Tunteeko joku esimerkiksi KGS:ssä virolaisia gon pelaajia? On perin harmillista, että eteläisessä naapurimaassamme ei vielä ole järjestäytynyttä go-toimintaa. Olisi erityisen hienoa, jos Tallinnaan syntyisi aktiivinen go-yhteisö. Tallinnassa on puoli miljoonaa asukasta sekä teknillinen korkeakoulu ja yliopisto. 

Minusta voisimme tutkia mahdollisuutta järjestää Tallinnassa gon esittelytilaisuus esimerkiksi yliopistolla, teknillisellä korkeakoululla tai joillakin sopivilla messuilla. Minua kiinnostaisi olla mukana järjestämässä sellaista jonakin viikonloppuna. KGS:n saunassa voitaisiin järjestää jälkeenpäin alkeiskurssi. Onko muita kiinnostuneita?

-- [Markku Jantunen], 8.1. 2004

Eilen aloin hengaamaan Eesti asi -huoneessa ja siellä näyttäisi olevan joitakin. Vähän ja kiireisiä, joten hiukan ovat heikoilla organisoinnin kanssa. Ja yksi aktiivisimmista asuu Helsingissä. Myös liettualaiset ovat kiinnostuneita aiheesta, joten heidänkin kanssaan voisi olla yhteistyössä. Heitä tapaa ainakin Lithuanian Roomissa.

-- [Jari Koivikko], 8.1.2004

Esitelmän pito ja esittelymateriaali eivät varmasti ole ongelma. Ne voidaan hoitaa kokonaan omin voimin. Mutta tilaisuuden mainostaminen on. Tallinnan yliopistolle tai teknilliselle korkeakoululle pitäisi ottaa itse yhteyttä sekä kysyä tilanvarauksista ja lupa ilmoitusten kiinnittämiseen auloihin ilmoitustauluille ja seinille. Myös jonkin paikallisen ylioppilaslehden toimitukseen voisi tarjota ilmoitusta gon esittelytilaisuudesta. Käytännössä homma vaatisi kaksi käyntiä. Helsinkiläiselle yhden päivän käynti on mahdollinen, koska Helsinki-Tallinna -matka katamaraanilla ei kestä kuin kaksi tuntia. Tampereelta ei kannattaisi lähteä kuin viikonlopuksi, mutta mielestäni Tallinna on kiva kaupunki, jossa on hauska käydä ihan muuten vaankin.

-- [Markku Jantunen], 8.1. 2004

Ajatus on kannatettava. Olisi hyvä, jos olisi kontakti johonkin tallinnalaiseen henkilöön, joka voisi järjestää tilan ja ilmoittelun. Itse esittelyresissuun voin osallistua, mutta minua ei innosta erillinen valmisteluretki. Voihan toki siihenkin löytyä vapaaehtoinen täältä.

-- [Matti] Siivola 8.1.2004

Hi, if you want Estonians to understand, it would be better to switch to English. Anyhow, there are only a few Go players in Estonia, and it seems that nobody is really considering to be a serious tournament player in the future. Still, it would be nice to get a Go promotion tour by stronger neighbours. Some ideas: (a) KGS had at some point 4-5 Estonian high school pupils. That would be an ideal audience for say even online lessons. (b) Estonia has a very active renju club (two renju world champions come from Estonia!). It has 50+ members, regular meetings, mostly children. And a fulltime(?) teacher. I bet they would be interested in learning another game. (c) There's going to be a combinatorial game theory course in Tartu, and it could be interesting to have actually some good Go player (who has math background) to give a visiting lecture. But this has to be discussed with the lecturer (who is a 21k? on KGS).

-- Helger, KGS 8k, 8.1.2004

Fine. I'll repeat muself in English. If we get somebody from Tallinn to arrange a place and advertise to get people there I beleive that we can send a group of people to visit Tallinn and do some promotion there. We just had better to select a weekend when don't have any big tournament in Finland.

When is the combinatorial game theory course in Tartu going to be? 

By the way, is there a reson not to put your name below your text?

-- [Matti] Siivola 8.1.2004

No particular reason, modified my last signature.

The course is going to take part during this semester, janwil from KGS is the lecturer. He has lectured it once before, the course homepage (in Estonian) is at http://math.ut.ee/~jan/game/

I'd invite interested persons to Estonian room in the KGS to discuss the matters. Since the number of active players is quite small, it takes some effort to find somebody to arrange a place (I am myself in Helsinki!).

I might pop in to some HGK club evenings if I have time. This is probably the most reasonable way to start something.

The best Estonian player _we_ know is 4k on the KGS, although we have been acknowledged that there was a Russian(?) 4d living in Estonia in 80ies. I have no idea for how long, and where he is now.

--- Helger, 8.1.2004

It is not particularly difficult to arrange a venue for go demonstration and advertise it so that we would have some 20-30 interested people participating. I can do that, no problem. What is difficult is what will happen next. I don't know if it is very useful to just arrange the demonstration and then tell people that this is it, now go and play. There ought to be some follow-up, or otherwise we will probably lose 90% of the people who came. Of course, we could always refer people to KGS, but I very much doubt if chess or renju would have the kind of popularity that they do have now in Estonia if it was only played on the internet.

In my opinion, the real problem that we have right now is that there is no-one who would have enough time and commitment to actually follow up on the interest that will be created by the presentation. Maybe I'm wrong and maybe there is no need for any follow-up. In that case - as I said I can organise the venue and advertising for presentation in Tallinn, and I'm sure Jan can do the same in Tartu. However, I will not be able to work on promoting go on any continuous basis, i.e. organising regular meetings, teaching, answering questions, etc.

-- Tarmo (nuwanda on KGS), 9.1.2004

Good. Isuggest the following plan. We arrange the demonstration. Immediately after finishing we discuss with the people if they have interest in playing regulary. You should aim to have one meeting weekly. If that sounds unrealistic then have one every two weeks. You can make a break for summer, if you have problm of having people or the place at that time. The key is to make it predictable. People should know that at certain time at a certain place they can play. Helsinki Go Club has played over 24 years on Tuesdays. Arrange two players to come at the start of all the meeting. One is also enough, but it might be boring to wait for others. 

I cannot guarantee sending a finnish player every week to Tallinn, but I think there can be several visits during the year.
Do you have boards and stones there?

-- [Matti] Siivola 9.1.2004

Matti, this is the point - I cannot commit to any regular playing nights, be it even once in two weeks. Helger lives in Helsinki, so he won't be able to do that either. At least for the beginning I think that it would be a good idea to have someone around at these meetings who can explain things, answer questions and comment games every now and then - if it's only complete beginners I don't know how well it will work out.

We do have couple of boards - I have one rather decent set (which is pretty uncomfortable to carry around though), marttiku has a folding board, Helger has a set, but that's in Helsinki I suppose. But that's about it, I think.

-- Tarmo 9.1.2004

I understood your point. What I had in mind was to see after the demonstration if there were any persons who would be able come to regular meetings (doesn't have be you). If there were nobody then we would give up for a while or have another try in Tartu.

-- [Matti]  9.1.2004

Also, there used to be Go clubs in Tartu and Narva in 1989. Tartu had several(?) 1-2d players, but also they were nonestonians, so they might have left. I however tracked down one of them - Igor Ionov has now EGF 10k, has participated in LG Cup Moscow 2003, and he is still living in Tartu. Contacting him might reveal some other hidden players, and in that sense, Tartu might have quite a potential. May be also Igor or somebody like him would like to restart the Tartu club.

-- Helger 9.1.2004

Jari said earlier that some Lithuanians have also expressed interest in spreading go in Estonia. Since Tartu is in the south and thus more conveniently located for the Lithuanians, perhaps they could help. They hang out in Lithuanian Room on KGS.

-- Markku 9.1. 2004

Anything go-promoting to take place in Tallinn would be very nice, especially if it's something regular; even regular online lessons would be much better than nothing, perhaps they'd give the necessary motivation which most of us, Estonians, are lacking of. I and a couple of my friends, I believe, would definetly be interested.

-- Alo (ubique on KGS, if anyone wishes to know) 09.01.2004


The game theory course in Tartu is mostly going to follow Conway, Guy and Berlekamp's "Winning Ways" (and _not_ Ken Binmore's "Fun and Games" as did the course last time I gave it; the link given above is therefore out of date). I will probably try to give a few real examples of combinatorial game programming as well and Go sounds fine for that purpose. So at least a couple of dozens of students in Tartu will know the rules. Whether some of them will stay playing remains to be seen.

-- Jan (janwil) 09.01.2004

Most of the Estonian players are 25k - 10k. At this level, lectures and occasional (rare) visits by foreign players won't help you much to become stronger. First of all, you have to play as often as possible to gather some experience. And you should work on your reading skills (study tesuji, solve Go-problems). That will bring you the fastest progress.

Lectures are nice to make people meet in real life (not only on KGS). But in order to create a real community, you need to organise regular (weekly) meetings and play each other. Yes, the first few months will be difficult. It needs some discipline from everybody. But you will see how fast you'll get used to meeting your Go-friends each week. And then it's a piece of cake.

Go-lectures as promotional activities won't work if you don't have regular meetings. After a lecture people will ask you where and when they can come and play. If you don't have an answer to this, you wasted an opportunity.

-- Olaf (owl on KGS) 10.01.2004

Are there any players in Tallinn, yet? This was the point of my original suggestion: to make go known in Tallinn. I believe that there are enough players in Greater Helsinki area, maybe about 150, for at least one of them to be in Tallinn once every two weeks or so organizing a club evening. It's a two hour trip to Tallinn from Helsinki. The cost (one way) varies between 30 and 50 euros + accommodation (if not at a local player's home). Tallinn is a very nice place to visit. I wouldn't mind visiting Tallinn a couple of times a year despite the fact that I don't live in Helsinki.

-- Markku 10.1. 2004

----
Below is a list of Finnish players willing to make at least one trip to
Tallinn this year.

|Name|Rank|City|Number of visits in 2004|
|Markku Jantunen|2 dan|Tampere|1-2|
|Tapio Vuorinen|8 kyu|Tampere|At least 1, propably more if financially possible
|Matti Siivola| 5 dan| Vantaa|
|sinikka Siivola| 9 kyu| Vantaa|