Forget Worry Pure Happy

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忘憂清樂集

Edited by Li Yi Min (李逸民) around 1100 AD (Song dynasty), it's the oldest surviving Go book. This book collected famous essays like Qijing Shisanpian,Qi Jiue?...,three ancient game records including the earliest surviving game record Wu Diagram, some old game records like Ranka,...,some old josekis, 34 tsumego problems (the oldest tsumego book), and more. It also established rules for recording game.

  • John F. It's not the oldest extant go book - the Dunhuang Classic is much older - and the Diagrams of Wu do not refer to this book but to the poem by Du Mu (and the Dunhuang book). The English title I have proposed - and which made it to the recent article in the Economist - is Carefree and Innocent Pastime Collection. The title is from the royal poem in the preface. The signficance of the word "innocent" (as in the purity of childlike innocence) is that the advocates of the game wanted to defend it against the Confucianists who saw it as corrupting.

Apparantly most josekis in this book were over one thousand years old to today. Comparing to modern josekis, some of these ancient josekis which could have more than 50 moves were rather complicated. For example the "piercing corner's heart(穿心角圖)" joseki has 11 variations. The first one has 51 moves and the result was regarded as "equal for white and black". (The dumpling shape of black was made by white throwin.)

[Diagram]

The result of the first variation (moves after 4 are not numbered)


The 11th variation has 47 moves, and the result was regarded as "white sacrifices stones for the outside influence":

[Diagram]

The result of the last variation

Bill: This cannot be the result. It's an illegal position. Note the WC stone.

Some of the tsumego problems in this book were also very complicated. For example the "Three river problem":

[Diagram]

White to kill

The solution has 206 moves. Another one called the "8 gods problem" has a solution of 236 moves! (probably the longest tsumego problem ever composed)


This is a copy of the living page "Forget Worry Pure Happy" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2005 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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