Go -- a Game

It is said that it was invented by a Chinese Emperor (or his wise man) near 2300 BCE to teach his weak-minded son to concentrate. In China it is still played and called Wei Chi. In Korea it is called Baduk. In Japan, the country that honed it to its present perfection, it is called Go or Igo. However, Korea has created a strong new approach to the game which has arroused much interest in China, Japan and the world.

What is Go?

1. It is played on a board with a grid of 19 lines by 19 lines.

2. Double-domed stones are alternately laid on the intersections of the grid. The stones are ideally made of matte black slate and polished white shell although glass is commonly used. Black moves first.

3. Opponents of differing levels of proficiency can play a competitive game using the handicap points, called "stars."

4. You may lay your stone at any intersection point on the board that you wish except in a position where you would be committing suicide.

5. The idea is to surround your opponent's stones so that they are attached to no open intersections. When this happens, they can no longer "breathe," are considered dead and are collected by you to fill the open territory of your opponent at the end of the game.

6. There is a situation called a "ko" situation in which two opponents could spend eternity trading a stone back and forth. In this situation, the second person to play cannot play into the ko position on his next turn. This is the second point where you are not allowed to place a stone.
7. When there is no logical place left to play, the person with the most open intersections within his territories (after the captured stones have been replaced within them) wins the game.

That's it.

That's the game.

Plus ten thousand courtesies and strategies based on recurring situations.

A friend and I went to a place in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. It was Go headquarters in LA. There were sixty people facing each other across boards set on folding tables -- mostly old men with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths whose wheezing almost drowned out the click click click of the stones against the boards. It was not what we expected. We foolishly expected something like the illustration above only without the funny hats. What we got instead was a Go retirement village. But it showed us something. The game permeates the culture. In the Orient, Go Tournaments are like Chess Tournaments in Russia and Football games in the USA.

I have seen photographs of Go Tournaments. They are rather more along the lines of the illustration.

There is perhaps more Taoism to the game than Zen. But it is Zen that polished the game.

The feel of the slate and the shell. The click of the stone against wood as it strikes the board when being placed in position. The life and death balance on the board. The random abstract patterns that form as the game progresses. The strategies. The traps that sometimes backfire. Chasing the oppponent while strangling one's own position. It is very much an organic game.

It is satisfying on every level.