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How to hold and play a go stone
Keywords: Culture & History
In most cases people would hold an object with the shape and size of a Go stone between thumb and index finger. However this is not the proper way to hold and play a Go stone. You too can make your moves with the slickness of Yi Ch'ang-ho (now if we could just figure out on what point Yi would play...). When taking a stone out of the Go bowl for your next move, slightly bury your index finger under the stone, and trap it against the nail of your index finger with your middle finger. Position the stone just above the right spot on the board. Release gently. (Or smack it down hard if you don't have a clue whether your move is a good one but you want to appear convinced.) Not only does this look very elegant, it is also the easiest way to carefully place a stone in between a bunch of others once the board gets crowded.
te-tsuki is the Japanese term for describing how a stone is played. You can see photos of what it should look like at
Bignose: I posted an answer to this question in a Bill Spight: This grip is also a good one to use for extracting M&M's from their bag, as well as other candies and nuts. Inserting two fingers into the small space is less clumsy than inserting a finger and thumb. You can also use this grip when taking goodies from a bowl. Even though it is not necessary, you will impress your friends. ;-) Shouichi: This is also comparable to the difference between the correct use of chopsticks and incorrect. Sort of. Morten Pahle: With a bit of practice you can also 'roll' it between all four fingers, doing a 'double figure of eight' above and below alternate fingers. Not only will this impress your opponents, but it will also make them, if they try to copy you, lose a stone on the board and upset the position, which was hopeless anyway ;^) HolIgor: Are you sure that this is a proper way to put the stone? If you read Hikaru No Go you should remember that Touya Akira asks Hikaru to show him his hand in the beginning. Since Hikaru's nails were not worn Akira concluded that Hikaru did not play go. Did you wonder why the nails should be worn?
I have been shown the way to put stones on the goban once. Unfortunately I don't remember (and cannot figure out now) how it is done to produce that "pa-chi" sound from Hikaru No Go. I can imagine that with that trick the nails could be really worn. Bill: The click is produced by snapping the edge of the played stone against the edge of an adjacent stone. Try resting your forefinger on top of the adjacent stone with the edge of the stone to be played touching the board. Then snap the stone to be played down. Stefan wants the world to know that he has extended this technique to coins too. In fact he considers it the only proper way to pay for your coffee in the bar of a Go tournament. He's currently practicing with the 8 new Euro-coins. All useless facts (or Wiki Master Edit Fodder, as deshi would call it), but hey, it's Christmas. Karl Knechtel: I regret that I've never had the opportunity to play Go over the board, but - I cannot conceive of the method described. Index finger goes *under* the stone and middle finger *over* it? That seems like a rather odd crossing of fingers to me... just placing it that way I'm sure I'd find a way to flick the stone away, or not be able to release my fingers properly without upsetting nearby stones - to say nothing of smacking the stone down with index finger still awkwardly underneath!
SAS: There are some pictures on the Nihon Ki-in web-site: Stefan: ... and the Hikaru manga have quite a few cover drawings with our hero looking fierce and properly holding a stone in front of him. Karl Knechtel: Ah. It's much clearer now that I see that you do it with palm facing down :) I guess I have a strange way of looking at things. Right, that way your index finger gets out of the way much more easily. :) Otis: I recall seeing a couple panels of hikaru no go where Sai does a rather cool bit of stone manipulation. He picks up a stone by grasping its edge between thumb and first finger, then reaches over it with his middle finger, hooking the far edge and rolling the stone back around the end of his first finger while releasing it with his thumb, bringing it into normal stone-grasping position. This is useful, as it is sometimes easier to get the stone out of the bowl with thumb and first finger than with first and second finger. Also, I find it fun to be holding that first stone the "wrong" way, get a suspicious look for it, then roll it into the "right" grip and snap it down on the board with a smile. Aaron: I want to play on a real board, but I don't know good stores to go to for gobans and stones. I wonder how many people became hooked after Hikaru No Go? :) I'm looking forward to the next translated chapters, I'm up to 134 now. :) And maybe the middle/index finger thing evolved from the use of chopsticks to pick up things, only you use your fingers instead. HolIgor: No, it is just a natural end easy way to put a stone on the board. It comes naturally after several games and observation how stronger players do it. 15 years ago, when I came to a go club nobody taught me this, nobody actually paid attention to how you hold stones. Hikaru no Go just stressed the point to show how bewildered Akira was during that first game.
Hyppy: Rolling a bit away from the discussion here, but to answer the previous question: A good place I have found is Thomas: When removing captured stones from the goban, do you hold them the same way like placing them (between index and middle finger), or do you just grab them with thumb and index finger?
Jenny Radcliffe: Struggle, sometimes, when you're clumsy. :) I've often found myself helping my opponent to "capture" my stones, especially when using a magnetic board where the stones and board are tiny, because my fingers are small enough to pick them up without disrupting the pattern, but theirs are not. The same can apply with a full-size set if the game's got crowded. So you just pick them up any way you can. In keeping with the nickname "hand talk" there can be a lot of body language in the gesture used to play a stone. If you are fortunate enough to be able to watch pros play in person you can see a lot of this. It varies from a soft but assured placement through the click-snap explained by Bill above to an energetic almost banging down of the stone. I've also seen pros be very adept at picking up captured groups, using the thumb and first two fingers to pick up three stones at a time very rapidly. In her Italian Diary on the NihonKiin web page, in the section on clam shell go stones, Shigeno Yuki 2p expresses her dismay at the lack of professionalism that has crept into her "tetsuki", i.e. way of grasping and playing a stone. The remark in Hikaru no Go about wear on the finger nail originated in reality with Kobayashi Koichi who remarked once that he wasn't studying as much as he did when he was young because then he never had to trim the finger nail of the first finger on his right hand. This is all very well for holding the stone, but how do you place it on the board? I keep knocking away the stones around the one I just played. Charles If you are playing next to a stone that's already on the board, the technique is more of a 'click' than a 'slam'. I'm not sure I have ever seen this described properly. You click the stone down by placing one edge on the board while your index finger is still under the other edge and above the existing stone. Then you take away the lower finger, while the upper finger remains on the stone pressing down on the centre. The stone pivots down onto the board on the 'far' edge, while the 'near' edge clicks audibly onto the existing stone without dislodging it. There may even be several slightly different techniques of 'click', for playing into densely occupied areas. I think experienced players are rarely conscious of the exact methods - all unconscious habit. Floris?: I am somehow only able to make the stone click above or to right of a stone (I hold the stone with my fingers bunchen, then very quickly click it off another stone), when placing a stone to the left or bottom of another, i usually slam and slide (place the stone a single spot below the spot you want the stone and then slide the stone to the spot you want it) or click off my nails (very faint click). I'm still having trouble visualising how the stone is placed on the board. I don't suppose there are any short avis or mpegs available for a demonstration? Bignose: Hikaru no Go, of course, offers a great many instances of the traditional placement of a stone. (The first time Hikaru places a stone properly, he does it almost automatically, from an almost trancelike observation of a strong player; he freaks out when it happens!) Naustin-- I was a debater in high school and the thing to do was to take the pen you were using and twirl it in this really incredible way around one's thumb. It almost seemed to defy gravity. If you were really good you could catch the pen with your index finger on the other side and send it back and just keep that up indefinitely. I practised that pen flip more than my debating (so I could look cool at least) and people still occaisonaly will ask me if I debated. It strikes me that this stone gripping is somewhat simialar. It takes an object that is common to the practice and develops a way of doing it stylishly. See Aesthetics. Probably a human thing. I of course (wanting to look like I knew what I was doing) picked up the grip right away. I have not yet though learned the clicking above described. I thought that when I read about the stones clicking it just meant on the board. I will have to practice and develop my tetsuki. :) This is a copy of the living page "How to hold and play a go stone" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |