Earlier today, I went to the Nihon Ki-in in Osaka to meet a friend and play some Go. While I was there, milling around the tiny bookstore they have, I happened to notice a small but colorful A4-sized flyer advertising for applicants to the Japanese Go Foundation’s “Go of the Future” (igo mirai) course. I’d [...]
My father frequently claimed that he could tell a lot about other people’s personalities by playing golf with them. “When you’re out on the green”, he’d say, “the ‘real you’ comes out.” I have no reason to doubt what he said, but because my own experience at playing golf lasted barely the length of a [...]
I was in Tokyo yesterday and, with a just a little bit of spare time on my hands, I decided to locate and visit the main branch of the Japanese Go Association, called the Nihon Ki-in (日本棋院 in Japanese). Armed with only the address and a vague idea that it was somewhere between Tokyo station [...]
My weekly Go study group usually meets in a meeting room off the main playing salon at the Kansai branch of the Nihon Ki-in in Osaka. However, because of a room scheduling conflict, for today’s class we were bumped upstairs to a part of the building I’d never seen before: the tournament rooms. Housing eight [...]
Looking to play Go in Osaka? I sometimes play at the Tennōji Go Center, which is situated on the fourth floor of a nondescript office building that’s very close to the Tennōji train station in south Osaka. The Center occupies a full floor of the building and has around 30 or 40 Go boards set [...]
I’m heading to my parents’ home in Oklahoma for the coming holidays, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that there’s a resurgence of Go being played there. Though the number of players is small, the interest level is growing and clubs seem to be meeting on a regular basis in Oklahoma City and, so [...]
