Go (board game)

Go is a strategic, two-player board game originating in ancient China between 2000 BC and 200 BC.

Philosophy

According to legend, the game was used as a teaching tool after the ancient Chinese emperor Yao ? (2337 - 2258 BC) designed it for his son, Danzhu, who he thought needed to learn discipline, concentration, and balance. Another suggested genesis for the game states that in ancient times, Chinese warlords and generals would use pieces of stone to map out attacking positions. Further and more plausible theories relate Go equipment to divination or flood control. See also history of Go.

Related Topics:
Teaching - Chinese emperor - Yao - Divination - Flood - History of Go

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Before the industrial age in China, Go was perceived as the game of the aristocratic class while xiangqi (Chinese chess) was perceived as the game of the masses. Go was considered one of the cultivated arts of the scholar, along with calligraphy, Chinese painting and playing the guqin, known as ????.

Related Topics:
Xiangqi - Scholar - Calligraphy - Chinese painting - Guqin

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Go is deep, as playing against any stronger player will demonstrate (depth of the game as established by ELO ranking in Go). With each new level (rank) comes a deeper appreciation for the subtlety involved, and for the insight of stronger players. Beginners often start by randomly placing stones on the board, as if it were a game of chance — and they inevitably lose to experienced players. But soon an understanding of how stones connect to form strength develops, and shortly afterward a few basic common opening sequences may be understood. Learning the ways of life and death helps to develop one's situational judgement.

Related Topics:
Depth of the game - ELO ranking in Go - Common opening sequences - Life and death

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Further experience yields an understanding of the board, the importance of the edges, then the efficiency of developing (in the corners first, then sides, then centre). Soon, the advanced beginner understands that territory and influence are somewhat interchangeable — but there needs to be a balance. Best is to develop more or less at the same pace as the opponent, in both territory and influence. This intricate struggle of power and control makes the game highly dynamic.

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Computers and Go

Main article: Computer Go

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Although attempts have been made to program computers to play Go, success in that area has been moderate at best — development in this area has not reached the level of Chess programs. Even the strongest programs are no better than an average club player, and would easily be beaten by a strong player even getting a nine-stone handicap. (In fact, it is not uncommon for computers to be beaten by strong players at handicaps of twenty-five stones. It would probably be extremely common except that many Go players think it beneath them to play computers.) This is attributed to many qualities of the game, including the "optimising" nature of the victory condition, the virtually unlimited placement of each stone, the large board size (but it would be misleading to say they cope better on smaller boards), the nonlocal nature of the Ko rule, and the high degree of pattern recognition involved. For this reason, many in the field of artificial intelligence consider Go to be a better measure of a computer's capacity for thought than chess.

Related Topics:
Computers - Optimising - Artificial intelligence - Chess

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Use of computer networks to allow humans to meet, discuss games, and play one another, although generally considered inferior to face-to-face play, is becoming much more common. There are servers and software to facilitate this; see Additional Resources below for more information.

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Other board games sometimes compared with Go

This is a list of some games that are played with similar equipment or come from the same area.

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• Variations of chess
• Western chess: This game dominates Western game culture as the pinnacle of strategic game play; its history in the culture stretches back many centuries.
• Shogi ??: Early Western literature often referred to Go as "Japanese Chess". The Japanese do have their own game called Shogi; it is much more similar to the other Chess variants than to Go. Shogi schools were founded in Japan about the same time as Go schools, but the game never received as much favour as Go.
• Xiangqi ??: This is the Chinese variant of Chess, usually called "Chinese chess" by English speakers. Like most Chess variants, it has great depth of strategy, but bears few similarities to Go in game play. Xiangqi, like Go, is played on points rather than squares.
• Janggi: This is the Korean variant of Chess, usually called "Korean Chess". It is also very different from Go in game play. Go and Janggi are the two main board games played in Korea.
• The Game of the Amazons: A cross between Go and Chess. In this game the pieces have the same movements as the Queen in Chess. After a player moves, the piece fires an arrow (that has the same movement as a Queen in Chess). An arrow blocks the paths of other pieces and arrows. The player who can move last wins. There can never be a draw.
• Connection games. These are the most similar to Go in terms of style and strategy. One significant difference between Go and many connection games is the number of goals. In Hex, for example, there is only one goal: to connect your two sides. While this leads to significant strategic complexity (especially as the board size increases), in Go there are usually numerous different battles going on simultaneously.
• Hex and TwixT are connection games. Like Go, these have cutting and connecting tactics, but Hex is played on a hexagonal lattice.
• Y, Havannah, and *Star are connection games similar to Hex, but of more depth.
• Reversi: Marketed by Mattel as "Othello", Reversi bears superficial similarity to Go, with black and white circular pieces, an undifferentiated grid for a board, simple rules, and a goal of covering more of the board than the opponent. The game play is quite unlike Go, however, as it is based on flanking the opponent's pieces for capture. Captured pieces change their color.
• Gomoku, Renju and Pente: Played with the same equipment as Go (a 19x19 grid, black and white stones), in these games the goal is to create five stones in a row. The game style is thus much shorter and involves less strategy than Go.
• Abalone is a board game with black and white marbles. Strategy is somewhat of a cross between Reversi and Sumo wrestling, the goal being to push the other player's marbles off the playing surface.
• Alak is a Go-like game restricted to a single spatial dimension.

Traditional Go game equipment

Although one could play Go with a piece of cardboard for a board and a bag of plastic tokens, many Go players pride themselves on their game sets.

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The traditional Go board (called a goban ?? in Japanese) is solid wood, about 15–20 cm thick, and stands on its own attached legs. 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.

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Players sit on reed mats (tatami) on the floor to play.

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The stones (go-ishi ??) are kept in matching solid wood pots (go-ke ??) and are made out of clamshell (white) and slate (black) and are extremely smooth. 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 desired size, and they are now extremely rare at the age and quality required, raising the price of such equipment tremendously.

Related Topics:
Clam - Slate - Kaya

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In clubs and at tournaments, where large numbers of sets must be maintained (and usually purchased) by one organization, the 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 rather than slate and shell. Bowls will often be plastic if wooden bowls are not available. Plastic stones could be used, but are considered inferior to glass as they are generally much lighter, and most players find that not even the lower price justifies their unpleasantness. Very high quality table boards can be made of Kaya. Other woods often used to make quality table boards include Hiba (Thujopsis dolabrata), Katsura ? (Cercidiphyllum japonicum), and Agathis.

Related Topics:
Plastic - Glass - Hiba - Katsura - Agathis

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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. This often surprises newcomers: it is not a perfect square, but is longer than it is wide, in the proportion 15:14. Two reasons are frequently given for this.

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One 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.

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Another suggested reason is that the Japanese aesthetic finds structures with geometric symmetry to be in bad taste.

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Traditional stones are made so that black stones are slightly larger in diameter than white; this is probably to compensate for the optical illusion created by contrasting colours that would make equal-sized white stones appear larger on the board than black stones.

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The difference is slight, and since its effect is to make the stones appear the same size on the board, it can be surprising to discover they are not.

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The bowls for the stones are of a simple shape, like a flattened sphere with a level underside.

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The lid is loose-fitting and is upturned before play as a tray to collect stones captured during the game.

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The bowls are usually made of turned wood, although small lidded baskets of woven bamboo or reeds make an attractive cheaper alternative.

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There is even an art to placing a Go stone, held between the tips of the outstretched index and middle fingers and striking the board firmly to create a sharp click.

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Many consider the acoustic properties of the wood of the board to be quite important.

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The traditional goban will usually have its underside carved with a pyramid called a heso recessed into the board. Tradition holds that this is to give a better resonance to the stone's click, but the more conventional explanation is to allow the board to expand and contract without splitting the wood.

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A board is seen as more attractive when it is marked with slight dents from decades – or centuries – of stones striking the surface.

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