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
Ph.D.
antonninno@yahoo.com
roylaird@gmail.com
Roy Laird,
JAPAN
CHINA
KOREA
Go has several names. The Chinese call it wei-chi,
also spelled weiqi. In Korea it’s 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 Player’s 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 opponent’s 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 opponent’s 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
Árpád Élo
43 levels
COMPUTERS CAN’T 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 opponent’s 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 (byo-
yomi)
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
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 China’s “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 year’s
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 Beijing’s
Tian’anmen 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 Kawabata’s 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.
Trevanian’s 1979
best-seller chronicles
the life of Nicholai
Hel, orphaned
during WW I and
raised by a Japanese
go master to become
the world’s 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 1800’s.
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.
IT’S 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