Wow, I'm surprise to see this thread. Glad you love this game but unfortunately I'm too noob at it.Shut up & sit down posted a Go review and it's as informative as it is entertaining:
Go Review - A video 4,000 years in the making
Huge thanks to Masters of Games for letting us borrow their Go products: https://www.mastersofgames.com/Support the Show: https://bit.ly/SupportSUSD / https:...www.youtube.com
I think many kids in China and Japan at least know the basics, but Go was in huge decline before AlphaGO brought it back to the limelight. I don't even know Ke Jie before AlphaGO, even though he had won multiple world champions.
Also kids don't play them that often, when I was a kid, I got a chance to learn one of the board games, but I (also my friends) choose chess because it's more western and looks cool. It's funny that when I move to Germany my friends want to play Go rather than chess with me.
Then the AI/internet revolution also took away much fun of the playing, my chess teacher can go fishing while sitting and playing Go with his friends, but nowadays people hardly do that because they play with friends on online platforms. Then with AI training, everybody starts to sit in front of their PC against AI because that's maybe one of the most efficient way to improve.