--- Edward Lasker.

The 9X9 program you are playing against: I wonder if it is this excellent free program?

http://www.smart-games.com/igowin.h...

If not, I encourage you to give this one a try.

The full version of this program, "The Many Faces of Go" is quite wonderful, and reasonably priced:

http://www.smart-games.com/manyface...

I've never done the work necessary to get the free "GNU Go" program running on my machine, but I've heard that it's worth it:

http://www.gnu.org/software/gnugo/

The American Go Association has many good learning resources:

http://www.usgo.org/

They have a wonderful list of web links on this most ancient of games:

http://www.usgo.org/resources/inter...

The British Go Association is also very good:

http://www.britgo.org/

Dr. Emanuel Lasker was also quite a Go enthusiast (he mentions it a number of times in his famous "Manual of Chess").

A interesting quote sometimes attributed to Dr. Lasker (and at other times attributed to Edward Lasker) is "Chess is a game restricted to this world, Go has something extraterrestrial. If ever we find an extraterrestrial civilisation that plays a game that we also play, it will be Go, without any doubt."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanue...

Though I am a vast admirer of Chess and probably spend more than five times as much time with the Royal Game than with Go, I think I know what prompted this thought. There is something almost totally non-arbitrary about the rules of Go. It's as if they couldn't have been written any other way -- not entirely, but almost!

Good luck!

(: Bishop Berkeley :)

I actually think that I am a better Chessplayer for playing Go! I think the two games supplement one another quite nicely.

Good luck!

(: Bishop Berkeley :)

P.S. I share many of the interests listed in your profile!

P.S.2. I believe the Zurich Chess Club is considered the oldest Chess club in the world (founded in 1809, http://www.sgzurich.ch/ ). I wonder if you've ever played there?

P.S.3. I wonder if you have investigated http://www.chessvariants.com/ , a wonderful site for various national (and other) versions of Chess and other games? The "Zillions of Games" software they reference is, in my view, a magnificent achievement! By means of this "universal gaming engine" you can play Chess, Go, Chinese Chess, Shogi, Checkers, and a truly ENORMOUS range of game-variants: http://www.zillions-of-games.com/ !! I cannot praise it highly enough (and the price is not prohibitive).

Cheers!

That's why this message is out of sequence!

Good luck!

(: Bishop Berkeley :)

<Dr. Eduard Lasker — sein stammbaum und familienumfeld Ein genealogischer Beitrag zur deutsch-jüdischen Geschichte>

transl.: Dr. Eduard Lasker - his family tree and family background A genealogical contribution to the jewish-german history.

<Richard W. Dill

Abstract On the basis of recently (re)discovered documents, the paper discusses the family tree of the Jewish Lasker dynasty, originating from Lask in Poland, formerly Prussia. The common forefather of all Laskers was Rabbi Meier Hindels, who lived around 1700. In Germany, the most successful of his descendants was Dr. Eduard Lasker (1829–1884). He was a lawyer, co-founder of the National Liberal party, and in his lifetime the most conspicuous parliamentary opponent to Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Germany owes him a considerable part of its present day legal structures in criminal, civil and public law. His younger brother Moritz/Morris (1840–1916) settled in Texas and became a prominent figure both in business and society. The Lasker family branch that he established in the United States is still flourishing today and has produced a number of personalities of public renown. While visiting his brother, Eduard Lasker died in New York in January 1884. Edward Lasker (1885–1981), a prominent US-based chess champion, descended from another family branch. One of his nieces, Anita Wallfisch-Lasker, wrote an autobiography that describes her ordeal as a member of the camp orchestra at Auschwitz.>

The last sentence of the german abstract reads:

<Daß auch der deutsche Schachweltmeister Emanuel Lasker (1868–1941) in den dargestellten Stammbaum eingeordnet werden kann und damit mit Eduard Lasker verwandt ist, darf zwar als sicher angenommen werden, muß aber genealogisch noch zweifelsfrei belegt werden.>

transl.: That also the german chess champion Emanuel Lasker (1868 - 1941) can be inserted into the displayed family tree, and thereby is related to Eduard Lasker [the 19th century politician], can be assumed as certain, but still has to be verified genealogically.

in: <Zeitschrift für Religions und Geistesgeschichte> Volume 58, Number 4 / September 2006, Pages 337-356

" An intriguing phenomenon which links mathematics, music, and chess is the fact that child prodigies have been known in only these three fields. "

-- Edward Lasker