A blog about the Ft. Myers Go Club, a registered chapter of the AGA, American Go Association.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Sunday, April 29, 2007

I sit here today and consider recent history in my neck of the woods.

Last Sunday there was finally a start to a Go club in Ft. Myers, FL. I started playing this captivating game of strategy in 2003 on MSN.games.

I wanted at first to start a club and tried by placing ads on the AGA E-Journal. I had one or two responses, but no committment. My area has a lot of tourist and winter visitors. Sanibel Island is in Lee County here and a lot of people have vacation homes there that they visit for a week or two. Some of my responders to my add were such vacationers.

Well after 4 years we have our start, Joshua Frye (who also teaches go to his math students at a local middle school), Rod Cheyney, Dave Saha (professor of math at FGCU), Nathan, and Chuck Saint, and myself make up the first adult members.



Joshua has about 100 of his students playing Go, with about 10 that are getting serious and playing on KGS. One of his students was in the Barnes and Nobles last Sunday and came over to meet me.

We plan to hold two tournaments this summer, along with regular weekly meetings.

If you are in the area live here or visiting, come on down, Let's Play GO!

Meeting Sundays 1pm - ?. Barnes and Nobles Bookstore, S. Ft. Myers, in the Target plaza.

Last Tuesday I held the first meeting of the N. Ft. Myers Public Library Go Program. I had 6 people show up, three from the Anime Club, and three young brothers. All 6 were enjoying their introduction to the game.
Wednesday I received my starter set from the AGF. Very impressive, nice plastic stones of 10mm thickness and good weight, in plastic jars with screw on tops. The 9x9, 13x13 reversible boards are a heavy plastic with a nice wood grain texture look on them. Also 10 "Way to Go" booklets, and 5 cardboard 9x9 handout sets (pieces punch out), with an AGA CD. Also two GO posters for advertising.
The librarians in charge of programs in the N. Ft. Myers library, Denise and Heather, has been great to work with. Their enthusiaism from the first I meantioned doing a Go program was great.
We moved the meeting night to Thursday 6:30pm - 8pm, as Rob is doing a chess club on Tuesday nights at the Cape Coral library and I wanted that night open to assist him in starting a Go program there.
I plan on doing another Go program in the Ft. Myers library once I am confident in the NFM one and have a few dedicated players.
Today the club meets again for further planning and playing Go.