Go (game)

Saying 'just one game'
they began to play...
That was yesterday.

Go is a strategic board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,500 years ago. The game is noted for being rich in strategy despite its relatively simple rules. It is very popular in East Asia, especially in China, Japan, and South Korea, where there are over 100 million active Go players.

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Quotes

Tatta hito-ban to
uchihajimeta wa
sakujitsu nari.
- Saying 'just one game'
  they began to play...
  That was yesterday.
- Senryū (trans. William Pinckard) in Go World #15, p. 59

A

Go is an ancient board game that takes simple elements — line and circle, Black and White, stone and wood — combines them with simple rules and generates subtleties that have enthralled players for millennia. Go's appeal resides not only in its oriental elegance, but also in practical and stimulating features in the design of the game.
Go's few rules can be demonstrated quickly, and grasped easily. It is enjoyably played over a wide range of skills. Each level of play has its charms, rewards and discoveries. A unique and reliable handicapping system leads to equal contests between players of widely disparate strengths. Go is uniquely flexible and rewards patience and balance over aggression and greed. An early mistake can be made up, used to advantage or reversed as the game proceeds. There is no simple procedure to turn a clear lead into a victory. Go thinking seems to be more lateral than linear, less dependent on logical deduction, and more reliant on a "feel" for the game, a "sense" of form, a gestalt perception of significant patterns.
Beyond being merely a game, Go can take on other meanings to enthusiasts: an analogy with life, an intense meditation, a mirror of one's personality, an exercise in abstract reasoning, or, when played well, a beautiful art in which Black and White dance across the board in delicate balance.
But most importantly for those who play, Go is challenging and fun.
- "What is Go?" at American Go Association
The Ancient Japanese considered the Go board to be a microcosm of the universe. Although when it is empty it appears to be simple and ordered, in fact, the possibilities of gameplay are endless. They say that no two Go games have ever been alike. Just like snowflakes. So, the Go board actually represents an extremely complex and chaotic universe.
- Max Cohen's mentor Sol Robeson, in Pi (1998 film) written by Darren Aronofsky, Sean Gullette, and Eric Watson.

B

I've always loved games. When I was in high school I read a book about Go and realized it's the best game. I was an exchange student in Japan mostly because I wanted to play a lot of Go, and in the year I was there, there wasn't much else to do. There was a chess master that said, "If aliens exist they might play chess, but they certainly play Go." ... There's something beautiful that happens when simple rules lead to a complex system. It also teaches me patience and composure and handling ambiguity. ... I think it's helped a lot with my business, or at least it's shaped my style of management. ... Go is all about handling ambiguity. For example, do I want a region of the board to be well defined or undefined? Beginners stress out too much about leaving territory unclaimed or stones half-captured. But you learn often that's advantageous. I think a big part of running an early stage start-up is not freaking out about things being left undefined.
- Lukas Biewald, "How Go shaped a crowdsourcing business career (Q&A)" by Daniel Terdiman, CNET (4 May 2010)

Hoy, 9 de septiembre de 1978,
tuve en la palma de la mano un pequeño disco
de los trescientos sesenta y uno que se requieren
para el juego astrológico del go,
ese otro ajedrez del Oriente.
Es más antiguo que la más antigua escritura
y el tablero es un mapa del universo.
Sus variaciones negras y blancas
agotarán el tiempo.
En él pueden perderse los hombres
como en el amor y en el día.
9 de septiembre de 1978,
yo, que soy ignorante de tantas cosas,
sé que ignoro una más,
y agradezco a mis númenes
esta revelación de un laberinto
que nunca será mío.
- Today, the 9th of September 1978,
  I had in the palm of my hand a small disk
  of the 361 that are required
  for the astrological game of Go,
  that other chess of the Orient.
  It is more ancient than the most ancient writing
  and the board is a map of the universe.
  Its black and white variations
  exhaust time.
  In it men can lose themselves
  as in love and in the day.
  Today, the 9th of September 1978,
  I, who am ignorant of so many things,
  know that I am ignorant of one more,
  and I thank my Muses for
  this revelation of a labyrinth
  that never will be mine.
- Jorge Luis Borges, El Go (tr. Wayne Nelson)

It is a game of patience and influence. I think as a strategy game it is the best. Its strategy helps a player that is weaker take out a much stronger opponent, which Atari had to do with a big manufacturer in Chicago in the early coin-op arcade business.
- Nolan Bushnell, "Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell on the future of software (Q&A)" by Daniel Terdiman, CNET (12 November 2010)

C

From the empty cauldron the steam still rises after the brewing of tea.
By the darkening window the fingers are still cold after the game of Go.
- Cao Xueqin, The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), Chapter 17

Life for Bao-yu after his removal into the garden became utterly and completely satisfying. Every day was spent in the company of his maids and cousins in the most amiable and delightful occupations, such as reading, practising calligraphy, strumming on the qin, playing Go, painting, composing verses, embroidering in coloured silks, competitive flower-collecting, making flower-sprays, singing, word games and guess-fingers. In a word, he was blissfully happy.
- Cao Xueqin, The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), Chapter 23

Go is hard.
- Cho U, professional Go player in Japan, commenting on the seventh and last game of the 30th Meijin Title Match, which he won against Kobayashi Satoru (in November 2005). Also translated as "Go is difficult".

It is difficult for a man who always has a full stomach to put his mind to some use. Are there not players of Liubo and Weiqi? Even playing these games is better than being idle.
- Confucius, Analects, Book XVII: 22. (Weiqi is the Chinese name for Go.)

G

When I was young I wanted to be the world's best chess player and, of course, I didn't succeed. I wanted to be the world's best Go player, too.
- Bill Gates, as quoted in Bill Gates Speaks (1998) by Janet Lowe, p. 227

The board must be square and represents the laws of the earth. The lines must be straight like the divine virtues. There are black and white stones, divided like yin and yang. Their arrangement on the board is like a model of the heavens.
- Ban Gu (32-92 AD), in Yi Zhi [The Essence of Go]

Ai taught me a Terran game played on squares with little stones, called go, an excellent difficult game. As he remarked, there are plenty of stones here to play go with.
- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Ch. 16

K

I have heard that Otaké of the Seventh Rank and Wu of the sixth rank once went to a clairvoyant and asked for advice on how to win. The proper method, said the man, was to lose all awareness of self while awaiting an adversary's play. [...] While waiting for a play he [Onoda of the Sixth Rank] would sit quietly with his eyes closed. He explained that he was ridding himself of the desire to win.
- Yasunari Kawabata, Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author, in The Master of Go (1951), p. 42.
- Translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker (1972), ISBN 0-399-50528-8.

From the way of Go, the beauty of Japan and the Orient had fled. Everything had become science and regulation. [...] One conducted the battle only to win, and there was no margin for remembering the dignity and the fragrance of Go as an art.
- Yasunari Kawabata, Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author, in The Master of Go (1951), p. 52.
- Translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker (1972), ISBN 0-399-50528-8.

That play of black upon white, white upon black, has the intent and takes the form of creative art. It has in it a flow of the spirit and a harmony of music. Everything is lost when suddenly a false note is struck, or one party in a duet suddenly launches forth on an eccentric flight of his own. A masterpiece of a game can be ruined by insensitivity to the feelings of an adversary.
- Yasunari Kawabata, Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author, in The Master of Go (1951), p. 164.
- Translated from the Japanese by Edward G. Seidensticker (1972), ISBN 0-399-50528-8.

Rather than being the image of a single struggle as in chess, Go is much more like the panorama of an entire campaign, or complex theatre of war. And so it is more like modern warfare where strategic mass movements are the ultimate determinants of victory. … As in modern warfare, direct combat, without supporting tactics, rarely occurs. In fact, to engage too soon in direct combat frequently spells defeat.
- Oscar Korschelt, The Theory and Practice of GO (1880)
- Translated from the German Das "Go"-spiel by Samuel P King & George G. Leckie (1965), page 6-7, ISBN 0-8048-0572-5

L

Go is destined to take the place of Chess as the leading intellectual game of the Occident, just as it has reigned supreme in the Orient for some four thousand years.
- Edward Lasker, Go and Go-Moku ISBN: 0-486-20613-0.

While the Baroque rules of Chess could only have been created by humans, the rules of Go are so elegant, organic, and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, they almost certainly play Go.
- Edward Lasker, attributed by the American Go Association

I easily believe that the magnitude of the Board and the quantity of pieces render this game quite ingenious and quite difficult.
- Gottfried Leibniz, Miscellanea Berolinensia (1710), as quoted in "Go Spotting: Leibniz calls go “ingenious and quite difficult”", American Go E-Journal (June 11, 2015)

M

"No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly," His Highness replied, "but each has its professional teachers, and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it. It is the art of the brush and the game of Go that most startlingly reveal natural talent, because there are otherwise quite tedious people who paint or play very well, almost without training."
- Murasaki Shikibu, Tale of Genji, Ch. 17 (trans. Royall Tyler)

N

I had the first move, I should have won...
- Professor John Nash, played by Russell Crowe, in A Beautiful Mind (2001 film).

O

I learned to play go in college ... It's a very complicated game ... non-linear.
- Barack Obama, as quoted in "Obama Played Go in College", American Go E-Journal (19 October 2015)

S

Becoming one stone stronger is the supreme enjoyment.
- Go Seigen, considered to be one of the best Go players of all time, in A Way of Play for the 21st Century (2008).

T

When starting, the best strategy is to spread the pieces far apart and stretch them out, to encircle and attack the opponent, and thus win by having the most points vacant. The next best strategy emphasises cutting off the enemy to seek advantage. In that case the outcome is uncertain and calculation is necessary to decide the issue. The worst strategy is to defend the borders and corners, hastily building eyes so as to protect oneself in a small area.
- Huan Tan (c. 43 BC–28 AD), in Xin Lun [New Treatise]

Go is to Western chess what philosophy is to double-entry accounting.
- Trevanian, Shibumi (1983), p. 158

W

The number of all things in Nature begins with one. The points on the go board number three hundred and sixty plus one. One is the first of all living numbers. It occupies the polar point of the board around which the four quarters revolve. The other 360 points represent the number of days in a [lunar] year. They are divided into four quarters which represent the four seasons...
- Wang You Qing Le Ji [The Carefree and Innocent Pastime Collection], the oldest surviving Go manual, from the early 12th century (though it is actually an anthology of older texts), as quoted in Go in Ancient China.

A game of go is like a spring whose waters go only where they can go and stop where they have to stop.
- Liang Weijin (1680–1760), Chinese Go player, as quoted in John Fairbairn's essay on Fan Xiping and Shi Ding'an (11 January 2000)

1. The greedy do not get success;
2. Be unhurried to enter opponent´s territory;
3. Take care of oneself when attacking the other;
4. Discard a stone to gain sente;
5. Abandon small to save big;
6. When in danger, sacrifice;
7. Make thick shape, avoid hasty moves;
8. A move must respond to the opponent's;
9. Against strong positions, play safely;
10. Look for peace, avoid fighting in an isolated or weak situation.
- The Ten Golden Rules of Go, as formulated by Wang Jixin (Tang dynasty).

Y

All you are is the Go you play.
- Hotta Yumi, in Hikaru no Go (in the manga series, Akira says this to Hikaru).

This is the universe! And I'm placing stones one by one on that. Like I'm increasing the number of stars one by one... I'm making the universe. It's like I'm a God. I'm going to become a God! On this Go Board.
- Hotta Yumi, in Hikaru no Go. (In the anime, Hikaru says this when he plays in a Go tournament for the first time.)

Why I play go? The answer inside me is clear... To link the far past with the far future.
- Hotta Yumi, in Hikaru no Go (Volume 23, chapter 189)

External links

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Go (game)

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