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Large Boards
    Keywords: Equipment

In [ext] The Theory & Practice of GO, Korschelt describes an experimental 21 x 21 goban that he constructed and turned over to his Master, Murase Shuho, for testing. He describes a sample game that was played out to about 130 moves before ending. Only the first 57 were shown.

[Diagram]
Korschelt's 21 x 21 game. Note the hoshi.

Korschelt remarked that the game 'took on a freer and more deeply involved character, but ... at the same time the difficulty of keeping command of the game grew at an extraordinary rate.' He goes on to note that on a 19 x 19 board, 'too many unexpected situations turn up for beginners,' and speculates that if the board were to increase to 23 x 23, 'not even the best players could any longer maintain a comprehensive view of the countless possible combinations.'

The 21x21 game 10 moves at a time and all related discussion.



A 21x21 board has 441 positions, 80 more than a 19x19 board. This makes the larger goban roughly 22% larger in size. The influence of the corners is reduced somewhat and the center of the board is much larger overall. This clearly has an impact on fuseki and elongates the midgame as there is more room for groups to live. Yose shouldn't be too different, but there's more to keep in mind at the end.

Any more large board references from the literature? Add them here! :-)


Discussion

Fando: My roommate told me of a game played on a 93x93 board between two 'pretty good' players (maybe 10kyu). The game lasted 8 hours and ended in a disasterous loss for one of the players. Apparently, neither player could grasp the whole board situation and ended up doing nothing but fighting tons of local skirmishes. Towards the end, the middle of the board became a chaotic morass of craziness. (Anecdote corrected on new info.)

Also, I'd like to speculate that the 19x19 board was not arrived at accidentally. If 21x21 is really difficult to play, it makes sense to me that the great players of the legendary past would settle on 19x19 as the next best thing.


[Diagram]
17x17 Old Style Board

19X19 arises naturally when players began to play on the implied points around the edges of the old style 17x17 boards.

Go boards and stones were often used in fortune telling. The connection between 361 intersections and 365 days is important.

I would not characterize players of 10Kyu as 'pretty good', closer to 'extremely weak'. Our local clubs and tournaments discourage players of less than 10kyu from playing on 19x19 boards.

(Rest of the discussion moved to WhoShouldPlayOnWhichBoardsize.)



This is a copy of the living page "Large Boards" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2003 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.