The reason

I’ve been running the league in the new structure since June 2010 and to be honest I didn’t expect it to be such a huge success. In 5 months the classes settled and the result is we now have extremely active Alpha and Beta layers! As always systems are not perfect so we have some criticism as to how we can improve but I’m not going to talk about that now.

What I want to talk about is internet go. When I talk to people about internet go they always treat it as a phenomenon, internet go is not serious, internet go is only blitz, its not like going to a club and playing a real game of go. These are all reasons not to play go a lot online. So what is a good reason to play online? Why would you get on KGS to actually play a game? If you just play a game online, do you feel satisfied after the game and do you want to play again soon? All in all online go feels empty and meaningless. I think that is why blitz is popular in internet go, because if you blitz you can shove away the reason to think and just play.

I think the league fills that void. By giving a meaning to your game and having results against other players count for something you finally get a reason to play online. I think KGS is a great place, it has a good community, but it can’t give you a good reason to play.

The future of internet go is bright when people start to treat internet go as a real game of go and not just some distraction.

For the future of the league I think the path is laid out as we pioneer ourselves to great heights. In a year I think we will see an increase in activity and players. The superclass project hopefully takes off like a rocket and also the ASR school, which is still work in progress, will get this community all its resources it needs to get the ASR functioning like a perfectly oiled machine in which everyone can play, study, and learn from eachother."