For such simple rules, Go is an amazingly complex game. In the years that I've played, I've never gotten to an amateur dan level, and of course have never been close to a professional level. I think the highest I've ever achieved was a 4kyu on www.gokgs.com, though I haven't gone back for a while.

As I've played, I've noticed that my mentality on how to play the game would change. It's much like how for a kids hockey match, everyone will crowd around the puck in one big clump all over the ice, but as they mature, they'll learn passing, strategy, breakout plays, defensive schemes, etc.

My evolution of gameplay went something like this:

1. Play wherever the other person is playing. Conquer the board one section at a time by winning one battle at a time.

2. Spread out to try to cover more of the board at the same time. Depend on coverage to win, with skirmishes here and there as borders clash.

3. Battles on one side of the board influence and impact battles on the other side of the board. Strategy still hinges on staking territory, but individual skirmishes depend on brute force calculations to choose the correct path of stone layout to win each skirmish.

4. The entire board is contested, whether territory has been staked or not. Any location on the board can become a point of attack. Identify critical points that would make the other player's defenses collapse. Rip them apart from the inside out and own the whole board. At this point, it's no longer trench warfare along large borders. It becomes more like sending in special forces into the heart of enemy territory to blow up seemingly secure fortifications. Brute force calculations into the future are no longer always possible due to the complexity of the branch prediction, so rely more on intuition and experience if necessary.

Of course, I am easily humbled whenever I play an amateur hobbyist who is actually truly good (usually from South Korea). They are able to execute my #4 style of play at a level far higher than anything I can imagine. It is mindblowing to see them slice up my defenses like hot butter, while I can do nothing to even remotely damage their defenses, even if they are handicapped at the beginning of the game.

It makes me have a lot of respect for the game when I can have exciting complex games when playing with people at my own level, but still be decimated by others who are still only amateurs themselves. The game can be fun at any level of play, which I think some games aren't able to do.

I cannot even imagine what it would be like to play against actual professionals. I imagine it would be like a Diamond level Starcraft 2 player going up against MC or MVP (ironic that both the top Go players and Starcraft 2 players are from South Korea?).

Sadly, though the game was invented in China, I do not find many Chinese people who are interested in this game, despite the article's claims (I currently live in China today). I wonder why that is. Maybe I'm just not meeting enough people.