Triangle Go Club has the distinction of being the oldest club in North Carolina. We have anywhere from ten to 14 or more people at our club each week. Joe Shoenfield played Go on a regular basis in the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill) area for over 40 years. He played all comers, the weak and strong. He was a central member of our club, and rarely missed an evening before his death in 2000. In honor of his dedication to the game, here are some very quick thoughts on why I think face-to-face go is still important.

I have some strong feelings on the subject of the affect of the Internet on Go. I started playing tournaments in the days before the Internet, over ten years ago. It used to be quite a noble quest to find someone to play with, and once such a person was found they were prized. And I'd think nothing of driving five or six hours from Chapel Hill to play in a tournament in Baltimore or Washington, DC, as back in those days there was not much organized Go playing in North Carolina. I still think nothing of making the trip to the tournaments, although I wish I could say the same for all of my Go comrades.

It does seem that in the last couple of years tournament attendance has gone down at the Baltimore and Washington area tournaments I used to go to.

In addition, a quick survey of email addresses for Internet (IGS) players reveals numerous (fifteen to twenty or more???) strong players in the Raleigh-Durham area who have never been to a tournament or club meeting here. This lack of interest would never have happened in the days before the Internet, I assure you. Finding a person with willingness to play would have been as precious as gold.

So why the decline? Perhaps this is part of the "Lone Bowler Syndrome" where people oversocialized in the fast paced modern work environment need solitude for relaxation. We just don't want to interact with others after having had to do it all day long. More simply, I guess IGS is just less time consuming (and cheaper) than making a trek across states, having good conversation all the way with your Go brethren, sharing the adventures of the road, and regaling each other with epic tales of epic triumph and stupidity at the tourney.

But I am not a Luddite. I also play on the Internet and so I know the dark side. While it is great to be able to play go at 3 am Saturday morning in the throes of an insomniacal rage, in the long run I do not find the games on the net to be very satisfying. It is difficult to explain, but these quick "junk food" Internet games do not persist in the memory, and I do not seem to learn much from them. Perhaps this has something to do with visual perception (lack of depth, literally). Perhaps it is just my bias--it is a worthy topic of study for someone. I just learn more at tournaments by being able to talk to my opponent after the game, to see his facial expression as I suggest a crazy move, and to listen to the chiding comments of the stronger player who might be standing over the board watching us review the game.

I am, however, exploring taking teaching games over the Internet, and this looks promising. And with two babies under three, I might have to change my tune about the merits of playing Go alone at home.

In summary, I think that the Internet does allow people in the Go backwaters (everywhere except Major U.S cities in the North East and California) to play, it has hurt tournament and club attendance. And it has hurt the intangibles, the romance of the game. But thank God Go has not fallen to brute computation as chess has, and is still a place for the expression of human ingenuity and creativity.