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Go
  Difficulty: Introductory   Keywords: Culture & History

What is Go?

Go is an ancient game that originated in China, with a definite history of over 3000 years, although there are historians who say that the game was invented more than 4000 years ago. Its name comes from the Japanese name Igo, which means "surrounding boardgame". (See also names for Go in other languages.)

In this game, each player tries to exert more influence on territory than her opponent, using threats of death, capture, or isolation. Although at heart an abstract strategy game, Go has variously been said to be a symbolic representation of war, colonization, settling a frontier, capturing market share, having a debate or a lively discussion in a specialized language, and probably many other concrete situations. Go is getting increasingly popular around the world, with many worldwide competitions being held.

[Diagram]
Diagram 1



The game of Go is played on a board as shown in Diagram 1. The Go set is comprised of the board, together with 181 black and 180 white stones. Diagram 1 shows the standard 19x19 board (i.e. the board has 19 lines by 19 lines). Other board sizes can be used as well, especially 9x9 and 13x13 boards are common with beginners. More advanced players usually prefer the traditional 19x19 board. The nine dots on the board (called hoshi) have no effect on the game, and are merely used as the points to place the handicap stones.

Compared to International Chess and Chinese Chess, Go has far fewer rules. Yet this allowed for all sorts of moves to be played, so Go can be a more intellectually challenging game than the other two types of Chess. Nonetheless, Go is not a difficult game to learn, so have a fun time playing the game with your friends.

The best part about Go is that players are free to play almost anywhere on the board. =)

[Diagram]
A game in progress - The marked black stone is the famous ear-reddening move.

See also

Authors: Unkx80 and Stephen Charest.



uxs: I've been thinking that this page could use a diagram of a game that is in progress, perhaps somewhere in the middle game. Does anyone know of a game that could be representative? It should probably be a pro game, with some parts of the board allready fought over, and other parts still relatively blank.

Fwiffo: How's this? It's certainly not a modern game, but ideal for illustration I think...



This is a copy of the living page "Go" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.