I played Go on and (mostly) off for some years, but I never left the beginner realm. Then I found Go Quest, where you can have matches of 3-6 minutes on a 9x9 board. I started to play daily in early summer and had the goal to lift my ELO from 1500 to 1600 on this site before university started again. That's the difference of being on place 9500 or 6500 on the sites ranking list. And I did it last week, just in time! Comparative ratings are difficult to translate to words, but I'll just call me a weak intermediate player on a 9x9 Go board.
You just sent me on an hour long quest to learn how to play Go. Thanks mate. See you in high elo soon! ; )
Go is harder than chess, but for what it's worth, there have been a few Go programs that beat professional players a few times in the last 10 years. MoGo and Crazy Stone are the two that come to mind.