In Go, all but the very best players in the world play with a handicap depending on who they are playing. It balances the game so that players who are not as adept have an equal chance at winning a particular game. This is an advantage that Go has over Chess, where removing pieces would just be silly.

> This is an advantage that Go has over Chess, where removing pieces would just be silly.

It used to be rather popular, actually, to play at pawn-and-move odds. If you search through old games, you'll eventually come across one where black starts without an f pawn.

There's also a famous Capablanca game where a young Capablanca is given a queen by his opponent (he wins, of course.)

I'd say the two biggest problems with chess are:

1. Too many draws.

2. First move has too big an advantage.

Neither of these is a problem in Go (draws are extremely rare or even impossible in many rule sets, and the second player is now given enough points that the game is almost even.)

I like both games a lot. Arimaa is fun too.

I've played it once or twice against a friend who also didn't know how to play. Seems like an interesting game, very deep.

I like how it seems to tap into some preternatural intinct to guard, protect, and incur against other "theoretically" boundaries...

It's like you can see the player's minds working sometimes (maybe if I was better it would be more often), an interesting game to be sure.

I don't know if it's true, I could just be stealing a line from the movie Pi; but people in a movie once said that no two games are like, and thus the game serves as pseudo microcosm for the universe. Either way you should watch that movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/ , and give the game a whirl.