The Protracted Game/ Discussion

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Review: I bought the book in the early 70s. It seemed lame to me. --Bill

Coconuts: I think that you could apply Go to anything relating to a conflict with two sides, whether it takes place in Eastern Asia or you just want to add some flair...Everywhere you go in America you hear lame comparisons to "a chess match" between two people competing with their minds, regardless of how like chess the competition is or isn't.

Bill: Well, I don't think it's that lame. Witness the quote by Chairman Mao. But all the guy really had was a metaphor, it seemed to me.

Coconuts: I was probably too harsh there... A revolutionary war can be a Go match if you want it to be, it doesn't seem terribly profound to me to extend the metaphor. The chess extension is overused, and it seems like Go is getting applied to everything now... Maybe Go is just cool like that =).

DJ: Compared to chess, with its hierarchy of pieces, go can be seen as more similar to guerrilla than to classical warfare.
This is maybe the reason why this book has been a big boost to the diffusion of Go in Europe (at least in France) among the generation of '68. The very first time I heard about go was in 1976, when my swim trainer told me (textual): "What??!? You still play chess??!? You ought to play go, the "red" chess!!!


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