A simple set, a deep game
Go is played with two sets of round stones, black and white, on a wooden board marked with a grid. Players take turns placing a stone on an intersection of the lines. The stones do not move once placed, though they can be captured and removed. The aim is to enclose more of the board than the opponent. Its rules take only a few minutes to explain, yet the game is often described as one of the deepest strategy games ever played. In Japanese it is called igo, or more often simply go.
Origins and arrival in Japan
Go is generally understood to have originated in China, where it is known as weiqi, and to have spread to Korea and Japan. It is hard to date these steps precisely. The game was probably known in Japan by the Nara period, when contact with the continent was strong, and by the Heian court it was a favored pastime of the aristocracy. It appears in the literature of the time. In the Tale of Genji, for example, characters play, and the game is used to reveal personality and mood. Court ladies and gentlemen also treated go as a refined accomplishment, in a category with music and poetry.
How the game works
Standard boards in Japan have a 19-by-19 grid, with smaller 13-by-13 and 9-by-9 boards often used for teaching. The essentials are these:
- Players place one stone at a time, and Black moves first.
- A stone or group of stones is captured when all the adjacent points are occupied by the opponent.
- Territory is made up of empty points enclosed by a player’s stones.
- A player may pass, and the game ends when both players agree that no further useful moves remain.
Because Black moves first, which gives an advantage, the stronger player usually takes White and a compensation known as komi is added to White’s score. The size of komi differs between rule sets and over time. When players differ in strength, the weaker one may be given extra stones in advance, called handicap stones. This lets players of different levels have a balanced game, which is a notable feature of go.
Rules differ somewhat between countries, in how scoring is counted and in some technical situations, so a Japanese game and a Chinese game can occasionally produce different results from the same final position. These are details for the player, but they remind us that the game has several living traditions.
The shapes of thought
Go has given players and writers a vocabulary of ideas. A group of stones needs “eyes,” separate open points inside it, in order to stay alive. Strong players speak of balance between taking territory and building influence, and of when to give something up in order to gain something larger. Since there is no single piece that decides the game, as the king does in chess, many people see go as a game of gradual, shared control of space rather than of attack on a single target.
Players and commentators also use the language of the board for life more generally, speaking of “reading” the position, of tempo and of patience. These are metaphors, and they do not mean that go teaches any particular life lesson, but the habit of comparing a game to wider thought is old. In the board’s use of empty space, some writers see a parallel with the concept of ma, in which emptiness and interval carry meaning. That comparison is a modern interpretation and not a claim about the game’s origin.
The Edo period and the go houses
The biggest change for the game in Japan came in the Edo period. The ruling Tokugawa shogunate gave official support to professional players. Four go houses, usually named as Honinbo, Inoue, Hayashi and Yasui, were established, each training students and sending its best players to compete. A position of chief authority over the game, with the title godokoro, was created. Games played in the presence of the shogun were known as castle games. Professionals received stipends, which allowed full-time study of the game, and records of their games were kept and studied. In this period, warriors and wealthy townspeople also played. Among Edo townspeople, amateur go was a popular pastime in teahouses and homes, although the best-known professionals belonged to the houses.
The Honinbo name later became attached to a title, and it is still used for a major tournament today. Some famous games from the time are discussed in books and commentaries to this day, though anyone reading about them should be careful with the many legends that have grown up around individual players.
Modern go
When the shogunate ended, the houses lost official support. During the period of Meiji modernization, professionals found new sponsors, notably newspapers that published game records and organized tournaments. In the early twentieth century a national professional organization was formed, the Nihon Ki-in, and it continues to run rankings and titles. Professional ranks are called dan, while amateurs use kyu grades below that and amateur dan grades above. As with the martial arts, the system is shared in spirit, though the specific meaning of a grade varies between organizations.
Go spread widely around the world, and today many of the strongest players come from China, Korea, Japan and elsewhere. Online play has also made it easy to find games at any hour. Japan still has professional leagues, school clubs and a strong amateur community, though the average age of players has risen.
Equipment and the care of the board
Traditional boards are thick blocks of wood, sometimes with short legs, and the finest are made from timber that is carefully chosen and aged. Stones are traditionally stored in lidded bowls. White stones have long been made from shell, and black from slate, though plastic and glass sets are common for everyday play. The sound of a stone being set down firmly is considered part of the pleasure of a good game. Players usually sit on tatami mats or at a table, and the manners of the game, such as bowing at the start and end, are a part of its culture, and the board and bowls are treated with care.