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The game of_go
1. The Game of
Go
“Gentlemen
should not
waste their
time on trivial
games -- they
should play
go.”
-- Confucius,
The Analects
ca. 500 B. C. E.
Anton Ninno Roy Laird, Ph.D.
antonninno@yahoo.com roylaird@gmail.com
special thanks to Kiseido Publications
2. JAPAN CHINA
KOREA
Go has several names. The Chinese call it
wei-chi, also spelled weiqi . In Korea it’s
baduk . Westerners generally use the
Japanese word term i-go , or just go, because
Japanese pioneers like Kaoru Iwamoto
supported American go in the early days.
3. THE MOST POPULAR GAME
IN THE WORLD TODAY
Millions of fans in Japan, China, Korea
Top players earn millions
International tournaments pay up to $400K
4. THREE CLASSIC GAMES
BACKGAMMON: Man vs. fate
Element of chance
Risk/gambling (doubling
cube)
CHESS: Man vs. man
War paradigm
“Perfect information”
Attack -- Total victory
GO: Man vs. self
Open paradigm
Share -- victory by one point
“Personal best”
5. THE ULTIMATE MERITOCRACY
“Go is the one game in which . . .
everyone starts out equal, everyone
begins with an empty board and with
no limitations, and what happens
thereafter is . . . only the quality of
your own mind.”
-- William Pinckard, “Go and the Three Games “
in The Go Player’s Almanac
6. The traditional go board has a 19-line
grid. Beginners play on small 9 or 13-
line boards.
7. Go boards are made
of wood. The
pieces
are called stones.
The best stones are
made
of clamshell and
slate,
but glass stones are
less expensive.
Good
stones are usually
kept in
wooden bowls. The
lids are used to hold
any captured
stones.
8. Players take turns putting stones on the
361 intersections made by the 19-line
grid. Black goes first. Nine handicap
points are used to balance players of
unequal skill. Each intersection is a
point of territory, and each captured
stone is also worth one point.
9. Go players hold the stones between their
first and middle fingers, like chopsticks.
They snap them down on the board with a
sharp click.
10. The goal is to surround more points of
territory than your opponent. Players may
surround and capture their opponent’s
stones.
11. To be safe from capture, a group of
stones must have two eyes, meaning two
or more, separate empty intersections
inside its walls.
12. Players stake out the territory they
want,
and then they fight and build walls to
keep it.
13. The game is over when neither player
can find anything else to do. Beginners
often find it difficult to know when a
game is over. Each player rearranges the
opponent’s territory to make counting
14. GO AND CHESS
A Comparison
Larger board, more plays per game
(200-300 vs. 50-60)
Strategic vs. tactical
Simpler rules; all pieces are equal
Becomes more complex as pieces fill the
board
Blends competition with other elements
Win by one point, not total destruction
Universal ranks -- any two can play
No stalemates or draws -- a winner every
time
15. GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
CHESS GO
Opening (Fuseki) Control the center Stake your claim
Middle (Chuban) Gain tactical, material Defend, dispute claims
advantage
Endgame (Yose) Close in for the kill Finish the details
17. COMPUTERS CAN’T PLAY!
Go is so complex that the best programs
routinely lose to talented children.
Computer programmers call it “the last
refuge of human intelligence.”
18. HANDICAP: THE GREAT EQUALIZER
Because the board is empty at the start of
the game, the stronger player can give his
opponent a “head start” to even things out.
Nearly any two opponents can play a game
that either of them could win..
20. UNIVERSAL RANKING SYSTEM
Similar to martial arts, golf
Rank yourself by playing ranked
opponents
All serious players know their rank
Honest players will lose half of their
games
21. GO ETIQUETTE
Play to the opponent’s right hand
“Thank you for teaching me”
Prisoners in the lid
Count the opponent's territory
Return your stones to the bowl
22. GO ON THE INTERNET
FREE!
At least 1000 online any time of day
or night
Anonymous play
Ratings are 3-5 stones lower
24. TIME CONTROL
Regular time plus overtime
(byo-yomi)
Asian style: x periods of y
seconds each
Canadian style: x stones in y
25. INTERNET GO SERVER
The original -- since 1991
500+ participants online at all
times
Many strong players
Simulcast important
tournaments
Everyone sees everyone
26. KISEIDO GO SERVER
400-1000 players of all levels at any
time
Room-based environment
Java-based -- runs on everything
27. OTHER SERVERS
YAHOO! GAMES: 250-500 players at a time,
including lots of beginners and others who like to
play on a 9x9 board.
ASIAN SERVERS: Some sites in China, Korea and
Japan are enabled -- to varying degrees -- in English
TURN-BASED SERVERS: Leave a message with
your next move instead of playing in “real time”
Find them all at www.usgo.org/resources/servers.asp
28. ADVICE FOR BEGINNERS
Play quickly -- “lose 100 games”
Play stronger opponents
Ask for comments
Avoid repetitive thinking -- just try
something
Keep your stones connected -- separate
White
29. Go is at least 2000 years old, probably much older. No
one knows where it came from. Some people think the
board and stones were originally used to foretell the
future, or as a calculator.
30. “When you and I
discuss philosophy, it
is as if we play go. If
you do not answer, I
will swallow you up.”
-- Zen Master Hongzhi
ca. 700 A.C.E.
Painting with 17x17 board
ca. 690 A.C.E.
31. attributed to Kano Shoei (1519 - 1592)
THE FOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
During China’s “golden age” (the Tang and Song
dynasties ca. 700-1400 A.D.) the cultured person
mastered four skills: painting, calligraphy, lute-
playing and go.
32. THE “MINISTER OF GO”
Tokugawa Ieyesu, the first shogun, established four
“houses” to study go and compete in annual “Castle
Games” of great national importance. Each year’s
winner became the go-doroko (“Minister of go”),
occupying a cabinet-level position in the government.
33. This fan from ca. 1800 shows two Chinese men
playing go while a young man looks on.
34. Go became a
common theme in
19th century ukiyo-e
prints. Here,
Tadanobu, a famous
samurai, fights off
his enemies with a
go board.
35. In this scene from The Tale of Genji, two women
reminisce about the brief relationships with the Prince
while playing go, and find peace.
36. General Kuan
Yu, the hero of
The Romance of
the Three
Kingdoms, plays
go while a
surgeon attends
his battle
wounds. This
ukiyo-e is by
Katsushika Oi,
daughter of the
great Japanese
master Hokusai,
39. WITH GO MAKE FRIENDS
This scroll, commissioned by an
American traveler in Beijing’s
Tian’anmen Square, uses the
traditional Chinese four-character
proverb format to say that when
friends play go, their playing
strengths and their friendship both
get stronger.
40. CHAIRMAN MAO ON GO
“[War is] like a game of weiqi . . . Strongholds built
by the enemy and bases by us resemble moves to
dominate spaces on the board.”
-- Selected Military Writings
41. HENRY KISSINGER
ON GO
“Chess has only two outcomes:
draw and checkmate. The
objective of the game . . . is total
victory or defeat – and the battle
is conducted head-on, in the
center of the board. The aim of
go is relative advantage; the
game is played all over the board,
and the objective is to increase
one's options and reduce those of
the adversary. The goal is less
victory than persistent strategic
progress.”
-- Newsweek, 11/8/04
42. CITICORP CEO
JOHN REED ON GO
“Competition . . . [is] about positioning yourself
wisely over time, not wiping the other guy out on
specific products. I approach competition like the
Chinese board game go. You see where the other
players have put their chips, and decide where to
put your chips.”
-- John Reed, Chairman, Citicorp
Harvard Business Review December 1990
43. THE WAY OF GO
Troy Andersen
• Global Local
• Owe Save
• Slack Taut
• Reverse Forward
• Us Them
• Lead Follow
• Expand Focus
44. The Master of Go, Yasunari Kawabata’s poignant
chronicle of this historic 1938 game between the last
honinbo and a brilliant young upstart, won the Nobel
Prize for literature.
45. A BEAUTIFUL GAME
Russell Crowe plays brilliant, unstable mathematician
John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, Oscar-winner for Best
Picture of 2001. In real life, Nash is a charter member
of The American Go Association.
47. The Go Masters, an epic
tale of an enduring
friendship between two
great players -- one
Chinese, the other
Japanese -- during World
War II , brought Japanese
and Chinese film teams
together for the first time.
It achieved wide
popularity but is not
currently available.
48. In Pi, a cult classic, a demented mathematician tries
to find a formula for the universe, using a go board.
49. HIKARU NO GO
In this popular “coming-of-age” story, the ghost of
a famous player guides our hero to the pinnacle of
the go world -- or does he?
50. GO IN AMERICA
Chinese immigrants probably played the first
games in North America among themselves
here in the 1800’s.
51. Japanese professionals such as Kaoru
Iwamoto 9-dan helped early US players,
and The American Go Association was
formed in 1937. Most major US cities have
go clubs.
52. THE IWAMOTO CENTER
Mr. Iwamoto was in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
After seeing the results of first atomic bomb, he vowed
to spread international peace and understanding
through go. He established Go Centers in New York,
Seattle, Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro.
53. IT’S A BIG CHALLENGE
The number of possible go games has
been estimated at 10 761 ( OMNI , June
1991 ), far more than the number of
subatomic particles in the known
universe.
54. RATING
Estimate basedS current performance
on
To get a rating? Play in a rated tournament
Online ratings -- 3-5 ranks lower
55. HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR RANK?
Beginners start at +/- 30-35 kyu
Kadoban -- win three in a row = -1 rank
>1 kyu = shodan (black belt, “new
master”)
7- dan is the highest official amateur
rank, but some 7-dans are
stronger than others
56. WHAT ABOUT EVEN GAMES?
Evenly matched players choose for color
-- one takes a handful of stones, the other
guesses “odd” or “even” by placing one or
two stones on the board: the winner takes
Black
Black pays White 6.5 points komi for the
privilege of making the first move
57. GO IN THE WESTERN WORLD
Did not transfer to Western culture
“Outside the box” -- non-Western
thought
Lacks a decisive ending
No culture-specific spinoffs
58. Many books and websites want to help
you learn about go.
American Go Association -
www.usgo.org