Go, mainly because I like larger scale board games (19x19 size). Go feels like fighting a war (macro) with many battles (micro) whereas Chess is fighting a single deciding battle. I do still like Chess though. They are different games. A lot more people have played Chess so here's my sales pitch for Go:
The rules of Go is very simple, more simple than Chess. You can learn everything you need to start playing in under 10 minutes. Yet at the same time it can be incredibly more complex. But even at high ranks it's extremely basic at its heart. I have a greater appreciation for Go pro players because the skill ceiling is seemingly infinite (at least from my perspective).
Every game of 19x19 Go is virtually unique. The amount of possible (legal) games of Go is ~2.082×10^170 which is something like this number:
For context that's an order of magnitude more than Eddington's number, the estimated number of protons in the observable universe.
As for the game; You have these isolated battles across the board which at first don't amount to much until these battles begin influencing and spilling over one another. It's a constant fight for territory. Then at the end stage of the game, everything links up and 'front-lines' are formed into a big picture when the victorious emerges. My favourite game is the Lee Sedol ladder game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6QerXttau8
As for the requirement of memorization to be good at the game, it's true that some amount of studying is involved with learning sequences (Joseki). But you need way more game experience for that to be useful as you also need to build an intuition for an understanding of patterns. It's similar to Chess in this regard, but more.
As for counting the points to determine a winner, there's an easy trick. For Chinese rules, rearrange the shapes into squares and swap an equal amount of white and black stones. For Japanese rules, it's the same except you're swapping equal amount of empty space (territory). You can then easily count by using multiplication on nicer square shapes. The amount of points for each side won't be affected.
It’s going to be impossible to define “better” here because that’s a subjective opinion. But I will make a couple statements.
In most of the world, Chess is much more popular. However in China, Go is much more popular. In 1997 an AI manages to beat the Chess world champion for the first time. It wasn’t until 2016 that AI managed to beat the Go champion.
That implies that Go has more permutations and is a more “complex” type of game that is harder for computers to brute force. Does that make it better? Up to you.
I prefer Chess but likely just because I grew up playing it. If I were Chinese I would likely prefer Go. I’ve tried playing Go before but couldn’t get into it because I didn’t understand it fully.
is there some kind of chess.com or lichess equivalent for go? I have a friend who always kicks my ass at correspondance chess, might be nice to have a change of scenery
Of the two, probably Go because it’s easier to set up and modify. You can have Go games of several different sizes, and it can be drawn on paper if you need it to be. Though I also like the different variants of Chess that are not classic Chess. Not that it has never been hybridized; look up a game called Cho (have been asked to link in this manner, Google having more commonality I guess, questions didn’t seem welcome).
Alright, I’ll go against the grain and say that Go is the better game.
I’m not very good at Go, but I’ll always consider it the better game. It’s less about memorization and more about planning, adaptability, and intuition.
It has rules for handicap to allow inexperienced players to compete on a more even footing with experienced players.
The board can be scaled down for faster, more tactical experiences.
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