The Game of Go

The Game of Go

By Sahir Irfan

Go is a board game that originates from China around 4000 years ago. It is a zero sum strategy game between players, meaning that there is a winner and a loser (Schraudolph). The game involves strategic placing of black and white stones. The objective of this game is to gain territory and capture the opponent's stones. (Isabel Christina Lewis) By the 1600's, it had become one of the Chinese's "Four Accomplishments," along with calligraphy, painting, and playing the lute. Men of the era believed that they must master these Four Accomplishments to become successful (A Brief History of Go) . The history of Go is rich, from Japan's four Go schools created in the 1600's to the Meji restoration of the game in the 1800's. Mark Rubenstein, a Go player at Northwestern University, says that the strategies to defeat opponents are endless.

There are two versions of Go: two-dimensional and one-dimensional. The only big difference between these two dimensions is that players build large groups of stones to capture and gain territory. In one-dimension, you only need to stones to capture or defend (Isabel Christina Lewis). The game is played on a 19x19 grid, but beginners use either a 9x9 or 13x13 boards. Black always plays first. When two or more stones of the same color are tangent to other stones of the same color, the stones become a group.

The game ends when both players pass on consecutive moves (Keh-Hsun Chen). Points are earned from stones captured and from empty nodes inside the player's territory. In order to capture a stone from the opponent, the player must have stones to all adjacent nodes of the target stone. An empty node adjacent to a stone is called a liberty (Isabel Christina Lewis).

Once a piece is played it cannot be moved. Once the piece is captured, the node becomes vacant. Players can choose to skip their turns, but if both players pass then the game is over. A player is not permitted to commit suicide and/or place a stone in which goes against the rule of ko (Keh-Hsun Chen).

The ko rule is a rule that permits the board from looking the same as it did last turn. This prevents an infinite take-back stone which ruins the game. (Youtube.com) In order to move forward, the player can introduce a threat on the board, like adding a piece to a group, making it larger, hinting that the player is aiming for a piece. The no suicide rule means that players can't place a piece down with no liberties. The only exception is if it results in the immediate capture of an opponent's piece (Youtube.com).

The rule of ko is made to prevent a loop of moves, resulting in much more difficult gameplay. During play, there are consecutive vacant spots all on the board. Those areas are called blocks, and there are 6 different kinds of blocks. The bw(k) is when the stones tangent of the block are different colors. The bb(k) is when the stones are black and ww(k) is when it's white. The bd(k) and wd(k) are when one stone is black and at the end of the board. The last one is dd(k), and that's pretty much before the play (Isabel Christina Lewis). The letter is a variable for the distance. When the distance between the opponents block and the players becomes 0 (example: bw(0) or wd(0)), capture then takes place (Isabel Christina Lewis).

Capture is a result of leaving a piece with just one liberty. A good example here is using two black pieces, with a bb(1). If white places a piece and creates a bw(0), white captures and gains two points. As a result though, the opponent can place a black piece in the same spot to capture the stone. Following the rule of ko, this works even if it turns the board back to a similar state because a stone is captured. In the instance of a loop beginning to emerge, players cannot recapture immediately until the next turn. (Isabel Christina Lewis)

Go originates from different places in Asia. In China, Go has a different name. It is called weiqi, which means surrounding game (GoBase.org). There are many legends that explain the origins of Go. One legend is that Emperor Yao (2357-2255 BC) (Sensei's Library), invented Go to enlighten his son Dan Zhu. A Chinese legend says he "came down from the heavens," and taught it to Dan Zhu. Emperor Yao was not proud of his son's behavior, so he ordered his advisor to teach his son tactics, strategy and concentration (Sensei's Library). As a result, the advisors, or Shun, created Go. However, Emperor Yao's son refused to play it because whoever goes first will win. This is the most told legend on the origins of the game. The game was played by varying groups later on, mainly by high ranking citizens like politicians and scholars.

Chinese people view the game as the "Encircling Game", which is a metaphor of war and hunting strategies. (GoBase.org) The game can be similar to that of a general with an army. It makes sense to agree with this metaphor. The white stones can be platoons, moving to gain territory from the enemy. Furthermore, some politicians and masters of the game led certain groups in an army. The board's grid design resembles the agricultural dykes used by early farmers (All About Go). The rules and other information about Go history come from The Analect of Confucius (All About Go). The game survived for hundreds of years, and became a big part of society during the Tang Dynasty. For the masters of the game, they earn the title of Meijin (Sensei's Library). For those that master the game at the time, they could earn political positions or be seen as high intellectuals.

During this time, Ji Xin Wang wrote the 10 Golden Rules of Go. The first one is the greedy do not get success (Sensei's Library). If you try to force the game to go your way, you'll more than likely expose a weakness in your pieces. The next one is to be unhurried to enter opponent's territory (Sensei's Library). In the early stages of the game, a framework called moyo is present in the board. Moyo means stones are unconnected with distances between them. Following that is to take care of oneself when attacking the other (Sensei's Library). It's the equivalent of making putting on armor before battle. Examine the board to make sure you don't play into the enemy's hand. The next rule is to discard a stone to gain a sente (Sensei's Library). By this rule players should use stones to divert the opponents focus. The next rule kind of piggy backs on the previous rule, and that's to abandon small to save big (Sensei's Library). By following this, players learn to let go of Kasuishi, which means unimportant stones. It's vital to know when there