"Goban" is Japanese for the Go board itself, a fitting name for this program. These days you can pay up to a quarter million dollars for a classic-style Japanese (or Korean, or Chinese) Go board with legs, carved from a huge butcher's block of kaya wood. Goban is carved from the ethereal stuff of pure mind, plus a few zillion whizzing electrons, and I am hard pressed to say which is the better value. For one thing, Goban is a self-teaching tool. You can play against GNU Go 3.4, which is built in, or GNU Go 3.6, which you download from the official GNU Go site. You can even watch as GNU Go 3.4 plays against GNU Go 3.6. You can download one of hundreds of "sgf" files from the net, and replay the games one stone at a time (sometimes with comments!) or as a movie. You can set the board size to 7x7, 9x9, 11x11, 13x13, up to the full 19x19. You can play against beginners on the major internet go servers, you can watch pros and talented amateurs play against each other on the same servers -- and Goban is pre-configured to work as a client with two of the best, IGS Pandanet and No Name Go Server -- all you have to do is apply for a username and password. And you can simply bask in the aesthetic pleasure of seeing the games drawn so beautifully. Speaking of which, look at the About box. The graphic is "Sparrows nesting in a Go bowl", taken (with permission) from the IGS Pandanet collection of Japanese art featuring Go themes. The only thing Goban won't allow you to do is pick up the board and hurl it, kabuki-like, at an attacker (or Go opponent), with Go-ishi scattered to the winds. Maybe with a laptop...? Brilliant, brilliant work. If I could wish for anything, I'd ask for a way to turn the board around and see it from the opponent's point of view. That, and an up front explanation that 30 kyo is as low a Go ranking as you can possibly get. I hate this game. I love Goban.