The Game of Go

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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_at_yahoo.com
roylaird_at_gmail.com special thanks to Kiseido
Publications
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JAPAN CHINA
KOREA
Go has several names. The Chinese call it
wei-chi, also spelled weiqi. In Korea its 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.
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• 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

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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

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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
Players Almanac
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The traditional go board has a 19-line grid.
Beginners play on small 9 or 13-line boards.
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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.
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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.
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Go players hold the stones between their first
and middle fingers, like chopsticks. They snap
them down on the board with a sharp click.
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The goal is to surround more points of territory
than your opponent. Players may surround and
capture their opponents stones.
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To be safe from capture, a group of stones must
have two eyes, meaning two or more, separate
empty intersections inside its walls.
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Players stake out the territory they want, and
then they fight and build walls to keep it.
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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 opponents territory to
make counting easy.
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• 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

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GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
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DEPTH OF COMPLEXITY Árpád Élo 43 levels
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COMPUTERS CANT PLAY! Go is so complex that the
best programs routinely lose to talented
children. Computer programmers call it the last
refuge of human intelligence.
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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..
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• COMMERCIAL PROGRAMS
• Strongest ones are 6-8 kyu
• Best ones make studying fun -- problems, games
• Record and study your own games

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• 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
• Ultimately players compete with themselves

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• GO ETIQUETTE
• Play to the opponents right hand
• Thank you for teaching me
• Prisoners in the lid
• Count the opponent's territory
• Return your stones to the bowl

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• GO ON THE INTERNET
• FREE!
• At least 1000 online any time of day or night
• Anonymous play
• Ratings are 3-5 stones lower

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• FREE SOFTWARE
• Igowin -- http//www.smart-games.com/igowin.html
• Handtalk -- http//www.yutopian.com/go/
• GnuGo (open source) -- http//www.gnu.org/software
  /gnugo/gnugo.html
• Game collections -- www.usgo.org/resources/interne
  t.asp

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• TIME CONTROL
• Regular time plus overtime (byo-yomi)
• Asian style x periods of y seconds each
• Canadian style x stones in y minutes

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• INTERNET GO SERVER
• The original -- since 1991
• 500 participants online at all times
• Many strong players
• Simulcast important tournaments
• Everyone sees everyone

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• KISEIDO GO SERVER
• 400-1000 players of all levels at any time
• Room-based environment
• Java-based -- runs on everything

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• 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.as
  p

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• 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
• Think before ignoring a stronger players move

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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.
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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.
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attributed to Kano Shoei (1519 - 1592)
THE FOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS During Chinas golden
age (the Tang and Song dynasties ca. 700-1400
A.D.) the cultured person mastered four skills
painting, calligraphy, lute-playing and go.
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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 years winner became
the go-doroko (Minister of go), occupying a
cabinet-level position in the government.
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This fan from ca. 1800 shows two Chinese men
playing go while a young man looks on.
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Go became a common theme in 19th century ukiyo-e
prints. Here, Tadanobu, a famous samurai, fights
off his enemies with a go board.
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In this scene from The Tale of Genji, two women
reminisce about the brief relationships with the
Prince while playing go, and find peace.
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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,
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Repelling demons while playing go. (1861)
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Playing go with a demon (ca. 1835)
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WITH GO MAKE FRIENDS This scroll, commissioned by
an American traveler in Beijings Tiananmen
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.
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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
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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
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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
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• THE WAY OF GO
• Troy Andersen
• Global Local
• Owe Save
• Slack Taut
• Reverse Forward
• Us Them
• Lead Follow
• Expand Focus

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The Master of Go, Yasunari Kawabatas poignant
chronicle of this historic 1938 game between the
last honinbo and a brilliant young upstart, won
the Nobel Prize for literature.
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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.
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Trevanians 1979 best-seller chronicles the life
of Nicholai Hel, orphaned during WW I and raised
by a Japanese go master to become the worlds
most accomplished assassin.
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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.
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In Pi, a cult classic, a demented mathematician
tries to find a formula for the universe, using a
go board.
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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?
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GO IN AMERICA Chinese immigrants probably played
the first games in North America among themselves
here in the 1800s.
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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.
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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.
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ITS A BIG CHALLENGE The number of possible go
games has been estimated at 10761 (OMNI, June
1991), far more than the number of subatomic
particles in the known universe.
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RATINGS

• Estimate based on current performance
• To get a rating? Play in a rated tournament
• Online ratings -- 3-5 ranks lower

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• HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR RANK?
• Beginners start at /- 30-35 kyu
• Kadoban -- win three in a row -1 rank
• gt1 kyu shodan (black belt, new master)
• 7-dan is the highest official amateur rank, but
  some 7-dans are stronger than others
• Pro ranks (Japan, China, Korea) 1-9 dan

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• 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

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• 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

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Many books and websites want to help you learn
about go. American Go Association - www.usgo.org