abstract strategy. Most important reason: the handicapping system is rational. Chess handicapping has a way of leading to hurt feelings in young children: "see? I beat you without my knights! you suck!"

Also, the rules are simpler, the play is more complex, and (most subjectively) it teaches better lessons outside the context of the game. I would rather people's native mode of competition be "oops looks like this mostly belongs to me now" rather than "I am going to relentlessly pursue you until you're completely murdered"

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Regarding those two lessons, I'm not so sure. Rephrased, you might say that chess's lesson is that small advantages snowball and give you leverage to make bigger advantages. That is certainly a key insight that needs to be in your intuition for everything ever.

While I believe this to be true, I also believe it to be in the (very large) category of overlapping lessons between chess and Go.

As a 1 dan in igo aka baduk aka wei-qi, I can attest it is an excellent skill to make asian friends and just friends in general. Chess offers you access to the western world...which is a declining commodity. Also, go is a more computationally interesting problem at the moment. The strongest computer is far weaker than even top amateur players....let alone professional players who are even far stronger.

As only a 5 kyu, I like Go, but I think it's extremely silly to claim that a game is more interesting for humans because computers are worse at it. Computer chess has made the game more fun for humans, not less; it's as if you have the world champion sitting next to you helping you review every game, point out your mistakes, and evaluate alternative choices. Computer analysis frequently unveils interesting possibilities in games that humans don't find.

I agree that the notion that chess is "less complex" than go for humans because it is more amenable to algorithmic play under current computing limitations is silly. Both games are, for all practical purposes, infinitely complex when played by people. Logic, creativity, intuition, structural thinking, they all have to come into play.

I don't think he was claiming that Go is more fun for humans because computers are worse than humans at it. The statement was: "computationally interesting problem". I think he was thinking in terms of the challenge it posed to computing science, not whether or not humans found it enjoyable to play. But he also does seem to enjoy Go for its social benefits.

4kyu player myself. I enjoy how Go allows for extremely complex play with far simpler rules.

That's true, I made a bit of a straw man up there, but in my defense it's one I have encountered in non-straw form over and over.

I learned this lesson from Go rather than chess, but I'm not sure why (having been exposed to chess for far longer).

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