Go (board game)
Go
Go is played on a grid of black painted lines (usually 19×19 of them). The playing pieces, called "stones", are played on the intersections of the lines.
Players 2
Age range 5+
Setup time None
Playing time casual: 20–90 minutes
tournament: 2–6 hours*
Random chance None
Skills required Tactics, Strategy, Observation
* some professional games take over 16 hours
Go is a strategic board game for two players. It is known as Weiqi in Chinese (Traditional: 圍棋; Simplified: 围棋), Igo or Go in Japanese (Kanji: 囲碁 or 碁), and Baduk in Korean (Hangul: 바둑). In order to differentiate the game from the common English verb "go", the game is sometimes written with a capital G or spelled as Goe, the latter used mainly in events sponsored by the Ing Foundation. Go originated in ancient China, centuries before its earliest known references in 5th century BC writing. It is mostly popular in East Asia, but has nowadays gained some popularity in the rest of the world as well. Go is noted for being rich in strategic complexity despite its simple rules.
Go is played by two players alternately placing black and white stones on the vacant intersections of a line grid. The standard size of this grid is 19 × 19, although the rules of Go can be freely applied to any size: 13 × 13 and 9 × 9 are also popular choices for more simple and tactic-oriented games as well as a way to introduce Go to new players. The objective of the game is to control a larger part of the board than the opponent. To achieve this, players strive to place their stones in such a way that they cannot be captured, while mapping out territories that cannot be invaded by the opponent without being captured. A stone or a group of stones is captured and removed if it has no empty adjacent intersections, the result of being completely surrounded by stones of the opposing color. Generally, placing stones close together helps them avoid capture, whereas placing them far apart allows a player to surround more territory. Part of the strategic difficulty of the game stems from finding a balance between these two conflicting interests. The game ends and the score is counted when both players consecutively pass on a turn, indicating that neither side can increase its territory nor reduce its opponent's.
Despite the fact that Go originated in ancient China, it is commonly known in the West by its Japanese name, Go. This stems from the fact that pioneers like Oskar Korschelt and Edward Lasker learned of the game from Japanese sources. Furthermore, the Japan Go Association has long played a leading role spreading Go outside East Asia, publishing the English-language magazine Go Review in the 1960s, establishing Go Centers in the US, Europe and South America, and often sending professional teachers on tour to Western nations.[1] As a result, many Go concepts for which there is no ready English equivalent have become known elsewhere by their Japanese names. The Japanese word Go is linked to the Japanese reading of its Chinese name Weiqi[2], which roughly translates as "board game of surrounding".
In many East Asian cultures, Go was considered one of the most important skills a civilized person could learn. This screen showing Chinese Go players in the Ming Dynasty was made by Kano Eitoku (狩野永徳) in the 16th century.
History
Origin in China
General Guan Yu (160–219) being treated for a poisoned arm by the physician Hua Tuo while playing Go. 1853 Japanese woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
Some legends trace the origin of the game to legendary Chinese emperor Yao (2337–2258 BC) who had his counselor Shun design it for his son, Danzhu — supposedly an unruly sort — to teach him discipline, concentration, and balance. Other theories suggest that the game was derived from Chinese tribal warlords and generals who used pieces of stone to map out attacking positions, or that Go equipment was originally a fortune telling device.
The earliest written reference of the game is commonly taken to be the historical annal Zuo Zhuan (c. 424 BC), referring to a historical event of 548 BC. It is also mentioned by Confucius in Book XVII of the Analects of Confucius (5th century BC) and by Mencius in two of his books (4th century BC). In all of these works, the game is referred to as yì (弈), a name that is no longer in use today.
In China, Go was perceived as the popular game of the aristocracy while Xiangqi (Chinese chess) was the game of the masses. Go was considered one of the four cultivated arts of the Chinese scholar gentleman, along with calligraphy, painting and playing the guqin....
Spread to Korea and Japan
Although Go may have reached Korea as early as the 5th century AD, more solid evidence stems from the 7th century AD. By this time, Go had also reached Japan[8], where it gained popularity at the imperial court in the 8th century[8]. By the beginning of the 13th century, Go was played among the general public in Japan.
Korean players in traditional dress play in a photograph dated between 1910 and 1920.
In 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu created Japan's first unified national government. Almost immediately, he ordered the then-best player in Japan, a Buddhist monk named Nikkai (born Kano Yosaburo, 1559), to found a Go Academy. Nikkai founded the Honinbo school and took on the name of Honinbo Sansa. Several competing schools were founded soon after. These officially recognized and subsidized Go schools greatly developed the level of play, and introduced the martial arts style system of ranking players. Players from the four schools (Honinbo, Yasui, Inoue, Hayashi) competed in the annual castle games for status and the position of Godokoro, or minister of Go. Players like Honinbo Shusaku[9] became national celebrities. A very famous game from this period is the Blood-vomiting game played between Honinbo Jowa (white) and Intetsu Akaboshi (black) on 27 June 1835. The government discontinued its support for the Go academies in 1868 as a result of the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate.
International Go
Go was introduced to the west at the end of the 19th century, when German scientist Oskar Korschelt wrote the first treatise of the game in a western language. By the early 20th century, go had spread throughout the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. In 1905, Edward Lasker learned the game while in Berlin. When he moved to New York, Lasker founded the New York Go Club together with (amongst others) Arthur Smith, who had learned of the game while touring the east and had published the book The Game of Go in 1908. Lasker's book Go and Go-moku (1934) helped spread the game throughout the US, and in 1935 the American Go Association was formed. Two years later, in 1937, the German Go Association was founded. World War II put a stop to most go activity, but after the war go continued to spread. By 2005, the European Go Federation had a total of 35 member countries.
In 1996, NASA astronaut Daniel Barry and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata became the first people to play Go in space, using a special Go set designed by Wai-Cheung Willson Chow. Both astronauts were awarded honorary dan ranks by the Nihon Kiin.
Rules
Although there are some minor differences between rulesets used in different countries, most notably in Chinese and Japanese scoring rules, these differences do not seriously affect the tactics and strategy of the game. The basic rules presented here are valid independent of the scoring rules used. The scoring rules are explained separately.
Basic rules
One black chain and two white chains, their liberties shown with dots. Note that liberties are shared among all stones of a chain.
Two players, Black and White, take turns placing a stone (game piece) of their own color on a vacant point (intersection) of the grid on a go board. Black moves first. Normally, the grid measures 19×19 lines, though the rules can be freely applied to all grid sizes. Grid sizes 9×9 and 13×13 are often used to teach beginners, and still offer a challenging game to experienced players. Once played, a stone may not be moved to a different point.
Orthogonally adjacent stones of the same color form a chain (also called a group) that shares its liberties in common, cannot subsequently be subdivided, and in effect becomes a single larger stone. Only stones connected to one another by the lines on the board create a chain, stones that are diagonally adjacent are not connected. Chains may be expanded by playing additional stones on adjacent intersections, or connected together by playing a stone on an intersection that is adjacent to two or more chains of the same color.
A vacant point adjacent to a stone is called a liberty for that stone.. Chains of stones share their liberties. A chain of stones must have at least one liberty to remain on the board. When a chain is surrounded by opposing stones so that it has no liberties, it is captured and removed from the board.
Generally, it is not allowed to play a stone in such a way that one of your own chains is left without liberties. Such a move is dubbed suicide. An exception to this rule occurs if doing so captures one or more of the opponents stones. In this case, the opponents stones are captured first, leaving the newly played stone at least one liberty.
Players are not allowed to make a move that returns the game to the position before their opponents move. This rule is called the "ko rule", and is present to prevent unending repetition. See the example to the right: Black has just played the stone marked 1, capturing a white stone at the intersection marked with a circle. If White were allowed to now play on the marked intersection, that move would capture the black stone marked 1 and return the board to the situation it was in before Black made the move marked 1. Allowing this would result in an unending cycle of captures by both players. The ko rule therefore prohibits White from playing at the marked intersection
Instead of placing a stone, a player may pass, indicating that he sees no way to increase his territory or reduce his opponent's territory. When both players pass consecutively, the game ends and is then scored.
Scoring Rules
There are two basic ways to count the score at the end of the game. The oldest of these is called territory scoring, and is used in Japan, Korea and most western nations. The other scoring rules —invented in 15th century China— are called area scoring and are used in China and some other countries. The US uses a scoring system that is a hybrid of these two systems.
With territory scoring, a player's score is the number of empty points enclosed by his stones plus the number of prisoners he has. Prisoners are opposing stones which he has captured during the game, or those that are still on the board but cannot avoid capture.
With area scoring, a player's score is the number of stones he has on the board, plus the number of empty intersections he has surrounded. Prisoners do not count toward the score under these rules.
Given the fact that the number of stones a player has on the board is directly related to the number of prisoners his opponent has taken, the resulting score under both rules is often identical, and is rarely more than one point different. However, under territory scoring passing is more attractive than it is under area scoring, so the Japanese games tend to end at an earlier (and less well-defined) stage than the Chinese games.
The American method is like territory scoring except that the prisoners include a stone passed when one passes one's turn, and the game ends after black passes and then white immediately passes (so that there are always an even number of moves). The difference in scores is then the same as what one gets from area scoring.
Optional rules
Optional Go rules may set the following:
· compensation points, almost always for the second player, see komi; Tournaments commonly use a compensation in the range of 5-8 points[22], generally including a half-point to prevent draws.
· compensation stones placed on the board before alternate play, allowing players of different strengths to play competitively (see Go handicap for more information);
· "superko": the ko rule (a move must not recreate the previous position) is extended to disallow any previous position. This prevents complex repetitive situations ("triple ko", "eternal life", etc.) from cycling indefinitely.[23]
Equipment
A traditional Japanese set, with floor board (goban), bowls (goke) and stones (goishi).
It is possible to play Go with a simple paper board, and coins or plastic tokens for the stones. More popular midrange equipment includes cardstock, laminated particle board, or wood boards with stones of plastic or glass. More expensive traditional materials are also still used by many players.
The traditional Go board (qi pan in Chinese and goban in Japanese) is solid wood, from 10 to 18 cm thick. In Japan it is preferably made from the rare golden-tinged Kaya tree (Torreya nucifera), with the very best made from Kaya trees up to 700 years old. More recently, the California Torreya (Torreya californica) has been prized for its light color and pale rings, as well as its less-expensive and more readily available stock. Other woods often used to make quality table boards include Hiba (Thujopsis dolabrata), Katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum), Kauri (Agathis), and Shin-Kaya (Spruce). So-called Shin Kaya is a potentially confusing merchant's term: shin means "new" and thus "shin kaya" is best translated "faux kaya" — the woods so described are biologically unrelated to Kaya.
In the Japanese style, stones (go-ishi) are kept in matching solid wood bowls (go-ke), and are made of clamshell (white) and slate (black). The classic slate is "nachiguro stone" mined in Wakayama prefecture and the clamshell from the Hamaguri clam. However, due to a scarcity in supplies, clamshells are being harvested from Mexico. The natural resources of Japan have been unable to keep up with the enormous demand for the native clams and slow-growing Kaya trees; both must be of sufficient age to grow to the necessary size, and they are now extremely rare at the age and quality required, raising the price of such equipment tremendously.
In China the game is traditionally played with yunzi stones, which are single convex (i.e. flat on one side). The stone comes from Yunnan province. Historically, the most prized stones were made of jade; often given to the reigning emperor as a gift.
In clubs and at tournaments, where large numbers of sets must be maintained (and usually purchased) by one organization, expensive traditional sets are not usually used. For these situations, table boards (of the same design as floor boards, but only about 2–5 cm thick and without legs) are used, and the stones are made of glass or plastic rather than slate and shell. Bowls are often plastic if wooden bowls are not available.
Traditionally, the board's grid is 1.5 shaku long by 1.4 shaku wide (455 mm by 424 mm) with space beyond to allow stones to be played on the edges and corners of the grid.[29] Newcomers may be surprised at first to discover that the board is not a perfect square. It is longer than it is wide, in the proportion 15:14. The reason for this is that when the players sit at the board, the angle at which they view the board gives a foreshortening of the grid; the board is slightly longer between the players to compensate for this.
Traditional stones are made so that black stones are slightly larger in diameter than white; this is to compensate for the optical illusion created by contrasting colors that would make equal-sized white stones appear larger on the board than black stones.
The bowls for the stones are of a simple shape, like a flattened sphere with a level underside. The lid is loose-fitting and is upturned before play to receive stones captured during the game. The bowls are usually made of turned wood, although small lidded baskets of woven straw are a cheaper alternative from China.
To be continued....
