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

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.

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

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

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

The traditional go board has a 19-line grid.

Beginners play on small 9 or 13-line boards.

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.

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.

Go players hold the stones between their first

and middle fingers, like chopsticks. They snap
them down on the board with a sharp click.

The goal is to surround more points of territory

than your opponent. Players may surround and
capture their opponents stones.

To be safe from capture, a group of stones must

have two eyes, meaning two or more, separate
empty intersections inside its walls.

Players stake out the territory they want,

and then they fight and build walls to keep it.

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.

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

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

CHESS

GO

Opening (Fuseki)

Control the center

Stake your claim

Middle (Chuban)

Gain tactical,
material advantage

Defend, dispute claims

Endgame (Yose)

Close in for the kill

Finish the details

DEPTH OF COMPLEXITY

rpd lo
43 levels

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.

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..

COMMERCIAL PROGRAMS
Strongest ones are 6-8 kyu
Best ones make studying fun -- problems, games
Record and study your own games

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

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

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

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/internet.asp

TIME CONTROL
Regular time plus overtime (byoyomi)
Asian style: x periods of y seconds
each
Canadian style: x stones in y

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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, luteplaying and go.

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.

This fan from ca. 1800 shows two Chinese men

playing go while a young man looks on.

Go became a
common theme in
19th century ukiyo-e
prints. Here,
Tadanobu, a famous
samurai, fights off
his enemies with a
go board.

In this scene from The Tale of Genji, two women

reminisce about the brief relationships with the Prince
while playing go, and find peace.

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,

Repelling demons while playing go. (1861)

Playing go with a demon (ca. 1835)

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.

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

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

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

THE WAY OF GO
Troy Andersen
Global Local
Owe Save
Slack Taut
Reverse Forward
Us Them
Lead Follow
Expand Focus

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.

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.

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.

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.

In Pi, a cult classic, a demented mathematician tries

to find a formula for the universe, using a go board.

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?

GO IN AMERICA
Chinese immigrants probably played the first
games in North America among themselves here in
the 1800s.

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.

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.

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.

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

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
Pro ranks (Japan, China, Korea): 1-9 dan

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

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

Many books and websites want to help you

learn about go.
American Go Association - www.usgo.org