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Comment by jvvw | Hacker News Reader

Two player games do have an advantage as you only need two of you. Finding other children to play with is a huge advantage too and lots of schools have chess clubs, so I understand it's popularity. It's hard if you are much better at a game than your children. Magic The Gathering works well because they can genuinely beat us, but you need a keen player as a parent really.

There is also the age issue. I think Go is a more interesting game than chess but the scoring is a little hard to teach and it hasn't captured my children's interest as much as chess. Backgammon is interesting - been wondering about teaching it to my children as a counterpoint to chess. Not sure if mine (9 and 11) are quite ready for all the bidding conventions in bridge but working up to it with whist. Poker is very educational I think - I learned lots from playing it - but not really sure whether it would work as a family game.

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Definitely give backgammon a try with them. It's very easy to pick up the basics, I reckon any 9 and 11 year old will pick it up in an hour, if you avoid the doubling die and just play games out.

A few evenings of this and before you know it they'll be playing tavla with a lovely turkish tea on the side and will be learning some farsi for common rolls. What's not to like?

Backgammon is a game I wish I’d picked up young. Anything that lasts that long is worth a look.

Edit: I meant lasts that long in the sense of being played for the past 5 millennia. I didn’t mean the duration of a game.

In addition, most bridge is boring as hell.

You study all these cool bidding problems. You work out how to drop the offside 10 when held against. Then, you sit down at a table with other people ...

And get a single semi-interesting hand the entire night.

Mostly everything is perfectly obvious bidding and perfectly obvious play. "Trick, Trick, claim" -- "Trick, Trick, Trick, Trick, claim" -- etc.

However, to be fair, "boring" is probably a good thing if bridge is regarded as a social activity. I find that I really can't be "social" playing chess. The "a single mistake can sink you" aspect of chess makes it too mentally demanding.

In addition, most bridge is boring as hell.

I’m sorry that’s been your experience.

If you find that most of your games are routine and entirely obvious, you might like to make sure you’re shuffling the cards properly before each deal. A classic problem particularly with social bridge is that you have a deck or two and someone just does a casual overhand shuffle or three between deals. That doesn’t mix the cards up anything like enough and tends to result in lots more bland, even deals than there ought to be with truly random shuffling.

I don’t know anything about your standard or the level of people you play with, but it’s also possible that your group tend to be very conservative bidders. If few of your auctions are competitive and usually the partnership with the stronger hands gets a free ride to a reasonable but cautious contract, it’s inevitable that you won’t face so many challenging situations in the card play stage because you’ll be under less pressure and the other side will have less information to plan their defence. If this is happening, either side could probably get much better results by being more active during the auction and so creating more challenges for their opponents and opportunities for themselves during the play.

I think the problem here is that rubber bridge is just very low intensity compared to most modern games.

Of course there’s a frisson when you correctly bid a slam or sacrifice to prevent your opponents from finding theirs. But most bridge players don’t even know how to recognize a borderline slam, and they just bid a game and don’t contest, leaving things pretty low stakes.

It’s so unfortunate that it takes 8 to play duplicate, as duplicate is my favorite of all games.

But I understand why people don’t get excited about bridge for 4.

Duplicate is fun, but also rather mentally intense. I've only played it for maybe a dozen sessions, but matchpoint especially is brutal because you get punished for missing some very thin possibilities for extra tricks.

I did caddy a lot of tournaments in my youth though, with a high point being the women's national team trials. Any time they set up the partitions, you knew it was going to be serious.

Ah, yes - Rubber is quite a different game. It's possible to play duplicate with only four players these days by using Bridge Base Online: they have a database of old competitions, their deals and scores, so you can play against a virtual room. Less fun playing online than round a kitchen table, though.

I also play a version of Chicago bridge where you play IMPed against a par score calculated from your partnership's number of high card points[0]. That introduces some of the need for aggressive bidding that can be missing from (non-gambling) Rubber and is a fabulous game: nearly as much fun as a decent club duplicate. I've never seen this variant played or taught outside my own social circle, though we didn't invent it.

[0]: http://maproom.co.uk/useful/bridge.html

That Chicago variation looks great. If I had a group of 4, I would try it immediately.

So, I have not heard of frisson in my entire life, until 20 minutes ago, when there was a post on HN about it. And now I read it again!

Bridge is at least as deep as chess, and most hands, no matter if it is a grand slam or a seemingly trivial partial, pose several dilemmas for every player.

Thing is, the beauty of bridge (much like programming) only reveals itself after months of regular play; but instead of alarming red lines of error messages you just write your score and move on. If you don't inmerse yourself on it, you'll never see all the decisions you could have taken better.

For me, as a several times national representative player, it's perfectly obvious you haven't understood it yet.

It's obvious you've just never got hang of the game, and don't really understand it.

There are millions of more or less addicted players around the world (including me) that will tell a very different reality :)

I read the rules of Go, bought some books on it, watched some videos, and played several games. I never had a clue what I was doing. Was I winning or losing? I couldn't tell. I had very little strategy. Even as a child, chess was so much more straight forward.

Bridge has always seemed similar to Go IMO from a "what in the world" kind of view. I started going to a bridge club and took a few classes. I kinda understood bidding, but never what was going on. I know people actually figure it out, but I honestly felt like it was some kind of cosmic joke on me lol.

Interesting. Most folk I know fairly rapidly develop a basic intuition around Go as at the initial phases one leverages basic pattern recognition, which humans are good at. I think the issue you raise though is fundamental to the beauty of the game, which is that subtle differences in play have drastic emergent consequences.

You're not making me feel better :)

Maybe the pattern recognition just takes awhile. It took me quite a few games for "Set" to become natural.

>> understood bidding, but never what was going on

I would blame your teacher for this (im guessing that there was one in club?)

The relation between biding and then strategy of trick taking is something that requires a good teacher that can show where the real game is (the communication in biding and standard language of bidding is especially important and then the understanding of the probability aspects of the game makes it kinda clock for eveybody)

On the other hand - chess ... I really never understood it (the deep game strategy aspects of it, openings and final board positions less so)

Regarding Go, I'd say playing fast games on a 9x9 board is a good way to build confidence in understanding.

Fine, since you came out of the closet, I will too. I don’t understand Wordle, solitaire, bridge, or minesweeper. I can write a compiler soup to nuts… But I can’t figure out minesweeper.

That’s interesting. Maybe the games are unique in that they ask you to make inferences about the hidden state of the world, whereas the compiler has the entire program available.

Still, both problems (compilation, minesweeper) can be solved through the logical repetition of a basic set of rules.

I am going to claim that the documentation for all of these games tends to be so self referential that I think it only helps if someone has already showed you the ropes.

I’m also 100% willing to accept a diagnosis that is much less in my favor

Minesweeper is definitely frustrating in the way it presents you with the game board already in play and asks you to intuit the rules on the fly.

THANK YOU

Get a free app and 9x9 should not be hard. For the real 19x19, need a teacher I think.

>Two player games do have an advantage as you only need two of you.

While not to encourage being antisocial, chess also has very good computer programs to play against--and even provide instruction. I assume there are good consumer accessible Go programs these days too although I haven't looked for a while. It's nice to have as a backup and, in general, I find computer card games are less capable or have annoying blind spots that you can suss out after a while. For example, I've found that computer Hearts programs are pretty vulnerable to shooting the moon against them.

Backgammon could be good--although I never really got into it. I suppose Checkers is another option but, of course, relatively simple.

Although I'm even worse at Go than I am at Chess, I agree with you. Chess probably has at least an easier learning curve to get to some minimal level of competence.

>While not to encourage being antisocial, chess also has very good computer programs to play against

even better, with the likes of Lichess and Chess.com there is near instant placement into matches with a similarly skilled human

It's much better to play go against human competitors; there are several servers where you can do that.

The best place for tips is probably the Sensei's Library website.

No.

www.reddit.com/r/proweiqi

> It's hard if you are much better at a game than your children.

I disagree, growing up I stalled out improving at chess because no adult around my small town could reliably beat me, give a close game or point me at any resources to improve. I'm playing at ~1500 level as an adult (having stopped playing for 20 years) so have definitely lost some potential there.

These days it's not the case as there are many more easily accessible resources for children to find themselves, but a capable adult player is definitely a huge benefit as they can teach a child a lot about mindset towards competition as much as the game itself.

> I think Go is a more interesting game than chess but the scoring is a little hard to teach

It's not just the scoring part, the goal of the game is somewhat elusive. Surround more than the opponent, how do I even get started? Chess, despite having way more complicated rules, has an immediately obvious goal: capture the king.

As someone who is pretty decent at go (6k OGS, for those who know what that means), I teach go in a pretty unorthodox way, which has so far produced much better results than the way I see other teach it.

The way I teach both the rules and basic strategy of go is to start with the smallest possible board 1x1 and work our way up.

on a 1x1 board, it's impossible to place any stones because it has no liberties. Great now the player knows about liberties.

Then we move to a 2x2 board, where it is possible to place a stone and capture the opponent's stone. Great now we know about captures and ko.

Then we move to 3x3, where we find ourselves able to create our first live shapes, and get to score the board. Now we know when the game ends and how to score it!

Then we move on to 5x5, where we play our first 'real' game, now knowing all the rules.

I'm not very good at go, only European 4dan, but I also have some opinions on teaching :)

In my experience, ko is confusing and shouldn't be explained until the players encounter it in their game, play it for a while, and say "wait this is stupid", which is a good time to explain "actually you're not the first to encounter this situation, and there's a rule to handle it!"

Isn't ko just simple forbinding of board state repetition rule ? (As in You cannot go back to previous state of board and create infinite cycle). Akin to repetition rule in chess. Why would this be hard for beginers ? Unless You try to frame it as a forbinding of retaking the stone that took Your stone - because that can be confusing and it does not explain why this rule exist.

> Isn't ko just simple forbinding of board state repetition rule ?

In sensible rule sets, yes.

For technically-minded people, forbidding of board state repetition is easy to understand. For children and less technically-minded people, ime they often won't understand what it means and will worry they'll repeat the board state accidentally and it takes a whole lot of explaining and examples. Everything very much depends on who you're teaching.

I've never once looked at how to play Go but your explanation was super helpful. I appreciate this learning style. I use it with computer stuff too (e.g, in an algo process a list of len 0, then 1, etc)

You can start with Atari-Go, thats pretty obvious for a while, and then 9x9 scoring is relatively easy.

I think there are other reasons not to teach go than this one.

> I think there are other reasons not to teach go than this one.

Mind elaborating? I'm very interested in this topic!

I made a rather large survey mostly among the European go players as to why they play go, learning why one shouldn't play/learn/teach go (pick any) would be even more exciting!

The worst thing that could happen is that they like the game and end up spending thousands of grueling work for a thankless game.

Source: former professional-aspiring player

I have probably spent thousands of hours playing/studying go. I did it because I enjoyed doing it, and enjoyed getting better. No regrets at all.

I never had aspirations to become a professional player, which probably explains the difference between our experiences. I've met many hikaru-no-go-powered "professional-aspiring" players, most of whom didn't even achieve dan level. It seems a recipe for disappointment and bitterness.

That is profound thruth to live by - the journay should be always more important than the destination.

And it always amazes me how one little anime was able to promote go all around the world. I dont think that I know anyone who saw hikaru no go and then not started to learn go (myself included)

I already knew how to play when watching Hikaru no Go, and am surprised there are people who didn't know how to play before and bothered watching nevertheless. Is the story that interesting even if one can't follow the games?

[Edit: I guess the answer to my question is contained in your "dont think that I know anyone who saw hikaru no go and then not started to learn go"... though I wonder why people haven't just stopped watching!]

I believe Hikaru is really well done and if one can get through initial barier (its still anime - some people would never watch it event if their life depended on it) it is really engaging story (considering the main topic - a boardgame!)

Achieving a high level in this game requires thousands of hours of study. I did reach far in the ladder and could have gotten the actual pro title, albeit honorary like most westerners historically. Its just a time-sink with infinite competition.

I dont want to teach it to my daughter.

> could have gotten the actual pro title, albeit honorary

Why didn't you?

> Its just a time-sink with infinite competition.

So why did you play? And why were you aspiring to be a professional?

The life of a pro baduk player is pretty poor. Unless you are in the top you basically scrape by, and still need to train and think about the game 24/7. The majority of pro players live very frugally.

A mediocre programmer works 1/5th and making 5x than a p90 pro player.

I played seriously because I learned the game when i was very poor with no prospects, and then it latches on to your brain and you cant quit, like an addiction. I think I studied 8 hours a day while I was in highschool - during class, before and after school, weekends, vacations. Probably did 2~3 college degrees of time between 16-20 y-old, but the competition is simply brutal. You face kids that have 10,000 games before they turn 7.

Again, the great danger of teaching go to kids is not that they dont care about it, its what happens if they do.

Yes, if you want career and money, playing go is not at all the easiest way to achieve it. I know several professional players personally, they don't seem less happy then the programmers (and yes, some are also programmers on the side to pay the bills, because as you write, yes, 1/5 the effort to make 5 times as much).

You still can teach it even to small kids. It is fun, even if the scoring details are not fully understood.

Area scoring is far easier to teach, especially if you're willing to ignore imprecision from not considering group tax.

'just keep going until you both agree on who can put more of your stones on the board and keep them there'.

For Go game scoring, just use an app. Our local go club no longer count in our Rank Competition. Take a photo as a record and you get the result as well. (First 10 free for some …).

Bridge if you pay the uk has a very good web site for learning.

Bridge is basically a two-player game, where the players are pairs. It's also pretty accessible to people who are familiar with Euchre or Spades or Hearts.

It's a four player game. You need four humans.

Few people born in the last few decades are familiar with any of the games you mentioned.

Euchre, for example, is probably even more esoteric than bridge.

Hearts and Spades are pretty well-known. Euchre less so, although it was possible in my dorm when I was in college, I think probably because one person taught a few people who got into it. I've been responsible for spreading the play of Up and Down the River (aka Oh Hell) in a couple social circles, so all it takes is one person to get the game to take root in a community. I think that Hearts or Up and Down the River are the most accessible of the trick-taking card games (the former doesn't require bidding and the latter ends up being entertaining because of the dealer squeeze that happens in most hands).

Every Midwestern teenager is super-friendly with Euchre. It was a big deal when I was in high-school.

When was that? I'm from Illinois. Not my experience in the slightest.

I'm from Illinois and euchre was popular at summer camps in the Midwest when I was attending in the early oughts

it's popular in Michigan and Indiana In Minnesota, 500, similar to euchre, is played instead, euchre is unheard of in Minnesota.

I played more 500 with the extended playing deck.

My brother and I were keen players and developed a number of variations, particularly suited for two or three players.

One of the more fun ones was having a compulsory bid; no minimum number of tricks, but you were not allowed to bid in a way that would cause all the bids to add up to 10. You then had to make your bid exactly, so it added that element of strategically throwing tricks like you have in Hearts to force someone to go over. Standard 500 scoring if you made your bid, and -10 points for every card you were high or low.

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