[Board Games] The ancient game of Go.

Eteric

I've always really liked Go, and you've probably seem me complain about the lack of go in Clubhouse Games. I know many of you don't know what it is, so I figured it warrented a post.

Go is an ancient board game that originated in China around 4000 years ago. It's one of the oldest games known to man, pre-dating even Chess. It's a game that is rather simple to learn, but takes a life time to master.

I found out about it through the manga, "Hikaru No Go," and took up an interest in it. It turned out a lot bigger, and more interesting than I could have imagined.

Here is a small bit of history from Wikipedia.

Main article: History of Go

In many East Asian cultures, Go was considered one of the most important skills a civilized person could learn. This screen showing Chinese men wearing Ming Dynasty robes was made by Kano Eitoku in the 16th century.Some legends trace the origin of the game to Chinese emperor Yao 堯 (2337 - 2258 BC) who designed it for his son, Danzhu, to teach him discipline, concentration, and balance. Other theories suggest that the game was derived from Chinese warlords and generals who used pieces of stone to map out attacking positions, or that Go equipment emerged from divination material.[2][3] The earliest written references of the game come from the Zuo Zhuan, which describes a man in 548 BC who likes the game, and Book XVII of the Analects of Confucius, compiled sometime after 479 BC.[4]

In China, Go was perceived as the popular game of the aristocratic class while Xiangqi (Chinese chess) was the game of the masses. Go was considered one of the cultivated arts of the Chinese scholar gentleman, along with calligraphy, painting and playing the guqin, together known as 琴棋書畫 (四艺, pinyin: Sìyì), or the Four Arts of the Chinese Scholar.[5]

Go had reached Japan from China by the 7th century, and gained popularity at the imperial court in the 8th century. By the beginning of the 13th century, Go was played among the general public in Japan.


Guan Yu playing Go while having his wounds attended toIn 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu created Japan's first unified national government. Almost immediately, he appointed the then-best player in Japan, Honinbo Sansa, head of a newly founded Go academy (the Honinbo school, the first of several competing schools founded about the same time). 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 houses (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[6] became national celebrities. The government discontinued its support for the Go academies in 1868 as a result of the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Historically, Go has seen unequal gender participation. However, the creation of new, open tournaments and the rise of strong female players, most notably Rui Naiwei, has in recent years legitimised the strength and competitiveness of emerging female players.[7]

Around 2000, in Japan, the manga (Japanese comic) and anime series Hikaru no Go popularized Go among the youth and started a Go boom in Japan.

Until recently, a Korean scholar challenged the history of Go, claiming that Go originated from Korea as Korean players have a higher skills in international Go competitions. However, this is generally viewed as an irresponsible claim ignoring the long history of Go in China.

Scott A. Boorman's The Protracted Game: A Wei-Chi Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy[8], likens the game to historical events, saying that the Maoists were better at surrounding territory. Mao Zedong himself was a Go player.

Eteric

Since for some reason it isn't getting the whole post, I hope it's okay if I post the rest here. I apologize if this is against the rules (I don't remember it being against the rules, though).

The Nature of Go, also from Wikipedia

In game theory terms, Go is a zero-sum, perfect information, deterministic strategy game, putting it in the same class as chess, checkers (draughts), and reversi (othello) although it is not similar in its play to these. Although the game rules are very simple, the practical strategy is extremely complex.

The game emphasizes the importance of balance on multiple levels, and has internal tensions. To secure an area of the board, it is good to play moves close together; but to cover the largest area one needs to spread out, perhaps leaving weaknesses that can be exploited. Playing too low (close to the edge) secures insufficient territory and influence; yet playing too high (far from the edge) allows the opponent to invade. Many people find Go attractive for its reflection of the conflicting demands of real life.

It has been claimed that Go is the most complex game in the world, on various measures, such as the spread of identifiable levels of skill.[9] Its large board and lack of restrictions allows great scope in strategy and expression of players' individuality. Decisions in one part of the board may be influenced by an apparently unrelated situation in a distant part of the board. Plays made early in the game can shape the nature of conflict a hundred moves later.

The game complexity of Go is such that describing even elementary strategy fills many introductory books. Go strategy and tactics gives a very brief introduction to the main concepts of Go strategy.

And one more part I wanted to quite, as it's interesting.

Numerical estimates tell us that the number of possible games of Go [10] far exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe. (In contrast, the number of legal positions in chess is comparatively much smaller[11].) Because of Go's simple mechanics of play, all legal positions[12] are also positions resulting from possible games.

It's a great game. If you'd like to learn how to play, I'd suggest going here...

PandaGuide's how to play page.

And if you want to play with others online, the best place to do it is KGS (Kiseido Go Server). At least, in my opinion.

KGS Go Server

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Captain K

Sorry mang, but we have an entire forum for board games.

Of Dice and Men